Showing posts with label Internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Internet. Show all posts

Views:+1: Expected Price Gains for Internet Stocks (GOOG, YHOO, AOL, BIDU, DMD, LNKD, MWW, RATE, TST)

As the internet has developed over the past 15 years or so, a variety of business models have appeared — and some have disappeared. Revenue models are also different, running from advertising to subscription to content provider types. The dominant revenue model is advertising and the leaders there are Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) in display advertising and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) and China’s Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) are other major ad driven sites.

LinkedIn Corp. (NASDAQ: LNKD) and Monster World Wide Inc. (NYSE: MWW) depend on subscriptions for revenue, while Demand Media Inc. (NYSE: DMD), Bankrate, Inc. (NYSE: RATE) and TheStreet, Inc. (NASDAQ: TST) provide original content surrounded by advertising.In addition to these publicly traded stocks the internet space also includes social networking company Facebook, social game company Zynga, and coupon site Groupon. The latter two have filed for IPOs and both are expected to come public as soon as next month.All financial data from Yahoo! Finance, unless noted otherwise.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has a median target price of $727.50 from 30 brokers. Shortly after noon today, shares are trading today at $587.87, for an implied gain of $139.63, or 24%. Google’s forward P/E is 13.45 and the company does not pay a dividend. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $473.02-642.96, and at today’s price that’s about 24% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 9% below the 52-week high. Google reaps nearly $10 billion a quarter in advertising revenues. Only a relatively small portion of that is mobile advertising, but as Google’s best selling Android mobile operating system continues to spread, the mobile ad revenue could continue its triple-digit growth rate for some time to come.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) has a median target price of $18.00 from 23 brokers. Shortly after noon today, shares are trading today at $16.33, for an implied gain of $1.67, or 10%. Yahoo’s forward P/E is 18.55 and the company does not pay a dividend. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $11.09-$18.84, and at today’s price that’s about 47% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 13% below the 52-week high. Yahoo recently fired its CEO and is currently exploring strategic options. Much of the company’s value resides in its nearly 40% share in China’s Alibaba e-commerce site. The stock price is relatively high on the belief that the company will find a buyer willing to pay a premium.

AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) has a median target price of $17.00 from 15 brokers. Shortly after noon today, shares are trading today at $14.38, for an implied gain of $2.62, or 18%. AOL’s forward P/E is 84.65 and the company does not pay a dividend. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $10.06-$27.65, and at today’s price that’s about 43% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 48% below the 52-week high. AOL recently purchased the Huffington Post properties, which gave the company something of a boost. The high forward P/E speaks volumes about prospects for future earnings. AOL, like Yahoo, is probably over-priced.

Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) has a median target price of $191.00 from 26 brokers. Shortly after noon today, shares are trading today at $127.89, for an implied gain of $63.11, or 49%. Baidu’s forward P/E is 29.11 and the company does not pay a dividend. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $94.33-$165.96, and at today’s price that’s about 36% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 23% below the 52-week high. Baidu’s great advantage is that it is the largest and fastest growing internet company in the world’s most populous country. Sheer numbers are on Baidu’s side for now and for several years to come. The forward P/E may indicate an overpriced stock, but its stock price is still nearly $35/share below its target price. There’s plenty of room for this one to run.

Demand Media Inc. (NYSE: DMD) has a median target price of $15.00 from 10 brokers. Shortly after noon today, shares are trading today at $6.47, for an implied gain of $8.53, or 132%. Demand Media’s forward P/E is 16.97 and the company does not pay a dividend. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $5.24-$27.38, and at today’s price that’s about 23% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 76% below the 52-week high. Demand Media was hit hard by a change earlier this year to Google’s search algorithm and the company hasn’t recovered. The target price here is too high, and the company continues its arguable accounting practice of capitalizing content creation costs and amortizing them over five years. The effect of that practice is to spread costs over a long period, making the company look more profitable than it may be.



Views +1:Full 360-Degree Preview of Amazon.com Earnings (AMZN, BBY, AAPL, NFLX)

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is set to report earnings after the close of trading on Tuesday.  What makes Amazon so different from many peers in technology, internet and virtual companies is that it is only recently off of its highs and not really by that much.  Even after a 2.5% drop so far on Tuesday, the $231.50 area compares to a closing price yesterday of $237.61 and to a 52-week range of $156.77 to $246.71.

Here are the targets.  Amazon.com continues to be a thorn in the side of Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) for consumer electronics.  The big question is whether or not it can take away iPad sales from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) with the new souped up Kindle models and whether or not it can suddenly challenge NetFlix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) now that Reed Hastings seems to be messing up on every turn.

Thomson Reuters has estimates for its third quarter of $0.24 EPS and $10.93 billion in sales.  For the current fourth quarter we are already in, those estimates are $0.86 EPS and $18.05 billion in revenues. Keep in mind that the fourth quarter is “the money quarter” as it includes Christmas and the holiday season sales and the estimates compare to the readings a year ago of $0.91 EPS and $12.95 billion in sales.

What is amazing is that Amazon.com still trades at more than 100-times expected 2011 earnings.  The company has rapidly been building its cloud efforts and building its infrastructure.  This has all come at the expense of margins, and trying to factor in the new Kindle sales will be no easy task. 

If you just use the weekly options, then it looks as though options traders are braced for a move of up to about $9.50 to $11 in either direction.  If we use the monthly expiration November options, then it seems that options traders are braced for a move of $14.00 or more in either direction.

You can take a look at the chart from stockcharts.com below if you want.  The stock is looking tired, but honestly we would have said the exact same thing a month ago right before we saw a false-breakdown of the chart.  We would point that the 50-day moving average was tested and held for the most part a month ago.  That 50-day moving average is now down at $219.28 and the 200-day moving average is $197.20.

The analyst community has a consensus price target just above $243.50.  At some point, Wall Street is going to demand higher margins.  When that is can be anyone’s guess.  We stopped trying to harp on it because no one seems to care.
JON C. OGG........

Views +1:Valuation, Timing & Margins Catch Up To Amazon.com (AMZN)

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) has turned in earnings for its third quarter, and we will be paying extra attention to its fourth quarter.  The seller of everything online reported earnings of $0.14 EPS on sales of $10.88 billion, which compares to the Thomson Reuters targets of $0.24 EPS and $10.93 billion in sales.  Operating income was $79 million.

Amazon also guided the fourth quarter to come in at %16.45 to $18.65 billion in sales and it put the range for operating earnings at -$200 million to a profit of $250 million.  The Thomson Reuters estimates are $0.86 EPS and $18.05 billion in revenues.  As noted in the preview, the fourth quarter is Amazon’s “money quarter” as it includes Christmas and the holiday season sales.

We have been concerned each quarter about Amazon’s margins and its operating margins came in at 0.7%.  North American sales are currently about 20% larger than its international sales.  Even before the guidance, Amazon traded at more than 100-times expected 2011 earnings.   The big outlier was the new Kindle sales. 
The news may finally be catching up to Jeff Bezos and friends today.  Shares closed down 4.4% at $227.15 versus a recent all-time high of $246.71, but shares are down sharply and just under $194.00 as of about 4:17 PM EST.

We will hold off before tallying up all of the post-conference call judgment.  Bezos has had similar quarters before where the reception went from bad to good.  We do not believe that can happen forever and we believe that at some point investors will start to demand better margins and higher profits.  It is not exactly as if Amazon is an emerging online retailer....