Posts Tagged ‘FB’

  • Facebook Is Hemorrhaging Users
    , April 30th, 2013 at 9:59 am

    I haven’t been a fan of Facebook‘s ($FB) stock. Now there’s evidence that Facebook has been losing millions of users. It turns out that FB is just not cool anymore:

    Facebook has lost millions of users per month in its biggest markets, independent data suggests, as alternative social networks attract the attention of those looking for fresh online playgrounds.

    As Facebook prepares to update investors on its performance in the first three months of the year, with analysts forecasting revenues up 36% on last year, studies suggest that its expansion in the US, UK and other major European countries has peaked.

    In the last month, the world’s largest social network has lost 6m US visitors, a 4% fall, according to analysis firm SocialBakers. In the UK, 1.4m fewer users checked in last month, a fall of 4.5%. The declines are sustained. In the last six months, Facebook has lost nearly 9m monthly visitors in the US and 2m in the UK.

    Users are also switching off in Canada, Spain, France, Germany and Japan, where Facebook has some of its biggest followings. A spokeswoman for Facebook declined to comment.

    “The problem is that, in the US and UK, most people who want to sign up for Facebook have already done it,” said new media specialist Ian Maude at Enders Analysis. “There is a boredom factor where people like to try something new. Is Facebook going to go the way of Myspace? The risk is relatively small, but that is not to say it isn’t there.”

    Facebook is due to report earnings tomorrow. Wall Street currently expects FB to earn 57 cents per share this year (down from 66 cents per share three months ago) and 78 cents per share in 2014 (down from 87 cents per share three months ago).

    I think Facebook will continue to be profitable. To me, the big issue is the rapid growth that people expect. If the stock is going for 47 times this year’s earnings, that means the market expects very strong growth for years to come. I’m not sure that will come.

  • Facebook Gets an Upgrade
    , November 26th, 2012 at 10:38 am

    The S&P 500 is down this morning but we’re still above the key 1,400 level. Here’s an interesting fact I noticed this morning: When the S&P 500 first got to where we are today, Barack Obama was 37 years old.

    Speaking of President Obama, the White House issued a report this morning saying that if Congress doesn’t act on the “Fiscal Cliff” (a registered trademark of CNBC), all sorts of awful terrible things are going to happen. The financial media says that this is why the markets are down. I can’t say if that’s true (who knows why the market does what it does?) but I wouldn’t think a report like that would scare traders for long.

    According to the AP, Americans spent $59 billion over the Black Friday weekend. That’s up 13% from last year and an all-time record. I should add Barry Ritholtz’s advice to be very wary of any claims of robust Black Friday sales.

    Facebook ($FB) is up this morning to $25.72 as an analyst at Bernstein raised his price target to $33. Sorry, but I still think that’s way too high.

    Ethan Allen ($ETH) has had a very strong year. The company just announced a 41-cent special dividend. I love seeing that. Most companies would be tempted to waste it on a poor acquisition. Why not give it back to the owners? Good for ETH.

    I sent out the latest CWS Market Review last night (a bit delayed due to Thanksgiving). In it, I mentioned the upcoming earnings report from Jos. A Bank ($JOSB) but noted that the company hadn’t yet set an earnings date. This morning, the company said it will hold its conference call on Thursday morning so I assume the earnings will come out earlier that morning. Wall Street expects earnings of 55 cents per share which would be a one penny increase over last year.

    Seth Jayson at the Motley Fool has a nice write-up on Moog ($MOG-A).

  • Facebook = $22.28
    , July 31st, 2012 at 10:30 am

    As I look at Facebook ($FB), the stock is now down to $22.28. That’s more than half off the high price from the day of the IPO. I knew the stock was overpriced and I said so at the time. But I didn’t think the balloon would deflate so quickly.

    I’d say FB has a fair price of about $14 per share, but I wouldn’t be interested unless it’s going for a steep discount. I might be a buyer at $10. Remember that with investing, you should never take risks you don’t need to.

  • From Two Months Ago
    , July 26th, 2012 at 5:31 pm

    Reuters on May 22:

    After pricing at $38, far more than the first estimate of $28 the company gave investors, shares have been sliding – at one point as much as 31 percent from the $45 peak hit shortly after it started trading Friday.

    “Facebook right now is going for far more than what it’s worth, it’s like buying $1 for $1.98, it just doesn’t make sense at this price,” said Eddy Elfenbein, widely followed blogger and editor at Crossing Wall Street.

    The stock is at $24.39 after hours.

  • Why You Should Unlike Facebook
    , June 15th, 2012 at 5:27 pm

  • CWS Market Review – June 1, 2012
    , June 1st, 2012 at 9:18 am

    This morning, the government reported that the U.S. economy created just 69,000 jobs in May. This was well below expectations, and last month’s numbers were revised downward as well. The national employment rate ticked up from 8.1% to 8.2%. That’s just lousy, and it’s yet more data in a run of below-average economic news.

    Before anyone gets too worked up over the jobs numbers, let me remind you that these are very imprecise estimates. The media breathlessly reports these figures as if they were handed down from Mount Sinai, but as Jeff Miller notes, the margin of error for these reports is exceedingly wide. The numbers are also subject to large revisions in the coming months.

    Still, we have to adjust ourselves to the reality that the economy isn’t doing as well as most folks believed a few weeks ago. The jobs gains simply aren’t there. The other negative economic news this week included a sharp drop in consumer confidence, a rise in first-time claims for unemployment insurance and a negative revision to first-quarter GDP. The last one is old news since we’re already into the back-end of the second quarter.

    Treasury Yields Hit an All-Time Low

    I can’t say that I find the sluggish economic news surprising. In the CWS Market Review from two weeks ago, I wrote that economically sensitive cyclical stocks had been badly lagging the market. This is an important lesson for investors because by following the relative strength of different market sectors, we can almost see coded messages the market is sending us. In this case, investors were bailing out of cyclical stocks while the overall market wasn’t harmed nearly as much. Now we see why.

    Since February 3rd, the S&P 500 is down by 2.6%, but the Morgan Stanley Cyclical Index (^CYC) is off by more than 11%. Looking at the numbers more closely, we can see that the Energy and Materials sectors have been sustaining the most damage. ExxonMobil ($XOM), for example, lost over $30 billion in market cap in May. The price for oil slid 17% for the month thanks to weak demand from Europe. Interestingly, the Industrials had been getting pummeled, but they’ve started to stabilize a bit in the past few weeks.

    Tied to the downturn in cyclical stocks is the amazing strength of Treasury bonds. On Thursday, the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond got as low as 1.54% which is the lowest yield in the history of the United States. The previous low came in November 1945, and that’s when the government worked to keep interest rates artificially low. A little over one year ago, the 10-year yield was over 3.5%. Some analysts are now saying the yield could soon fall under 1%.

    Don’t blame the Federal Reserve for the current plunge in yields. While the Fed is currently engaged in its Operation Twist where it sells short-term notes and buys long-term bonds, that program is far too small to have such a large impact on Treasury rates. The current Treasury rally is due to concerns about our economy and the desire from investors in Europe to find a safe haven for their cash. I strongly urge investors to stay away from U.S. Treasuries. There’s simply no reward for you there. Consider that the real return is negative for TIPs that come due 15 years from now. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is going for 11 times next year’s earnings estimate. That translates to an earnings yield of 9%.

    The latest swing in opinion seems to believe that Greece will give staying in the euro another shot. It’s hard to say what will happen since we have new elections in two weeks. Still, I think the country will at least try to keep the euro. The reason is that Greece’s economy is very small compared to the rest of Europe. If it leaves the euro, the headaches involved will be too much to bother with.

    The real issue confronting Europe is Spain’s trouble which can’t so easily be swept under the rug. Their banking system is a mess. Think of us as reliving 2008 with Greece being Lehman Brothers and Spain being AIG. The major difference with this analogy is that Europe may not be able to bail out Spain even if it wanted to. So far, the Spanish government is putting up a brave front and is strongly resisting any form of a bailout. The politicians there obviously see how well that played out with public opinion in Greece.

    In Germany, the two-year yield just turned negative (ours is still positive by 27 basis points). While much of Europe is in recession (unemployment in the eurozone is currently 11%), and China’s juggernaut is slowing down (this year may be the slowest growth rate since 1999), there’s still little evidence that the U.S. economy is close to receding. We’re just growing very, very slowly.

    The stock market performed terribly in May. The Dow only rose five times for the month which is the fewest up days in a month since January 1968. The S&P 500 had its worst month since last April. But we need to remember that the U.S. dollar was very strong last month. It’s probably more correct to say that the dollar is less weak than everybody else, but that still translates to high prices for dollars. So in terms of other currencies, the U.S. equity market didn’t do so poorly.

    Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Disappoints

    We had one Buy List earnings report this past week: Jos. A. Bank Clothiers ($JOSB). The company had already told us that the quarter was running slow, so that muted my expectations. For their fiscal Q1, Joey Bank earned 53 cents per share which missed Wall Street’s consensus by nine cents per share. Quarterly revenue rose by 4.2% to $208.91 million. But the important metric to watch is comparable stores sales, and that fell by 1%. That’s not good.

    Shares of JOSB dropped on Wednesday and stabilized some on Thursday. I’m not happy with how this company is performing and it’s near the top of my list for names to purge from the Buy List for next year. Still, I won’t act rashly. The company has said that this quarter is off to a good start: “So far the second quarter has started out much better than the first quarter. For May, both our comparable store sales and Direct Marketing sales are up compared to the same period last year, continuing the positive trend established in the last five weeks of the first quarter. However, Father’s Day, the most important selling period of the quarter, is still ahead of us.” I’m lowering my buy price from $52 to $48 per share.

    Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond ($BBBY) broke out to a new all-time high this past week. On Tuesday, the stock got as high as $74.67. It’s our #1 performer for year and is up nearly 25% YTD. The stock is an excellent buy below $75 per share, but I won’t move the buy price until I see the next earnings report which is due out on June 20th.

    Two other Buy List stocks I like right now are Ford ($F) and Oracle ($ORCL). Ford has been doing so well that it’s actually having a hard time keeping up with demand. I’m expecting a strong earnings report from Oracle later this month. The May quarter, which is their fiscal fourth, is traditionally their strong quarter. Oracle is an excellent buy under $30 per share.

    Before I go, let me say a quick word about Facebook ($FB). In last week’s CWS Market Review, I told you to stay away from the stock, and I was right as the shares have continued to fall. The stock got as low as $26.83 on Thursday. I don’t think Facebook is an attractive stock to own until it reaches $17 to $20 per share. Until then, keep your distance!

    That’s all for now. Be sure to keep checking the blog for daily updates. I’ll have more market analysis for you in the next issue of CWS Market Review!

    – Eddy

  • CWS Market Review – May 25, 2012
    , May 25th, 2012 at 7:02 am

    Boy has May been a frustrating month for stocks! The S&P 500 nearly went for an entire month without two up days in a row. We finally ended that run this week but the mess in Greece seems to be getting worse, and Facebook ($FB) had one of the worst initial public offerings in years. This IPO was a disaster for individual investors.

    Fortunately, the stock market regained some of its footing this week. The S&P 500 managed to rise four days in a row and closed at 1,320.68 on Thursday. The index is still down nearly 7% from the four-year high it reached in early April. What’s not getting a lot of attention is that analysts have been increasing their earnings estimates for next year. The S&P 500 is currently going for about 11 times next year’s earnings estimate. That’s a good bargain, but I prefer to be skeptical about earnings estimates that far into the future. Still, it’s an interesting trend to note.

    In this week’s CWS Market Review, I’ll talk about some of the issues surrounding Facebook’s IPO and I’ll tell you why I think the stock is a terrible, rotten, awful deal for investors. This IPO almost perfectly captures everything that’s wrong with Wall Street today.

    As messy as things seems to be, the good news for us is that well-run companies are still doing well. On our Buy List, for example, we had a very nice earnings report this week from Medtronic ($MDT). In a few weeks, I expect to see the company raise its dividend for the 35th year in a row. Other standouts from our Buy List include Bed Bath & Beyond ($BBBY) which is close to a new all-time high. Also, Reynolds American ($RAI) has snapped back very impressively. But first, let’s take a closer look at the stock that’s on everyone’s mind: Facebook.

    Don’t Invest in Facebook

    Last Friday, Facebook ($FB) started trading as public company. This was the dream of all the investors who put money into the social networking company that was started in a Harvard dorm room eight years ago. Even before the shares started trading, there were problems. This was the second-largest IPO in U.S. history and the market was flooded with orders. The heavy demand caused trading in FB to be delayed for 30 minutes.

    Almost every aspect of this offering was a mess. And what’s especially frustrating is that at every turn, individual investors were punished. Facebook simply got greedy and asked for too much money. However, I can’t put too much blame on a company for trying to get money for cheap. However, I can blame the bankers for not serving the best interest of their clients. The entire syndicate misjudged the interest in Facebook.

    We also learned that the underwriters cut their estimates on Facebook in the middle of the roadshow. That’s outrageous! And we still don’t even know why but it apparently led to some major investors jumping ship. It turns out that some institutional investors were told of the downgrade while others were not. Meanwhile, many inexperienced retail investors bought Facebook using market orders. Ugh, that’s a big mistake. These were most likely the orders that were filled as Facebook ran up to $45 shortly after it started trading. Trust me: Never, never, never buy an IPO using a market order. You will get a terrible fill.

    The fun in Facebook didn’t last long, and the stock dipped below $31 on Tuesday. Here’s a stat for you: Every penny in FB is worth $5 million for Mark Zuckerberg. Measuring from the stock’s high point, Zuck lost $7 billion. Between you and me, I think he’ll be okay.

    Now let’s look at some numbers and we can clearly see that Facebook is wildly over-valued. The Street currently thinks FB can earn 65 cents per share next year. That’s almost certainly too low. To be safe, let’s say that Facebook can earn $1 per share in 2013. The estimated five-year earnings growth rate for Facebook is 35.9%.

    If we take my patented “World’s Simplest Stock Valuation Measure,” (PE Ratio = Growth Rate/2 + 8 ) we get a fair value for Facebook of $25.95. This isn’t a precise measure for every stock, but it’s a quick and easy way to get a reasonable estimate. Still, this means that Facebook is over-valued by over 20$. The shares aren’t even close to being a good buy.

    I can’t say that Facebook will suddenly plunge to $26, but the true value will eventually win out. My advice is to stay away from Facebook.

    Look Forward to Medtronic’s 35th Straight Dividend Increase

    On Tuesday, Medtronic ($MDT) reported fiscal Q4 earnings of 99 cents per share. That was one penny more than Wall Street was expecting and a 10% increase over last year. In February, Medtronic told us to expect Q4 earnings to range between 97 cents and $1 per share.

    I was impressed by Medtronic this past year. Two years ago, the company had to lower its full-year forecast a few times. Even though the overall downgrade wasn’t that much, the Street was highly displeased. But last year, Medtronic gave us a full-year forecast of $3.43 to $3.50 per share and they stuck with it all year. In the end, the company earned $3.46 for the year which was right in the range.

    The good news for Medtronic is that demand is returning for their pacemakers and defibrillators. For Q4, Medtronic’s revenues rose by 4% to $4.3 billion. For 2013, Medtronic sees earnings ranging between $3.62 and $3.70 per share. The Street was expecting $3.66 per share. Officially, that will be reported as “inline guidance” but I’m very pleased with it.

    Sometime next month, I expect Medtronic will raise its quarterly dividend. The current payout is 24.25 cents per share which works out to a yearly dividend of 97 cents per share (or 2.62%). If I had to guess, I think it will be a modest increase—to 25 or 26 cents per share. This will mark their 35th-straight dividend increase. Medtronic is a solid buy anytime the stock is below $40 per share.

    Looking at some of our other Buy List stocks, Ford ($F) had some very good news when Moody’s raised their debt to investment grade. This will help lower their borrowing costs. Few things can cut into a company’s profit margin like escalating borrowing costs. Three years ago, Ford needed to sell 3.4 million units in North America to break even. Today that figure is down to 1.8 million. I think Ford should be a $20 stock.

    In last week’s CWS Market Review, I highlighted some of our higher-yielding stocks. I’m happy to see that Reynolds American ($RAI) responded by reaching its highest closing price in two months. RAI currently yields 5.63%.

    The media paid a lot of attention to a patent trial that Oracle ($ORCL) brought against Google ($GOOG). I never thought this was a big deal. Oracle claimed that Google infringed on some of their patents with the Android software. The jury said no. One expert said the trial was “something like a near disaster for Oracle.” Financially, this is minor. Oracle continues to be a very strong buy here.

    That’s all for now. The stock exchange will be closed on Monday for Memorial Day. I hope everyone has an enjoyable three-day weekend. Be sure to keep checking the blog for daily updates. I’ll have more market analysis for you in the next issue of CWS Market Review!

    – Eddy

  • “It’s Like Buying $1 For $1.98”
    , May 22nd, 2012 at 7:30 pm

    Rodrigo Campos of Reuters writes:

    Investor confidence in the shares has been damaged after Reuters reported lead underwriter Morgan Stanley cut its revenue forecasts for Facebook in the days before the offering, in part because of comments from Facebook on mobile usage.

    After pricing at $38, far more than the first estimate of $28 the company gave investors, shares have been sliding – at one point as much as 31 percent from the $45 peak hit shortly after it started trading Friday.

    “Facebook right now is going for far more than what it’s worth, it’s like buying $1 for $1.98, it just doesn’t make sense at this price,” said Eddy Elfenbein, widely followed blogger and editor at Crossing Wall Street.

    Starmine’s analysis of Google Inc’s value puts that stock at $680, assuming a growth rate of 10.1 percent for the next 10 years. That makes the Internet giant undervalued at $599 a share.

    “Just from basic modeling the stock should be around $17 to $20 dollars, and that is with a lot of variables,” Elfenbein said. “I would call that an ideal price. I would be interested in buying and I think that is a good deal for investors.”

  • Who’s To Blame for Facebook?
    , May 22nd, 2012 at 10:32 am

    The New York Times has an interesting article this morning: “As Facebook’s Stock Struggles, Fingers Start Pointing.”

    Apparently, stocks are only allowed to go up, and if they don’t, it must be someone’s fault.

    Wall Street is playing the Facebook blame game.

    As shares of the social network tumbled in their second day of trading, bankers, investors and analysts wondered what had gone wrong with the initial public offering of Facebook, the most highly anticipated technology debut in years.

    Some fingers are pointing at Morgan Stanley, the lead banker on the I.P.O., while others criticize Nasdaq and even Facebook itself. In the aftermath, critics contend that Facebook’s offering price was too high and too many shares were sold to the public, hurting the stock’s performance out of the gate.

    So the media is asking if the blame should lie with the underwriter, the exchange or the company itself. My question is: What about the media?

  • How Much is Facebook Worth?
    , May 21st, 2012 at 8:26 am

    So now that Facebook ($FB) is public, is the stock a good buy?

    The short answer is no. The longer answer is noooooooo.

    First we have to consider the fact that no company has ever gone public because they thought their share price was too low. That shouldn’t dismiss every initial public offering, but it’s an important consideration to keep in mind. As a general rule, IPOs are bad buys.

    The other fact is that it’s very difficult to evaluate the prospects of a young company in a new industry. I have a pretty good idea of how quickly Medtronic ($MDT) will grow its earnings over the next few years. I can’t say the same for Facebook. More than 12 years after its peak, Yahoo’s ($YHOO) share price is barely one-eighth its price. Things didn’t turn out as they were planned.

    We also know that FB’s underwriters spent enormous amounts of money trying to keep the stock price above $38 on Friday.

    Some market participants said that the underwriters had to absorb mountains of stock to defend the $38 level and keep the market from dipping below it.

    The firm did this by tapping into a 63 million share over-allotment option, or greenshoe, according to sources familiar with the deal.

    As an indication of the cost, had Morgan Stanley bought all of the shares traded around $38 in the final 20 minutes of the day, it would have spent nearly $2 billion. Underwriters are not obligated to prop up a stock on debut, but typically do.

    Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

    I don’t see why it’s so embarrassing for FB to drop below its offering price. Or at least why that embarrassment is worth more than $2 billion. As a side note, I’m also not bothered by the delay in starting trading in Facebook. That’s slightly embarrassing, but I’d rather that they get it right rather than get it on time. Big deal; traders can wait 20 minutes.

    Now let’s look at some of the projections about Facebook and we’ll use our World’s Simplest Stock Valuation Method. Wall Street currently thinks the company will earn 60 cents per share next year. Henry Blodget thinks that’s way too low and that FB can earn $1 per share in 2013. I think that’s a much more reasonable assumption.

    I haven’t seen any estimates of Facebook’s five-year growth rate so we’ll have to use some creativity here. We do know that Facebook’s growth rate is falling, but of course that’s from unsustainable levels to more realistic ones. One hint is that last quarter the company grew its revenue by 44%.

    To be safe, let’s use a 50% earnings growth rate for the next five year. That’s almost certainly too high, but again, we’re being safe.

    The World Simplest Stock Valuation Method is:

    Price/Earnings Ratio = Growth Rate/2 + 8

    So that works out to:

    33 = 50/2 + 8

    And with a $1 per share estimate for next year, that works out to a fair value of $33. So by using numbers very favorable to Facebook we can see that the stock is overpriced. On top of that, as a prudent investor, I wouldn’t be interested in Facebook unless it’s going for 30% below Fair Value. That’s about $23 per share.

    For now, I’m keeping my distance from Facebook.