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| Fortinet Inc |
Fortinet inc( NASDAQ: FTNT ) welcomed by analysts after strong quarterly earnings.
Equities research analysts at Needham Reiterate a “Buy” rating for shares of Fortinet, Inc. (FTNT) in a research note released to investors today.
Morgan Keegan has raised its price target on Fortinet Inc. (NASDAQ: FTNT) from $47 to $50 based on strong 1Q11 performance. Morgan Keegan maintains its Outperform rating on the stock.
Deutsche Bank is out with its report today on Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT), raising its price target from $40 to $44.
Fortinet Inc( NASDAQ:FTNT ) stock up 15 % close to $48 in the morning trade. The move is stronger with higher volumes and it will be considered as break out as stock touched a new 52 week high.
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| Akamai Technologies Inc |
Akamai Technologies Inc ( NASDAQ:AKAM )1Q beats Street but outlook disappoints share plunged 15 % in early morning trade.
Net income in the quarter ended march 31 fell to $50.6 million, or 26 cents per share, from $40.9 million, or 22 cents per share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings, excluding items such as stock based compensation costs, was 38 cents per share narrowly beating the estimate of 37 cents per share.
Revenue grew 15 percent to $276.0 million from $240.0 million a year ago. That also beat the $272.5 million expected by analysts.
The company said on a conference call that it expects second-quarter revenue of $270 million to $280 million and adjusted earnings per share of 34 cents to 37 cents. Analysts had been looking for second-quarter revenues of $280.4 million and adjusted earnings of 38 cents per share.
( Source: Forbes )
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| Iphone 4 |
Shortcuts for Quicker iPhone Use
DOUBLE-TAP: Users can access audio by double tapping the home button when Iphone is locked ( Lock screen appears ). It saves time as you don't need to unlock the iphone and go to the music to play songs. this feature also works with applications like Pandora and bring up its controls.
VOICE ACCESS If you press and hold the home button while the phone is locked, you can still access Voice Control to place a phone call (or FaceTime call) or get to any of the iPhone’s other voice commands.
TELL TIME Voice control can dial phone numbers (“dial 212-555-1212”) or people (“Dial Mom, mobile”), and it can control music (“Play music,” “Play artist Earth, Wind & Fire,” Play album “That’s the Way of the World,” “Play more songs like this,” “Shuffle,” etc).
But did you know that it can also tell you what time it is? Say “What time is it?” and your phone will say the time back to you. It may sound silly, but it comes in handy if you are rushing and do not have the time or inclination to pull out your phone. (And who wears watches anymore?)
SHORTCUT TO SEARCH Swiping to the right from your first home screen pulls up the search window, where you can pull up any contacts, apps, e-mails, calendar appointments and media that have the word you are seeking.
But the search screen is also a shortcut to Google and Wikipedia. The last two search results for any entry are always “Search the Web” and “Search Wikipedia,” saving you the time it takes to open browsers or apps.
FORCE-QUIT APPS Double-tapping the home button while your phone is unlocked reveals a panel of most recently used apps. Swiping to the left moves through the apps in reverse chronological order to aid in quick app switching. This is advanced-beginner stuff.
But serious iPhone ninjas know that pressing and holding an app icon in this panel will cause minus signs to appear beside each app. Touching an app in this state forces it to shut down, a useful move if you have an app that is running in the background and causing trouble.
MUSIC SHORTCUTS Swipe that same previously used app screen to the right and you get another shortcut to music-playing controls. If you have the latest operating system, iOS 4.3, you will also see a button that will call up controls for AirPlay, Apple’s wireless audio feature.
It is here that you also gain access to the screen rotation lock button, so you can turn on or off the iPhone’s ability to switch from portrait to landscape mode. Swipe once more to the right from this screen and the iPhone’s volume control appears.
VOLUME LOCK If you want to limit the iPhone’s volume (because it is being used by your children, for example), you can go into Settings, then iPod. Under “Volume Limit” you can adjust the maximum volume and set a code to lock the setting. This code can be different from the lock code for the entire phone, if you have set one of those.
SAVE WEB IMAGES When you’re looking at Web pages in Safari, tapping and holding any image will call up buttons that can save the image to your camera roll or copy it to the clipboard.
FIND WORDS Safari’s search bar will not only look up sites, it can also be used to find a word or phrase on a Web page. Type in your search term and scroll to the bottom of the results; the last result is always “On This Page”; tap that and you can see where that term appears on the page you are viewing.
MULTIPLE KEYBOARDS You can add keyboards in other languages. Go to Settings, then General, then Keyboard, then International Keyboards. Add as many keyboards as you like. The next time the keyboard appears, it will have a small button next to the space bar with a globe icon on it. Tapping that will cycle through the languages you have selected (the name of each language will appear on the space bar).
Tap and hold the globe icon, and a menu will pop up showing all your selected languages. You can then tap whichever one you want and jump right to that keyboard. Bonus: If you’ve downloaded an app for emojis, those little happy faces and icons, you can add it to your list of keyboards in this panel.
ACCENT MARKS In the plain-Jane United States English keyboard, tapping and holding a letter will bring up other permutations of that letter for expressing yourself with aigus and macrons. Hold down the letter “e,” for example, and you will see diacritical-marked versions of the letter “e.”
QUICK ERASE In a nod to the Etch A Sketch toy, shaking the iPhone when typing something brings up the option to undo it.
WI-FI ALOFT Since in-flight Wi-Fi is growing, but cellphones still must be disabled on planes, the iPhone’s airplane mode does not control the Wi-Fi switch. You can still get on the plane’s network without running afoul of federal regulations.
SCREEN GRAB Tapping the home and sleep buttons at the same time will save a picture of whatever is on your iPhone’s display to your camera roll.
FORWARD AND REWIND When listening to audio or watching video, you probably know that you can move through the song/movie by sliding your finger left and right across the progress bar. But if you slide your finger down and then across, you can move at different speeds, allowing you to advance or rewind with increasingly fine control.
RESTART If your phone is acting sluggish or buggy, do what the pros do: initiate a “hard reset” by holding down both the home and sleep buttons until the phone powers down completely and restarts with the mirrored Apple logo appearing on the display. Do not let go until you see this logo. Doing this will often solve a number of small to medium-size glitches; it’s a good idea to do it periodically if you do not regularly sync your phone.
Knowing tricks like these will not necessarily earn you a job at one of Apple’s Genius Bars. But knowing them means you will not have to go to the Genius Bar nearly as often.
Europe's largest oil and gas company by market value said on Thursday current cost of supply (CCS) net income rose to $6.9 billion in the first three months of the year.
The result was $6.29 billion, compared with a forecast for $5.87 billion in a Reuters poll.Brent crude was 38 percent higher in the first quarter compared to the 2010 period, while global refining benchmarks tripled.
Also, company has announced that the Board has declared a first quarter 2011 dividend of $0.42 per share on April 28, 2011 unchanged from same period in 2010. . These dividends are payable on June 27, 2011. In the case of the Class B shares, the dividends will be payable through the dividend access mechanism and are expected to be treated as UK-source rather than Dutch-source. Ex-dividend date is May 11, 2011, record date is May 13, 2011
Rival BP posted a 2 percent fall in replacement cost net profit on Wednesday, on the back of an 11 percent fall in production after selling assets to pay for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Italian rival Eni reported a 6 percent rise in replacement cost profit, although the result was muted by the weak dollar and a fall in output due to the conflict in Libya.
Industry leader Exxon Mobil was due to announce first-quarter earnings on Thursday and was expected to post a 59 percent jump in net income, according to I/B/E/S estimates.
Rival BP posted a 2 percent fall in replacement cost net profit on Wednesday, on the back of an 11 percent fall in production after selling assets to pay for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Italian rival Eni reported a 6 percent rise in replacement cost profit, although the result was muted by the weak dollar and a fall in output due to the conflict in Libya.
Industry leader Exxon Mobil was due to announce first-quarter earnings on Thursday and was expected to post a 59 percent jump in net income, according to I/B/E/S estimates.
( Source: Reuters )
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| Proctor & Gamble |
The group earned 96 cents per share in its fiscal third quarter, one penny shy of analysts' estimates.
Third-quarter revenue came in at $20.2 billion, just below expectations of $20.3 billion.
Stock of the company was down 1.28% in pre market trading.
( Source: CNBC )
( Source: CNBC )
As per the last report by Standard & Poor's that it has raised a concern it cuts America's AAA debt rating if the United States will not agree on how to address medium and long term budgetary challenges, but the health of the economy is stronger than last economic crisis. S&P might be wrong about US debt?
As per the statements by S&P “We believe there is a material risk that United States. policymakers might not reach an agreement on how to address medium and long-term budgetary challenges by 2013; if an agreement is not reached and meaningful implementation is not begun by then this would, in our view, render the U.S. fiscal profile meaningfully weaker than that of peer AAA sovereigns.”
The chances of credit rating downgrade is 33 percent over next 2 years, highest probability in history.
Controversy is neither markets nor investors care about it, as indices keep touching new highs. It is because facts are quite different. Below is the comparison of the last government Savings and Loans Crisis in 1988 and now.
If we see, government debt has keep increasing since last crisis almost 23 years ago, but important factor is interest rates, which are very low, so the cost of carrying of current debt load means continuing to pay interest on debt is fraction of what it once was. For example in 1988 the average cost of a dollar of US treasury was 9 percent, while today it is around 2 percent
Current GDP of country is triple than what was in Savings and Loan crisis in 1988.
If we look in to the treasury portfolio, it has more diversified assets. Besides traditional bonds, Treasury now issues Treasury Inflation Protected Securities ( TIPS) to balance the interest rate risk of United States because interest rates on TIPS moves inversely to traditional debt securities. This will help treasury to diversify and manage risks.
According to the data from Treasury Department, interest expense as a percent of GDP in 1988 crisis was 4.23% and now it stands close to 2.8% declining steadily.
This means today the ability of US to serve its debt is 60 percent higher than it was in 1988.
Calculated in 2005 dollars, the GDP in 1988 was $4.95 trillion and interest expense was $321.4 billion. Today, interest expense has increased by about $50 billion to $375 billion, but GDP has swelled to more than $13.2 trillion. This clearly demonstrates that the U.S. has a much better ability to pay its liabilities than it did in the past.
Meanwhile, demand for U.S. debt continues to be strong. Sovereign purchases of our debt have never been greater in both the raw dollar amount and by the percentage of assets held in other countries. And US currency remains the world’s currency of choice, despite its recent decline.
S&P criticizes the weakness of the U.S. balance sheet compared to other AAA-rated countries, but it fails to name which ones. Perhaps this is because it doesn't exist. The Euro, for example, has been strong, yet five of its members have debt ratings barely above junk status. Italy, Spain, Greece, Ireland and Portugal are all heavily dependent upon bailouts.
The Chinese situation is also questionable. They are imposing wage and price controls to fight inflation, despite the failure of that policy in the U.S. during the Nixon administration. History tells us that once that policy ends, the Chinese economy will swoon along with the currency. Not only that, but the Chinese manipulate their interest rates, capping consumer savings rates at 2.75 percent while charging as high as 11% for consumer debt. That is not, so called stable balance sheet and currency.
S&P missed the mark then and is now trying to redeem itself by warning against another potential crisis. While this might be well-meaning, it is also irresponsible. To pronounce the U.S. insolvent is a very serious action that can damage the currency and scare away borrowers.
RBC Capital analysts upgraded shares of Cardiome Pharma Corp. (NASDAQ: CRME) from a “sector perform” rating to an “outperform” rating. They now have a $8.00 price target on the stock.
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| Beijing China |
The World Bank on Thursday raised its forecast of China's economic growth in 2011 for the second time in as many months and said it was too early for Beijing to halt policy tightening, not least because of inflationary risks.
In its latest quarterly update of the world's second-largest economy, the bank slashed its projection of China's 2011 current account surplus to 3.6 percent of gross domestic product comfortably below the 4 percent ceiling mooted by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for G20 countries.
Following stronger-than-expected outcomes in the past two quarters, GDP is now likely to expand 9.3 percent in 2011, slower than last year's 10.3 percent clip but still a "healthy" rate, the World Bank said.
It had forecast 9.0 percent in a regional survey in March and 8.7 percent in its previous China update last November.
The bank, which pencilled in GDP growth of 8.7 percent for 2012, said there were risks both ways to its forecasts, although the report accentuated the downside dangers.
As a result, flexibility in both monetary and fiscal policy was key.
"The macro stance needs to be normalized fully to address macro risks including on inflation and the property market," the report said.
The bank raised its forecast of year-average consumer price inflation this year to 5.0 percent. Just last month it had projected 4.7 percent; in November it was expecting 3.3 percent.
Nevertheless, the bank said inflation, which rose to a 32-month high of 5.4 percent in the year to March, was unlikely to climb further as food price increases were slowing.
The higher global commodity prices that have helped fuel Chinese inflation prompted the World Bank to scale back its forecast of China's 2011 current account surplus to $264 billion from $356 billion in November.
That would reduce the surplus to 3.6 percent of GDP from 5.1 percent in 2010 and 10.1 percent as recently as 2007.
The World Bank said strong domestic demand and relative price changes has reduced the relative importance of external trade for China. The share of exports in GDP, for example, fell to 29 percent last year from a peak of 39 percent in 2006.
The yuan's real exchange rate has also risen more than commonly assumed if measured against the broadest measure of inflation — China's GDP deflator — instead of the narrower consumer price index.
By this gauge, the currency rose 6.6 percent a year on average against the dollar between 2005 and 2010 and by 5.5 percent a year against a basket of currencies of China's trading partners, the bank calculated.
"It is not fully clear what the main reasons are behind these rapid relative price increases and whether they will be sustained. Nonetheless, they have been a major factor in China's catch-up in recent years," the report said.
The global financial crisis had also contributed to the partial external rebalancing by sapping demand for Chinese exports and prompting a massive stimulus by Beijing that boosted home-grown demand.
Whether these trends are sustained will depend on China's policies and global developments, the bank added.
“It’s not clear that we can get substantial improvements in payrolls without some additional inflation risk,” Bernanke said at his first press conference following a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. “Ultimately, if -- if inflation persists or if inflation expectations begin to move, then there’s no substitute for action,” Bernanke said. “We would have to respond.”
Stocks extended gains, the dollar weakened and Treasuries fell after Bernanke reinforced the view of the FOMC, which released its policy statement today, that borrowing costs are likely to stay low for “an extended period.” The panel agreed to finish $600 billion of Treasury purchases in June and said surging commodity prices will probably have a transitory effect on inflation.
Bernanke said the Fed would initially hold its balance sheet steady after completing the purchases. “We are going to continue to reinvest maturing securities, both Treasuries and MBS, so the amount of securities that we hold will remain” approximately constant, he said, referring to mortgage-backed securities. “The amount of monetary policy easing should remain constant going forward from June.”
Stocks, Dollar
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.6 percent to 1,355.66 in New York after falling as much as 0.2 percent before the Fed’s statement. The dollar weakened to $1.4788 per euro, falling for a seventh-straight day in its longest slump in two years. Gold for June delivery advanced as much as 1.8 percent to a record $1,530.70 an ounce. Ten-year Treasury yields rose five basis points to 3.36 percent.
“Bernanke and others are providing clear signals that no additional easing is coming, but that they’re not prepared to start tightening anytime soon,” said Paul Ballew, a former Fed economist and senior vice president at Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. in Columbus, Ohio.
The Fed left its benchmark interest rate in a range of zero to 0.25 percent, where it’s been since December 2008.
Bernanke said that when the Fed makes the “extended period” pledge it means there will likely be no tightening of policy “for a couple of meetings, probably, before action.”
“Unfortunately, the reason we use this vaguer terminology is that we don’t know with certainty how quickly response will be required,” he said.
Record Stimulus
When the Fed begins unwinding its record monetary stimulus, “it’s very likely that an early step would be to stop reinvesting all or part of the securities which are maturing,” he said. “That step, though a relatively modest step, does constitute a policy tightening,” Bernanke said.
Policy makers, in a release after the statement, lowered their forecasts for economic growth this year and raised estimates for a key gauge of inflation that excludes volatile food and energy prices. The projections of governors and regional bank presidents were released three weeks sooner than prior practice.
The range of estimates for growth this year was cut to 3.1 percent to 3.3 percent, from 3.4 percent to 3.9 percent in January. Estimates for the personal consumption expenditures index, minus food and energy, ranged from 1.3 percent to 1.6 percent, up from a prior range of 1 percent to 1.3 percent.
Unemployment Forecasts
Fed officials’ central tendency forecast for the average unemployment rate in the final three months of 2011 fell to 8.4 percent to 8.7 percent versus 8.8 percent to 9.0 percent in January. Their estimate for unemployment at the end of 2012 was in a range of 7.6 percent to 7.9 percent versus 7.6 percent to 8.1 percent in January.
“The labor market is improving gradually,” Bernanke said at the press conference. “The longer it goes on, the more confident we are.”
“We are digging ourselves out of a deep hole,” Bernanke said, referring to the jobs lost during the recession.
The Fed’s commitment to record stimulus contrasts with the interest-rate increase this month by the European Central Bank and tightening this year by the biggest emerging-market economies, including China, Brazil and India, which face faster inflation.
First Briefings
Bernanke became the first Fed chairman to conduct a press briefing following an FOMC decision when he took the microphone at the Fed’s headquarters. His counterparts in Europe,Japan, the U.K. and Canada already hold regular news conferences.
The press conference, broadcast on television and the central bank’s website, marks one of Bernanke’s biggest efforts to improve the Fed’s connections with the public and demystify the institution, which as recently as 1993 didn’t announce its monetary-policy decisions. Bernanke said in February that the central bank was weighing benefits of more transparency against the risk that his remarks would trigger unwanted fluctuations in financial markets.
Increases in employment and inflation are helping drive calls to tighten credit. Payrolls have increased by an average 149,000 a month for the past six months, while the unemployment rate has dropped by 1 percentage point since November to 8.8 percent, a two-year low.
Beverage Prices
Food and beverage prices rose in the first quarter by the most since 2008, based on the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index, while the cost of regular-unleaded gasoline has increased by 26 percent this year to $3.88 a gallon as of yesterday.
The increases helped slow U.S. growth to a 2 percent pace in the first quarter, according to the median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News, from 3.1 percent in the prior period. The government releases preliminary figures tomorrow.
Bernanke said policy makers believe the reasons behind a slowdown during the first quarter do not appear to be long- lasting. “I would say roughly most of the slowdown in the first quarter is viewed by most on the committee as transitory,” he said.
The Commerce Department’s personal consumption expenditures price index, excluding food and energy, rose 0.9 percent in February from a year earlier. Policy makers have a long-run goal for total inflation of about 1.6 percent to 2 percent annually.
Economists say the Fed is at least a few months away from starting to reverse the stimulus. Most of the 44 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News from April 20 to April 25 said the central bank this year will probably halt its policy of replacing maturing mortgage debt with Treasuries. The majority of respondents also said the Fed will announce a plan next year of selling mortgage bonds and Treasuries among its assets.
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| Loopnet Inc |
CoStar Group, Inc. announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire LoopNet, Inc ( NASDAQ:LOOP). Stock of the company Loopnet Inc ( NASDAQ:LOOP) had jumped 26 % to close to $ 18.11 i after hours trading session, while stock of the CoStar Group Inc ( NASDAQ: CSGP) closed 1.88% up to $61.38 in regular trading session.
Pursuant to the merger agreement, LoopNet shareholders will receive $16.50 in cash and 0.03702 shares of CoStar Group common stock for each share of LoopNet common stock, representing a total equity value of approximately $860 million and an enterprise value of $762 million. The boards of directors of both companies have unanimously approved the transaction which is expected to close by the end of 2011.
The Company also announced that it has received a commitment letter from J.P. Morgan for a fully committed term loan of $415 million and a $50 million revolving credit facility, of which $37.5 million are committed, which will be available, subject to customary conditions, to fund the acquisition and the ongoing working capital needs of CoStar and its subsidiaries following the transaction.
( Source: Reuters )
