Not long ago BlackBerry was all but left for dead. Shares shed 36.5% in value last year with many believing the best the former smartphone king could hope for was to be sold for parts. The company�� financial situation still isn�� pretty, but shares are up more than 18% so far in 2014. And the stock�� post-earnings pop Friday shows new hope among investors.
For the fourth quarter, BlackBerry reported $976 million in revenue, down 64% from the same period during the prior year. Services made up 56% of the phone maker�� sales, 37% came from hardware and 7% came from software. The company reported a $423 million net loss, or an 80 cent loss per share.
Despite the steep loss, shares popped at one point more than 4% to $9.43 in pre-market trading thanks to a lighter than anticipated non-GAAP loss per share. Wall Street analysts were expecting a non-GAAP loss of 55 cents per share, but excluding several one time charges the company reported just an 8 cent non-GAAP loss.
Top 5 Companies To Buy For 2015: Papa John's International Inc.(PZZA)
Papa John?s International, Inc. operates and franchises pizza delivery and carryout restaurants under the Papa John?s trademark worldwide. The company also operates dine-in and restaurant-based delivery restaurants in certain international markets. As of December 25, 2011, the company operated 3,883 Papa John?s restaurants consisting of 628 company-owned and 3,255 franchised restaurants in 50 states of the United States and 32 countries. Papa John?s International, Inc. was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jonas Elmerraji]
Small-cap pizza chain Papa John's International (PZZA) has been flashing the green light for buyers since the start of the year, up more than 30% year-to-date. And you don't have to be an expert technical analyst to see why; PZZA bouncing higher in a textbook channel right now.
The channel in Papa John's gives traders a high-probability range for shares to trade within. And while there's really no bad time to buy a stock that's in an uptrend, the ideal time to jump in comes on a bounce off of trendline support. Buying off a support bounce makes sense for two big reasons: it's the spot where shares have the furthest to move up before they hit resistance, and it's the spot where the risk is the least (because shares have the least room to move lower before you know you're wrong).
While the most recent bounce in PZZA just happened late last week, the fact that buying pressure has been so uncharacteristically strong off of trendline support means that a small correction could be in the cards for traders eyeing a second chance at a low risk entry.
Keep an eye on this one -- and watch out for earnings on Nov. 5.
- [By Ben Levisohn]
Shares of Domino’s Pizza have dropped 4.3% to $65.91 today, while Yum has declined 1.1% to $66.24 and Papa John’s International (PZZA) has fallen 1.1% to $71.28.
- [By Lawrence Meyers]
Papa John�� International (PZZA) reported third-quarter earnings this morning that grew 18% year-over-year. And while Papa John’s stock hasn’t moved much today, shares of PZZA are sitting around all-time highs.
- [By Justin Loiseau]
Papa's got a brand new bag
Papa John's (NASDAQ: PZZA ) founder and CEO John Schnatter is no fan of Obamacare. After the Affordable Care Act was first proposed, Schnatter told shareholders he expected the new legislation to cost his company around $5 million to $8 million a year, costing the company $0.11 to $0.14 more per pizza..�When asked by a reporter what he thought franchisees would do to cover costs, Schnatter predicted that owners would work around the Act by cutting employee hours to disqualify them from company coverage. (Read more on the exchange here.)
Best Services Companies To Watch In Right Now: The9 Limited(NCTY)
The9 Limited, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the development and operation of online games, and Internet and Website related businesses in the People?s Republic of China. The company offers online games, including MMORPGs, Web, and SNS games. As of December 31, 2010, it owned or had exclusive licenses to operate SUN, EA Sports FIFA Online 2, Atlantica, World of Fighter, Kingdom Heroes 2 Online, Winning Goal, ShenXianZhuan, Planetside 2, Free Realms, and Seoyugi games in China. The9 Limited also involves in the provision of Internet protocol television services and SMS services; Website solutions and advertising services, and mobile game platform; and licensing of its proprietary games to third parties. The company was formerly known as GameNow.net Limited and changed its name to The9 Limited in February 2004. The9 Limited was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Shanghai, the People?s Republic of China.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Rich Duprey]
Chinese online game developer�The9� (NASDAQ: NCTY ) �says that between April 22 and April 28, its chairman and CEO, Jun Zhu, purchased 200,000 of the company's American depositary shares on the open market, and he�intends to purchase�as much as $5 million�worth of the stock in total. He is also a co-founder of the company.
- [By Sally Jones]
Here’s a look at three application software companies currently on a 52-week low and still held by a few billionaires. The9 Ltd. (NCTY), Merge Healthcare Inc. (MRGE) and FAB Universal Corp. (FU) are more than 52% off a 52-week high.
Best Services Companies To Watch In Right Now: Solar Thin Films Inc (SLTZ)
Solar Thin Films, Inc. is engaged in the business of designing, manufacturing and installation of thin-film amorphous silicon (a-Si) photovoltaic manufacturing equipment. The equipment is used in plants that produce photovoltaic thin-film a-Si solar panels or modules. The Company operates through its wholly owned subsidiary, Kraft Elektronikai Zrt (Kraft). Kraft is engaged in the design, development, manufacture, and installation of a-Si photovoltaic manufacturing equipment. The primary buyers of photovoltaic thin-film manufacturing equipment are businesses, as well as investment partnerships, engaged in the production of photovoltaic thin-film modules. In May 2010, the Company acquired Atlantis Solar LLC. In May 2013, Solar Thin Films Inc acquired Quality Resource Technologies Inc. In October 2013, Solar Thin Films Inc announced the sale of all of its ownership stake of Hungarian subsidiary, Kraft, R.t. (Kraft), to GJR Collectibles LLC.
Kraft has been providing equipment that is incorporated into a single manufacturing line capable of manufacturing a-Si solar modules that produce approximately 5megawatt (MW) of solar power annually. The Company focuses, directly and through joint ventures or alliances with other companies or governmental agencies, to sell equipment for and participate financially in solar power facilities using thin film a-Si solar modules or metallurgical and other crystalline solar modules as the power source to provide electricity to municipalities, businesses and consumers.
The Company competes with Applied Materials and Oerlikon.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Peter Graham]
Small cap stocks Alliance Creative Group Inc (OTCMKTS: ACGX), Dale Jarrett Racing Adventure Inc (OTCMKTS: DJRT), Inscor Inc (OTCMKTS: IOGA) and Solar Thin Films Inc (OTCMKTS: SLTZ) have all been getting some attention lately in various investment newsletters and it should come as no surprise that two out of four of these stocks have been the subject of paid promotions ��which tend to benefit traders. However, two out of four of these stocks also have pretty good financials for being small cap OTC stocks and that might make them attractive to investors with a long term time horizon. So which of these stocks might make traders some profits in the short term and investors some profits over the longer term? Here is a closer look to help you decide:
Best Services Companies To Watch In Right Now: Actuate Corp (BIRT)
Actuate Corporation (Actuate), incorporated in November 1993, provides software and services to develop and deploy custom Business Intelligence and information applications. Actuate offers ActuateOne to develop and deploy Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT)-based custom Business Intelligence and information applications focusing on browsers and mobile devices that deliver content hosted in cloud, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and on premises deployments. Its products and services are used by its customers to develop and deploy applications across a range of business functions, including financial management, sales management, account management, and customer self-service. Xenos solutions, based on Xenos Enterprise Server, loads, transforms and presents high volumes of data and documents across multiple channels. Actuate�� BIRT Spreadsheet products are Excel-based. In February 2014, Actuate Corporation announced the acquisition of legodo ag.
ActuateOne-Business Intelligence, Analytics and Reporting
Actuate offers a range of BIRT-based Business Intelligence (BI), analytics and reporting features within the integrated ActuateOne platform, providing 64-bit, in-memory analytics, user configurable dashboards, ad-hoc query, interactive mobile and Web content, brochure-quality reporting, and spreadsheet analysis. ActuateOne provides a platform upon which Global 9000 and packaged application software vendors develop and deploy BI and information applications. Such applications retrieve business information from databases, as well as print streams and deliver it as dashboards, interactive Web pages, spreadsheets, mobile content and analytic cubes to customers, partners and employees worldwide.
Xenos Enterprise Server Framework
Xenos Enterprise Server (ES) is an application that captures, identifies, routes, stores and retrieves structured and unstructured documents and data. Xenos ES supports the processing, extraction, transformation, repurposi! ng and personalization of structured and unstructured data in both legacy and SOA environments. Xenos ES distributes documents across multiple channels, such as Web, mobile and tablet devices in addition to providing interactivity and document analytics through its integration with ActuateOne.
Performance Analytics
Actuate BIRT Performance Analytics provides interactive dashboards, analytics, and scorecards. With Web interface, users across the enterprise can monitor operations, identify and analyze performance issues and enact initiatives.
BIRT Spreadsheet
Actuate�� BIRT Spreadsheet products deliver Excel-like reporting, formatting and calculation functionality within Java applications. Actuate BIRT Spreadsheet products can also leverage all the Actuate deployment options-embedded in applications or deployed cloud or on-premise enterprise environments.
The Company competes with Information Builders, Qlik Tech, Pentaho, Jaspersoft, MicroStrategy, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By John Udovich]
Yesterday, small cap business intelligence stock MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ: MSTR) surged 18.44%�after reporting better-than-expected third quarter earnings ��meaning it might be a good idea to take a closer look at it�along with�small cap peers Actuate Corporation (NASDAQ: BIRT) and Qlik Technologies Inc (NASDAQ: QLIK) to see what they might offer small cap investors. After all, everyone is being inundated with huge amounts of data from multiple sources, but its the following small cap stocks that provide software platforms to help customers try to make sense of it all:�
- [By Roberto Pedone]
Actuate (BIRT) provides software solutions and services to corporate and government customers worldwide. This stock closed up 1.7% to $4.54 in Tuesday's trading session.
Tuesday's Range: $4.43-$4.57
52-Week Range: $3.41-$8.23
Tuesday's Volume: 213,000
Three-Month Average Volume: 319,262From a technical perspective, BIRT trended modestly higher here back above its 50-day moving average of $4.51 with lighter-than-average volume. This move to the upside on Tuesday is starting to push shares of BIRT within range of triggering a major breakout trade. That trade will hit trigger if BIRT manages to take out some key overhead resistance levels at $4.60 to $4.75 and then above more resistance at $4.85 with high volume.
Traders should now look for long-biased trades in BIRT as long as it's trending above some key near-term support levels at $4.30 to $4.25 and then once it sustains a move or close above those breakout levels with volume that hits near or above 319,262 shares. If that breakout starts soon, then BIRT will set up to re-fill some of its previous gap-down-day zone from May that started near $6.
Best Services Companies To Watch In Right Now: Bob Evans Farms Inc.(BOBE)
Bob Evans Farms, Inc. owns and operates full-service restaurants under the Bob Evans and Mimi's Cafe brand names in the United States. It also sells retail gifts, food items, and other novelties in its Bob Evans Restaurants, and seven Bob Evans Restaurants & General Stores. As of January 27, 2012, the company owned and operated 564 Bob Evans family restaurants in 18 states; and 145 Mimi's Caf�casual restaurants in 24 states. It also produces and distributes food products under the Bob Evans and Owens brand names. The company?s food products include fresh, smoked, and fully cooked pork sausages; hickory-smoked bacon products; refrigerated and frozen convenience food items, such as mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, microwaveable sandwiches, and slow-roasted main dish entrees. In addition, it owns and operates SWH Custom Foods, a prep kitchen that prepares signature muffin mixes, dressings, sauces, and soups for third-party restaurants in Fullerton, California. The com pany was founded in 1953 and is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Mr. TopStep]
As always, please make sure to use protective stops when trading futures…
In Asia, 7 of 11 markets closed higher : Shanghai Comp. -0.92% , Hang Seng -0.42%, Nikkei +0.29%. In Europe, 8 of 12 markets are trading higher : DAX +0.15% , FTSE +0.04 % Morning headline: “S&P 500 Index Seen Higher Ahead If Housing Data ” Fair Value: S&P -8.11, NASDAQ -8.00, Dow Jones -79.96 Total volume: 6k ESU and 1.73k SPU traded Economic calendar: FOMC meeting begins, Consumer Price Index, Housing Starts, Redbook and earnings from Bob Evans Farms (NASDAQ: BOBE), Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE), Yingli Green Energy (NYSE: YGE) and La-Z-Boy (NYSE: LZB). E-mini S&P 5001941.50+5.00 - +0.26% Crude102.15+0.02 - +0.02% Shanghai Composite0.00N/A - N/A Hang Seng23203.59-97.08 - -0.42% Nikkei 22514975.97+42.68 - +0.29% DAX9920.32+36.34 - +0.37% FTSE 1006766.77+12.13 - +0.18% Euro1.3541The following article is from one of our external contributors. It does not represent the opinion of Benzinga and has not been edited.
- [By Sean Williams]
Send this stock back to the kitchen
I admit to already being hyper-critical of the restaurant industry because of cutthroat pricing practices among peers, strained consumer spending because of higher payroll taxes, and the always looming threat that food prices will soar faster than the industry can raise prices. These provide for me more than enough reasons to suggest sending Bob Evans Farms (NASDAQ: BOBE ) back to the kitchen.
Best Services Companies To Watch In Right Now: XO Group Inc (XOXO)
XO Group Inc. (XO Group), formerly The Knot, Inc., is a media and technology company. The Company is engaged in the business of weddings, pregnancy and everything in between, providing young women with the information, products and advice to guide them through the transformative events of their lives. Its family of brands began with the wedding brand, The Knot, and it also include WeddingChannel.com, The Nest, The Bump and Ijie.com. XO Group has its presence in all media from the Web to social media and mobile, magazines and books, and video - and social platforms. XO Group has businesses in online sponsorship and advertising, registry services, ecommerce and publishing.
The Company has a network of Websites under several different brands, TheKnot.com, the wedding Website, WeddingChannel.com, the wedding registry site and wedding vendor review site with nearly 350,000 reviews, TheNest.com, a site for newlyweds and new couples, and TheBump.com, a pre-natal and pregnancy Website. These sites offer content and services tailored to the engaged, newly married, and pregnant audiences. Weddings, nesting, and first-time pregnancy are information-intensive events requiring research, planning, and decision-making.
The sites provides future brides and grooms with databases that draw on thousands of articles about weddings, including planning advice, etiquette, Q&As, real wedding stories, tips on getting engaged, fashion, beauty, grooms, the wedding party, and honeymoons. TheNest.com offers information and resources on merging bank accounts and making dinner, with searchable databases for recipes, home decor, and real estate. For couples who are getting ready for a baby, the same urgent need for information surfaces, which the Company provides at TheBump.com with baby naming tools, nursery decor ideas, and a host of health and development-related information. Each of the content areas offers articles, ideas, hundreds of photo slideshows, and videos, all covering a wide range of styles,! perspectives, budgets, traditions, lifestyles and ethnicities.
Active Community Participation and Social Networking
The community areas on XO Group websites generate member involvement through message boards, blogs, and personalized interactive services. Women who are planning their weddings actively seek forums to exchange ideas and ask questions. The community areas feature 24-hour activity.
User-Generated Content
Through blogs, message boards, and photo-posting features, all XO Group sites feature many forms of user-generated content related to the particular interests of its audience. Recent brides post wedding photos, vendor reviews, and their own wedding advice for future brides. Recent home purchasers post home-buying stories, before and after photos, and photos of their own home decor ideas. Pregnant women post chronicles of their pregnancies, reviews of their doctors, photos of their nurseries, and stories of their newborns at key developmental stages.
Interactive Tools
TheKnot.com offers, personalized wedding planning tools, including checklists, budgeters, guest list managers, calendars, and reminder services. An online scrapbook gives users the ability to save favorite dresses, articles, photos, vendors, honeymoons, wedding supplies, and other planning information. After a couple�� wedding day, these personalized tools are automatically converted to its newlywed Website, TheNest.com, to help them organize their new life as a married couple. The guest list manager is used to track thank-you notes, and couples receive an entirely new checklist and budgeter to help them organize their newlywed to-dos and finances. On TheBump.com, it offers checklists, budget tools, a baby name tool, and tools to track everything from ovulation to breastfeeding. These tools are also available on mobile platforms, which provide its users the ability to modify budgets and check off tasks from the convenience of their mobile phones. !
The Company offers personal pregnancy and baby websites through TheBump.com. XO Group Websites offers tools to assist with shopping for key elements of a wedding. Its wedding planning sites highlight a searchable bridal gown database with more than 5,000 gown images from over 200 designers, plus searchable databases for bridesmaid, mother-of-the-bride, and flower girl dresses, bridal accessories, engagement and wedding rings and tuxedos. The sites also offer search tools for honeymoon resorts, jewelry, and tabletop products. Local Resource Listings
The local resource areas on XO Group websites provide access to the local wedding market through online regional guides that host nearly 21,000 local vendors who display over 28,000 profiles, highlighting offerings for reception halls, bands, florists, caterers and other wedding-related products and services across 85 local markets in North America.
One-Stop Registry Shopping Service
WeddingChannel.com is the registry site online. Its patented registry aggregation service offers couples and their guests one place to view all their gift registries via a registry system that searches approximately 4.5 million registries from many retail partners, including Macy��, Crate & Barrel, Williams-Sonoma, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Target, Amazon.com, Tiffany & Co., JCPenney and others. TheBump.com uses the same patented registry aggregation service to focus on baby registries, including Target, Buy Buy Baby, Diapers.com, Pottery Barn Kids and more.
The Company integrates informative content with online shops that feature an array of attendant gifts, favors, and supplies that relate to the wedding itself, as well as apparel, toys, gifts, and other goods for babies. It sells directly to consumers through its integrated shopping destinations, The Knot Wedding Shop, the WeddingChannel Store and The Bump Baby Shop. These online stores offer over 4,000 products, including cocktail napkins, wedding bubbles and bells, candy! and cook! ies, ring pillows, toasting flutes, reception decorations, table centerpieces, goblets and glasses, garters, and unity candles.
Broadband Video Content
The Knot TV is a continuous video stream that includes a range of wedding content, including shows about choosing a creative cake, hiring the videographer, planning dream honeymoons and learning about real weddings across the country. It produces video on demand content for The Knot, The Nest, and The Bump brands, covering everything from wedding fashion to home tours to mommy advice. The Knot TV On Demand provides video content from bridal fashion runway shows for brides to watch when they want, including programs on the trends in dresses, silhouettes, necklines, and accessories. Its video content is also distributed to MSN.com video, YouTube, and Sling Media. The Knot TV also features live programming with limited runs of The Knot LIVE, a weekly magazine format show.
Informative E-mail
Members of XO Group Websites subscribe to newsletters and e-mail updates, many of which are targeted with information for members in a specific stage of the wedding planning process. Other newsletters and e-mails are focused on specific topics, including honeymoon deals and personalized e-mails containing relevant local information or offers, such as bridal events or dress sample sales. E-mails are also sent to members of The Nest and The Bump with sponsored promotions and information about their stage of pregnancy or the age of their newborn.
Niche Website Network and Sister Sites
The Company also owns and operates a network of targeted websites that offer services of interest to its core audience of engaged couples. These include niche weddings sites such as ChineseWeddingsbyTheKnot.com, BeachWeddingsbyTheKnot.com, GayWeddingsbyTheKnot.com and over 300 other sites tailored to the searched-for wedding destinations and themes. The sites features local listings, forums, real wedding photos an! d local p! lanning advice.
The Company sells both the national and local editions of The Knot Weddings magazines through newsstands, bookstores, and on its Website, and it distributes local editions of The Bump pregnancy guide to doctors��offices across the country. It also offers a library of books complementing the content on its lifestages websites.
The Knot Weddings National Magazine
It publishes The Knot Weddings magazine four times a year. It features hundreds of dresses from the industry�� top designers. Also featured is an array of photos of wedding party attire and accessories, including bridesmaid, mother-of-the-bride, and flower girl dresses, as well as veils, shoes, and tuxedos.
The Knot Weddings Local Magazines
It publishes regional wedding magazines semi-annually in 17 markets in the United States. The Knot�� regional magazines combine national editorial content with up-to-date, region-specific information, including sections featuring real weddings within the market, making these publications a must-have wedding planning companion for engaged couples.
The Bump Magazine
A pocketbook-sized magazine for first-time moms, The Bump magazine features local resources and modern advice from its editors and nationally-recognized experts.
The Company sells both the national and local editions of The Knot Weddings magazines through newsstands, bookstores, and on its Website, and it distributes local editions of The Bump pregnancy guide to doctors��offices across the country. It also offers a library of books complementing the content on its lifestages Websites. It publishes The Knot Weddings magazine four times a year.
The Company publishes regional wedding magazines semi-annually in 17 markets in the United States. The Knot�� regional magazines combine national editorial content with up-to-date, region-specific information, including sections featuring real weddings within the ! market, m! aking these publications a must-have wedding planning companion for engaged couples.
A pocketbook-sized magazine for first-time moms, The Bump magazine features local resources and modern advice from our editors and nationally-recognized experts. Distributed at no charge through OB/GYN offices in 20 markets nationwide, The Bump magazine is specifically designed to connect first-time parents with the information and resources they need to prepare for a baby. It publishes The Bump magazine semi-annually.
The Company offers a library of up-to-date wedding books authored by itsChief Content Officer Carley Roney and published by divisions of Random House and Chronicle Books. Its first three-book wedding planning series published by Random House�� Broadway Books includes The Knot Ultimate Wedding Planner, The Knot Complete Guide to Weddings in the Real World, and The Knot Guide to Wedding Vows and Traditions. These books feature information on everything a bride and groom need to know when planning their wedding and includes worksheets, checklists, etiquette, and answers to frequently asked questions. Its gift book series published by Chronicle Books includes The Knot Book of Wedding Gowns, The Knot Book of Wedding Flowers, The Knot Guide for the Mother of the Bride, and The Knot Guide for the Groom. Its second planning series, published by Random House�� Clarkson Potter, includes The Knot Guide to Destination Weddings, The Knot Book of Wedding Lists and The Knot Bridesmaid Handbook.
The Company offers a series of books for The Nest brand published by Clarkson Potter. The first book in the series, The Nest Newlywed Handbook, goes on the topics of interest to the newlywed, from changing its name to deciding how to divide up the daily chores. The second title, The Nest Home Design Handbook, is a four-color, photo-filled book on home decoration and design.
The Company competes with Brides magazine (published by Conde Nast), Bridal Guide (published by RFP LLC) ! and Marth! a Stewart Weddings.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Vera Yuan]
For the calendar year-to-date, the Fund�� Investor Class returned +2.9% compared to +8.3% for the S&P 500 and +7.0% for the Russell 3000. DIRECTV (DTV) (+25% on AT&T�� buyout offer), Martin Marietta Materials (MLM) (+30% on its acquisition of Texas Industries) and Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) (+12%, and in the news for its hostile takeover battle for Allergan) benefited from the robust deal environment in different ways. Interval Leisure (IILG) (-37%) was the largest detractor and one of our few companies where business value declined. Our earnings estimates fell roughly 15% when Interval announced that four large, multi-year corporate relationships renewed at less favorable rates in their timeshare exchange business. We think the stock has overreacted to this news, and the company continues to add strategically to its platform. Other small-cap stocks that detracted from year-to-date results included XO Group (XOXO) (-25%) and Redwood Trust (RWT) (-11%). Broader themes behind the relative shortfall include our overweight position in consumer discretionary companies (the weakest sector in the market year-to-date), our lack of near-term big winners in health care and technology (the strongest sectors in the market year-to-date) and our conservative portfolio positioning in the first half of the year. We are not pleased with recent results. It is natural for our concentrated investing style to be out of step with the market at times.
- [By Wallace Witkowski]
Shares of XO Group Inc. (XOXO) fell 16% to $10 on light volume after the weddings and pregnancy website operator reported adjusted earnings of 2 cents a share on revenue of $32.6 million, and appointed current president Michael Steib as the new chief executive, replacing David Liu, who will continue on as chairman.
- [By Jake L'Ecuyer]
Leading and Lagging Sectors
Non-cyclical consumer goods & services shares climbed around 0.22 percent in trading on Friday. Leading the sector was strength from American Public Education (NASDAQ: APEI) and XO Group (NASDAQ: XOXO). In trading on Friday, telecommunications services shares were relative laggards, down on the day by about 0.41 percent.
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