Idiot Inc. » Stock Market

Northstar Neuroscience stock skyrockets because the company is closing

Jacopo Kane — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:21:49 +0000

Medical device company Northstar Neuroscience has announced that the board will be selling off all assets and dissolving the company. The announcement sent Northstar’s stock soaring 37% to $1.76. You’ve got to love how much faith investors had in this company.

End of the ride sends NSTR upwards:

[FinViz] NSTR Stock
[Yahoo Finance] Northstar Neuroscience liquidating, dissolving co.

NYSE warns Hypercom about its hyper-decreasing stock

Jacopo Kane — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:33:32 +0000

Point-of-sale electronics company Hypercom has received a delisting warning from the New York Stock Exchange because its stock price has been below $1 for the last month. The company now has six months to bring its share price up or it will be booted from the stock exchange. Remarkably, Hypercom’s stock rose last Friday to $1.31. Must be New Year’s hangovers.

Here’s the grim slide of HYC:

VeriFone needs two more weeks to calculate its big fucking loss

Jacopo Kane — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:33:25 +0000

Payment solutions company VeriFone has announced that it will be two weeks late in filing its annual report to the SEC in order to calculate “the charge it needs to take for a falloff in its business.” Uh oh… The company is expecting to lose $5.00 per share — a much redder number than the 41 cents per share it lost last year.

[Yahoo Finance] VeriFone needs more time for annual report

Kerkorian bails out (of) Ford

Jacopo Kane — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:11:28 +0000

Kirk Kerkorian, the billionaire investor who was briefly Ford’s largest shareholder, has sold his entire 6.5% stake in the company at a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars. Kerkorian’s investment firm had amassed 133.5 million shares in the automaker, but obviously put its traders on more overtime than a Ford factory worker in order to sell the huge position.

Estimates of the loss on the trade were between $475 million and $800 million. This is a terrible sign for Ford, which didn’t take any bailout money.

[Reuters] Kerkorian sells off Ford shares at deep loss

AgFeed turns its stock buyback program into stock sellback program

Jacopo Kane — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:33:19 +0000

Animal feed company AgFeed Industries has taken a nosedive today on the stock market because of news that the company will be shuttering its share buyback program and issuing 5 million shares to institutional investors in order to raise more money. The abrupt shift in policy cost the company 33% of its share price and market cap.

[Yahoo Finance] AgFeed Industries Stock

Bad news for Borders leads to the 52-week low

Jacopo Kane — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 05:38:47 +0000

Shares of book and music retailer Borders lost 33% of their value today on news that the company’s sale of its UK-based Paperchase chain was going to be pushed back. The company is also “extending” the deadline to repay a $42.5 million loan from Pershing Square Capital Management.

Investors have fled from Borders’ stock this year — it has fallen from a high of $11.60 to today’s low of $0.35

Burning books:

[BloggingStocks] Borders Group (BGP) tanks after deadline extension on Ackman deal

MoneyGram gets a WarningGram from the NYSE

Jacopo Kane — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 23:18:43 +0000

Payment service company MoneyGram has been put on notice by the New York Stock Exchange that its stock — trading at a low, low 99 cents — is below the exchange’s $1 minimum and faces delisting. For now, the company will continue to trade under the MGI symbol, but it will soon have a .BC indicator pinned to it — Wall Street’s equivalent of Hester Prynne’s large red A.

MoneyGram has until June 16th to inform the NYSE how it will boost its stock otherwise it’s sayonara for the also-ran Western Union.

[Twin Cities Biz Journal] MoneyGram International faces delisting from NYSE

McClatchy’s stock hits all time low

Jacopo Kane — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:19:44 +0000

Nose-diving newspaper publisher McClatchy hit a new low this week when its sagging stock dipped below $1.00 and continued its plunge to $0.66 per share. The company’s stock has lost 93% of its value this year — several hundred million in market cap.

Bad press:

[Yahoo Finance] The McClatchy Company (MNI)

Toyota to taste first loss in 70 years

Jacopo Kane — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:42:33 +0000

Toyota Motor Corp. has announced that it will post its first operating loss in 70 years due in part to the slowdown of the U.S. auto market. The company has predicted a loss for the fiscal year of $1.6 billion — not quite as bas as their American counterparts, but still a bad sign of the times.

The company has announced that it doesn’t plan on laying off full-time employees, but it will be cutting temporary workers at some of its facilities.

[Yahoo Finance] Toyota projects first loss in 70 years

Richard Perry sells $67 mil. worth of Sears stock in 4 days

Jacopo Kane — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:24:54 +0000

Richard C. Perry, a board member of Sears Holdings and former Goldman Sachs trader, has been dumping tons of Sears stock in the last few days. Since Monday, he has sold 1,694,952 shares worth a total of $67,668,951.

This could very well be a sign that the company, which closed at $39.14, might be going lower…

[Finviz] Insider trade data for Richard C. Perry of Sears Holding

Zonare yanks its planned IPO

Jacopo Kane — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:52:49 +0000

Zonare, a medical company that manufactures ultrasound equipment, has withdrawn its plan for a stock offering on the Nasdaq. The company filed for its IPO in July which was supposed to raise $86.25 million.

Zonare has said that it might try another private offering — it has raised $171 million this way in the past. Too bad they won’t get a cool ticker on the Nasdaq like ZONE.

[San Jose Biz Journal] Zonare withdraws IPO filing

Sinking Pier 1 had godawful Q3

Jacopo Kane — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:44:42 +0000

Home accessories retailer Pier 1 Imports posted a loss of $36.9 million for the third quarter as its revenues fell 20%. The loss was more than twice the amount that the company lost during the year before.

CEO Alex Smith said that the results were “extremely disappointing, but not a surprise.” Well I’d hope that the results wouldn’t surprise the guy running the show every day…

Mr. Smith also showed his humerous side when he predicted the company would return to profitability in 2010. Good one!

[Yahoo Finance] Pier 1 3Q loss widens amid spending free fall

Newell Rubbermaid cuts forecast; announces layoffs

Jacopo Kane — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:26:04 +0000

Newell Rubbermaid has cut its fourth-quarter earning estimates by more than two thirds because of a “significant deterioration of global economic conditions.” Shares of the company fell 25% on the news.

Rubbermaid also announced that it would be trashing up to 10% of workforce, which is currently 22,500 strong. In addition to this, the company will be freezing wages and temporarily shutting down select production facilities. If anyone has any details, let us know.

[SmartMoney] Newell Rubbermaid Trashed After Warning

Morgan Stanley lost $17,000 per minute last quarter

Jacopo Kane — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:51:43 +0000

Morgan Stanley has just posted a massive $2.3 billion red number for last quarter — far worse than the loss of $298 million that analysts had predicted. Stanley’s CEO, John Mack, pulled from his extensive collection of pre-made economic excuses:

“These exceptional market conditions profoundly impacted our performance this year, especially in the fourth quarter.”

Yeah yeah we know. That’s why you got $10 bil from Uncle Sam.

Liz Claiborne axes quarterly dividend

Jacopo Kane — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:55:49 +0000

The board of directors of fashion company Liz Claiborne has suspended the quarterly dividend indefinitely in order to save the company $21 million per year. The company has recently been cutting costs and shedding brands under its umbrella including Ellen Tracy, Dana Buchman, and Prana.

Why is the company resorting to such drastic measures? A picture is worth 1,000 words:

[CNN] Liz Claiborne Suspends Dividend Indefinitely On Weak Spending