Filed under: Technical Analysis, Personal finance, Bargain stocks, Stocks to Buy

It’s time to wrap up our list of 10 stocks under $10. The list was culled from a large grouping of momentum names that have outperformed on a relative-strength basis during the short and intermediate term. The selection was filtered to eliminate any stocks trading above the $10 region, naturally, and then adjusted for other fundamental, technical, and sentiment factors. I hope you’ve had fun learning about some potential bargains for your portfolio and hearing the stories behind some equities that you’ve likely not come across in your daily investing research.

The last entry (and these have been in no particular order, by the way) is Allos Therapeutics (NASDAQ: ALTH). The pharmaceutical company is hard at work on technology that improves existing cancer medications. According to Hoovers Online, ALTH’s current lead drug candidate — PDX — is in trials to combat T-cell lymphoma. Some of the firm’s other proposed treatments work to fight solid tumors and lymphoma.

Continue reading 10 Stocks Under $10: Allos Therapeutics (ALTH)

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Filed under: Major movement, Earnings reports, Forecasts, Bad news, From the boards, Products and services, Management, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Wal-Mart (WMT), Home Depot (HD), Marketing and advertising, Target Corp. (TGT), Sears Holdings (SHLD)

Shares of Sears Holding Corp. (NYSE: SHLD) have been taking a beating in today’s action after a dismal third quarter earnings report this morning. At one point shares had dipped as much as 16%, but with an hour left to go in the session shares have moved slightly higher, only showing a 12% drop as shares are trading down $14 to $101.56.

If you ask me, the stock is doing better than it probably should, considering just how poor this morning’s report was. Analysts had been expecting to see the retailer show net income of 53 cents per share for its third quarter. The actual net income? ONE PENNY! It is not often that you see such a miss.

During 2007 the company showed earnings of 80 cents for its third quarter, and today’s report represents the largest year over year drop in income since Sears and K-Mart merged back in 2005, and the first consecutive quarter earnings decline.

Continue reading Sears (SHLD) gets beat up after posting 99% drop in net income

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Filed under: Products and services, Launches, Apple Inc (AAPL), Technology

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)’s iPhone landed in France yesterday, just in time for the holiday shopping season. As expected, the iPhone culture instantly took hold with one waiting iPhone customer wanting to “buy the first iPhone in Paris.” Talk about someone needing their 15 minutes.

France Telecom, which operates the Orange wireless carrier in that country, said it wanted to be able to claim 100,000 iPhone sales this year, which gives it a month to make that sales figure.

Wireless consumers in Europe, though, are generally used to more advanced equipment than what U.S. customers receive, and the slower 2.5G network that the current iPhone operates on, plus its high price (just under $1,000), may turn off some customers in France and other European countries. So far, though, those limitations have not slowed iPhone sales in the U.S.

Apple will be launching the iPhone in Asia next year. With dreams of 10 million unit sales in 2008, Apple has quite a few sales to make next year. With a launch in Asia, though, it should be able to make that number quite easily based on population density alone.

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Filed under: Earnings reports, Expedia Inc (EXPE), Technical Analysis, Vonage Holdings (VG), Stocks to Buy

PeopleSupport (NASDAQ: PSPT) provides business process outsourcing services from facilities in the Philippines. Company personnel handle customer service calls, technical support questions, marketing campaigns and collections. The firm also transcribes voice recordings and captions television content. Services are offered via telephone, e-mail and Web chat. Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE) and Vonage Holdings (NYSE: VG) are major customers.

The firm surprised the Street earlier in the month, when it reported Q3 EPS of 27 cents and revenues of $36.9 million. Analysts had been expecting 6 cents and $34.7 million. Management also guided Q4 EPS to 28-29 cents (4 cent consensus), Q4 revenues to $35.7-$36.5 million ($34.8M consensus), FY07 EPS to 84-85 cents (42 cent consensus) and FY07 revenues to $140.6-$141.4 million ($137.5M consensus). The stock popped on the news and then moved into a bullish “flag” consolidation pattern. Prices frequently exit flags moving in the same direction they were traveling when they entered them. In this case, that would be to the upside.

Continue reading PeopleSupport (PSPT) shares form a bullish “flag” pattern

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Filed under: Private equity, Bank of America (BAC)

The ailing private equity market got some relief today. TPG agreed to shell out $1.3 billion for Axcan Pharma (NASADQ: AXCA). There was also debt financing from Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and HSBC Holdings Plc.

Founded in the early 1980s, Axcan has built a solid franchise in the field of gastroenterology. The company’s products help with things like inflammatory bowel disease, cholestatic liver diseases, and irritable bowel syndrome. Their market has been mostly in North America and Europe.

Axcan also reported its full-year results today. Revenues increased 19.4% to $348.9 million and net income was up 68.4% to $1.33 per share.

To continue the growth — and justify the hefty valuation — it looks like TPG will get more aggressive in global markets. In light of the company’s innovative product line, this strategy should get some traction.

So far in today’s trading, Axcan’s stock price is up 24% to $22.55.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

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Filed under: Technical Analysis, Personal finance, Bargain stocks, Stocks to Buy

General Moly (AMEX: GMO) is a mining company that specializes in mineral development and exploration in central Nevada. On November 19, the company announced a strategic alliance with ArcelorMittal (NYSE: MT), which includes MT’s purchase of 8.2 million shares at $8.50 per share, for a net investment of about $70 million. After this transaction, MT will own roughly 12.6% of GMO’s outstanding shares. GMO will in turn supply approximately 6.5 million pounds of molybdenum each year for five years once its Mt. Hope deposit begins production.

GMO shares have been moving higher since February, when they collided into their 10-month and 20-month moving averages after months of sideways consolidation. Since this impact, the stock has nearly quadrupled in value to hit a new all-time high.

Currently, from a shorter-term perspective, the stock is pulling back to test double-barreled support around the $8.50 level. Not only is this the site of the security’s July 2007 valuation (former resistance can come back and serve as support), but it is currently home to GMO’s rising 10-day moving average as well.

Continue reading 10 Stocks Under $10: General Moly (GMO)

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Filed under: Bad news, Consumer experience, Economic data, Housing

For the first time in the last 13 years, new home prices marked a quarterly decline during the third quarter. In news that is sure to raise more concerns over the troubling housing market, a new government report showed that new home prices dipped by 0.4 percent between July and September.

While prices fell in the quarter, they were still slightly higher from the third quarter last year. When compared to the same period last year, prices were only 1.8 percent higher. This is the smallest one-year increase since 1995.

The report stated that there are still some pockets of the country that are seeing robust price appreciation, but the price weakening is now being experienced in a “significant portion of the country,” with prices dropping in 20 states.

Continue reading Home prices see first third-quarter decline in 13 years

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Filed under: Industry, Amazon.com (AMZN)

Yesterday, the guesses were lined up about this past Monday’s online traffic and sales figures. Well, the traffic figures are official now, and online traffic on Cyber Monday jumped 26% over last year’s levels. If consumer spending is slowing down this winter due to energy prices and credit crunches, it sure did not show this past Monday.

Hitwise, an internet traffic reporting firm, released initial figures that showed Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) rise to the top of the most-visited retail website list on Monday. It’s interesting to note that Hitwise also stated that this was the third annual Cyber Monday in a row where growth was seen. Amid talk of slower holiday retail sales this year, could it be that customers are moving those purchases from the early morning hours of Black Friday to the comfortable office mouse clicking environment of the following Monday?

Hitwise recorded a 26% increase to the Hitwise 100 Retail Index this year (the top 100 retail websites) compared to November 27, 2006 levels. The largest growth areas this year on Cyber Monday were the electronics and video games categories.

Continue reading Cyber Monday traffic up 26% over 2006

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Filed under: Major movement, Technical Analysis, DJIA, Federal Reserve

The Dow enjoyed a large and technically significant upside day Wednesday, but as noted on BloggingStocks, and probably by other analysts, keep in mind that “A bottom is a process and not an event” and that “One or two up days does not a trend make.”

Other points to remain aware of while watching Thursday’s session:

The Dow, which closed at 13,289.45, closed above the critical 200-day moving average at 13,244.12 — the toughest moving average to break. (The 200-day moving average is the red line on the price bar portion of this chart.)

The battle

Currently, a battle is going on between the institutional investment bulls and bears and it involves, oh, about $3-$4 trillion or so, give or take a few hundred billion dollars.

Right now, even after Wednesday’s 330-point rise, the contest is advantage: bears. There are still many unknowns regarding the subprime mortgage/asset sector, oil prices remain elevated, and there are signs of a U.S. economic slowdown.

Continue reading Fed be nimble, Fed be quick

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Filed under: Internet, Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), Marketing and advertising, Adobe Systems (ADBE), Technology

Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) has landed a blow in its ongoing tilt with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) for online advertising supremacy, announcing a deal with Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE) to add dynamic ads into PDF documents distributed over the web.

Good on Yahoo for sifting out another scrap of free web space to stick an ad on — the leading web portal depends primarily on ad revenue, and this should add a little to its bottom line, or at the very least, keep Google from capitalizing. Newsletters, e-zines and other PDF providers should also benefit from a little more ad revenue without the fuss of negotiating rates and artwork from their sponsors.

With an easier means to embed ads in the document, niche content providers are that much more likely to adopt the PDF as a medium. And the ads don’t show up on print-outs — welcome news to folks concerned about the integrity of their content.

On news of the deal, Adobe was trading up 1.31% at $42.58 Thursday afternoon, while Yahoo sat at $26.32, 0.46% higher.

Continue reading Yahoo to deliver ads through Adobe PDFs

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