iBankCoin
Joined Nov 23, 2015
40 Blog Posts

Colonel Sanders Is Slaughtering Bears $YUM $MCD

Yesterday Yum! Brands reported results for Q2 which included GAAP EPS (didn’t know companies still cared about GAAP) of $0.81 and EPS excluding SPECIAL ITEMS of $0.75

Yum! Brands has been up nearly 40% since its lows in February and not only that it seems that KFC gets a different spokesperson to play Colonel Sanders every other week, the hell is up with that?

Here’s what went down in Q2:

  • Opened 373 new restaurants worldwide; 72% of international development occurred in emerging markets.
  • On track to finalize China separation with targeted completion date around October 31, 2016.
  • Foreign currency translation negatively impacted operating profit by $16 million.

You can check out the full press release here.

$YUM is currently up nearly 4% in today’s trading while $MCD is up a tad over 1%

I’m quite surprised these two companies are still in the green given the nation’s health craze. Yes obesity is still a problem but Pokemon Go seems to be working to solve that.

 

 

 

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The Store Everyone Forgot Existed, Aeropostale

Aeropostale, the store known for trashy sweatsuits and third world graphic tees, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today and will be closing 20 percent of its stores in America north of the equator. This includes 113 in the United States and all 41 shit-shops in the Great White North.

I would have had no idea this store still existed if it wasn’t for the fact my significant other works there part-time. I could have sworn this once vibrant beacon of retail was left in the early 2000’s.

Aero had once traded over $30 with annual sales over $2B. However, it has since been delisted from the NYSE because well it’s trash. It is currently trading under ticker $AROP OTC for less than 3 cents a share.

Unless the company completely changes their product line and the structure of their stores and how the product is presented, I don’t see them being top dog or even close again.

Only time will tell how this will play out.

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Constellation Investors Tipsy, Stock Up On Earnings $STZ

Constellation Brands Inc $STZ..ya know..the people who bring you alcoholics your Svedka and Corona..well they reported Q4 results with an adjusted EPS of $1.19 compared to an estimated $1.14/share.

Based on the sustained strength of its beer business, Constellation Brands expects adjusted earnings per share for fiscal 2017 in a band of $6.05–$6.35 and GAAP earnings of $6.00–6.30.

Constellation stirred up around $1543.2 million in net revenue which is a 14% YoY increase and beat the $1,526m estimate.

There are also plans for Constellation to purchase The Prisoner Wine Company’s portfolio which will include five wine brans such as Prisoner, Saldo, Cuttings, Blindfold, and Thorn.

Has anyone ever actually had any of these? I’ve never even heard of this crap.

Constellation Brands Inc, $STZ, is currently up nearly 4% in the first 15 minutes of trading today.

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ICYMI: Thermo Fisher Acquires Affymetrix $TMO

On March 31st, Thermo Fisher Scientific completed their acquisition of Affymetrix Inc. This happens as a possible bidding war was circling the horses around the deal between Thermo Fisher and Origin Technologies.

Affymetrix chose Thermo Fisher’s $1.3 billion bid over Origin’s $1.5 billion.

With this acquisition, Thermo Fisher will extend its antibody portfolio will which expand its market share in biosciences and its genetic analysis capabilities.

Thermo Fischer Scientific, $TMO, is currently down nearly 2% on today’s trading session.

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Heart Surgery Now Less Risky? $EW

A minimally invasive procedure called Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) is currently being used for patients that are considered rather unlikely to survive an open heart surgery. These patients are at an intermediate risk of complications.

TAVR involves threading the valve into place through blood vessels using a catheter. Medtronic Plc also sells TAVR systems in the United States.

The Sapien 3 study found that 4.6 percent of patients who received Edwards’ valve had a stroke and 7.4 percent died within a year of their procedure. Among surgery patients, 8.2 percent suffered a stroke and 13 percent died.

The findings of this study will be used by Edwards Lifesciences’ to seek U.S. regulatory approval.

The Sapien 3 study compared 1,078 TAVR patients with outcomes for 944 patients who had open heart surgery in a related trial called Partner II. The Partner II study, presented on Saturday, showed Edwards’ older-model Sapien XT valve was as effective as surgery in intermediate-risk patients.

Edwards Lifesciences is up nearly 15% in the first half hour of Monday’s trading session.

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Snapchat and WWE, Your New Tag Team $WWE

Listen up BROTHER! Snapchat and WWE announced today that they will be bringing a whole new WrestleMania experience to fans this year through a Snapchat Live Story. Ya know, that thing where people decide to post their not so interesting snapchats to an even larger not so interesting story.

This is all part of a multi-year partnership deal between the two companies. What else this partnership entails I have no idea. But with this deal the WWE now has access to Snapchat’s 100 million daily active users so that could be something worth while. Only time will tell.

World Wrestling Entertainment, $WWE is down nearly 2% in today’s trading session.

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Lululemon Is Stretching Their Legs $LULU

LULULEMON REACHES A $2 BILLION REVENUE MILESTONE, so that’s cool.

I don’t think being fit and healthy is just a millennial fad anymore guys..it’s here to stay..I’d say the fact that soda consumption is down a ton is a sign of that. Lululemon is riding the curtails of everyone’s new found love for fitness and such. Hell, my girlfriend must have at least 10 pairs of this stuff. I offered to buy her the stock once instead of the pants..she just doesn’t understand.

$LULU reported Q4 and full year Fiscal 2015 today and they went as such..

Q4:

  • Net revenue for the quarter increased 17% to $704.3 million from $602.5 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014.
  • Total comparable sales, which includes comparable store sales and direct to consumer, increased by 11% for the fourth quarter on a constant dollar basis.
  • Comparable store sales for the fourth quarter increased by 5% on a constant dollar basis and direct to consumer net revenue increased 33% on a constant dollar basis.
  • Direct to consumer net revenue increased 28% to $146.3 million, or 20.8% of total Company net revenue, in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015, an increase from 19.0% of total Company net revenue in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014.
  • Gross profit for the quarter increased by 14% to $354.5 million, and as a percentage of net revenue gross profit was 50.3% for the quarter compared to 51.5% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014.
  • Income from operations for the quarter increased by 6% to $166.3 million, and as a percentage of net revenue was 23.6% compared to 26.1% of net revenue in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014.
  • Income tax expense for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 was $49.8 million compared to $48.1 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 29.8% compared to 30.3% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014.
  • Diluted earnings per share for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 were $0.85 compared to $0.78 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014.
  • During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015, the Company repurchased 2.1 million shares of the Company’s common stock at an average cost of $49.52 per share.

Fiscal 2015:

  • Net revenue for the fiscal year increased 15% to $2.1 billion from $1.8 billion in fiscal 2014.
  • Total comparable sales increased by 10% for fiscal 2015 on a constant dollar basis.
  • Comparable store sales increased 4% on a constant dollar basis for fiscal 2015 and direct to consumer net revenue increased 30% on a constant dollar basis. Company-operated stores which have been open for at least one year averaged sales of $1,541 per square foot.
  • Direct to consumer net revenue increased 25% to $401.5 million, or 19.5% of total Company net revenue in fiscal 2015, an increase from 17.9% of total Company net revenue in fiscal 2014.
  • Gross profit for fiscal 2015 increased by 9% to $997.2 million, from $914.2 million in fiscal 2014, and as a percentage of net revenue was 48.4% compared to 50.9% in fiscal 2014.
  • Income from operations for fiscal 2015 decreased by 2% to $369.1 million, from $376.0 million in fiscal 2014. As a percentage of net revenue, income from operations decreased to 17.9% compared to 20.9% of net revenue in fiscal 2014.
  • Income tax expense for fiscal 2015 was $102.4 million, which includes a net income tax recovery of $7.4 million related to the Company’s transfer pricing arrangements and estimated taxes associated with the repatriation of foreign earnings. The effective tax rate was 27.8% for fiscal 2015 compared to 37.6% for fiscal 2014. The effective tax rate excluding certain tax and related interest adjustments would have been 29.5% for fiscal 2015 compared to 28.8% for fiscal 2014.
  • Diluted earnings per share for fiscal 2015 were $1.89 compared to $1.66 in fiscal 2014. Excluding the above tax and related interest adjustments, diluted earnings per share were $1.86 for fiscal 2015 compared to $1.89 in fiscal 2014.

Lululemon Athlethica, $LULU is currently up nearly 8% in today’s session with a long way to go.

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Spotify Raises Funding at $1 Billion $P

I was just saying the other day how Pandora is a cruddy music service and that Spotify is much, much better. Well this morning, it was announced that Spotify had raised $1B in convertible debt through the likes of private equity firm TPG, hedge fund Dragoneer, and some people over at Goldman Sachs.

Essentially Spotify is giving guarantees for its new backers that are tied to a potential IPO, which could mean trouble for those jerks over at Pandora.

Some specifics of the deal..

If the company decides to hold a public offering in the next year, TPG and Dragoneer can convert their debt into equity at a 20 percent discount to Spotify’s IPO pricing

Spotify will also pay annual interest on the debt that starts at 5 percent and increases by 1 percentage point every 6 months until the company goes public, or until its debt obligations rise to 10 percent. – Benzinga

Mark my words, Spotify will reign supreme over Pandora.

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F*#K Yahoo, Somebody Buyout Twitter! $YHOO $TWTR

Disclaimer: I own shares of Twitter and have lost a decent amount of money on this shitty ticker.

As our Master and Commander Fly pointed out here, along with the rest of the financial world, Yahoo set an April 11th deadline for a bidding war for their shitty company.

Yahoo really is a piece of shit company and Marissa Mayer has done a terrible job. I would compare her to that speech Frank Underwood gave in season 3. She was there to help herself, not help the company. But this isn’t about her or Yahoo..it’s about Twitter, the other shitty company.

There is no denying how Twitter has changed the game in all facets. From the way we receive breaking news, to the way we digest just how f’n dumb the mass population is. However, Twitter doesn’t know how to listen to their market. If the company would curate information and tweets to the most relevant stuff to what you want, that’d be sweet I think..

I remember during the NBA finals you could click on their custom hashtag and it would take you to the top tweets page with the current time and score of the game in the banner. Now that was was relevant shit! What if Twitter did that for just about everything! Click on a cashtag and it gives you the current stock price..current poll numbers for the election..just about anything that can be quantified.

Look at this banner, it’s plain and ugly.

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Jack Dorsey is too focused on making the product pretty. Who gives a shit about hearts! I think Twitter is deviating from what it does best, bringing timely information to your faces.

To their other problem..user growth..something about people don’t understand how to use it..maybe this is the millennial in me but how is this hard to use..c’mon. Sure Twitter can do a better job going through and finding the power users to follow and create more lists for relevant topics..but really it isn’t all the difficult of a product to use.

With all the rumors popping up every few months or so that some tech giant is interested in buying Twitter…I just wish they would do it already. Not so much to save my shares..there is no saving them now..but because Twitter could be this great product and the management is out of their god damn minds. C’mon Google, pull the trigger and do us all a favor.

Anyway, if this migration off of Twitter continues you can find me on Snapchat: amorekin, and there is also a FinTwit Slack channel used by some pretty prominent people in the Financial Twittersphere

Now go forth and spread the word!

PS: Twitter’s stock didn’t suck with Dick Costolo…just saying.

 

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ICYMI: Facebook Doesn’t Know Where Pakistan Is $FB

Facebook’s ‘Safety Check’ system that they launched back in 2014 is actually a pretty nifty feature. It was created, to my knowledge, to help relatives and friends alike know the status of those they know in disaster affected areas of the world.

Over the weekend there was a deadly explosion near Lahore, Pakistan which unfortunately left 65 people dead and over 300 injured. Facebook’s code for this program however glitches and tons of people all over received notifications asking whether or not they were in the affected zone and safe.

Twitter’s resident cheerleader posted about it and it was actually how I first found out.

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Facebook later apologized for the screw up.

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