Tag: shares

Sophos sees shares jump

Posted on May 27, 2016 by - News

David-Lee-Roth-JumpOxfordshire security outfit Sophos has seen its shares jump after its sales figures for its first financial year as a publicly traded company shot through the roof.

Shares in Sophos went up by four per cent after it announced its first set of financial results as a publicly traded company. The security company floated on the London Stock Exchange last year and has drifted into billings growth of 19.7 per cent to $534.9 million in the 12 months ended March 31.

Cash earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation were up 31.6 per cent, to $120.9 million.

Sophos chief executive Kris Hagerman said that he was jolly pleased of the outfit’s strong performance during our first year as a public company.”

“The year has been marked by sustained strength across all major regions and product categories, with our financial and operational performance exceeding the Board’s expectations set at the start of the year and at the upper-end of our revised outlook.

“Our leading product portfolio, innovation to drive our strategy of synchronised security, commitment to ‘security made simple’ and ‘channel first’ sales strategy enabled us to grow our billings and revenue across both new and existing customers,” he added.

 

Snapchat CEO wanted $40 million behind the scenes

Posted on December 17, 2014 by - News

Evan_Spiegel,_founder_of_Snapchat The Sony hacking has revealed that Snapchat, and its CEO Evan Spiegel might have been involved in trying to get himself some lucrative deals involving secondary shares in the company.

According to Business Insider  the inbox of Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton was exposed by the hackers. Lynton is a Snapchat board member, and the emails from him to another Snapchat board member Mitch Lasky of Benchmark Capital are exposed.

In November of 2013, the pair suggested that Spiegel may have tried to get $40 million flogging secondary shares of his company.  Secondary shares give company insiders some of an investor’s money in exchange for stock.

On October 31 at 2:43, Lasky wrote that Spiegel proposed a new deal today to Tencent that includes $40 million in secondary shares for him. Lasky was cross he was never told about it.

At the time, Snapchat had rejected an acquisition offer from Facebook. New emails confirm the offer was over $3 billion.

Snapchat never raised money from Tencent. It was reportedly in talks to raise $200 million. Tencent was a previous investor. And Spiegel had previously taken $10 million for him and his cofounder off the table.

Snapchat raised $50 million a month later from Coatue, a hedge fund with offices in New York and Silicon Valley. Its Silicon Valley offices are on Sand Hill road, right next to Andreessen Horowitz, and the rest of tech’s elite venture capitalists.

We will never know if Spiegel and his cofounder ever got their $40 million.

Apple shares tank

Posted on December 2, 2014 by - News

You-Gun-It-When-We-PushWall Street watched in horror yesterday as the value of shares in the industry darling, Apple shares plummeted faster than a free fall parachuting team of elephants which had forgotten to pack the key ingredient of their act.

Apple shares tumbled shortly after the start of trading on Monday, briefly suffering their largest price drop in at least three months on an unusual spike in volume.

More than 6.7 million shares trading in a one-minute stretch, the heaviest minute of trading in Apple since October 29.

The stock lost over three percent in that minute, falling as much as 6.4 percent to $111.27. At midafternoon, it was down three percent to $115.45. The Tame Apple press did its best to insist that the share drop was nothing to do with Apple. They claimed it was all down to algorithmic trading which put Apple on sell.

Reuters was a bit huffy that computers had dared to say its favourite computer company was worth less than it was in the morning. The HFT has been criticised for affecting the trading of stocks by sending in numerous trade quotes that slow quote activity – without filling the trades when shares fall, it wrote.

However, other analysts disagreed. Bill Harts, chief executive officer of Modern Markets Initiative, an advocate of high-speed electronic markets said that determining the cause of the decline was not so simple. “The fact is we don’t yet know what caused the drop, and blaming it on HFT is misleading.”

Morgan Stanley strategists dropped Apple’s weighting in their strategic portfolio to three percent from four percent in an equity outlook note released Monday, but traders said the swiftness of the decline was too dramatic to be attributed solely to the note, which was released before trading opened.

It might have been the Morgan Stanley news that rather stimulated the event, but not enough to cause such a decline, analysts claim.

 

Intel shares could rise by 30 percent

Posted on November 25, 2014 by - News

hopeWhile some have decided that Intel will go the way of the Dodo, it appears that the analysts Barrons disagree.

The outfit’s augury division has walked a compliant white bull into the temple of Juno, read its steaming entrails, and concluded that Intel will do rather well.

It thinks that shares in Chipzilla will rise more than 30 percent to $48 over the next two years.

The logic is that with shares its recently at over $35, Intel stock is halfway to the five-year doubling Barron’s said it predicted in June of 2013.

Barron’s said that in two years’ time, the 30 percent rise would put shares trading at around 16 times future earnings estimates, the same price to 2014 earnings ratio that it now trades at.

Intel has few fans among the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street, suggesting plenty of popularity to be gained. Intel is strategically running a deep loss in its mobile-chip division in order to make up for its late start.

However, Barron insists that might be a good thing. Shrinking those losses to break-even in future years will uncover earnings power in the rest of the company that is currently hidden.

However there is a lot of scepticism about Intel—just 40 percent of analysts who cover the shares say to buy them.

Earnings per share are expected to climb 19 percent this year to $2.25, which looks like excellent growth, except that earnings first topped $2 a share back in 2010, said a Barron.

However Barrons did not see everything as lilly white in the ox’s liver.  It thinks that while Intel is on track to ship a promised 40 million tablet chips this year, versus just a million or so two years ago, its mobile division will likely lose about $4 billion in the process. That is partly due to “contra revenues,” which are effectively rebates to spur demand while Intel closes the cost gap to rivals on low-end multifunction chips.

Next year Intel expects the division’s loss to shrink by only $800 million. However, by then, it expects to sell a full range of tablet chips, ranging from cheap models called SoFIA, which have integrated wireless function, to pricier Cherry Trail chips for zippy performance at low power. Analysts see the mobile unit achieving positive gross profit margins by 2016.

So if you are thinking about making a quick buck from Intel you might want to wait until this period is over before investing your nest-egg.

 

 

Ebay may change mind on Paypal

Posted on August 22, 2014 by - News

janus1Online auction outfit Ebay has changed its mind about Paypal and might spin off the fast growing unit.

For a while now it has been suggested that Ebay should off-load Paypal to make a fast buck. In fact, activist investor Carl Icahn has said as much. But EBay CEO John Donahoe said that PayPal was important to eBay’s business and a split would not make sense.

However, EBay told potential candidates for the position of PayPal chief executive officer, a post that David Marcus vacated in June, about a possible spinoff of the payments unit.

EBay spokeswoman Amanda Miller clearly did not get the memo and insisted that that board will continue to “assess all alternatives to create that long-term value and to enhance the growth and competitive positions of both eBay and PayPal.” This position has not changed said.

It is a little odd that Ebay is thinking about it. Donahoe won Icahn  over to his point of view. Ichan backed off from his demand in April, saying that while he supported a PayPal split in the near future, now was not the time. Although that was April and thinks might have changed by the end of the year.

eBay gets ever so bullish

Posted on March 29, 2013 by - News

smartphone-shoppingeBay has driven up its share value after making bold forecasting claims.

In its forecast of annual earnings the net giant said it would push for an earnings growth  of 15 percent to 19 percent over the next three years.

Speaking to investors yesterday the company’s head honchos said this was mean a projected revenue of $21.5 billion to $23.5 billion in 2015, compared to $14 billion in 2012.

They said this would be made possible through the company’s global expansion as well as drilling down focus in local commerce areas.

They added that the company would also embrace the mobile trends more fully.

And there was a good news for the company’s marketplaces business, which hosts external merchants will bring in around $110 billion in sales in 2015, a huge jump from the $75 billion in 2012.

The bold claims have now seen its shares rise by more than four percent, a feat which is sure to impress shareholders and show that chief executive John Donahoe, who joined the company in 2009, has fulfilled part of his promise to get the company back on track after it fell on the wayside amidst strong competition from Amazon.