Schnitzer Steel Industries (SCHN) a maker of recycled ferrous metal products, reported earnings that beat estimates on Monday. Revenue rose 20 percent to $812 million, though net profit from continuing operations fell to $7 million, or 25 cents a share, from $18 million, or 64 cents a share, in the same period last year.
Japan Airlines Co., which exited bankruptcy last year, is planning an IPO that could net as much as 1 trillion yen ($13 billion USD) as early as September, according to two sources familiar with the matter.The government-backed fund that holds 97% of JAL’s voting rights and other investors are considering selling 500 billion yen to 1 trillion yen of shares, the sources indicated to Bloomberg.JAL’s spokesman declined to comment.
Teekay Corporation (TK) maintained its quarterly dividend of 31.625 cents per share. The dividend is payable on January 31, 2012 to all shareholders of record as at January 20, 2012.
TD Ameritrade (AMTD) was upgraded at Deutsche Bank (DB) from hold to buy with an $18 price target as the firm believes that the brokerage stocks will outperform exchange stocks in the near term. Shares are higher by over 1.6 percent.
Encana (ECA) was downgraded today by BMO (BMO) from outperform to market perform with a $20 price target. Warmer than average temperatures have led to lower demand for natural gas and a weaker outlook for prices.
After Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) appointed a new CEO yesterday, Jefferies downgraded the company’s stock to Hold from Buy. The stock closed yesterday at $15.78 on volume of 35,633,800 shares, above the average daily volume of 20,286,228.In the past 52-weeks, shares of Yahoo! have traded between a low of $11.09 and a high of $18.84 and are now at $15.78, which is 42.3% above that low price.Yahoo! is currently above its 50-day moving average (MA) of $15.70 and above its 200-day MA of $15.31.
Nokia suggested this morning to Bloomberg Businessweek that they consider Risto Siilasmaa one of the leading candidates to replace Chairman Jorma Ollila. Siilasmaa is the founder of software maker F-Secure Oyj, best known for it’s computer back up and antivirus software. Nokia has declined to comment on the matter, which still has yet to be confirmed since their nominating committee still has yet to be convened. If Nokia follows tradition, board changes will be announced by the end of January.Risto Siilasmaa joined Nokia’s board in 2008, and has seen the company lose two thirds of it’s market share in the past four years. With the promotion of Siilasmaa, Nokia hopes to regain a foothold in the smartphone market- a market that it used to dominate.Nokia is currently trading up from $5.08 to $5.33.Nokia (NYSE:NOK) has potential upside of 30.9% based on a current price of $5.32 and an average consensus analyst price target of $6.96.
More positive economic news this morning. The U.S. Labor Department reported initial jobless claims fell again last week by 15,000 to 372,000 compared to analyst expectations of 373,000.Claims from two weeks ago were revised up to 387,000 from 381,000 while the average of new claims over the past four weeks dropped by 3,250 to 373,250.The Labor Department also reported 7.22 million people received some kind of state or federal benefit in the week ended December 17, down 8,311 from the prior week.This is a positive outlook on unemployment in the United States. Claims have now fallen in four of the last five weeks to its lowest level since June 2008.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Taiwan-based Elan Microelectronics settled a patent infringement lawsuit, resulting in Apple paying the touch design company $5 million in damages.The companies also intend to exchange authorizations to use each other’s patents.In 2009, Elan sued Apple in the US over two patents infringements, and Apple later counter-sued the company. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has potential upside of 23.1% based on a current price of $413.44 and an average consensus analyst price target of $509.09.
