Month: June 2012

The Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task and Henry Blodget discuss the economy, U.S. presidential race

Greece is the hot topic at the annual meeting of the Institute of International Finance in Copenhagen. The world’s leading bankers, policymakers and economists are considering the possibility of Greece leaving the euro.

Ulta Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance (NASDAQ:ULTA) is seeing positive gains in early trading today over positive earnings results and guidance.The company reported its first quarter earnings yesterday, posting an EPS of $0.54, an almost 50% increase from the prior year period and above the average analyst estimate of $0.48.Revenue for the quarter rose 22.8% year-over-year to $474.1 million, also above analyst estimates of $467.8 million.For the second quarter, the company sees revenue in the range of $466-$473 million with an EPS between $0.49-$0.51 per share. Analysts are expecting $497 million in revenue with an EPS of $0.55 a share.Despite missing estimates for guidance, the positive earning results have sparked investors interests. The company is trading almost 9% higher to $95.05 in early trading.

The Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task talks to Joseph Stiglitz on the fate of Europe.

It looks like AT&T will be making the next splash as they claim to be considering Data Only plans for their smart phones and mobile devices. The idea springs from a continually decreasing amount of phone calls being made from web-ready devices and an increase of free web-based replacements, like Skype, which allow a user to make calls, video chat, and text.Instead of a person buying both a phone plan for calls and texting, and then a separate plan for the data used to connect to the web, AT&T is weighing the options. And there is a lot riding on them.Most of a phone company’s revenue comes from the fluctuating minutes and text messaging packages versus the fixed rate data plans. By going data only, their income will be severely crimped. So perhaps then they will hike up data plan prices. But that won’t be popular and again, they will lose revenue as phone companies actually charge each other for connecting calls. Another avenue would be to charge the specific websites for the traffic they have. But this might give large, established sites an edge over small start-up sites. There isn’t a clear solution yet, but AT&T is working on it tirelessly, claiming that in the next few years, Data Only will be the way to go.

Investors are digesting a slew of economic information today. An early rally sparked by China’s decision to lower interest rates was tempered as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before the Joint Economic Committee.

Going back Europe: ECB President Mario Draghi left the rate at 1%. For the one who hoped for a cheaper loan, sorry, that’s not happening. Draghi did leave the door open for an interest rate cut, but that probably won’t happen until after the Greek election on June 17. ECB also announced new economic forecasts. It expects the European economy to contract 0.1% this year as before and lowered its 2013 growth forecast from 1.1% to 1%. Inflation expectation remains at 2.4% for 2012 and 1.6% for 2013. Eurozone unemployment rate already reached 11%, so let’s see if this needed interest rate cut will happen in July.

Tenn. teachers prepare for new finance course

Remember on the morning of the Facebook listing, shares did not begin trading until about half an hour after the scheduled time? There was a glitch and NASDAQ is coming forward to compensate the parties involved. $40m will be paid to the trading firms who incurred losses because of the technical mistakes caused orders not going through. Knight Capital, UBS, Citigroup and Citadel are among the group and they will receive up to $13.7m in cash. The rest will be paid in the form for reduced trading fees in the next six months because SEC prevents exchanges like the NASDAQ to pay out more $3m for trading losses in any given month. NASDAQ made $10.7m on the opening day of Facebook alone. Investors wanted to buy the stock, so NASDAQ passively held short positions and ended up making more money. NASDAQ asked trading firms to request the compensation by June 20 and will need the SEC to sign off.

Bargain hunters are wise to pay careful attention to insider buying, because although there are many various reasons for an insider to sell a stock, presumably the only reason they would use their hard-earned dollars to make a purchase, is that they expect to make money. Today we look at two noteworthy recent insider buys.