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.....Nvidia, Intellectual Ventures acquires 500 patents
(Reuters) - Nvidia Corp and Intellectual Ventures said they have jointly acquired a portfolio of 500 wireless communications patents from IPWireless.
The portfolio comprises of patents granted and pending in the wireless communications area, including Long Term Evolution (LTE), LTE-Advanced and 3G/4G technologies, the companies said in a joint statement.
Terms of the deal, which closed on April 30, were not disclosed.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-intellectual-ventures-acquires-500-132627072.html
Nvidia shares jump on results, outlook
Chipmaker cites gains in graphics, mobile market
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Shares of Nvidia Corp. were up sharply on Friday after the chipmaker reported lower first-quarter profit and sales, but issued an outlook that topped Wall Street expectations.
Adjusted for the effects of stock-based compensation and other one-time charges, Nvidia said earnings would have been 16 cents a share for the recent period.............Analysts were expecting the semiconductor company to report a profit of 10 cents a share, on revenue of $916 million, according to a consensus survey by FactSet Research............
For the second quarter, Nvidia predicted revenue in the range of between $990 million and $1.05 billion. Analysts were expecting revenue of $978 million for the period.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nvidia-shares-jump-on-results-outlook-2012-05-11?siteid=yhoof2
Rackspace Hosting's CEO Discusses Q1 2012 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
May 7, 2012 | about: RAX
http://seekingalpha.com/article/567711-rackspace-hosting-s-ceo-discusses-q1-2012-results-earnings-call-transcript
That author has hardly ever had a good thing to say about RAX, but I'm paying attention. I didn't listen to the call so I'll read the transcript later.
Here's another take, which talks about opening up OpenStack.
Rackspace Gets Punished for Being Smart
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/05/08/rackspace-gets-punished-for-being-smart.aspx
Wow. Potentially add $1B in revenue ! I own some T.
Different subject... did you see Falcone has garnered yet another one week extension on the debt payment? Something must be cooking there. Sure is a convoluted mess.
Here’s Why Rackspace Shares Are Crashing 14%
http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/heres-why-rackspace-shares-are-crashing-14.html/
Rackspace Hosting Earnings: Margins Expand, Misses Street Estimates
http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/rackspace-hosting-earnings-margins-expand-misses-street-estimates.html/
Nvidia: Nomura Ups to Buy; Likely Beat on FYQ1.
May 7, 2012, 10:49 A.M. ET. By Tiernan Ray
Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) are up 22 cents, almost 2%, at $12.48 after Nomura Equity Research’s Romit Shah raised his rating on the stock to Buy from Neutral, while maintaining his $16 price target, writing “enough is enough,” that the stock has an enviable 20% free cash flow yield based on its enterprise value, and trades at just one times sales, the same level where it bottomed in 2010.
“The market is not assigning any value to Tegra, in our view,” writes Shah, “considering $5 in net cash, Intel royalties ($1.00) and a graphics business that is conservatively worth $7-8 per share.”
The company’s fiscal Q1 results, to be reported Friday, will likely beat the consensus 9 cents a share in profit by a penny, Shah writes, on $915 million in revenue, just below the average $916 million estimate.
Shah sees 75 cents a share in profit this year, above the average 67 cents estimate, driven by share gains against Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in graphics chips, as the company wins business at Apple (AAPL) and “other mainstream desktop and notebook platforms.”
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2012/05/07/nvidia-nomura-ups-to-buy-likely-beat-on-fyq1/?mod=google_news_blog
Consensus analyst quarterly eps estimates are showing growth. IMO, this recent weakness in share price has been a good time to buy/add to NVDA.
Apr 2012 0.10
Jul 2012 0.14
Oct 2012 0.21
http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/nvda/earnings-forecast
Q1 2012 Rackspace Hosting, Inc. Earnings Conference Call
Monday, May 7, 2012 4:30 p.m. ET
consensus eps is 0.17 (high 0.19; low 0.15, by 17 analysts)
http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/rax/earnings-forecast
Judge urges more deliberations in Android case
By Dan Levine
SAN FRANCISCO | Fri May 4, 2012 5:00pm EDT
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A judge urged jurors to resume deliberating Oracle Corp's copyright claims against Google over the Android mobile platform, after they indicated there was unanimous agreement on all but one of the questions they must decide."It's worth you going home over weekend," District Judge William Alsup told the jurors, adding that deliberations in the federal court in San Francisco should continue next week.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/04/us-oracle-google-trial-idUSBRE84219120120504
ok last on IDCC since I know this is the VHC board., but lastt Nov IV signed a license agreement with LG, giving LG access to 35,000 patents in 52 technology areas. LG gets access to patents outside their core.
I think IV is a good bet to have purchased some of IDCCs non core patents.
http://www.intellectualventures.com/newsroom/pressreleases/11-11-08/LG_Electronics_Enters_License_Agreement_with_Intellectual_Ventures.asp
VHC uses outside experts in licensing, and I think a similar arrangement with IV would be good for IDCC.
http://virnetx.com/?page_id=85
OT: Regarding the IDCC patent sale, I wouldn't be surprised if Intellectual Ventures (one of IDCC's partners in the Nortel bid)
was a buyer.
LOL.......next time I'll be sure and bring over only things you post...not.
Sheesh to you, too.
by jstevenbaker posted on IV
Icing on your cake, sir?
What a great day for VirnetX! It has been nearly two years exactly since the Microsoft settlement/license, a victory that secured the funding and precedent for the full Monty.
My Long friends, this is the start of a what we have waited for and defended for some time. Yet with the sweetness of this pivotal day, is it possible that we got extra icing or sprinkles on the top? I believe so.
We basically have two suits; 1) Cisco/Apple/NEC/Aastra (now dismissed), and 2) Mitel, Siemens, and Avaya
Although Asstra is clearly the runt in litter #1, still...they are party to #1. This means to a limited extent Aastra counsel was plugged-in to all the information and legal strategy as the gorillas in the pack. Aastra counsel participated in the Markman and their counsel has likely engaged in the post-Markman de-brief with the other Defendant's counsel. It is safe to assume that what they heard is, "our clients have a few serious problems." If this were not the conclusion, Aastra would have continued to ride Cisco/Apple's coattails.
This scenario speaks volumes to me. It is official now. One Defendant has broken ranks, and that Defendant is equally informed as those who have not yet settled. This is like a cop/detective strategy; where you separate the suspects in different rooms and work them over one-by-one until the SMARTEST guy in the bunch takes the best plea deal and rats out the others. Therefore, building the Prosecution’s case.
There is no explaining how well positioned VirnetX is after this "one-time payment and ongoing royalties" settlement agreement. There will be volatility, no doubt. That will be your best opportunity to acquire any shares. Make no mistake, you are going to see some big boys coming in and wanting a piece of the action now that they see the thaw in the ice.
Consider this, this PR hit during regular trading hours, not after or before the bell, the middle of trading. We do not know when the next shoe is going to drop. The shoe might be Judge Shaw at the ITC putting his up Apple's back side. And there is no way in hell I will be caught out of position.
I don't know about you, but I feel like I got the sprinkles on my cone...
http://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=8852&mn=21048&pt=msg&mid=11695040
Nice, great news. The Markman ruling may really get the 'licensing ball' rolling now.
Martin Midstream Partners L.P. ("the Partnership") reported net income for the first quarter of 2012 of $10.5 million, or $0.40 per limited partner unit. This compared to net income for the first quarter of 2011 of $7.3 million, or $0.31 per limited partner unit. Revenues for the first quarter of 2012 were $338.3 million compared to $283.0 million for the first quarter of 2011.
For the quarter ended March 31, 2012, net income was not impacted by non-cash derivative losses. For the first quarter of 2011, net income was impacted negatively by $0.5 million, or $0.02 per limited partner unit, in non-cash derivatives net losses from certain commodity and interest rate hedges that are subject to mark-to-market accounting.
The Partnership's distributable cash flow for the first quarter of 2012 was $22.8 million. Distributable cash flow is a non-GAAP financial measure which is explained in greater detail below under "Use of Non-GAAP Financial Information." The Partnership has also included below a table entitled "Distributable Cash Flow" in order to show the components of this non-GAAP financial measure and its reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP measurement.
Ruben Martin, President and Chief Executive Officer of Martin Midstream GP LLC, the general partner of Martin Midstream Partners, said, "We are pleased with the Partnership's first quarter financial performance. For the quarter we earned distributable cash flow of approximately $22.8 million and a strong distribution coverage ratio of 1.17 times. The Partnership benefitted from stronger than expected performance in our Sulfur Services Segment as our fertilizer and molten sulfur divisions continued their positive momentum and strong margin levels we saw in the fourth quarter last year. Operationally, our fertilizer production units are running at very high levels of utilization that coincides with strong customer demand for our product offerings.
Collectively, Terminalling and Storage, Natural Gas Service and Marine Transportation were all slightly below management's expectations for the quarter. However, we continue to be optimistic regarding the throughput level at our marine shore based assets as incremental deep-water offshore drilling seems imminent. Additionally, our marine assets are seeing day-rate improvement and high utilization across both in the inland and offshore divisions.
Looking forward to the second quarter, we expect continued strong performance in our Sulfur Services Segment fertilizer division. In addition, the Partnership will benefit from additional assets coming on line in our Terminalling and Storage Segment."
"We are very pleased with our financial performance during the first quarter of 2012," said Byron Kelley, president and chief executive officer. "Lower production volumes due to unscheduled down time for plant maintenance in March were more than offset by higher sales prices for our products in the first quarter of this year as compared to the first quarter of 2011.
"In addition, given the strong pricing environment we have seen during the last few months, the higher production rates at our plant as a result of the March maintenance work, and our outlook for the remainder of the year, we are increasing our full year guidance," said Kelley.
CVR Partners said it is raising its previous distribution guidance range for calendar year 2012 from $1.50 to $1.75 per common unit to $1.65 to $1.85 per common unit. Included in this guidance is an approximate 25 cent negative impact per common unit associated with the company's biennial turnaround currently scheduled for the 2012 fourth quarter. Normalized for the turnaround, the distribution range would be approximately $1.90 to $2.10 per common unit.
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=220445&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1690024&highlight=
OCZ Technology Group's CEO Discusses F4Q12 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
May 1, 2012
http://seekingalpha.com/article/549571-ocz-technology-group-s-ceo-discusses-f4q12-results-earnings-call-transcript?source=yahoo
With that, it is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Ryan Petersen.
Ryan Petersen
Thank you Bonnie, and welcome to everybody joining in the conference call. 2012 has been an incredible year for OCZ. Against the backdrop of a rapidly growing, constantly evolving market, we executed on our internal goals which were simple, to achieve rapid revenue growth with increasing gross margins and to solidify our position with our OEM clients and in the enterprise.
We are proud to report that recent data from industry analysts indicate that we’re now the world’s largest independent manufacturer of SSDs. As we look forward to fiscal ‘13, it’s interesting to know that IDC expects the amount of storage capacity shipped will more than double by 2015 from about 760 exabytes in 2012. While hard drive based storage continues to be the dominant technology, we expect that the recent NAND flash cost reductions coupled with new technology introductions will significantly drive continued adoption of SSD technology as a percent of shipments, in the short-term as well as over the longer horizon.
Given our recent financing, our progress in operations, supply chain management, and technology, we feel that we’re better positioned than ever to take advantage of the growing SSD opportunity. In short, we’ve earned ourselves the position of the starting line. And in the coming year, we expect SSDs, the NAND flash based storage technologies to become increasingly important. We’re prepared to aggressively address the opportunity before us, as I am sure you’ve all have heard before the old saying, fortune favors the bold.
Now moving on, let me briefly discuss our results. Our fiscal ‘12 revenues increased 92% to $365.8 million compared to fiscal ‘11 net revenue of $190.1 million. Revenue in the fourth quarter was a record of $110.4 million, an increase of 71% compared with net revenue of $64.6 million reported in Q4 ‘11. Our SSD revenue was $338.9 million for the year, up 154% year-over-year compared with a $133.2 million.
I think it’s interesting to note that our Q4 SSD revenues were approximately 80% of the entire fiscal ‘11 revenues, and that during the year, our second half represented about 60% of our annual revenue. Our gross margins increased in the fourth quarter to 25%, up both sequential and year-over-year, as we continued to see the benefits of our scale and improved product mix. We’ve begun to see the results of our key initiatives to purchase the majority of our NAND flash from the past directly as opposed to through brokers and we expect that our gross margins will continue to expand as we move forward.
We’ve recorded a non-GAAP loss in Q4 of roughly $6 million as we continued to invest heavily in building out the business. It’s important to note that we announced an increase in our R&D and sales and marketing spending in the fourth quarter in relation to our acceleration of the product roadmap. This spending approximated $6 million and will let Art go into more detail and resulted in the early launch of our Vertex 4 and Everest 2 products.
It is our expectation that these products will have a major positive impact on revenue and gross margins during fiscal ‘13. In addition, this quarter we began breaking out our PCIe products or SAN replacement product revenues. So that investors can clearly see the progress we’re making with our Z-Drive Series and PCIe SSDs, which were launched in August. As previously stated, we expect sales of these products to gain traction in the second half of our fiscal ‘13 due primarily to the long design cycles prevalent with enterprise storage products.
That being said, sales for our SAN replacement products in the roughly six months post launch have pushed $20 million. This indicates a high level of interest in our SAN replacement products and we feel we’re well positioned to see this product category span at a rate well in excess of our core growth. During the year, we made several key acquisitions including Indilinx early in the year and most recently SANRAD in the fourth fiscal quarter.
These acquisitions have positioned us well from a technology and a competitive standpoint. And we expect them to add considerably to our operating leverage as we move forward. I’d like to move on and update everyone briefly on a few key operational areas before giving you some color on the market segments. In terms of manufacturing operations, during the year, we expanded our manufacturing capabilities on a number of occasions, and after a series of rapid expansions, we consolidated test to manufacturing into a single facility capable of meeting our needs as we move forward.
We kept this move off with the recent hire of our Senior Vice President of Operations, Jason Ruppert, who joined us from his role in a Senior VP of ops at Harmonic. Jason has about 25 years of experience in senior operations roles and he is an excellent addition to our management team.
Moving on to our supply chain. We’ve been successful in shipping from the model of purchasing NAND flash primarily from the spot market to primarily from NAND flash fabs such as Micron, Toshiba, and SK Hynix. NAND flash can account for between 60% to 90% of our cost of goods. And as such this move recently began to positively impact our gross margins as the purchasing structure not only provides lower cost, but decreases price volatility.
In February, we raised a $110 million, in part to support the move to NAND flash wafer purchasing which really requires a company to carry a 12 weeks of inventory and that’s a significantly lower price for NAND flash. This again is expected to contribute to increase gross margins and lessen risk associated with NAND price volatility.
In terms of technology developments, while we continue to significantly understand our competitors, we’ve increased our technology lead not only by investing in the SANRAD and Indilinx acquisitions but increasing our organic R&D spending. Our investments in R&D have increased significantly for good reason. These investments are critical in enhancing our strengths across the various SSD segment as we continue to pursue technological dominance across all product segments.
I will for once, spare the listeners the long list of technological advances, we have made over the past year as our revenue and margin really speaks for itself. To encapsulate things in short, we feel we now have a sustainable reason in terms of SSD technologies and that this will help ensure our success as we move forward. In recapping our R&D strength, it’s worth bringing up that we’ve recently accelerated our product roadmap across the board.
It perhaps goes without saying that the early release of that Everest 2, will have a major impact on our business as sales ramp for this product. Now I’d like to call out that we’ve recently achieved a tape-out of two unannounced SSD controller platforms. That these products we believe be released mid-year well ahead of schedule and should provide considerable revenue upside. It’s worth mentioning, that while the cost related to these two new platforms are in fact reflected our operating expense guidance we have not reflected any additional revenue or margin upside, and we will update guidance to reflect the benefits of these products post product release.
In regards to sales and marketing, we’ve continued to invest heavily in expanding our platform resulting in increased sales of account and a number of customers wins in key customer groups, including PC OEMs, server manufacturers, and data centers. It’s worth noting that a year-ago we had no material revenue of tier one OEMs. And while we’ve now established ourselves with these OEM clients, historical growth notwithstanding, we have yet to fully exploit most of these relationships. It is critical as we move forward that we continue to build out the appropriate sales and marketing structure to support our ongoing OEM growth initiatives. Now with that I’d like to move on to give a little bit of color around our two major product areas.
In regards to the hard disc drive format business which includes our SAS and SATA product lines, we continue to see strength and we expect that our early launch of our Everest 2 Controller will positively impact margins and revenue, particularly as we rollout the various derivative products. These subsequent products include the mass market and enterprise variance, for example, the Agility 4, and the Intrepid 3 which we’ll launch in coming weeks.
Simply put, we now have superior technology and a substantially lower cost versus our SandForce-based products. Our price and performance offering clearly illustrates the benefit of our new technology introductions. As an example with recent NAND flash price decreases, we have been able to introduce market leading products with price points of approximately $0.65 per gigabyte without negatively impacting our gross margins.
These cost reductions continue to drive SSD adoption and we feel it is critical to continue to drive cost down. With that we planned to launch both 1x nanometer and TLC support during the year subject to NAND availability. In short, we expect recent declines in NAND flash pricing to make SSDs more attractive to mainstream applications such as SANs, network appliances, Ultrabooks and mainstream serves.
And further it’s our intent to continue to bring low cost technologies to market such as our TLC-based products, enabling this trend. Now moving on its been to get to the Vertex 4 product had the margins approaching 40% compared to SandForce-based predecessor product since Vertex 3 as an example with gross margin in the 20% range.
While these margin estimates are broadly accurate, I’d like point out that in line with our strategy of market share expansion, we will over the longer term be pricing the Vertex 4 and its derivative in line with market expectations. This pricing strategy enabled by lower cost of goods on the Everest 2 Controller and the enhanced performance specs should shift sales away from our Vertex 3 line and could provide additional significant margin upside as well as drive significant in-market demand.
Let me be as clear as possible. We are targeting increased margins and simultaneous market share growth. These goals are supported by a proprietary technology that allows us to use low-cost flash in high performance applications. I think it’s important to note that while we continue to focus on SSD products, we’ve historically sold our controller platform to a number of companies including OEMs such as Juniper and Cisco and to our competitors including well known enterprise SSD manufacturers who sell SSDs and an SSD Controllers under their own brand names utilizing our controller platforms.
Given the recent launch of our Everest 2 platform, we intend to continue to support serving strategic partners with our controllers. And we have recently finished qualification with the number of SSD manufacturers. Now sales of our controller products were less than a $1 million in the fourth quarter, but carried gross product margins in the 60% to 75%.
As we only recently released the current generation platform, we are now providing guidance on the revenue ramp for SSD controllers. We do expect considerable growth of revenue in these products and we will update to markup when appropriate. Moving on to enterprise storage, the market for enterprise storage continues to go through a period of innovation which is impacting how enterprise storage solutions are adopted as system architecture level.
And we believe that we’re positioned at a cross roads or a shift in the storage environment and then our SAN replacement products are unique with the vision to take advantage with that shift. We continue to provide our SAN replacement solutions such as the Z-Drive R4 to independent media for analysis. In March independent product reviewers of storage review redeveloped their testing platform to better accommodate the burdening PCIe SSD space and tested the R4 side-by-side with competing products.
Their conclusion was simple, the Z-Drive R4 is nearly impossible to beat in performance, price, or flexibility. Its key to note that we launched our Z-Drive R4 in August of last year and have only recently with the acquisition of SANRAD, build out a fully featured virtualization software offering. With that in mind and despite the fact that we have a considerable growth in a short period of time, we don’t expect sales of those products to ramp until the third fiscal quarter.
Now since the acquisition of SANRAD, we’ve launched our VXL software offering, which has given us access to a broader array of opportunities than were previously addressable. We are very pleased with the momentum we’re seeing. As we’ve noted and also our competitors have noted, that customers continually indicate that vMotion support, ease of installation and support for cache sharing among servers are prerequisites for our customers’ virtual environments.
Our VXL software is unique in its ability not only to reduce installation complexity with an exiguous approach but to share a single Z-Drive over a multiple servers and to support vMotion with no loss of cache. The value of this differentiation is a measurable. VXL was designed from the start with a simple rule, to empower virtualization with flash rather than to hamper virtualization whenever the flash is used by a virtual machine. VXL is a catalyst opening the door for flash, bringing flash’s full benefit to the virtual environment even under the most demanding workloads.
Now I’d like to take a moment to characterize the large Greenfield opportunities that our SAN replacement products address. In reviewing our business pipeline for these products, we see our top 50 opportunities have an estimated deployment value of approximately $1 billion. Now while we may not be able to win each discrete opportunity at this level, it’s an encouraging trend. Given the limited competitions we see in these accounts, further eyeing up the opinion that we have yet to scrap the surface in the SAN replacement opportunity.
Moving on, in addition to the bundled PCIe plus VXL offering, we are seeing early signs of interest in our VXL software as a standalone sale both to OEMs for integration into their flash storage arrays and directly to large data centers. Now we’re not currently forecasting the opportunity but we’re pleased with the early success of the product and are optimistic in regards to future sales success with this standalone software.
So moving onto our sales opportunities going forward, in speaking to our growing enterprise customer base, we begun to generate revenue with initial orders from several major data centers. Now though they represent a small portion of our revenue, historically speaking, these wins showcase OCZ’s transformation in 2012 and give insight into our future opportunities. Some of our largest new data center clients recently began to point or finish qualification during fiscal ‘12. These included a leading social media website, a leading cloud and content delivery provider, a global software-as-a-service provider, the world’s leading online auction site, the world’s leading web-based content management system, the world’s second largest telecommunications provider and three of the world’s top 10 data centers by size.
Further it’s worth noting that our largest current data center client, an American multinational internet company, headquartered in Sunnyvale has recently provided increased forecast of over three times their current run rate. That being said, growth in data centers is expected to drive sales for OCZ as we move forward. Now moving onto our OEM relationships, we’ve been able to secure our relationships with the majority of the tier-one OEMs exiting the year.
And we expect that these relationships will continue to grow as we expand our product offering and as we grow our sales and support organization to provide on the ground support at the manufacture site. Now moving on and before turning it over to Art, I want to take a moment to comment on our annual and quarterly revenue guidance. Art will provide a little bit more detail in regards to expense guidance during his commentary and we are guiding – so to move on, we’re guiding our net revenues for the fiscal quarter to be in a range of $110 million to $120 million and annual revenues to $630 million to $700 million for our fiscal ‘13.
It’s key to note that we expect about 60% to 65% of our revenues to occur in the second half of the year. This is in line with our normal seasonality. As a midpoint, growth is approximately 80%. In regards to our visibility on annual revenues, I wanted to take the time to remind our audience that our initial guidance at the beginning of fiscal ‘12 was $300 million to $330 million and we closed the year at $366 million. For fiscal ‘13, the increase in OEM and data center opportunities has helped us to increase our visibility into our client base.
OCZ TECHNOLOGY GROUP, INC. REPORTS FISCAL 2012 FOURTH QUARTER AND YEAR-END RESULTS
http://ir.stockpr.com/ocztechnology/recent-news/detail/1933/ocz-technology-group-inc-reports-fiscal-2012-fourth-quarter-and-year-end-results
2012 Fiscal Year Revenue Increased 92% to $366 Million;
SSD Revenue up 154% to $339 Million to Become World's Largest Independent SSD Manufacturer;
Gross Margins reach a Record of 25% in Q4 Increased 250 Basis Points sequentially and 840 Year over Year.
SAN JOSE, Calif., May 1, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, reports its fourth quarter (Q4'12) and year-end results for the fiscal year 2012, (FY'12), which ended on February 29, 2012.
Financial Highlights
Fiscal year 2012, net revenue increased 92% to $365.8 million compared with fiscal year 2011 net revenue of $190.1 million. Net revenue in Q4'12 was a record $110.4 million, and increased 71% compared with net revenue of $64.6 million reported in Q4'11.
Fiscal year 2012, SSD revenue was $338.9 million, up 154% compared with $133.2 million in fiscal year 2011. Q4'12 SSD revenue reached a record $103.2 million; an increase of 77% compared with Q4'11 SSD revenue of $58.2 million.
Fiscal year 2012 gross margins increased to 22.5% compared to 12.7% with fiscal year 2011. Q4'12 gross margin increased to 25.0% compared with 16.6% in Q4'11, and 22.5% in Q3'12.
Net loss for Q4'12 was $10.9 million or $0.19 loss per share compared with a net loss of $9.3 million or $0.27 loss per share in Q4'11.
Non-GAAP net loss for Q4'12 was $6.0 million or $0.11 loss per share as compared with a non-GAAP net loss for Q4'11 of $0.8 million or $0.02 loss per share.
"In reflecting on fiscal 2012, we are extremely pleased with the progress the Company has made both financially and operationally, this is highlighted by the fact that based on recent market data from independent analysts, we have achieved our goal to become the world's largest independent SSD manufacturer," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology. "Our ongoing investments have enabled us to build a strong foundation of core technology, support continued high levels of revenue growth, increase gross profit margins, and a move towards a vertically integrated business model."
"Consistent with our stated objectives, we have successfully integrated numerous technology focused acquisitions, increased SSD revenues, and built out a cost effective supply chain and manufacturing operation. Our continued execution will allow us to support ongoing growth initiatives and deliver significant operational leverage as we scale. We believe we are better positioned than ever before to take advantage of the opportunity that the SSD market presents," added Petersen.
Recent Business Highlights
Net revenue for our Storage Area Network (SAN) replacement products has ramped significantly since release in August and exited the year at over $8 million per quarter.
Introduced, well ahead of schedule, the Vertex 4 SATA III series of SSDs featuring the Company's advanced Indilinx Everest 2 controller platform, which delivers industry-best performance for SATA-based drives of 120,000 random input/output operations per second (IOPS).
OCZ was named to CRN's 2012 Data Center 100 list for its comprehensive lineup of performance oriented solutions and continued innovation to make SSDs the storage of choice for server and data center infrastructures.
In January, OCZ acquired SANRAD Ltd., which provided OCZ with its VXL Virtualization and Flash Caching software technology for its Z-Drive R4 Solutions in VMware, Citrix Xen and Microsoft Hyper-V environments; subsequently, VXL was brought to market in late February.
In February and March, OCZ completed a $110 million public offering to support our continued growth objectives, including initiatives to move to NAND wafer purchasing and to support growth of our SAN replacement products.
OCZ continued to expand its OEM and Enterprise customer base throughout Fiscal 2012, building a foundation for the Company's future. OCZ grew customer base which is highlighted by public collaborations with companies such as Intel, Quanta Computer, Amazon, Drobo, Hitachi, SK communications, NTT, Fujistu, John Hopkins, Colfax, LG Electronics, Wortman, Peer 1, SGI, Olive, Voxel, PSSC Labs, Penguin, Ciaratech, Honda, and Chevron, among numerous others.
Additional Financial Information
To help investors better understand OCZ's historical revenue trends, including geographic revenue by delivery location and revenue by product groups, additional revenue information is shown in the chart below. In addition, the Company has provided an additional market breakout to illustrate our "SAN replacement" products, which are PCIe-based storage solutions targeted at replacing or accelerating Storage Area Networks.
Quarterly net revenue by product groups and major geographic area by delivery location ($000)'s (Unaudited)
Product Groups 4QFY11 1QFY12 2QFY12 3QFY12 4QFY12 FY11 FY12
HDD format $ 58,195 $ 69,122 $ 67,243 $ 88,632 $ 95,123 $ 133,202 $ 320,120
SAN replacement -- -- 3,834 6,833 8,117 $ -- $ 18,784
SSD $ 58,195 $ 69,122 $ 71,077 $ 95,465 $ 103,240 $ 133,202 $ 338,904
Power supplies & Other 6,371 4,672 7,377 7,619 7,202 56,914 26,870
Total $ 64,566 $ 73,794 $ 78,454 $ 103,084 $ 110,442 $ 190,116 $ 365,774
Major Geographic Areas 4QFY11 1QFY12 2QFY12 3QFY12 4QFY12 FY11 FY12
North America $ 21,845 $ 20,848 $ 25,895 $ 34,875 $ 42,487 $ 77,296 $ 124,105
EMEA 34,250 40,997 41,841 54,158 51,723 $ 91,274 $ 188,719
ROW 8,471 11,949 10,718 14,051 16,232 $ 21,546 $ 52,950
Total $ 64,566 $ 73,794 $ 78,454 $ 103,084 $ 110,442 $ 190,116 $ 365,774
The chart below is a summary comparison of GAAP to Non-GAAP measures. Please refer to the following sections below on the calculation and explanation of Non-GAAP financial measures.
(In thousands, except per share amount)
GAAP Financial Comparison Non-GAAP Financial Comparison
Q4 2012 Q4 2011 Q4 2012 Q4 2011
Net revenue $ 110,442 $ 64,566 Net revenue $ 110,442 $ 64,719
Gross margin 25.0% 16.6% Gross margin 25.0% 16.8%
Net loss $ (10,892) $ (9,252) Net loss $ (6,055) $ (770)
Loss per share $ (0.19) $ (0.27) Loss per share $ (0.11) $ (0.02)
Business Outlook and Commentary:
OCZ expects net revenue for its first fiscal quarter ending May 31, 2012 (Q1'13), to be in the range of $110 to $120 million.
OCZ expects net revenue for its fiscal year ending February 28, 2013 (FY'13) to be in the range of $630 to $700 million. This represents a growth rate of approximately 80% at the midpoint; we expect, based on historical trends, revenue to be weighted to the second half of the year, with approximately 60% to 65% of revenue to occur in the second half of the year.
Non-GAAP gross margins are expected to increase slightly for Q1'13 and to exit the year in excess of 30%, with typical sequential gross margin increases of 100 to 250 basis points per quarter throughout the fiscal year, subject to changes in product mix as the SSD landscape continues to evolve.
OCZ expects non-GAAP operating expenses for Q1'13, to be in the range of $37 to $39 million with expenses exiting the year at between $43 and $47 million per quarter, as OCZ continues to invest in its ongoing growth objectives.
Conference Call:
OCZ will host its fiscal 2012 fourth quarter and year end conference call for the period ended February 29, 2012 at 5:00pm ET (2:00pm PT), on May 1, 2012. Ryan Petersen, CEO, and Arthur Knapp, CFO, will discuss the Company's performance on the call.
A live audio webcast of the conference call will be available by visiting the Investor Relations events conference call section of OCZ's website at http://ir.stockpr.com/ocztechnology/conference-calls, which will be archived for replay until May 31, 2012. Please connect at least 15 minutes prior to the conference call to ensure adequate time for connection.
All interested parties can join the call by dialing (253) 237-1170 or (877) 372-0867. Please call-in 15 minutes prior to the call to secure a line. The conference call will be archived for phone replay until May 10, 2012. To access the archived conference call, please dial (404) 537-3406 or (855) 859-2056 and enter replay passcode 65552287.
About OCZ Technology Group, Inc.
Founded in 2002, San Jose, CA-based OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (OCZ) is a leader in the design, manufacturing, and distribution of high performance and reliable Solid-State Drives (SSDs) and premium computer components. OCZ has built on its expertise in high-speed memory to become a leader in the enterprise and consumer SSD markets, a technology that competes with traditional rotating magnetic hard disk drives (HDDs). SSDs are faster, more reliable, generate less heat and use significantly less power than the HDDs used in the majority of computers today. In addition to SSD technology, OCZ also offers enterprise-class power management products. For more information, please visit: www.ocztechnology.com.
Apple vs. Samsung: Settlement talks scheduled for May 21-22
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/apple-vs-samsung-settlement-talks-scheduled-for-may-21-22/75722
Summary: Apple and Samsung will engage in settlement talks in mid-late May in San Francisco as the courts hope to see a resolution to their now year-long-and-counting patent dispute.
Settlement talks between the two smartphone super-giants, Samsung and Apple, will go ahead on May 21–22 in San Francisco, in the hope the two can resolve an ongoing patent dispute.
Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero will moderate the talks as an impartial third-party.
Deadline looms for Falcone on LightSquared control
Reuters – 1 hour 15 minutes ago
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/30/us-falcone-lightsquared-idUSBRE83T00620120430By Matthew Goldstein
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The clock is ticking for hedge fund manager Philip Falcone to reach a deal by Monday morning with debt holders of LightSquared, the upstart wireless telecom controlled by Falcone's Harbinger Capital, or face a possible bankruptcy.
The holders of LightSquared's roughly $1.6 billion in debt, who include billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn and hedge fund manager David Tepper, have given Falcone until 10 a.m. Monday to strike a deal for restructuring Harbinger's 96 percent equity control of LightSquared, a person familiar with the situation said.
If a deal cannot be reached by Monday morning, the debt holders are threatening to declare a default on a roughly $1.6 billion loan, which could force a bankruptcy.
The Wall Street Journal reported late on Sunday that creditors and Falcone were working toward a possible one-week extension of the deadline for declaring a default.Other debt holders include hedge funds Fortress Investment Group (FIG), Knighthead Capital Management, Redwood Capital Management and investment firm Capital Research and Management Company.
Reuters last week reported that LightSquared's debt holders were joining forces and lining up against Falcone - hiring high-powered bankruptcy attorney Thomas Lauria, who heads White & Case's global restructuring group. Lauria did not respond to e-mails or phone calls seeking comment on the negotiations between debt holders and Falcone.
The debt holders increasingly see Falcone as an obstacle to negotiating with the Federal Communications Commission and opponents of the company, some of whom contend LightSquared's planned nationwide high-speed wireless network will interfere with global positioning systems used by the U.S. Department of Defense, the aviation industry and other businesses.
A number of representatives for some of the hedge funds that own LightSquared's debt have said in interviews over the past few weeks that Falcone needs to greatly reduce his hedge fund's equity stake in the company and relinquish control over decision-making authority.
In February, the FCC withdrew a conditional waiver that would have allowed LightSquared to begin building out its mobile network because of the GPS interference problems. Without the waiver, LightSquared is severely limited in moving forward with its plans.
Falcone, in an interview with Reuters earlier this month, said he did not consider himself an obstacle to negotiating with the FCC and critics. He also said he was considering putting LightSquared into a voluntary bankruptcy. Falcone did not respond this weekend to an e-mail seeking comment on the talks with creditors.
Falcone has said a bankruptcy would not necessarily wipe out his hedge fund's considerable equity stake in LightSquared because its operating spectrum licenses still retain value.
LightSquared's fate has become an important concern for investors in Falcone's $3.8 billion hedge fund, which has sunk roughly 60 percent of its money into the telecom startup. The success or failure of LightSquared will go a long way in determining Falcone's legacy as a money manager.
Besides Falcone, investors in Harbinger Capital stand to be the big losers in a bankruptcy or a negotiated restructuring of LightSquared as the value of the hedge fund's equity investment would be diminished.
Last year, Harbinger posted a 47 percent decline, largely because of a write-down on the value of the fund's LightSquared investment.
(Reporting By Matthew Goldstein; Editing by Jennifer Ablan, Leslie Adler and Richard Pullin)
..
NVIDIA (NVDA) Unveils GeForce GTX 690 -- Dual Graphics Card Combines World's Fastest Gaming Performance With Sleek, Sexy Design
SHANGHAI, Apr 28, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) --GEFORCE LAN/NVIDIA Game Festival 2012 -- NVIDIA today announced the GeForce(R) GTX 690, the world's fastest consumer graphics card(1) -- with a bold industrial design to match.
Powered by dual Kepler(TM) architecture-based GeForce GPUs, the GTX 690 is meticulously designed -- inside and out -- to deliver the most refined, elegant and smooth PC gaming experience possible.
The surprise announcement was made by NVIDIA CEO and co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang during his keynote address at the NVIDIA Game Festival in Shanghai, which is being attended by more than 6,000 gamers from across China.
Engineered to reach a new threshold in gaming performance, the GTX 690 also looks the part. Its array of innovative technologies is complemented by sleek materials that contribute to the exotic design of the card, including:
-- An exterior frame made from trivalent chromium-plated aluminum,
providing excellent strength and durability
-- A fan housing made from a thixomolded magnesium alloy, which offers
excellent heat dissipation and vibration dampening
-- High-efficiency power delivery with less resistance, lower power and
less heat generated using a 10-phase, heavy-duty power supply with a
10-layer, two-ounce copper printed circuit board
-- Efficient cooling using dual vapor chambers, a nickel-plated finstack
and center-mounted axial fan with optimized fin pitch and air entry
angles
-- Low-profile components and ducted baseplate channels for unobstructed
airflow, minimizing turbulence and improving acoustic quality
The GTX 690 is powered by a total of 3,072 NVIDIA CUDA(R) cores, all working to deliver awesome gaming performance for ultimate gaming setups. Designed for the discriminating gamer and ultra-high-resolution, multimonitor NVIDIA Surround(TM) configurations, the GTX 690 delivers close to double the frame rates of the closest single GPU product, the GTX 680. Plus, it is more power efficient and quieter when compared to systems equipped with two GTX 680 cards(2) running in NVIDIA SLI(R) configuration.
"The GTX 690 is truly a work of art -- gorgeous on the outside with amazing performance on the inside," said Brian Kelleher, senior vice president of GPU engineering at NVIDIA. "Gamers will love playing on multiple screens at high resolutions with all the eye candy turned on. And they'll relish showing their friends how beautiful the cards look inside their systems."
The GTX 690 graphics card is designed using GeForce GPUs based on NVIDIA's 28-nanometer Kepler architecture, following the introduction late last month of the GTX 680.
Availability The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 GPU will be available in limited quantities starting May 3, 2012, with wider availability by May 7, 2012 from NVIDIA's add-in card partners, including ASUS, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Inno3D, MSI, Palit and Zotac. Expected pricing is $999.
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=116466&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1688692&highlight=
---------------
NVIDIA Unveils GeForce GTX 690: Dual GK104 Flagship Launching May 3rd
Launching later this week, the GeForce GTX 690 will be NVIDIA’s new dual-GPU flagship video card, complementing their existing single-GPU GeForce GTX 680. Equipped with a pair of fully enabled GK104 GPUs, NVIDIA is shooting for GTX 680 SLI performance on a single card, and with GTX 690 they just might get there. We won’t be publishing our review until Thursday, but in the meantime let’s take a look about what we know so far about the GTX 690.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5795/nvidia-unveils-geforce-gtx-690-dual-gk104-flagship-launching-may-3rd
Don't know what you're saying. You can find the note plenty of places. Here's another one:
http://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/12/04/2527599/update-jefferies-raises-pt-to-52-on-questcor-pharmaceuti
UPDATE: Jefferies Raises PT to $52 on Questcor Pharmaceuticals; Solid Q1 Beat
By David Johnson
Benzinga Staff Writer
April 25, 2012 9:23 Symbols: QCOR
Crazy stuff....
Samsung reportedly behind mock protest flashmob at Apple Store
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/04/26/samsung_reportedly_behind_mock_protest_flashmob_at_apple_store.html
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Samsung reportedly behind mock protest flashmob at Apple Store
By AppleInsider Staff
Published: 06:17 PM EST (03:17 PM PST)
An Australian Apple Store was bombarded by a mob of people chanting "wake up" and holding signs emblazoned with the same slogan on Thursday, with one source claiming that the stunt was orchestrated by an ad agency working for Samsung.
The Sydney Apple Store saw a small mob of mock protestors spill out of a large black bus with the words "Wake Up." written in bold relief on its side in what was apparently an advertising stunt put together by an agency purportedly working for Samsung, according to blog Mumbrella.
Tongue, a local Australian ad company, is thought to be the instigator of the campaign which is centered around the upcoming release of Samsung's next-generation Galaxy S3 smartphone. An iPhone competitor, the S3 is said to sport a quad-core Exynos processor and was confirmed on Thursday as being ready for launch some time next week.
The information jibes with the website wake-up-australia.com.au, which displays the same "Wake Up." slogan with a countdown timer that is set to reach zero when the new handset is launched in that country. The domain name was registered to New Dialogue, which later rebranded itself as Sydney-based ad agency Tongue.
In addition to the staged protest, the campaign has written the words "Wake Up." on the bottom of the Bondi Ice Bergs pool as well as a number of billboards.
Documenting the incident on video was blogger Nate “Blunty” Burr, who said he happened on the commotion by accident.
CVR Partners Declares 2012 First Quarter Distribution of 52.3 Cents
Exceeds Distribution Guidance for 12 Months Ended March 31, 2012
SUGAR LAND, Texas, April 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- CVR Partners, LP (NYSE: UAN), a master limited partnership and manufacturer of ammonia and urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) solution fertilizer products, today declared a cash distribution of 52.3 cents per common unit for the first quarter of 2012.
The distribution as set by the board of CVR GP, LLC, the general partner of CVR Partners, will be paid May 15, 2012, to unit holders of record on May 8, 2012.
This will be the fourth cash distribution paid by the partnership since its IPO in April 2011, and will result in cumulative cash distributions paid of $2.09 per common unit. This exceeds the company's previous distribution guidance range of $2.00 to $2.05 per common unit for the 12 months ended March 31, 2012, and represents a 9 percent increase over its original distribution guidance of $1.92 per common unit for the same period.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cvr-partners-declares-2012-first-quarter-distribution-of-523-cents-149123115.html
Jefferies Raises Questcor Pharmaceuticals (QCOR) Price Target From $50 to $52
http://www.streetinsider.com/Analyst+Comments/Jefferies+Raises+Questcor+Pharmaceuticals+(QCOR)+Price+Target+From+$50+to+$52/7370792.html
Suburban Propane to buy Inergy's retail propane business for $1.8 bln
Thu Apr 26, 2012 8:39am EDT
April 26 (Reuters) - Suburban Propane Partners LP said it would buy Inergy LP's retail propane operations for about $1.8 billion in a deal that will double its customer base and make it one of the top propane retailers in the United States.
Suburban's biggest ever deal marks the second large acquisition in the propane retailing industry in less than a year. Last October, AmeriGas Partners LP acquired Energy Transfer Partners L.P.'s propane business for $2.8 billion.
While propane has long been used in barbecue grills, about 5 percent of total U.S. households now use propane for heating.
Suburban's deal for Inergy's propane business includes $1 billion newly issued Suburban senior notes, $200 million in cash and $600 million new Suburban common units.
Inergy Propane sells propane in 33 states from 338 customer service centers. The acquisition will add about 600,000 customers and 325 million retail propane gallons to Suburban's existing operations.
Suburban said the deal, expected to close in the second half of the year, will make it the third largest retailer of propane in the United States, measured by retail gallons sold in 2011.
Separately, Inergy said the deal would help it focus on its midstream growth strategy as it evolves into a pure play pipelines business.
Evercore Partners acted as a financial adviser to Suburban, while Greenhill & Co advised Inergy
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/26/inergy-suburbanpropane-idUSL3E8FQ7Q020120426?feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssEnergyNews&rpc=43
Markman ruling, courtesy glorison on IV
http://www.investorvillage.com/uploads/81835/files/266-042512.pdf
Apple revenue jumps, beats Street view
Reuters – 16 minutes ago
....
..........
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc (AAPL.O) on Tuesday reported quarterly revenue that handily beat Wall Street estimates, driven by strong demand for its iPhones and iPads, sending its shares 3.5 percent higher.
The consumer electronics giant said its fiscal second-quarter revenue rose to $39.2 billion, better than the average analyst estimate of $36.8 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
(Reporting By Poornima Gupta; Editing by Richard Chang)
Vanguard Natural Resources, LLC (NYSE:VNR - News) (“Vanguard”) announced today that its board of directors has declared a cash distribution attributable to the first quarter of 2012 of $0.5925 per unit ($2.37 on an annual basis) payable on May 15, 2012 to unitholders of record on May 8, 2012. This represents an approximate 3.9% distribution increase from the first quarter of 2011 and a .9% distribution increase from the fourth quarter of 2011.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/vanguard-natural-resources-llc-announces-111500458.html
Microsoft infringes MMI patents: U.S. trade judge
..
Reuters – 20 minutes ago
..WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Microsoft infringed Motorola Mobility's patents in making its popular Xbox gaming consoles, a judge for the International Trade Commission ruled on Monday.
Motorola Mobility, which is being acquired by Google, had filed related lawsuits against Microsoft in district courts in Wisconsin and Florida.
The full commission will review the judge's decision and issue a final ruling in August.
The case is at the International Trade Commission, No. 337-752.
(Reporting By Diane Bartz; Editing by Gary Hill)
..
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-infringes-mmi-patents-u-222251059.html
At 7:30PM April 28th (PDT), NVIDIA will be making a special announcement at GeForce LAN / NVIDIA Gaming Festival (NGF) 2012 in Shanghai, China.
Tune in to GeForce.com for live stream coverage of the event.
NGF is one of the largest PC gaming events in the world with over 6,000 local and 500,000 online attendees. Top pro gamers will compete in StarCraft 2, League of Legends, and DOTA tournaments for $40,000 in cash and prizes.
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/its-coming-countdown/
"We extensively tested a range of solid-state storage solutions running an intense variety of IO traffic on each and the OCZ Talos 2 SSDs significantly outperformed all other solutions while providing a 10x improvement in performance when compared to a traditional SAN solution with SSD fast cache capabilities," said David Harmon, President of HyVE Systems. "But what really impressed us was the drive's ability to consistently recover from forced failures that we initiated as part of the testing that most of the other SSDs tested could not match. With the industry's best IOPS performance, high enterprise reliability and availability, and a product roadmap that enables this SSD to grow and scale with our HyVE high-compute platforms, positioned the Talos 2 as a best-of-breed product."
http://ir.stockpr.com/ocztechnology/recent-news/detail/1923/hyve-systems-selects-oczs-talos-2-sas-based-ssds-for-vdi-academic-platforms
What a huge gain today.
Wish I'd owned it yesterday......and today !
Qualcomm Inc.'s (QCOM) fiscal second-quarter profit soared as the chip maker has seen adoption of its cellphone technologies continue to drive higher revenue.
Shares sank 6.3% to $62.80 after hours as third-quarter earnings guidance came in below expectations. Through the close, the stock is up 22% so far in 2012 and it has been on an upward trend for much of the last two years.
The San Diego semiconductor company raised its full-year earnings guidance, now forecasting $3.61 to $3.76 a share. In February, Qualcomm boosted its income guidance to $3.55 to $3.75. It reaffirmed its revenue guidance.
For the third quarter, the company expects a per-share profit of 83 cents to 89 cents on $4.45 billion to $4.85 billion in revenue, compared with estimates of 90 cents and $4.8 billion, respectively, from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-09/s-p-500-analyst-target-price-changes-for-april-9-table-.html?cmpid=yhoo
The following table details daily changes in average analyst 12-month target price forecasts for companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. (Chesapeake is in the bottom half of the table.)
Chesapeake Energy target..... $28.66
Forbes Earnings Preview: QUALCOMM
Wall Street is optimistic about Qualcomm (QCOM), which is slated to report its second quarter results on Wednesday, April 18, 2012. Analysts project a profit of 86 cents a share, a rise from 77 cents per share a year ago.
What to Expect:
Over the past three months, the consensus estimate has increased from 80 cents. Analysts are projecting earnings of $3.45 per share for the fiscal year. Revenue is projected to be $4.84 billion for the quarter, 24.9% above the year-earlier total of $3.88 billion. For the year, revenue is expected to come in at $19.36 billion.
Trends to Watch For:
The company has enjoyed double-digit year-over-year percentage revenue growth for the past four quarters. Over that span, the company has averaged growth of 39.7%, with the biggest boost coming in the second quarter of the last fiscal year when revenue rose 45.5% from the year earlier quarter.
In each of the the past three quarters, the company has seen its profits increase. In the first quarter, net income rose 19.7% while it rose 22.1% in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year and 34.9% in the third quarter of the last fiscal year.
Analyst Ratings:
The majority of analysts (93.5%) rate QUALCOMM as a buy. This compares favorably to the analyst ratings of its nearest 10 competitors, which average 46.8% buys. Analysts have become more cautious about the stock in the last three months.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/narrativescience/2012/04/16/forbes-earnings-preview-qualcomm-3/
Omega Healthcare Investors, Inc. (NYSE:OHI) today announced that the Company’s Board of Directors declared a common stock dividend of $0.42 per share, increasing the quarterly common dividend by $0.01 per share over the previous quarter. The common stock dividend is payable May 15, 2012 to common stockholders of record as of the close of business on April 30, 2012.
http://www.omegahealthcare.com/file.aspx?IID=103065&FID=13166033
06:52 EDT April 17, 2012 LGCY theflyonthewall.com: Legacy Reserves initiated with an Accumulate at Global Hunter
Target $32.
http://www.theflyonthewall.com/permalinks/entry.php/LGCYid1614386/LGCY-Legacy-Reserves-initiated-with-an-Accumulate-at-Global-Hunter
Production Boost To Fuel Distribution Increases In 2012
April 16, 2012 by: Roger S. Conrad (editor of Utility Forecaster (http://www.utilityforecaster.com), the nation’s leading advisory on essential services stocks, bonds and preferred shares)
"During the fourth quarter, Vanguard Natural Resources' distributable cash flow surged by 120 percent from year-ago levels and 95 percent sequentially, enabling the LLC to cover its quarterly payout by a 1.4-to-1 margin. With cash flow likely to grow significantly in the coming year, I expect management to approve additional distribution increases in 2012.
Fourth-quarter production soared to 13,405 barrels of oil equivalent per day, with liquids output surging to 85 percent of overall revenue-up dramatically from 52 percent in 2009. The addition of Encore Energy Partners' assets also expands Vanguard Natural Resources' liquids-focused drilling inventory and the potential for bolt-on-acquisitions in adjacent acreage.
Vanguard Natural Resources has also established a sizable position in the Williston Basin, home to the Bakken Shale and considerable amounts of light oil.
Even after closing the acquisition of Encore Energy Partners, the LLC is still relatively small and could be a potential takeover candidate."
"The big question hanging over the stock: Whether Vanguard Natural Resources will be able to grow production from Encore Energy Partners' acreage, especially after the MLP's former general partner Denbury Resources (DNR) opted to slash investment in these properties."
With the disposal of the firm's Appalachian acreage, the answer to this question will have a profound effect on Vanguard Natural Resources' profitability and stock price.
With a distribution yield of 8.3 percent, the stock appears to price in this risk."
http://seekingalpha.com/article/499521-vanguard-natural-resources-production-boost-to-fuel-distribution-increases-in-2012