This purchase price represents a premium of 32% to Barr’s average daily closing price on the New York Stock Exchange for the 52-week period ending on July 16, 2008, and 42% to the closing price on July 16, 2008.
Potash-POT target to $375 from $340 on capacity expansions@RBCM
RBC Capital raised POT’s price target to $375 based on capacity expansion announcements at Allan, Cory, and Rocanville. Shares are Outperform rated.
Refining Sector downgraded to Market Weight, SUN & TSO downgraded@BERN
Bernstein downgraded the Refining Sector based on the weakening earnings outlook for the group. The firm downgraded SUN and TSO to Market Perform from Outperform.
Medivation-MDVN announce publication of Dimebon pivotal trial results
Medivation announced publication of the results of its first Alzheimer’s disease pivotal clinical trial of the investigational drug Dimebon in the July 19, 2008 issue of The Lancet. In this double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease treated with Dimebon experienced statistically significant improvements compared to placebo in all the key aspects of the disease: memory and thinking, activities of daily living, behavior and overall function. After both six months and a full year of treatment, Dimebon-treated patients were significantly better than placebo-treated patients on all key aspects of the disease. The benefit on the primary endpoint, the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-cognitive subscale at six months, was highly significant. Patients treated with Dimebon were also significantly improved at six months over baseline on all measures. Dimebon’s benefit over placebo continued to increase throughout the 12-month treatment period. At the end of 12 months, Dimebon-treated patients preserved their starting level of function on each measure of Alzheimer’s disease.
UAL Corp-UAUA upgraded to Overweight from Neutral@JPMS
JP Morgan upgraded UAUA based on valuation and expectations for the company to make a capital announcements on next weeks conference call.
Jim Cramer’s “Mad Money”
According to Cramer, three forces are driving the market higher: oil’s inability to breach the $150-a-barrel level (he says oil is headed to $110); the financials, as it’s now clear that both the Fed and SEC are stepping in to bail out the sector; and the home-build rate of single-family homes is finally slowing. Cramer predicted the bottom in home prices should occur in 2009. Cramer said for the short term, investors should take profits in the banking stocks, which have moved up too much. He suggested buying oil and gas stocks because they have gone too low. SELL BLOCK: Cramer added nursing homes, or senior living communities, to his sell-block list. He singled out Brookdale Senior Living (BKD) and Sunrise Senior Living (SRZ) as two of the worst offenders, and it’s a mistake to own shares of these nursing homes. They are building far too much capacity for the now declining demand. Also occupancy rates are declining. Cramer moved “Speculation Friday” to Thursday in order to talk about Symmetry Medical (SMA), a supplier of orthopedic implants to many of Cramer’s larger healthcare favorites, including BCR and SNN. Symmetry had a run-in with the SEC earlier this year, which led to earnings restatements and a $2.2M hit for accounting and legal costs. Cramer called Symmetry a tarnished stock, but not a tarnished company. He sees Symmetry reaching $21 a share, if it can reach Wall Street’s expectations for 8.5% revenue growth for 2008. Cramer said steel stocks have been crushed in recent weeks, with favorite Nucor (NUE) falling 11% after it lowered Q3 earnings guidance. Cramer spoke with the CEO Dan Dimicco who said business is still strong and he also expects Q3 to be strong. Dimicco called Nucor’s guidance conservative, and that the company is firing on all cylinders. Cramer said that while the markets have been punishing steel, he’s a buyer of Nucor. LIGHTNING ROUND: (Bullish) FGP; ENER; T; MET; MRO. (Bearish) SONC.
Fast Money position recap:
First Moves: Jeff thinks GM is a sell, Karen likes PM, Pete likes CHK.
Macke Owns (WMT), (GS), (MSFT), (HAS); Adami Owns (AGU), (BTU), (C), (GS), (INTC), (MSFT), (NUE); Najarian Owns (AAPL), (CHK), (TSO), (XLF); Najarian Owns (ANR) Puts; Najarian Owns (CSCO) Calls, (MER) Calls, (SLB) Calls, (YHOO) Calls, (UYG) Calls; Finerman Owns (GS); Finerman’s Firm Owns (MSFT), (NOK), (TSO), (SUN), (VLO), (AXP), (MRK), (PM); Finerman’s Firm Is Long SPX Index puts; Finerman’s Firm And Finerman Own (C) And (C) Leaps; Finerman’s Firm Is Short (IYR), (IJR), (MDY), (SPY), (IWM).
Next week will be pivotal and the key to the turnaround. If we can get more follow through next week, I feel we the light is getting brighter at the end of the tunnel and we are headed in the right direction. The SEC is putting 19 firms including FNM, FRE on the short sale restricted list. These are the ones:
BNP Paribas Securities Corp
Bank of America Corp
Barclays PLC
Citigroup Inc
Credit Suisse Group
Daiwa Securities Group Inc
Deutsche Bank Group AG
Allianz SE
Goldman Sachs Group Inc
Royal Bank ADS
HSBC Holdings Plc ADS
JPMorgan Chase & Co
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc
Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
Mizuho Financial Group Inc
Morgan Stanley
UBS AG
Freddie Mac
Fannie Mae
I will be looking to go long the financials and being light footed today since it is opex day. I went all in with my $2 million CNBC portfolio for the last day on airliners. Pick plays with a high probability of success, plan the trade and trade the plan, run technicals through support and resistance and have focus and patience. Great Luck and have a great weekend!
