Tag Archives: company news

Intel (INTC) and Altera (ALTR)

March 30, 2015 By in Industry Analysis, semiconductor manufacturing, Stock ideas, Technology Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Late last Friday afternoon a rumor reached Wall Street that INTC is in talks to acquire ALTR, causing a sharp rally in ALTR shares and a modest one in INTC’s.  In hindsight, INTC appears to have been headed down this path for a couple of years, as a prescient article in the Electronic Engineering Journal (titled “When Intel Buys Altera”) pointed out last June.

Why a deal is potentially crucial for INTC:

1.  what ALTR does:  The company is one of the two dominant makers of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs)–the other is Xilinx.   FPGAs are logic devices.  What makes them unusual is that they contain software that can be updated, revised or reprogrammed after the servers or telecom equipment (the two big markets for FPGAs) they’re in have already been built and installed.  The traditional upside of FPGAs is that they allow customized equipment to be put into the field and fine-tuned quickly.  Their downside is they’re more expensive than the pure-hardware alternative, ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits).

2.  INTC and Moore’s Law:  A factory to make current-generation INTC chips costs about $3 billion – $4 billion.  A next-generation factory, using much different equipment, will cost maybe $14 billion.  Samsung has already said it will build one; INTC says it’s too risky to build one by itself.  How, then, does INTC retain its technology/speed advantage over rival chipmakers?

3.  an INTC chip + a FPGA:  as reported in the EE Journal, INTC says linking an INTC microprocessor with a FPGA in a server can boost performance by 10x.  Bind the interface between the two closely enough can double performance again.

In other words, INTC + ALTR = huge step forward in chip performance.

why a merger and not a joint venture?

To my mind, the risk to both parties is too high for a joint venture.  INTC would have its lucrative server business in jeopardy if it committed to the FPGA route and the parties ever parted.  ALTR would have to devote a lot of resources to making its programming tools easier to use, potentially diverting attention from its telecoms customers.

More tomorrow.

 

 

downward revision of 1Q15 revenue by Intel (INTC)

March 13, 2015 By in earnings conference calls, economics, EU financial crisis, Portfolio management, Recent Market Action, Stock ideas Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Yesterday INTC issued a press release revising downward the 1Q15 guidance it gave when announcing 4Q14 results on January 15th.

The company now expects 1Q15 revenue to be $12.8 billion vs $13.7 billion previously–a drop of about 6%.

What does this mean?

–My impression is that, like most publicly traded companies, INTC provides guidance that gives itself a margin of safety against having a negative surprise.  That is, the guidance is a reasonable figure, given the data at hand, but a little on the low side.  So the downward revision means INTC has used up all its wiggle room and then some.

–The reporting convention is to list the factors behind the revision in the order of their importance, with the most significant first.  For INTC, these factors are:

—–weaker demand for business desktops, and

—–a resulting runoff in the number of INTC chips that wholesalers’ are willing to keep in inventory.  This is magnifying the effect of the retail shortfall on INTC’s sales. (Think:  instead of selling 10 chips and reordering 10, the wholesaler has sold, say, 9 and reordered 8.)

 

–The reasons behind weaker sales–again, most important first–are:

—-slowdown in the rate at which small and medium-sized businesses are replacing their outmoded Windows XP machines

—-economic weakness, especially in Europe

—-currency weakness, especially in Europe.

Operating margins remain unaffected, despite the revenue drop.  That’s because higher selling prices are offsetting the negative effect of lower unit volumes (which would seem to imply that unit volumes are off by 6%).

my take

My guess would be that sales to end users are off by 4% vs. forecast and the other 2% is from reduction in wholesale inventories.  I suspect that these are sales deferred rather than lost, so I’m not too concerned.  This probably does signal, however, that the vast majority of the current corporate upgrade cycle is over.

I’m more interested in currency/volume effects in the EU.  It’s less to figure out what’s happening with INTC than to to get advance warning about how other firms with European exposure may fare as they report results.

I’m guessing, based on their order in the INTC press release, that businesses clinging to XP are 60% of INTC’s problem, 40% is Europe.

If so, Europe accounts for a 2.5% falloff in sales.  Let’s assume that the decline of the euro accounts for half of this, or 1.25% of $13.7 billion, which equals $170 million.  The euro has fallen by 8% since January 15th.  $170 billion/.08 = $2.1 billion, implying that European end users now make up only about 15% of INTC’s sales.

This strikes me as low, although in a quick look through the company’s 2013 10-K (the 2014 one isn’t out yet) the geographical breakout  of operations that I found listed the location of INTC’s computer-building customers, not where the end users are.

Two conclusions, then:

more currency losses than expected for multinationals with European exposure in 1Q15, and

weaker than expected (I think) economic performance in Europe, as well.  Not a disaster, but worse than companies thought two months ago.

 

 

 

 

on the Apple Watch

March 10, 2015 By in Industry Analysis, internet, Luxury goods, Retail, Technology, Wireless Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

Yesterday, AAPL formally introduced its new Watch, which “was designed with a deep reverence for fine watchmaking,” and which has “a beauty that is both timeless and thoroughly modern.”

It comes in aluminum, stainless steel and 18-karat gold versions so far.  The first costs $350;  speculation is that the last will go for $10,000+, maybe $10,000++.

Analyst and media comment has focused on three points:

–smartphones have replaced watches to some degree, particularly with younger people, so it isn’t clear how big the market is

–the Watch is fully functional only when tethered to an iPhone, so Android users need not apply, and

–AAPL now gets,say, 60% of its revenue and 75% of its operating profit from cellphones.  Whatever its success, the Watch will just be a drop in the bucket.

I think the Watch is more important than that.

I think it’s an experiment, imitating something Nokia did almost two decades ago.

In its heyday, Nokia sold a small number of luxury cellphones, initially under its own name, later under the Vertu brand (long since spun off).  Although Nokia didn’t call much attention to Vertu, it represented maybe 5% of Nokia’s unit volume but (my estimate) around 25% of its profits.

Two implications, if the high-end Watches sell well, which I expect they will:

–AAPL’s Watch profits will be much higher than is generally expected, although they will probably remain in the drop-in-the-bucket category. More important, though,

–if very upscale Watches work, meaning they amount to 5% of unit volume, why wouldn’t $10,000+ iPhones work, too?

1Q15 earnings for Apple (AAPL)

January 28, 2015 By in earnings conference calls, Stock ideas Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

the earnings report

Last night AAPL reported results for 1Q15 (the company’s fiscal year ends in September).  Earnings came in at $18 billion, up 37% year-on-year.  EPS came in at $3.06, a 48% yoy advance (the difference is due to the company’s aggressive stock buyback program, which has shrunk the number of outstanding shares).  These figures were far in excess of the Wall Street consensus, which was centered around eps of $2.60.

This is the first time in at least two years that AAPL has had a positive earnings surprise this large.  The $18 billion also sets a new all-time record for profits by a publicly traded company.  Lots of positive media reports, focusing on the records shattered.

As I’m writing this, the stock is up almost 8% on the news.

the highlights

I hven’t looked carefully at AAPL quarterly earnings for a whole (there’s been no need to).  I’d almost forgotten the teeth-achingly saccharine quality of the Applespeak the company uses in dealing with the investing public.

More substantive thoughts:

–the Steve Jobs era is over  Jobs left the company with powerful earnings momentum, an upscale image, design flair and the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad.   He also left behind some bad stuff–a dogmatic belief in a tablet size that was too big and a smartphone size that was too small.  After struggling for some time, the company has now thrown off both those mistakes.

–the Apple brand/ecosystem has huge power  Pentup demand for a larger smartphone drove iPhone sales in the  holiday quarter to 74.5 million units, a 46% yoy gain.  Inventories fell to unusually low levels during the period, suggesting sales were constrained by AAPL’s manufacturing capability.  (Stocks are now back at normal levels.)

In other words, even though Samsung and other Android suppliers were offering a clearly superior product, Apple users by and large continued to use their dated phones in the hope that the company would finally come to its senses.  Where else would this happen?  AAPL reported that 1Q15 was the highest period ever for Android users switching to the iPhone, suggesting that the small number of prodigal sons/daughters were returning to the fold.

—earnings growth will continue strong  Only a small percentage of AAPL  smartphone owners have upgraded to the iPhone 6  …10%? – 15%? of the total.  This seems to me to imply that AAPL’s yoy earnings comparisons will continue to be healthy for at least the next several quarters, despite a lower dollar value of foreign currency sales.

odds and ends

–Computers were strong for AAPL; tablets were weak

–Sales in Greater China were very good

–The strong dollar means currency was a negative factor in the quarter, even though the raw numbers down’t seem to reflect that.  Currency will continue to be a problem.  Curiously, the yen seems to have been more of an issue than the euro (implying that AAPL hasn’t made much penetration into the EU?).  Hedging will temper currency losses for a while, but AAPL, like most companies, gives little detail on the nuts and bolts of its hedging operations.  So it’s very hard to figure currency effects.  AAPL, however, is guiding to a strong yoy earnings gain in 2Q15 despite this.

 

 

December 2014 earnings for Microsoft (MSFT)

January 27, 2015 By in earnings conference calls, Stock ideas Tags: , , , , , , 3 Comments

the report

Last night MSFT announced earnings for the December 2014 quarter, which is the second fiscal quarter of 2015 (ends in June).  At eps of $.71 a share, results were in line with analysts’ expectations, even though income was dinged by $.02  by restructuring charges and $.04 from an IRS audit adjustment.

Overall, the report was a mixed bag.

On the one hand, the restoration of MSFT to relevance under new CEO Satya Nadella continues apace.  On the other, the renewed vigor that the traditional MSFT business has been exhibiting recently appears to be coming to an end.  In particular,

–In the earnings release on the MSFT website (data are humorously difficult to download if you don’t own Office) the company made it clear that the period of extra oomph to sales of Windows caused by the termination of XP support has come to an end.  Sales had been boosted both by some former XP users upgrading to new machines and by others simply buying a newer OS.

–It’s also clear that we’re entering a period where currency effects–the decline of the euro and the yen vs. the dollar–are going to have a significant negative impact on earnings.  I think this means a drop of somewhere between 5% and 10% vs. where profits would be without currency movements.  This loss takes two forms:  a decline in the value of foreign currency-denominated assets, which is recognized immediately (in 2Q15 the figure was ($390 million); and the lower dollar value of foreign currency-denominated sales.  Part of the latter is recognized in income immediately but most sits on the balance sheet as deferred revenue before reaching the income statement (this is a long-winded way of saying that some currency losses won’t be booked for a while).  And, of course, the euro is about 8% lower today than it was on December 31st.  MSFT estimates the 3Q15 loss at 4% of revenue.

The net result of these two negatives will likely be that eps for MSFT will be flattish over the coming twelve months, rather than the +10% that most analysts appear to have been forecasting.  (How they justified these numbers in the face of the strong dollar is another issue.)

the stock

As I’m writing this, MSFT shares are down by 10%, in a market that is off by a bit less than 2%.

It’s also a day on which I’m sure lots of people didn’t make into work (and those who did are in a bad mood), as well as one where a raft of negative-surprise earnings releases have been issued.  So it’s not a good day to announce bad news.

Still, I’m personally a bit surprised by the extent of the negative reaction.  I’m not sure quite qhat to make of it, other than it’s very negative.

I have no desire to sell the MSFT I own.  On the other hand, I have no burning desire to buy more.

If I thought 2015 would be a sharply up year for stocks, I’d probably be thinking of selling to buy something with more upside potential.  But I expect the market to basically move sideways this year.  So I’ve got to be more concerned that this decline is just the first stop on a down elevator.  Right now, I don’t think that’s right, either.  But that’s where analysis has to be focused.

My biggest reaction is that I’ve got to look even more carefully through the stocks I own to uncover exposure to weak foreign currencies.  Ultimately, I guess, I believe this is the cause of the sharp MSFT price drop.

The main thing the MSFT report tells me is that Wall Street is much less far along than I would have imagined in discounting currency losses to US-based multinationals from a declining euro.  A second observation is that the European stock markets have probably been as poor at factoring in earnings gains that euro-based firms are achieving from their dollar exposure.