Gapping down
In reaction to disappointing earnings/guidance:
In reaction to disappointing earnings/guidance:
- EDU -4%, PFBC -2.8%, ZION -2.1%, NBTB -2%, PG -1.4%, BKU -0.5%, SSL -0.5%
Other news:
- LTBR -7.8% (after closing up more than 50%)
- ADMS -6.8% (commences $85 mln common stock offering)
- STML -5.3% (announces public offering of 3.7 mln shares of its common stock )
- INSM -5.2% (ticking lower; commences $300 mln offering of convertible senior notes due 2025)
- HSGX -3.5% (prices offering of 2,340,430 shares of common stock at a price of $2.35 per share)
- RARE -1.8% (commences $175 mln common stock offering)
- SHLD -1.7% (to commence exchange offers)
- CBIO -1% (files for $150 mln mixed securities shelf offering )
Analyst comments:
- GPRO -4.1% (downgraded to Underweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley )
- CRTO -2.5% (downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at BMO Capital Markets)
- ANET -2.2% (downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank)
- FTNT -2.2% (downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank)
- W -2.4% (downgraded to Hold from Buy at Stifel)
- BIDU -1.3% (downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies)
- S -1% (downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Macquarie)
- HPQ -1% (downgraded to Equal-Weight from Overweight at Morgan Stanley)
Gapping up
In reaction to strong earnings/guidance:
In reaction to strong earnings/guidance:
- NFLX +10.1%, RMD +9.8%, ATI +8.9%, PIXY +6.1%, LOGI +5.6%, LPL +4.7%, OKE +4.4%, AMTD +2.4%, ADBE +2.4%, KMB +2.2%, STLD +2%, TRV +1.4%, VZ +1%, STT +0.9%, JNJ +0.8%
M&A news:
- HBIO +7.7% (to acquire 100% of the outstanding stock of Data Sciences International for approximately $70 million; updates guidance)
Select solar related names showing strength:
- RGSE +37.4%, VSLR +9.9%, RUN +6%, FSLR +3.7%, TAN +2.7%, SOL +0.7%
Other news:
- AMRN +8.7% (says REDUCE-IT cardiovascular outcomes study reaches 90% mark for reported primary events)
- BLRX +8.5% (announces that AGI-134, an immunotherapy compound in development for the treatment of multiple solid tumors, demonstrated successful results in two pre-clinical melanoma studies)
- CCXI +6.5% (announces 'positive' overall survival results with CCR2 Inhibitor CCX872 for locally advanced/metastatic pancreatic cancer)
- TSRO +5.5% (continued strength - being attributed to M&A speculation following CELG/JUNO, BIVV/SNY news)
- TGI +5.2% (Triumph Group signs agreement with Boeing to provide major structural assemblies for the 767 program)
- VYGR +3.8% (announces FDA clearance of IND application for VY-AADC for advanced Parkinson's disease)
- WHR +3.3% (U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer confirmed that President Trump approved recommendations to impose safeguard tariffs on imported large residential washing machines and imported solar cells and modules)
- TSLA +1.4% (announces new 10-year CEO performance award for Elon Musk )
- FL +1.1% (made a strategic investment in Carbon38)
Analyst comments:
- CRSP +7.9% (upgraded to Buy from Hold at SunTrust)
- ATUS +3.4% (upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Barclays)
- LITE +2% (upgraded to Equal-Weight from Underweight at Morgan Stanley)
- DKS +1.7% (upgraded to Positive from Neutral at Susquehanna)
- GGG +1.4% (upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank)
- PANW +1.3% (upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank)
- NTR +1.1% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup)
Procter & Gamble beats by $0.05, reports revs in-line; raises high end of FY18 EPS due to tax, reaffirms sales guidance
- Reports Q2 (Dec) earnings of $1.19 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.05 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.14; revenues rose 3.2% year/year to $17.39 bln vs the $17.39 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Organic sales and volume both increased two percent. A one percent positive mix impact from the disproportionate growth of higher priced categories, Skin & Personal Care and Personal Health Care, was offset by a negative pricing impact of one percent. Beauty organic sales +9%, grooming -3%, Health Care +4%, Fabric/home +3%, Baby, feminine, family -1%; 10% adj. EPS growth driven primarily by increased net sales and a lower core effective tax rate. Impacts from the Tax Act and foreign exchange each contributed ~ four percentage points to core earnings per share growth, and higher commodity costs reduced core earnings per share growth by ~four percentage points. Core SG&A as a percentage of sales decreased 40 basis points, as 40 basis points of savings in overhead, agency fees and advertising production costs and 40 basis points of sales growth leverage were partially offset by reinvestments in research & development and information technology. Media spending was in-line with prior year levels. Core operating profit margin decreased 10 basis points including ~ 20 basis points of favorable foreign exchange.
- Co issues in-line guidance for FY18, sees EPS +5-8% (from +5-7%) to ~$4.12-4.23, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $4.17 Capital IQ Consensus; reaffirms FY18 revs +3% to $67.0 bln vs. $67.12 bln Capital IQ Consensus. P&G said it is maintaining its guidance for organic sales growth in the range of two to three percent for fiscal 2018.
Early premarket gappers
Gapping up:
- RGSE +47%, PIXY +14.7%, AMRN +11.1%, NFLX +10.6%, RMD +9.8%, VSLR +8.5%, HBIO +7.7%, CCXI +6.5%, RUN +6%, TSRO +5.8%, LOGI +5.7%, LPL +4.7%, OKE +4.4%, WHR +4.2%, FSLR +3.4%, TRV +3%, TAN +2.9%, AMTD +2.7%, ADBE +2.6%, STLD +2%, TGI +1.2%, JNJ +1.2%, FL +1.1%, TSLA +1%, VZ +1%, SPWR +0.9%, STT +0.9%, INSM +0.8%, SOL +0.7%, FITB +0.7%
Gapping down:
- LTBR -7.8%, ADMS -5.5%, STML -4.2%, EDU -3.5%, PFBC -2.8%, HSGX -2.3%, JKS -2.2%, JASO -2.1%, ZION -2.1%, RARE -1.8%, CBIO -1.7%, PG -1.6%, BKU -0.5%, SSL -0.5%
Kimberly-Clark beats by $0.03, reports revs in-line; guides FY18 EPS above consensus, revs below consensus; announces new restructuring, raises dividend 3.1% (116.91)
- Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $1.57 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $1.54; revenues rose 0.8% year/year to $4.58 bln vs the $4.61 bln Capital IQ Consensus. Changes in foreign currency exchange rates benefited sales by more than 1%. Organic sales fell about 1%, as lower net selling prices of 2% were partially offset by improved product mix of 1% and slightly higher volumes. In North America, organic sales were down 3% in consumer products and up 1% in K-C Professional. Outside North America, organic sales increased 4% in developing and emerging markets but fell 3% in developed markets.
- Co issues mixed guidance for FY18, sees EPS of $6.90-7.20, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $6.63 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate; sees FY18 revs of +1-2% to ~$18.44-18.62 bln vs. $18.65 bln Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Organic sales are expected to increase ~1%, driven by higher volumes. Changes in net selling prices and product mix are expected to be similar, or up slightly, year-on-year. Changes in foreign currency exchange rates are anticipated to have a neutral to 1% positive impact on net sales, and the acquisition of the company's joint venture in India should benefit sales slightly. Adjusted operating profit growth of 2 to 5%.
- The co announced a new 2018 Global Restructuring Program to reduce the company's structural cost base by streamlining and simplifying its manufacturing supply chain and overhead organization. The restructuring is expected to generate annual cost savings of $500 to $550 million by the end of 2021 and accelerate the company's return to delivering its long-term growth objectives over time. The company has established a four-year cost savings target of more than $1.5 billion from its ongoing FORCE program over the 2018 to 2021 time period.
- Dividend increase of 3.1% -- the quarterly dividend will increase to $1.00 per share, up from $0.97 per share in 2017.
Netflix Color on Quarter (227.58)
- Stifel raises their NFLX tgt to $283 from $235, reiterates Buy. Firm notes that Netflix handily topped expectations in 4Q with a record 8.33mm quarterly subscriber additions globally vs. consensus of 6.39mm, driven by broad-based outperformance across the globe. Guidance for 1Q:18 was also positive, as Netflix expects 6.35mm global subscriber additions vs. Street expectations for 5.01mm. After seeing strong returns on both its content portfolio and marketing campaigns supporting it, Netflix now expects to spend $7.5B-$8.0B on content and $2.0B on marketing in 2018, leading to expected negative FCF of $3.0B-$4.0B this year. Despite the company's big investment plans, Netflix expects to deliver ~300bps of operating leverage in 2018 and eventually anticipates content investments to begin to slow
- Needham reiterates Hold. Firm notes that NFLX financials were in line with their estimate at revs of $3.29B (up 33% y/y), and EPS of $0.41 (up 173% y/y). They expect NFLX to open higher owing to strong subscriber over-delivery despite a price increase in the US and Europe. Although NFLX focused on content as a key driver of sub growth, in the US they believe that widespread press about DIS buying assets from FOXA based on the strategic rational of launching a directto-consumer (DTC) entertainment service in 2019 aided OTT awareness and helped legitimize OTT as a viewing alternative for older viewers. NFLX's CEO projected strong consumer adoption of DIS's competitive DTC entertainment service. They believe that MVPD adoption by Cox and Verizon in the US (and Deutsche Telekom offshore) helped drive NFLX's 4Q17 sub growth, but at a lower ASP than average.
- Pivotal Research Group raises their NFLX tgt to $300 from $270, reiterates Buy. Firm notes that driven by the launch of new content + the benefit of increasing traditional distribution channels (cable and telcos) + increasing availability of broadband + a decision to significantly ramp marketing in 4Q, Netflix reported much better than expected 4Q domestic (+1.98M [+2% y/y despite a sizeable intra-quarter price increase]] vs. their and consensus +1.25M) and international (+6.4M [+24%] vs. their and consensus 5.0M) net new subscriber results. U.S. contribution margin was in-line at $561M (+5% y/y), while international contribution margin was better than expected at $135M vs. our $127M ($117M). EBITDA grew +48% to $313M materially below their $395M forecast on the much better than expected subscriber growth, while free cash flow was moderately better than expected [(-$524M) vs. their (-$624M) (content spend timing)]. Overall, NFLX 4Q result (which included temp adverse effects from price increases) and 1Q guidance continues the strong subscriber trends from the last 5 quarters, as management has taken advantage of the drawing power of originals to generate strong subscriber growth (enhanced by integration into existing distributors offering reducing churn substantially), while demonstrating yet again the ability to take price, a very powerful combination.
- B. Riley FBR, Inc. raises their NFLX tgt to $243 from $211, reiterates Neutral. In their preview from Friday 1/19, they had flagged their unique Google Trends checks of content and Netflix searches that suggested global streaming sub growth in 4Q17 could come in better than guidance and match or top the record sub growth of 4Q16. That's exactly what happened, speaking to strength of brand, execution, and content this quarter. But the guide for 1Q18, though better than consensus, suggests a slight easing of this torrid growth entering 2018. With the stock up 28% so far in 2018 (including a post-close 9% rise Monday 1/22 after earnings), versus the S&P 500 up approximately 6% over the same period, they admire the company, but retain their Neutral rating. Netflix's momentum is clearly impressive, and cautionary for traditional TV companies trying to pivot and catch up.
- Goldman raises their tgt to a street-high of $315 from $250; reiterates Buy.
- JP Morgan raises their tgt to $285 from $242.
Shares of Netflix are trading up 10.5% at $251.37/share in pre-market trade.
I was all set to dislike the “flick,” a time unit just recently invented by Facebook (technically the Oculus team), because I thought it was going to be something worthless like “the average time someone looks at a post.” In fact it’s a very clever way of dividing time that theoretically could make video and audio production much more harmonious.
So what is a flick? A flick is one seven hundred and five million six hundred thousandth of a second — 1/705,600,000 if you prefer the digits, or 1.417233560090703e-9 if you prefer decimals.
And why is that useful?
As a hint, here’s a list of numbers into which 1/706,600,000 divides evenly: 8, 16, 22.05, 24, 25, 30, 32, 44.1, 48, 50, 60, 90, 100, 120. Notice a pattern?
Even if you don’t work in media production, some of those numbers probably look familiar. That’s because they’re all framerates or frequencies used in encoding or showing things like films and music. 24 frames per second, 120 hertz TVs, 44.1 KHz sample rate audio.
Many of these fractions resolve into inconvenient decimal series, necessitating shorthand or estimations. For instance, the 1/24th of a second around which the entire film industry is based on is equal to 0.0416666666666666… on and on forever (even attempting to use nanoseconds to represent these durations ends up creating fractions of nanoseconds). So it may be abbreviated for convenience to 0.04167. Easier to remember, but not numerically exact, and who knows when that “extra” value might break something?
On the other hand, using flicks almost all these important fractional frequencies turn into a nice exact round numbers, no bars or estimation needed: 1/24th of a second, for instance, is 29,400,000 flicks. 1/120th is 5,880,000 flicks. 1/44,100th is 16,000 flicks.
Those numbers may not be easier for you to remember, but it makes them a heck of a lot simpler for systems to match with one another without creating some kind of inter-format fraction that has to be resolved with yet another adjusting frequency. Computers love whole numbers, and so do I.
Even the weird NTSC numbers in use due to certain technical constraints divide nicely. 23.976 (technically 24*(1,000/1,001)=23.976023976230 with the last 6 digits repeating) becomes exactly 29,429,400 flicks. It’s the same for 29.97, 59.94, and any others like them. No more fractions or decimals needed whatsoever! How great is that?!
I don’t know why this is so immensely satisfying for me, in a “things fitting perfectly into other things” way. Probably because having dabbled in video and audio editing and effects, timing and frame rate stuff was always a pain (though thankfully we’ve mostly left behind interlacing and other legacy cruft) and I would welcome harmonization really of any sort. I congratulate this team of genius self-starters for finding this amazing number and creating this potentially super-useful time unit.
You can download, fork, or otherwise investigate the flicks format and code over at GitHub.