2. 3 tech stocks that beat the market, August 3 August 7
2015
3. Windstream finally caught a break this week.
4. The telecom services operator beat the Street in Thursday's
second-quarter report. Analysts expected a net loss of $0.61 per
share on sales of roughly $1.4 billion. Windstream proved the
analysts right on the bottom line, but delivered a far smaller loss
of only $0.48 per share. The company is moving away from low-margin
consumer sales and leaning in towards more profitable
business-class accounts. What's that other stock on our chart,
shadowing Windstream's every move at a distance? That's
Communications Sales & Leasing, an asset management REIT
recently spun off from Windstream. By the numbers
5. Since the CS&L split, Windstream shares have traded 52%
lower. CS&L also fell 28%. Many investors are still unsure
exactly how the new two-company structure is supposed to work, and
not convinced that it was a good idea in the first place. In short,
CS&L is supposed to manage the old Windstream's network
equipment and real estate assets, while the new Windstream company
leases access to CS&L's assets and focuses on selling telecom
services. In theory, CS&L should be a slower-growing but safer
bet, sporting generous dividends. Windstream should offer more
flexibility and growth options, but less stability and lower
dividend yields. In practice, so far, Windstream's shares have
indeed been less stable than CS&L, but with a 13% to 11% score
also offers a higher dividend yield. Theory vs. practice
6. First Solar bounced 19% higher on Tuesday, thanks to a huge
earnings surprise. President Obama unveiling ambitious clean energy
plans sure didn't hurt the solar power veteran, either.
7. Second-quarter earnings landed at $0.93 per share, up from a
$0.62 loss per share in the year-ago quarter. Sales more than
doubled to $896 million. Analysts were only expecting earnings of
$0.36 per share on sales near $752 million. If that's not a home
run, I just don't understand baseball. More numbers
8. Many large and expensive projects from quarters past are
starting to pay off for First Solar these days. The company is also
selling, restructuring, and otherwise shaping up its non-core
assets. 8point3 Energy Partners, a newly formed joint venture
between First Solar and SunPower, is absorbing many of these tricky
resources and projects. 8point3 has not yet reported its first
quarterly results. Keep your eyes on that for clues to how First
Solar's client installation projects are working out. Meanwhile,
First Solar simply doubles down on making and selling solar panels.
What's going on?
9. Travis Hoium, the Fool's resident clean energy expert, says
that First Solar's never-ending turnaround is getting somewhere.
The 8point3 business is helping, and so is a general trend towards
more and larger solar power installations. Meanwhile, President
Obama just announced a massive initiative to adopt clean energy
sources such as wind and solar systems. The so-called Clean Power
Plan will subsidize clean power installations on a grand scale, and
will touch companies like First Solar in a very direct way. The
green power revolution that's always waiting right around the
corner? This time, Obama is making sure that it will arrive soon.
Industry trends: Going up
10. Finally, NVIDIA absolutely crushed second-quarter earnings
and revenue targets.
11. The chip designer's sales was supposed to fall 9% year over
year, according to its own guidance and analyst projections.
Instead, revenues rose 5% to $1.15 billion, beating Wall Street's
consensus by 15%. On the bottom line, adjusted earnings rose 13%
year over year to $0.34 per share. The Street view stopped at $0.21
per share. Mind you, these are adjusted earnings. Among these
adjustments, NVIDIA backed out a charge of $0.19 per share for
shutting down its wireless networking operations. The company would
have preferred to sell this division, but failed to find a buyer
and simply gave up on the unprofitable project instead. There was
no magic bullet behind this surprise. Instead, NVIDIA delivered
sharp execution across all markets and segments. Looking ahead,
management also guided third-quarter revenues 7% above the current
Street view. NVIDIA vs. the Street
12. "We remain excited about our business prospects." "Gaming
continues to accelerate, and 4K, VR, Windows 10, and a pipeline of
exciting games will lift it further. GPU accelerated data centers
are expanding. Deep learning is a new, exciting application. And
the market for car computers is expanding. We have excellent
positions in each of these growth markets." -Colette Kress, NVIDIA
CFO Food for thought Image source: NVIDIA.
13. A little-known tech company responsible for finally putting
an end to credit cards could hand its investors life-changing
profits. And a revealing investor alert from The Motley Fool has
the full story!