Michelle Jones

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is one of the most talked-about stocks, and for good reason. During the first quarter of the year, large funds bought and sold millions of shares, but it’s difficult to get the full picture based on each individual filing. Fortune contributor Philip Elmer-DeWitt looked at all the data from the 13F filings of the major funds in order to get a better, more fuller picture of what the largest investors in the U.S. are doing with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). Apple Inc. (AAPL) Is Still The Number One Equity According to Elmer-DeWitt, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) continued to be the top equity in the portfolios of the largest funds. He checked out Whale Wisdom’s compilation of information regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and this week’s 13F filings. Numerous media outlets—ValueWalk included—published headlines indicating that the funds were fleeing Apple, but that isn’t the whole picture. Some are indeed fleeing, but more are increasing their position in the stock than reducing it. It seems as if the number of funds that sold off their Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares during the first quarter is much higher than it has been in the past because the stock has struggled in recent months, so the
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Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) shares have risen dramatically over the last six months, and they could keep going up in the near term, according to analysts at Macquarie. But after that, it’s anyone’s guess. Macquarie analysts remain concerned that the long-term burden of content costs will present significant downside to the stock. Macquarie Capital analysts Tim Nollen and James Kopelman released a report to investors this week. They remain neutral on the stock because they see good near-term trends but big problems in Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX)’s ability to sustain subscriber growth and keep it above the amounts it is spending on content. Netflix’s Original Content Strategy The analysts note that Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX)’s decision to produce several original series over the next year or two will likely bolster its subscribership. In particular, the streaming video company brought back the popular comedy Arrested Development, which was once on Fox but ended up being cancelled six years ago. Netflix will release 15 new episodes of the series on May 26, and Nollen and Kopelman say that the company will see lower churn in the series during the second quarter as subscribers watch all of the series’ past seasons and then stay with the
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The Financial Times was the latest target of hackers from the Syrian Electronic Army, according to Reuters’ Mohammed Abbas, Kate Holton and Ben Berkowitz. The group apparently hacked the British newspaper’s website and Twitter account, replacing its headlines and posting links on its Twitter account to a video on YouTube. The Syrian Electronic Army The video supposedly shows members of a rebel group in Syria executing Syrian soldiers who are kneeling and wearing blindfolds. The group is known as the Nusra Front, and it’s believed to be linked with al Qaeda. The Syrian Electronic Army is also believed to support Bashar al-Assad, who is currently the president of Syria. The hackers replaced stories with headlines reading, “Hacked By Syrian Electronic Army” and “Syrian Electronic Army  was here.” The articles under each of the headlines was left blank without any other messages or content. In addition to the video link posted on the paper’s Twitter feed, there were also posts that read, “Do you want to know the reality of the Syrian ‘Rebels’?” In the past, the same group has targeted a number of other high profile sites, including that of the BBC’s weather service, the France 24 news service in
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The latest report from Gartner on global smartphone market share revealed a lot about how Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) and Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V) are doing in the smartphone race. Analysts at Raymond James took a closer look at the raw data and were able to determine several key points. Global Smartphone Growth Estimates Of course the main takeaway from the research report was that Asia and the Pacific region led global mobile phone sales during the first three months of the year. Most of these areas are emerging markets, and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) remains the dominant force around the globe. Raymond James analysts Tavis C. McCourt and Daniel Toomey said after viewing the report, they updated their smartphone numbers to indicate a greater mix shift to smartphones. Almost half of all handsets being sold around the world are now smartphones, which shows that smartphone volumes are currently seeing a 43 percent year over year growth. The analysts said they originally expected global smartphone growth to decelerate to between 25 and 30 percent this year, but because of how strong emerging markets are, they’ve pushed their expectations up to 36 percent
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Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) has disclosed in an SEC filing that it raised its debt and equity offerings by 30 percent so that it can pay back the clean energy loan it received from the U.S. Department of Energy. That pushes its debt up to $1.08 billion and helps build some cash for the automaker. Bloomberg’s Alan Ohnsman and Chris Reiter report that Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) wants to sell 3.9 million shares at a rate of $92.24 each. Of those shares, CEO Elon Musk himself will buy 1.08 million shares, which equates to the $100 million he announced he would on Thursday. Convertible notes will add about $648 million on to that total. Tesla Motors To Pay Uncle Sam Back Early According to the SEC filing, Tesla said it will use $452.4 million of the cash to pay back the DOE loan it received under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program. This clearly puts the automaker in its own class, especially when compared to other companies like Fisker Automotive, which tried a similar plan to pay back its loan but failed. Now it’s battling bankruptcy after laying off three-quarters of its staff in April. Ohnsman and Reiter also point
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When it comes to the iPhone 6, there is plenty of debate about materials. Of course while there’s no doubt that Apple prides itself in sophistication, and reverting to plastic does seem like a huge step backwards for the company. Nonetheless, Phones Review makes the case that plastic is a better option for the iPhone 6 than metal, mostly because it enables Apple to focus on real innovations rather than spending more money on a metal case. So cases over materials could be made for both sides, but there’s another part of the equation that must be factored in here: investors. If shrinks its gross margins too much (and several experts say it won’t, even with a low cost iPhone), then investors will likely start dumping the stock. And if Apple doesn’t find a way to pull off a better iPhone with more innovation but continuing the finesse it has been known for, then investors will still likely start selling off shares. So what’s a company to do? It’s impossible to please all the people all the time, and at the end of the day, I believe investors care slightly more about gross margins, although they will quickly change their
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Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s I/O developers conference is this week, and day one focused mainly on services and new products and developer tools for Chrome and Android. Analysts at JPMorgan released a report today on their takeaways from the first week of Google’s I/O developer’s conference. Rapid Adoption Of Android And Chrome Is Encouraging One of the main things JPMorgan analysts said they found encouraging from all of Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s updates from the first day was the rapid adoption of both of its major platforms. The search giant reported that it more than doubled the amount of Android activations in 2013 to 900 million, compared to 400 million last year and 100 million in 2011. Google has said it’s pushing its Android platform in underpenetrated markets like South America, Russia, Asia and Africa, which have a10 percent Android penetration or less. Also the company reported that it just passed 48 billion app installs, including more than 2.5 billion just in the last month. In addition, Google’s global revenue per user is more than 2.5 times greater than it was at this time last year, and it has more than 750 million monthly active Chrome users, compared to 450 at the
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JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) shareholder T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. says it plans to vote against splitting the CEO and chairman roles, according to The Wall Street Journal. If the two roles are split, current CEO and chairman Jamie Dimon would be pushed out of the chairman role at the bank. The firm is the bank’s sixth biggest shareholder and owns a little over 2 percent of the company. T. Rowe Price released a statement today, saying it fully supports “the combined Chairman and CEO role at J.P. Morgan under the superb leadership of Jamie Dimon.” JPMorgan Chase And The Post-London Whale World At issue is whether Dimon should be able to retain both roles in the wake of the London Whale trading incident, which cost the bank billions of dollars. Some are questioning whether a single person can handle both roles at a bank that’s as large as JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), especially after the trading incident raised questions about an apparent lack of oversight leading up to it. This week unidentified insiders at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) told Fox Business Network’s Charlie Gasparino that they believe Dimon will be able to keep both roles. This
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Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares are on the rise yet again, this time after the company’s CEO said he would be investing $100 million in the company. The stock jumped as much as 7 percent after the announcement, and analysts at Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS) (LON:BARC) released a report weighing in on the equity injection. They see it as an important step for the company as it moves to enter the mass market and have raised their price target on Tesla shares. CEO Elon Musk’s $100 million investment will be split, with $45 million of it coming in the common stock offering and about $55 million of it being purchased directly from Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA). The automaker also announced this week that it would offer 2.7 million shares of common stock, adding up to about $244 million, plus an additional $450 million in a convertible senior note that’s due in 2018. The Benefits Of Tesla’s Extra Cash In the view of analysts at Barclays, Tesla Motors now has a greater chance to move from just a luxury automaker into a mass affluent automaker. The company poses less of a financial risk because of the raise in equity. In addition, demand is
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Most people have tried to take a photo in a dark area, only to discover that it was too dark for their iPhone or other mobile device to light the scene all on its own. So now Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) aims to solve that with a new patent. A Description Of Apple’s “Illumination System” The patent is for an Illumination System, and it describes a way for a number of devices to work together to provide flashes to light an especially dark scene. It would utilize multiple iPhones or other devices to light up a dark scene so that a photograph could be taken. The main device used for this method would be either a smartphone or a camera, and it would utilize secondary devices like smartphones, tablets or other mobile devices which have a flash that’s either built in or somehow connected to them. The main device would take a test photo to determine how much light would be needed in order to adequately light up the shot. How Apple’s Illumination Method Would Work Then all of the secondary devices would receive information from that shot and coordinate together to determine how much light, the intensity of that light,
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Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) announced this week that it would move up the date of its latest earnings report to today after the markets closed, and analysts at Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) released a preview report. Of course Dell has been buffeted lately by buyout concerns, first as founder Michael Dell made his offer, and then as a handful of other offers have come in and some even withdrawn. The newest offer that’s still on the table is the one from activist investor Carl Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management. So why would the struggling PC maker suddenly move up the date of its earnings report? It’s hard to say, but many industry watchers believe it’s because the company will miss expectations by a wide margin. And taking that argument even further, the company’s board could be using a weak earnings report to bolster its push for shareholders to believe the original go-private bid from Michael Dell is the best option for the company. Earnings And Revenue Expectations For Dell Today’s report will cover the company’s first fiscal quarter, which ended in April. A source cited by the Wall Street Journal did say that the struggling PC maker’s earnings would be
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