For Immediate Release
Chicago, IL – February 18, 2010 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Deere & Company (DE), Google (GOOG), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Comcast (CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (TWC).
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Here are highlights from Wednesday’s Analyst Blog:
Deere Beats Zacks Estimates
Deere & Company (DE) reported results for the first quarter of fiscal 2010. Earnings were $243.2 million or 57 cents per share, up from $203.9 million or 48 cents in the year-ago period. Reported EPS was well above the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 19 cents.
Quarterly revenue of $4.85 billion was down 6% from the prior-year period. Net sales from the company’s worldwide equipment operations dropped 7.1% year over year to $4.24 billion due to lower shipment and production volumes. Equipment net sales in the U.S. and Canada fell 8%, while net sales outside the U.S. and Canada were down 6%.
Agriculture & Turf segment sales fell 6% due to lower shipment volumes, partially offset by improved price realization. The segment’s operating profit was $352 million, compared to $289 million last year. The increase in profit primarily resulted from lower raw-material costs, improved price realization and favorable effects of foreign exchange and product mix.
Sales in the Construction and Forestry segment were down 15%, reflecting a significant decline in shipment and production volumes. The segment posted an operating loss of $37 million for the reported quarter, compared to an operating profit of $18 million in the same quarter last year. The decline primarily was due to lower shipment and production volumes and higher postretirement benefit costs.
Equipment sales are projected to be up 6% to 8% for fiscal 2010 and up 4% to 6% for the second quarter compared to the second quarter of 2009. The forecast includes a favorable currency-translation impact of about 3% for the year and about 5% for the quarter.
100 Squared: FCC’s Broadband Bent
US telecom regulator Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has reportedly unveiled its ambitious plan to catapult domestic broadband speeds over the next ten years. The agency seeks Internet service providers (ISPs) to offer broadband speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) to roughly 100 million US homes by 2020. Existing broadband networks offer speeds in the range of 3-10 Mbps.
Announced by the FCC chairman Julius Genachowski on February 16, 2010, the proposal (called the “100 Squared” initiative) represents a part of FCC’s National Broadband Plan (NBP) which the regulator is expected to submit to the Congress on March 17, 2010. The agency is setting up strategies and an appropriate regulatory framework to promote adoption, affordability and the wider availability of broadband in the US.
Under the NBP, FCC plans an overhaul of the $8 billion Universal Service Fund (USF), which subsidizes phone services in rural areas. The regulator is likely to recommend a shift in the funding from traditional phone services to broadband in high-cost areas. This will enable more people to access high-speed broadband services in the US, especially in remote rural areas. The FCC is also working on unlocking spectrum for future 4G wireless broadband deployments.
The FCC’s proposal follows Google’s (GOOG) recent broadband strategy. The search engine giant recently unveiled its plan to venture into the world of Internet as it aims at building an ultra high-speed broadband network in the US. The network will be capable of delivering peak speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second (Gbps), nearly 100 times faster than today’s regular broadband deployments.
Roughly 500,000 Americans may benefit from this deployment. According to industry estimates, the US is currently ranked eighteenth in the world in terms of broadband speeds, behind Korea, Japan and France. Approximately 14 million US homes currently do not have access to high-speed Internet. Average throughput level offered by the existing broadband deployments is 4 Mbps, much slower than the speeds offered by ISPs in major Asian and European markets.
FCC’s ultimate goal is to make the US the world’s largest market of blazing fast Internet users. The regulators perceive that faster broadband speeds will accelerate the economic growth and foster job creation. The 100 Squared initiative will boost investment in broadband which will benefit network equipment vendors including Cisco Systems (CSCO) that supply routers and switches.
Leading US cable operators such as Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC) and Charter Communications currently offer broadband services capable of delivering theoretical speeds in excess of 100 Mbps, enabled by the revolutionary DOCSIS 3.0 platform. DOCSIS 3.0 services are already available to more than 50 million cable customers and are expected to surpass 100 million users in the next few years.
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