On Thursday, Omaha-based ConAgra Foods Inc. (NYSE: CAG) reported profit growth in the fourth quarter due in part to contributions from its commodity trading unit, which the company just sold. Also, homebuilder Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN) said its fiscal second-quarter loss narrowed, despite writedowns and a hefty drop in revenues.
ConAgra said earnings grew almost 5% from the year-ago period to $201 million, or 41 cents per share, including 23 cents per share from discontinued operations. The company also said revenue rose 15% to $3.08 billion.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had expected earnings for the quarter ended May 25 to be 34 cents per share on revenue of $3.4 billion.
ConAgra guided earnings to between 26 cents and 28 cents per share in the first quarter, and $1.56 and $1.59 per share for fiscal 2009. Analysts are predicting earnings per share of 33 cents per share in the first quarter, as well as $1.60 for the year.
ConAgra shares fell $1.23, or 5.6%, to $20.92 in trading Thursday. Shares have fallen 4.0% in the past three months.
Reporting today: Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) is expected to post a loss of 22 cents a share in the fourth quarter. ConAgra Foods (NYSE: CAG) is expected to post earnings of 34 cents a share in the fourth-quarter .
Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) reported late Wednesday a rise in quarterly profit of 12% to $437.9 million, or 86 cents a share, helped by gains in Europe and Asia. Sales jumped 16% to $5.1 billion. The earnings beat Wall Street's forecast. Shares are down 4.8% in premarket trading.
Anheuser-Busch Cos. (NYSE: BUD) will likely officially reject InBev NV's $46.3 billion takeover bid this week and announce plans to lower $1 billion in costs, pay a special dividend and sell off divisions like its theme-park unit to increase its stock price. InBev may then raise its offer.
Food giants General Mills Inc. (NYSE: GIS) and ConAgra Foods Inc. (NYSE: CAG) are scheduled to report fiscal fourth-quarter earnings this week. While cereal-maker General Mills is expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial to post higher profits, frozen-foods packager ConAgra is expected to report a profit decline.
General Mills is expected to report net income of 70 cents per share, up 11.4% from the same period of last year, on revenue of $3.4 billion. The company has tended to provided positive surprises recently -- by eight cents, or 10.4%, in the previous quarter.
Minneapolis-based General Mills is the second largest cereal-maker in the U.S., after Kellogg Co. (NYSE: K). Its other brands include Gold Medal flour, Bisquick, Hamburger Helper, Pop Secret, and Yoplait. The company had revenues in the past year of $12.4 billion and net income $1.1 billion. Its long-term EPS growth forecast is only 8.7%, much less than the industry average but about the same as Kellogg's. The consensus recommendation of analysts remains to buy General Mills.
Shares reached a 52-week high of $63.91 in early June, and closed Monday at $63.40.The share price is up 11.5% since the beginning of the year. It trades at a P/E ratio of 16.60.
Hormel Foods (NYSE: HRL), a foodstuffs processor whose colleagues include ConAgra Foods (NYSE: CAG) and Kraft (NYSE: KFT), issued its Q2 numbers on Thursday. Revenues jumped 6% to $1.6 billion, although the growth rate was only 4% if you look at just the amount credited to organic appreciation. Net earnings per diluted share rose 14% to $0.56 per share. Volume jumped 5% altogether, and 3% based on, once again, organic growth.
This wasn't a bad earnings report for a major supermarket brand, although it certainly wasn't overly stimulating, either. So, you wanna take a guess as to by how much Hormel beat earnings expectations? If you said "by the proverbial penny," then you just might be a Wall Street junkie! Seems like so many companies got the penny-thing down pat. Anyway, Briefing.com not only said that earnings were better by a penny, but that revenues came in pretty much as expected.
Basically, Hormel is trying to navigate this inflationary environment as best it can. As we all know, it's pretty competitive out there in the grocery aisles even during prosperous periods. But take a look at the cash-flow statement and you'll see that the company did pretty well in terms of net cash from operations. That metric soared almost 30% over the six-month period. Only problem is, not too much was left over after capital expenditures and dividend payments were taken into account. Still, Hormel seems reasonably fine for now on the cash-flow front.
I'm not necessarily interested in Hormel's stock at this time. If I wanted to get in, I certainly would look to pick up shares at a higher yield; there are better opportunities out there for dividend yield, in my opinion. As Joseph Lazzaro observed a couple months back, Hormel is definitely an interesting defensive name during challenging economic times, and I did enjoy the double-digit bottom-line growth. I just think investors would be better off if this one came down a bit in terms of share price.
Disclosure: I don't own shares in any company mentioned here; positions can change at any time.
Kenexa Corporation (NASDAQ: KNXA) provides software, services and proprietary content that enable organizations to find and retain employees. The company's web-based applications assist clients in successfully addressing such issues as recruitment, skills testing and tracking of employee development. The firm also conducts clients' recruitment and hiring processes for them. Kenexa sells its software products and services to some 4,000 firms, primarily on a subscription basis. The company client list includes ConAgra Foods (NYSE: CAG), Eaton Corporation (NYSE: ETN) and Wachovia Corporation (NYSE: WB).
Kenexa pleased investors last week, when it reported Q1 EPS of 31 cents and revenues of $48.2 million. Analysts had been looking for 23 cents and $48.8 million. The CEO noted that Q1 saw a record number of new preferred partner customers sign with the firm. Management also guided Q2 EPS to 34-35 cents (34 cent consensus), Q2 revenues to $56-$57 million ($53.73M consensus), FY08 EPS to $1.47-$1.50 ($1.39 consensus) and FY08 revenues to $230-$235 million ($221.45M consensus).
This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and check out other Battle of the Brands posts.
While Kraft Foods Inc.'s (NYSE: KFT) Oscar Mayer brand and ConAgra Food Inc.'s (NYSE: CAG) Hebrew National may both have venerable histories, they also have very different personalities: "I wish I were and Oscar Mayer wiener" vs. "We answer to a higher authority."
In 1900, Oscar Mayer and his brothers ran one of the most popular sausage makers in Chicago. They pioneered the use of brand names and voluntary federal approval to protect the reputation of their products. The company was the first to offer packaged sliced bacon. Such innovations helped Oscar Mayer to become an industry leader. The first wiener-mobile rolled out in 1936, and its descendants can still be spotted today. The famous Oscar Mayer jingle was introduced in 1963, and today is one of the longest-running jingles still in use. In 1988 the company launched its Lunchables, prepacked cracker-and-cold-cut school lunches. Oscar Mayer became a Kraft Foods brand in 1989.
Kraft Foods is the largest U.S. food company, with $37.2 billion in sales in 2007. Oscar Mayer is one of seven Kraft Foods brands with more than $1 billion in revenue. The convenience meats category accounted for about 16% of total revenue.
This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and check out other Battle of the Brands posts.
When it comes to this staple of kitchens and diners worldwide, the most common question after "Is it ketchup or catsup?" has got to be "Heinz or Hunt's?"
The Hunt Brothers Fruit Packing Company was founded in 1890 by Joseph and William Hunt in Santa Clara, California. It was a small canning business on the ground of a ranch, delivered locally by horse-drawn carriage. In 1946, tomato sauce became the flagship product, and a marketing push made the little red cans familiar across the U.S., and lead to plethora of other tomato-based products, including spaghetti sauce, barbecue sauce, and, of course, ketchup.
Today Hunt's is one brand of many belonging to packaged and frozen foods giant ConAgra Foods Inc. (NYSE: CAG) ranging from Healthy Choice to Slim Jims, from Orville Redenbacher to Egg Beaters. ConAgra reported $12 billion in sales last year.
ConAgra Foods (NYSE: CAG) is a top food producer, offering packaged and frozen foods, seafood and dairy products to retail, foodservice, commercial product and international customers. Among the company's many brands are Hunt's, Banquet, Chef Boyardee, Van Camp's, Healthy Choice, Orville Redenbacher's, PAM, Slim Jim and Wesson. Major competitors include Kraft Foods (NYSE: KFT) and Unilever (NYSE: UL).
The company pleased investors late last month, when it reported Q3 EPS of 63 cents and revenues of $3.53 billion. Analysts had been expecting 41 cents and $3.20 billion. Management also guided FY08 EPS to $1.80-$1.85 ($1.60 consensus) and announced that it would sell the company's trading and merchandising arm to the Ospraie Special Opportunities fund and others for $2.1 billion.
The Commerce Department's Q4-2007 final revision for GDP came in at +0.6%, but that was in-line and the data is now more than 75-days old. But it does highlight the concerns that the growth rates this quarter just can not be good. It also set the tone for more selling. It just goes to show that it still pays in today's climate to sell when you are feeling good about the market and buy when you feel overly concerned.
The Federal Reserve also auctioned off some $75 billion in treasury securities after receiving bids for some $86.1 billion. This was the first auction of its kind and the next auction is set for April 3. Below are the unofficial closing prices:
If you look at the unusual increase seen in short selling in many of the NASDAQ names from this morning, you might scratch your head. But that's the world we live in.
The company said its quarterly profit climbed to $309 million, or 63 cents per share due to higher prices and demand for its products. These numbers are up from $193 million, or 38 cents per share reported in the same period a year ago when the company's earnings numbers were dragged down by recall costs. Analysts, on average, expected quarterly earnings of 39 cents per share.
ConAgra's quarterly revenue grew to $3.53 billion, up from $2.9 billion a year ago. Revenue during the period was helped by strong gains from the company's food and ingredients segment which offset soaring commodity costs. Analysts expected the company show sales of $3.17 billion in the third quarter, according to Thomson Financial.
ConAgra (NYSE: CAG) is recently trading at $23 in pre-open trading, above its close of $21.89.
CAG reported Q3 diluted EPS of 63 cents. CAG reaffirmed long-term EPS view of 8-10%. CAG agreed to sell its commodity trading and merchandising operations to Ospraire Special Opportunities fund for approximately $2.1 billion.
CAG April option implied volatility of 51 is above its 26-week average of 27 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.
Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com
Oversold Stocks Worth a Closer Look These stocks have taken a pounding in the past few months. But they're looking ripe for smart buyers now. They include Nvidia, Game Stop and Seagate. Timely Trio Of Oversold Stocks - Forbes.com
How to Pay Zero Taxes Nearly 50 million Americans do it. But once you see how, you'll be glad you're not one of them. Here are top ways you can get your taxes to zero. How to pay zero taxes - MONEY Magazine
Despite higher costs, ConAgra Foods Inc. (NYSE: CAG) fiscal third-quarter net income climbed 60% to $309.1 million, or 63 cents a share. Sales for the quarter increased 21% to $3.53 billion.
Hoop Holdings, a unit of Children's Place Retail Stores Inc. (NASDAQ: PLCE) and the operator of Disney Store North America, said late on Wednesday that it filed for Chapter 11. Children's Place isn't part of the Chapter 11 petition, but is in talks to sell a substantial part of the Disney Store business to Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) in order to concentrate on its core namesake brand.
Rambus (NASDAQ: RMBS) shares are advancing another 4.4% in premarket trading after closing up over 38% yesterday following a court decision finding it wasn't guilty of fraud or violating antitrust laws in dealing with an industry group that set technology standards for dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips in the 1990s.
ConAgra said earnings grew almost 5% from the year-ago period to $201 million, or 41 cents per share, including 23 cents per share from discontinued operations. The company also said revenue rose 15% to $3.08 billion.
General Mills is expected to report net income of 70 cents per share, up 11.4% from the same period of last year, on revenue of $3.4 billion. The company has tended to provided 
This post is part of our 
This post is part of our 
Shares of food maker 
ConAgra
Comfort Zone Investing: Keep your recovery expectations real
Will Americans have to slim down to fit into their cars?
Starbucks: The next McDonald's
