TheStreet Search RSS Feed: Andrea Tse

Stocks Poised for 3-Day Losing Streak as Fed Signals Curbs

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:15:25 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- U.S. stocks were poised for a third day of losses Friday amid concern the Federal Reserve may wind down its stimulus program, and data showed weakness in China's manufacturing base.

The S&P 500 was falling 0.41% to 1,643.71 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was slipping 0.24% to 15,258.29. The Nasdaq was dipping 0.37% to 3,446.69.

The downward momentum in global equity markets began Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated the central bank may be ready to curb its bond buying if economic conditions improve. Bernanke said the Fed would move slowly, and only on the condition that there was strong evidence of an economic improvement. But traders have chosen to sell anyway especially after the speedy run-up of the S&P 500 to record levels. ...

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Stock Futures Down as Market Shrugs Off Durable Orders Rebound

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:01:00 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- U.S. stock futures were lower Friday, signaling the S&P 500 may be poised for a third day of declines as investors shrugged off a rebound in durable-goods orders. Sentiment was subdued as the market ponders the possibility of a pullback in Federal Reserve stimulus and remained jittery about the state of China's economic strength.

Futures for the S&P 500 were falling 6 points, or 4.21 points below fair value, to 1,644. The index remains in positive territory for the week and the month.

"The Fed Chairman (Ben Bernanke) had made perfectly sensible comments, suggesting that liquidity would be withdrawn when the economy did not need it, but markets perhaps wanted an excuse to correct," noted Paul Donovan, the London-based global economist at UBS. ...

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Pandora Surges on Revenue Strength

Thu, 23 May 2013 19:29:37 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Pandora Media shares were jumping more than 9% to $18.73 in afterhours trading after the biggest online radio service beat first-quarter revenue expectations. The company's revenue outlook also topped expectations as its mobile advertising sales accelerated and the company added more subscribers during the quarter.

"Pandora continues to expand its mobile leadership," stated CEO Joe Kennedy, who announced in March that he planned to step down after a successor was found. "Mobile listening hours and mobile ad revenue reached record highs, with growth in mobile ad revenue exceeding growth in mobile listening hours. During the quarter, we successfully implemented a mobile listening limit, enabling us to manage our content acquisition costs with minimal impact on listenership or revenue growth. Pandora's subscriber base surpassed 2.5 million, adding more net new subscribers in the quarter than in all of fiscal 2013, giving Pandora the largest US streaming subscriber base of any music service."

During the first quarter, mobile revenue grew 101% year-over-year to $86.7 million, outpacing mobile listener hour growth, which grew 47% year-over-year. Also, Pandora One subscribers surpassed 2.5 million, adding over 700,000 net new subscribers in the first quarter and growing 114% year-over-year. Total listener hours grew 35% to 4.18 billion. ...

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Salesforce.com Slumps on Outlook, ChannelAdvisor Stabilizes After Debut

Thu, 23 May 2013 16:59:20 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- SaaS cloud computing leader Salesforce.com saw shares tumble 4.27% to $43.73 in afterhours trading Thursday after reporting first-quarter results and outlook that either only matched or came in below estimates as its efforts to strengthen its presence in marketing software appears to be going more slowly than expected.

The company produced second-quarter guidance of 11 cents to 12 cents a share, in line with estimates, on revenue of $931 million. Analysts, on average, according to Thomson Reuters were forecasting second-quarter revenue of $934.55 million.

Salesforce.com predicted fiscal year 2014 earnings of 47 cents to 49 cents a share on revenue of $3.835 billion to $3.875 billion, vs. expectations of 49 cents a share on revenue of $3.87 billion. ...

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Stocks Fall as Fed, China Jolt Global Markets

Thu, 23 May 2013 16:31:36 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Major U.S. stock averages dropped Thursday after a choppy trading session, as investors worried the Federal Reserve would scale back stimulus and China could be headed for a slowdown.

A better-than-expected jobless claims report gave way to worries that the labor market was indeed improving and would encourage the Federal Reserve to taper its bond-buying program. Manufacturing data in China indicated an unexpected contraction in manufacturing activity in the country, culminating into the steepest decline for the Nikkei 225 in Japan since the aftermath of the tsunami and nuclear disaster in March 2011. The index closed down 7.3%.

"We had about a 3% intraday move to the downside from yesterday's high to today's low based upon what came out of the Fed yesterday," said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors. Equities did retrace from their intraday lows by midday. "This market has gone vertically . . . and this is the most hated rally in the history of the stock market . . . and I expect down 3% some cash started to come into the market at the margin." ...

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Stock Futures Pare Gains After Fall in Jobless Claims

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:55:29 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stock futures were paring losses after a better-than-expected jobless claims report, but were still pointing to a negative open as investors continued to worry that the Federal Reserve may be heading for a wind-down of quantitative easing. Furthermore, manufacturing data in China indicated an unexpected contraction in manufacturing activity in the country.

All overseas markets were down on the developments, with the Nikkei 225 in Japan suffering its steepest drop since the aftermath of the tsunami and nuclear disaster in March 2011, closing down 7.3%.

Despite the intraday market pressures, "the tenets of the bull market remain intact: strong earnings and corporate balance sheets, shrinking equity supply and little yield in fixed income alternatives and cash," said Jordan Waxman, managing director and partner at HighTower HSW Advisors in New York. "We are looking for opportunities in cyclical names and industries, which are now historically very cheap to the consumer staples stocks we had been buying into the new year." ...

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Stocks Reverse Course, Drop on Worries of Fed Pullback

Wed, 22 May 2013 16:25:14 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- U.S. markets on Wednesday erased morning gains, falling sharply after theFederal Reserve's minutes from its latest policy-making meeting showed that some members are open to scaling back monetary stimulus by June.

The minutes came hours after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke reiterated his support of current monetary policy and argued that a pull-back in quantitative easing wouldn't be a prudent move.

"A number of participants expressed willingness to adjust the flow of purchases downward as early as the June meeting if the economic information received by that time showed evidence of sufficiently strong and sustained growth," the minutes said. ...

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Stock Futures Point Higher Ahead of Bernanke Testimony as Toll Brothers Jumps

Wed, 22 May 2013 07:03:25 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- U.S. stock futures were trading higher Wednesday morning as investors await testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke before Congress, and a report is expected to show stronger existing home sales.

Futures for the S&P 500 were up 4 points, or 2.74 points above fair value, to 1,669.5.

At 10 a.m. EDT, Bernanke will testify on the outlook for the U.S. economy and the central bank's bond-buying before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. Simultaneously, the National Association of Realtors is expected to say that existing-home sales rose in April to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 4.99 million from 4.92 million. ...

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Stocks Ride Home Depot as Bullard Boosts Bulls

Tue, 21 May 2013 16:08:17 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- U.S. stocks rallied off session lows on Tuesday as St. Louis Federal Bank President James Bullard said quantitative easing remains the best monetary policy option right now.

Bullard, speaking in Frankfurt, said financial markets have demonstrated that the bank's stimulus efforts have aided the U.S. recovery following the 2008-2009 recession.

The S&P 500 gained 0.17% to close at 1,669.16. ...

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Yahoo!, Clearwire, Youku, Apple: Tech Winners & Losers

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:52:11 EDT

(Updates from 12:52 p.m. ET with closing information.)

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The tech-heavy Nasdaq closed higher Tuesday as Yahoo! shares rose 1.88% to $27.08.

The Silicon Valley internet company announced Monday the complete upgrade of its popular Flickr photo sharing service, and the leasing of new space for a Yahoo! New York office. ...

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Stock Futures Little Changed as Market Awaits Fed Comments

Tue, 21 May 2013 09:24:22 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stock futures were little changed Tuesday, after the S&P 500 slipped from its record high during the prior session as investors anticipate that the Federal Reserve will slow its quantitative easing after officials hinted at the possibility owing to an improved economic outlook.

"Any hint that the Fed is about to take away the punchbowl could trigger a sharp sell-off in equity markets," Julian Jessop, chief global economist for Capital Economics in London, wrote in a note. "After all, it is surely no coincidence that U.S. equity market volatility spiked shortly after the ends of both QE1 and QE2."

Futures for the S&P 500 were down 0.25 points, or 0.36 points above fair value, to 1,664.25. ...

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Google Clouds Amazon's Advantage

Tue, 21 May 2013 08:03:45 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Amazon may be feeling a bit more defensive of its cloud business now that Google has released its Google Compute Engine to the masses.

The key areas where Google can attack Amazon are performance consistency, boot times and its pricing model. Amazon should be able to fight back on all these fronts because the company has a huge lead - by years - over Google on services breadth and eco-systems, but that doesn't translate into complacency when it comes to protecting its flagship EC2 service.

"Regardless of what else AWS Amazon Web Services brings to the table, they have to have a robust compute offering," said James Staten, principal analyst at Forrester. "This is what Google is questioning and so it will cause some doubling down by AWS on this service." ...

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Stocks Slip on Concerns Markets Overpriced

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:29:40 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Major U.S. stock markets closed lower Monday as the excitement of corporate dealmaking led by Yahoo! was offset by investor concern that the Federal Reserve may curb its bond-buying economic stimulus program.

The S&P 500 closed off 0.07% to 1,666.29 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.12% to 15,335.51. The Nasdaq slid 0.07% to 3,496.43.

The Fed's Open Market Committee is expected to publish its minutes on Wednesday offering investors clues about whether the central bank plans to continue buying roughly $85 billion in assets each month to stimulate the U.S. economy. Conservatives among the bank's presidents have dominated the conversation in recent weeks, warning that the program is adding to inflation while holding back economic growth. ...

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Futures Slip as Investors Seek Fed Clarity

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:13:09 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stock futures were trading down Monday after the S&P 500 booked its fourth week of gains as investors sought clarity about the direction of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy.

Federal Open Market Committee hawks have dominated the conversation in recent weeks, but later this week the bank's chief advisory panel will release a report from its most recent meeting, signalling its broader intentions. P/>"We see two things to watch for: hints of concern that inflation is too low and confirmation that the Fed has the flexibility to increase as well as reduce the pace of QE," Ethan Harris, co-head of Global Economics Research, wrote in a note. "Note that the FOMC minutes also are released and they tend to be a platform for the non-voting hawks to protest against the directive."

Yahoo! shares were falling 1.13% to $26.22 in pre-market trading after the company announced a deal to purchase Tumblr for $1.1 billion, substantially all of which will be payable in cash. In a press release, the company said "per the agreement and our promise not to screw it up," Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business with David Karp remaining CEO. ...

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Stocks Can't Be Stopped, Rise on U.S. Economy Confidence

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:13:37 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Major U.S. markets closed higher Friday, led by energy stocks, after a consumer confidence gauge reached a post-crisis high and an upbeat report on U.S. economic activity bolstered the outlook for the world's largest economy.

The S&P 500 gained 1% to 1,666.12.

"The rise in consumer confidence appears to be a longer-lasting vote of support for the longevity of the U.S. economic recovery," Andrew Wilkinson, the New York City-based chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co., wrote in a report. ...

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