Champion Enterprises to Close the New York Stock Exchange 12-19-05 10:25 AM EST | In celebration of the Company's tenth anniversary on the Exchange /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Champion Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE: CHB), a leader in the factory-built housing industry, today announced that its President and CEO William Griffiths will ring the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, December 20th at 4 p.m. Eastern, in celebration of the Company's tenth anniversary of being listed on the Exchange. Griffiths will be joined by members of the Company's directors and executive management team. "For ten years, we have proudly called the New York Stock Exchange home," said Griffiths. "We are pleased to be celebrating this important milestone by ringing the closing bell on the world's premier stock exchange. We have enjoyed a successful partnership with the NYSE and look forward to continuing that partnership for many years to come." About Champion Champion Enterprises, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Mich., a leading manufacturer of factory-built housing, has produced more than 1.6 million homes since 1953. Today, Champion operates 32 homebuilding manufacturing facilities in North America and partners with nearly 3,000 independent retailers, builders and developers. For more information, please visit http://www.championhomes.net .
Ticket Servicos Selects EMC for Information Lifecycle Management of Oracle Applications Brazilian-based Pioneer and Leader in Meal Covenant Services Chooses EMC for Database Archiving; Aims at 40 Percent Storage Cost Savings in Oracle Applications Environment EMC Corporation, the world leader in information management and storage, announced today that Ticket Servicos, an Accor company located in Brazil, and national leader in government-mandated meal voucher services, is implementing EMC DatabaseXtender software in a tiered storage environment to achieve a higher return on investment from their Oracle E-Business Applications Suite for finance and accounting. Ticket Servicos will leverage DatabaseXtender to migrate and archive Oracle application information to a historical database across multiple storage platforms as it changes value over time. As a result of this information lifecycle management strategy, Ticket Servicos will improve application performance, achieve faster data back-up and recovery, and reduce total storage costs. IMO, Data Storage is a hot business and will be hotter when companies have more data to store. As a leader in Data Storage business, EMC is bright.
Analysts comment on FLE, a hurricane play. Very strong financial background with larger upside space due to demand on mobile home and factory-built house. Fleetwood Enterprises may well earn a profit this fiscal year (ends April, 2006). The company has been in a downward spiral due to issues with unsold inventory, and has reported sizable losses in the past three quarters. Analysts believe the bulk of the associated restructuring has been dealt with and, aside from the travel trailer segment, the RV and manufactured housing segments will now be profitable. This result should be obtainable largely because of significant cost-cutting and employee reductions. Furthermore, hurricane-driven demand augurs well for the quarter. Fiscal 2005 earnings estimate of $0.10 a share represents a considerable improvement from last year's loss; and it would mark the first fiscal year of profitability since 1999. New products could brighten the picture for the travel trailer division. The segment remains one of the largest challenges to revamp, but Fleetwood's recent introduction of new products should help. Indeed, it indicated that dealer reactions to the new ultralight, hybrid, and traditional products are proving positive. While analysts don't expect the segment to rebound overnight, a successful product launch augurs well for an eventual turnaround. Hurricane-driven demand could prove quite positive for Fleetwood. Following the tragic onslaught of hurricanes this season, a number of the company's products could see a significant rise in demand. Given the large number of people displaced, demand for temporary shelter, both manufactured housing and RVs, could be quite sizable. Furthermore, permanent rebuilding could drive sales through 2006. Although the possibilities seem quite promising, analysts' estimates are very conservative. They assume most business will be given to the industry leaders, given Fleetwood's current struggles. The upside could, however, be significant.
If you like ACN and IT outsourcing business, you cannot miss MPS, which I believe the financial background is better than ACN and it is much cheaper. Analyise on MPS MPS Group has been performing well lately. Revenues have been increasing at a fairly solid pace. Healthy staffing demand continues to drive the Professional Services segment, both in North America and Europe, with all areas, including accounting/finance, engineering, healthcare, and law, showing strength. The Information Technology (IT) division is showing improvement overall, too, although analysts note that IT staffing in Europe remains a weak spot. A better mix of high-margin business, higher permanent placement activity, and good pricing discipline are aiding gross margins, meanwhile. What's more encouraging is that MPS has managed to achieve greater operating leverage recently, which has, in turn, benefited the bottom line. Strengthening margins further remains a top priority, nonetheless. MPS plans to build up the Professional Services business, so that it will make up about 60% of revenues. In addition, the company intends to continue exiting low-margin accounts and focus more on middle-market clients in order to stabilize gross and operating margins within the European IT segment. But analysts don't expect a pickup in this unit until next year, as these initiatives are likely to keep revenues and operating income there subdued for the remainder of 2005. Share net in 2005 may well wind up at around $0.50, or a nickel higher than market's previous estimate. A share-net advance of about 30% might be possible the following year, assuming permanent placement activity remains healthy and the company gains additional leverage on the operating expense front. The balance sheet is strong. With no debt, and cash in the coffers of about $103 million (as of the June quarter), the company has the financial means to support stock repurchases and make acquisitions to enhance and diversify its service offerings. About $25 million worth of stock repurchases were made recently, and $65 million remain under authorization. This equity appears to be suitable for a broad range of investors. Not only is the stock timely for the year ahead, but it also offers wide appreciation potential out to 2008-2010.
Analysts raise its mean sentiment to "Strong Buy" on CHB this week. First Call mean target is above $16. Also Put/Call ratio decrease tremedously this week mean investors are optimistic about CHB. It is totally undervalue at $13 level. Check this out: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ao?s=CHB
Time to buy MPS, which has the best financial background in my portfolio. MPS with no debt, strong EBITA compare to peers in the industry, impressive balance sheet. IT outsource will keep going as the hottest sector in the coming year. MPS's target is $16 within 3 monthes and $20 in a 12 monthes period. Buy more shares here. This week, MPS shows a typical selloff on profit taken, however, $14 level hell no as its peak. Higher target will come soon. I am bullish here on MPS--low risk as well as large appreciation space.
Looking forward IM's COO presentation. Will be a strong and good factor add to IM's stock price. Ingram Micro Executive to Present at Upcoming Investor Conference 12-21-05 04:03 PM EST | /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ingram Micro Inc. (NYSE: IM), the world's largest technology distributor, announced today that its president and COO will present at the following investor conference in January
Big news to LSI, new technology. California Inventors Develop Semiconductor Device Fabrication Method. The patent has been assigned to LSI Logic Corp., Milpitas, Calif. ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 22 -- Helmut Puchner of Santa Clara, Calif., and Gary K. Giust of Cupertino, Calif., have developed a method for forming a silicon germanium complimentary metal oxide semiconductor channel in a semiconductor device. According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, the invention relates to a "method for fabricating a semiconducting device on a substrate, where the improvement includes forming a strained silicon germanium channel layer on the substrate. A gate insulation layer is formed on top of the strained silicon germanium channel layer, at a temperature that does not exceed about eight hundred centigrade. A gate electrode is formed on top of the gate insulation layer, and the gate electrode is patterned. A low dose drain dopant is impregnated into the substrate, and activated with a first laser anneal." An abstract of the invention, released by the Patent Office, said: "A source-drain dopant is impregnated into the substrate, and activated with a second laser anneal. After the step of activating the low dose drain dopant with the first laser anneal, an insulating layer is formed around the gate electrode, at a temperature that does not exceed about eight hundred centigrade, and a spacer is formed around the gate electrode. The spacer is formed of a material that is reflective to the second laser anneal. Thus, standard materials for the spacer, such as silicon oxide or silicon nitride are not preferred for this application, because they tend to be transparent to the laser beam emissions." The inventors were issued U.S. Patent No. 6,977,400 on Dec. 20. The patent has been assigned to LSI Logic Corp., Milpitas, Calif. The original application was filed on Feb. 18, 2003, and is available at: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...1220&p=22&OS=ISD/12/20/2005&RS=ISD/12/20/2005 .
Increase my weight of NDN in my portfolio. Post-Christmas Sales Keep Shoppers Buying, Retail stores stocks all rally today. NDN undervalued, no downside risk, it has been on the bottom for almost 2 months, from TA, it is perfect. Retail sector play here.
Deal between Siemens and EMC: Siemens to offer information lifecycle products to healthcare market 2005 DEC 31 - (NewsRx.com) -- Siemens Medical Solutions, a medical equipment and information technology company, and EMC Corporation, an information management and storage company, have announced a reseller agreement enabling Siemens to offer EMC information lifecycle management products and solutions to the healthcare market. Siemens will offer EMC Symmetrix, EMC CLARiiON and EMC Centera networked storage systems and platform software with its medical imaging software, Soarian health information system, and syngo suite of radiology information system (RIS) and picture archiving and communication systems. The combination of Siemens' and EMC's product portfolios will provide healthcare organizations with a tiered information infrastructure to implement an ILM strategy. Siemens Medical Solutions of Siemens AG has headquarters in Malvern, Pennsylvania and Erlangen, Germany.