Feeling down? Cheer up -- the news isn't all layoffs, missed earnings, and guidance knockdowns. Let's go over some of this week's more uplifting headlines.
1. Start wearing purple, Carol
Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) finally named a new CEO, and it isn't co-founder David Filo. Carol Bartz will step in for the departing Jerry Yang, faced with the serious challenge of getting the troubled dot-com back on track -- or at least emerging as a shrewd negotiator with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT).
The stock initially rallied on the move, but pulled back after Bartz indicated that her gut impulse is to keep Yahoo! independent. What did investors think she'd say? If all Yahoo! needs is someone who will nod when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer speaks, it could have just hired a Jim Cramer bobblehead doll.
Yahoo! has so much potential on its own. Getting its margins within spitting distance of its industry's leader would nearly double its earnings! Bartz is not a Web guru, but she's a Silicon Valley vet when it comes to running a business. That is what Yahoo! is, right?
2. You should have that growth looked at
How do widening margins and 20% revenue growth sound to you? You're not dreaming -- Celgene (Nasdaq: CELG) provided that rosy prognosis on Monday. The drugmaker expects to post adjusted earnings per share in the $2.05 to $2.15 range in 2009, on 20% top-line growth.
That translates into 35% earnings growth, at the midpoint of the company's guidance. Not too shabby, even if greedy investors wanted more. More? In this environment? Eat Celgene and like it, Wall Street. It's good for you.
3. Paying its debt to society
No one knows the daunting debt-refinancing demons that Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) is facing this year better than the satellite radio provider itself. The company is once again attacking a Sirius convertible note due next month.
The satellite radio provider will shell out 100 million shares to retire $13 million in debt. Sure, that move is dilutive, but the $300 million that Sirius XM had to repay next month has now been whittled down to $174.6 million. Now it just needs to get some good news flowing to pick up the stock price, if only so it doesn't max out on its authorized stock count of 8 billion shares at crummy price points.
4. Two streaming services are better than one?
Can two wrongs make a right? Blockbuster's (NYSE: BBI) Movielink and Sonic Solutions' (Nasdaq: SNIC) CinemaNow are two longstanding yet weak-kneed digital movie-viewing services, each acquired for peanuts. Now the two companies will team up, uniting resources and digital libraries for a Blockbuster-branded product.
The new service could be the best of both worlds, if Blockbuster's ability to reach the masses through its fleet of DVD rental stores and Sonic's platform-distribution deals come together nicely. Now, if only Mr. Market would see it that way. Shares of Blockbuster and Sonic Solutions trade within pennies of one another, at $1.35 and $1.38, respectively.
5. Grounded for too long
President-elect Obama may have to give up his BlackBerry, but he's not yielding his access to information. salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) scored a presidential nod when it announced that its CRM Ideas would power the suggestion-collecting aspect of Obama's Change.gov website.
The company's CRM Ideas uses cloud computing and "wisdom of crowds" vetting to make sure that the more popular ideas bubble to the top. In that light, I guess my idea of placing a printout of this weekly column of percolating optimism on every porch won't fly.
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