By Cameron Kaine:

For the past couple of years gravediggers have stood frustratingly idle with shovel in hand anxiously waiting to be contracted out to bury streaming movie giant Netflix (NFLX). While the company has shown to have had more lives than 24’s Jack Bauer, it has also had the dubious distinction of being the most widely anticipated death on Wall Street. Only Sirius XM (SIRI) has had to deal with more bearish bets. However, for Netflix, there is now more reason (among many) to think that escaping its morbid fate may not come as easily as it once did.

The beginning of the end

With the news that Comcast (CMCSA), the top cable operator in the U.S., plans to take Netflix head-on with its own Internet movie streaming service, the only question for Netflix is how much time does it realistically have left? The disappointing part of all of this is that,

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By David White:

On Tuesday, Feb. 21, Comcast (CMCSA) announced a new streaming video service called Xfinity Streampix. This will initially only be available to Comcast cable subscribers. However, the service could also operate as a standalone service outside of the cable subscription package. Streampix is intended to directly compete with Netflix (NFLX) in the streaming video arena (Variety). At the same point Netflix signed a deal with The Weinstein Company for its film titles. In other words NFLX just signed up to increase its recurring costs significantly, while a new competitor emerged that could and likely will take 10% to 30% of its subscribers away from it almost immediately.

Streampix will come free with Comcast’s top video package, or it will come at an extra $4.99 per month charge for lower level packages. This announcement came just weeks after Verizon (VZ) announced it would create a joint venture with Coinstar (CSTR) to

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By Sam E. Antar:

Yesterday, I described how Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) defaulted on its loan covenants with U.S. Bank because of its failure to a file timely report with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, I detailed how the company improperly delayed disclosure of the loan default until it could obtain a waiver from the bank. Now it appears that Overstock.com’s failure to file a timely report with the S.E.C. made it ineligible to file its Form S-3 registration statement on December 9, 2011 where it is seeking to raise additional funds to keep the company afloat. In addition, Overstock.com’s continuing failure to comply with S,E.C. rules could indicate that is has a material weakness in internal controls. The company seems to be incapable of complying with S.E.C. rules even as it faces a continuing investigation by the regulator into previous financial shenanigans.

Background

On March 21, 2011, Overstock.com filed a proxy statement

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By Adjusted Return:

Back in November of last year I contributed an article on Navios Maritime Acquisition (NNA), the crude and product tanker subsidiary of the Navios Maritime Holdings (NM) group, calling it dead money. The main points were that NNA has been perhaps irreversibly impacted by the reluctance of the product tanker market to start its recovery during 2011 and going into 2012, the fall in value of the VLCC crude tanker fleet and the related counterparty risk of the VLCC above-market charters; not only NNA was loss-making in GAAP terms, its cash flow was suspect as well.

The article generated a quite healthy discussion, the argument utilized by proponents of NNA being – and I may oversimplify here – “well, duh, NNA is supposed to be dead money, instead look out to 2013 and beyond – and the cash flow is there”. So in essence we were in agreement about the

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By Justin Weinstein:

Wal-Mart (WMT), the world’s largest retailer, reported its fourth-quarter earnings, which disappointed Wall Street and sent the stock down nearly 4%. The company’s fourth-quarter earnings are as follows:

• Fourth quarter diluted earnings per share from continuing operations (EPS) of $1.51, which included net benefits of approximately $0.07 from certain tax matters and real estate transactions. The company’s EPS guidance for the quarter of $1.42 to $1.48 did not include these net benefits. This EPS compared to $1.41 last year, which included net tax benefits of approximately $0.07.
• Consolidated net sales for the fourth quarter were $122.3 billion, an increase of 5.8 percent from last year.
• Walmart U.S. reported positive comparable traffic, and comparable store sales rose 1.5 percent in the 13-week period ended Jan. 27, 2012.
• Sam’s Club comparable sales, without fuel, increased 5.4 percent for the same period.
• Walmart International delivered $35.5 billion in net sales for the quarter.

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By Jim Pyke:

I previously wrote an article using Dupont Analysis to compare Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) to both Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT) and Target Corporation (TGT). One of the key components in the Dupont Analysis is the asset turnover ratio, which compares revenues to average assets. AMZN and WMT have had similar ratios over the past couple quarters – about $0.60 for each dollar of assets in the last quarter. AMZN has a substantial uplift in holiday quarters, reaching almost $0.80 of revenue. TGT trails the two by a significant margin. At first glance, one should be surprised that AMZN, the internet store, requires essentially the same amount of assets to get to the same revenue as WMT with its ubiquitous physical presence. Furthermore, it returns less profit on those revenues than either WMT or TGT.

Not all assets are the same

However, this type of analysis, while at times insightful, requires additional

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By Shareholders Unite:

U.S. Home Systems (USHS) manufactures or procures, designs, sells and installs “custom kitchen and bathroom cabinet refacing products and organizational storage systems for closets and garages” (Q3 10-Q). It does that exclusively through the Home Depot (HD). The kitchen refacing segment is by far the most important for the company.

Many of these products are bought on credit, but the Home Depot credit program has a whopping 20.3% decline rate, so US Home Systems is actively looking for financing alternatives.

This one keeps on going but once again, we think that the time has come for some profit taking. We advised on one profitable short side trade in this name a couple of weeks ago (see comment section here), and now do so again. Look at the chart:

The stock is going almost parabolic. It has doubled this year and is up from $5 a share as long ago as

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By Valuable Insights:

While we believe shares of Intel (INTC) appear cheap at 10x FY12 EPS, significant secular headwinds are concerning, and we believe risk is weighted toward the downside in quarters ahead.

Specifically, we expect ARM (ARMH) to increasingly encroach upon Intel’s core notebook and server markets. We received a reminder of this point today when news emerged that Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), the world’s largest server manufacturer, will be shipping ARM-based server samples to clients in 2Q. That HP and others are evaluating ARM is not news, but the actual sampling to clients is somewhat earlier than we anticipated, and will be an ongoing worry for folks in the Intel camp.

Despite its massive manufacturing footprint andR&D capabilities, Intel appears to face challenging times, and, in our view, has a shrinking moat around its business.

Intel has been ill-prepared for the post-PC world the shift to mobile — smartphones and tablets which will

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By Takeover Analyst:

Telecom may offer attractive dividend yields, but uncertain end market demand and competitive pressures are major headwinds to value creation. Over the last six months, CenturyLink (CTL) has appreciated by 16.5% while Sprint (S) has collapsed by 32.8%. Based on my review of the fundamentals and multiples analysis, I expect CenturyLink to outperform its competitor.

From a multiples perspective, CenturyLink is not exceptionally attractive. It trades at a respective 32.2x and 15.7x past and forward earnings with a dividend yield of 7.4%. The company still has room for multiples expansion with a historical 5-year average PE multiple of 16.5.

At the fourth quarter earnings call, CenturyLink’s management noted several areas of progress:

[D]uring the fourth quarter, we achieved operating revenues above the top end of our fourth quarter revenue guidance. And for full year 2011, we successfully lowered the rate of revenue decline to 3.8% from approximately 5.6% for pro

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By Anh Hoang:

Do FriendFinder.com, PerfectMatch.com and AdultFriendFinder.com sound familiar to you? They are all assets belonging to FriendFinder Networks (FFN). Its network consists of 40,000 sites, with nearly 520 million registrants, 70% above the total US population and 62% of Facebook’s (FB) monthly active users. At the end of 2011, the share price was $0.60. Since then, it has nearly quadrupled, to $2.33 now. With more than 31.2 million shares outstanding, the total market capitalization is $72.7 million.

Click to enlarge.

FFN is the leading internet and technology company providing services in rapid growth markets of social networking, social commerce and web-based video sharing. The industry is forecast to exceed $2.5 billion by 2015. The business has very good assets in hand. AsiaFriendFinder.com is the largest online dating personals targeted towards Asians with over 34 million members, whereas Amigos.com, which targets Latin Americans, has attracted 75,000 new members each month.

Should investors

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