FA Notes Thursday November 3, 2011
Third Point Q3 2011 investor letter (must read!). Link
October retail same-store sales Link
Saks 1.8% vs. 5.4% est.
Costco 9% vs. 9.2% est.
Target 3.3% vs. 4.2% est.
Macy’s 2.2% vs. 3.6% est.
Nordstrom 5.4% vs. 6.4% est.
J.C. Penny –2.6% vs. 1% est.
Kohl’s 3.9% vs. 3.7% est.
Limited 6% vs. 6.2% est.
ECB cut its main interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 1.25%, in new ECB honcho Mario Draghi’s first policy meeting. – WSJ
WDC STX – As floods in Thailand have seriously impacted the hard drive supply chain, Western Digital recently notified its distributors in Taiwan that the company will not distribute any hard drive supplies to Taiwan in November. Samsung Electronics is also not supplying any hard drives to Taiwan in November and will shift shipments for the use of its own-brand PC products, according to sources from channel retailers. Currently, channel supplies can only last until mid-November, the sources noted. Link
AAPL – “Apple’s new generation iPad will enter mass production soon with the launch set for March 2011. Apple does not view the new iPad product as iPad 3, but rather an upgraded iPad 2 and the real iPad 3 will not be launched until the third quarter of 2012 at the earliest. The iPad 2 upgrade will be thinner than iPad 2, and will offer longer battery life.” Link
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou lost his majority in Parliament, raising hopes that Mr. Papandreou’s referendum proposal will be killed. – WSJ
AMZN – “launching a digital-book lending library that will be available only to owners of its Kindle and Kindle Fire devices who are also subscribers to its Amazon Prime program..initially offer slightly more than 5,000 titles in the library, including more than 100 current and former national bestsellers, such as Stephen R. Covey’s "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." None of the six largest publishers in the U.S. is participating. Link
SNDK – NAND flash contract prices are likely to fall in November and drop further in December, as supply will expand, combined with continued-sluggish demand, according to DRAMeXchange Link
MF – “MF Global Inc.’s commodity customer funds have a shortfall of $633 million, or about 11.6 percent, out of a segregated fund requirement of about $5.4 billion, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said.” Link
TTWO – Grand Theft Auto V debut trailer. Link
“A Xerox WorkCentre 5150 photocopier is causing angst among Washington’s economics press corps—and some Fed officials. The copier in the Treasury Department room where reporters huddle for Fed releases keeps jamming. On Wednesday, the mischievous machine jammed about a half-dozen times while reporters were trying to make copies of the Fed’s statement. In September, it jammed about 10 times” – WSJ