market news and articles @ firstadopter.com

Market +0.74%. Sold off for about an hour after Bernanke Senate testimony (Link), then rallied rest of the day.

Bernanke: there is a risk of a more serious financial blowup [Europe]. inflation risk reasonably low now. modest risk of deflation. QE1 most effective, QE2 "hard to judge"

Intel call: consumer Western Europe/North America not growing as fast as they expected, China/EM moderating, Enterprise in-line. Q4 seasonal on lower than seasonal Q3. Intel CFO: Europe is soft. 2nd half expectations lower for Europe. Windows 8 part of the reason for Q3 guide-down

Goldman Sachs: “During the second quarter, market conditions deteriorated and activity levels for both corporate and investing clients were lower given continued instability in Europe and concerns about global growth,” said Lloyd C. Blankfein.

Goldman VaR $92 million vs. $95 million last quarter and $101 million last year

Goldman Sachs call: "client psychology suffered" "outlook further clouded … by weaker economic data""challenging macro environment may lead to lower trading volumes""conservatively manage [their] risk profile""environment like this.. tend to be very cautious… preserve cash… preserve capital" their VaR lowest since Q3 2006 nothing they see that says solution coming in the short-term

-Ex-Lone Pine analyst raises money for his hedge-fund Link

Market –0.23%

-Empire State manufacturing 7.39 vs. 4.5 est., 2.29 prior

-Bloomberg profile on Groupon CEO Andrew Mason Link

-German court to rule on ESM fund on September 12 Link

-ASUS tablet shipments to surpass 2.5 million thanks to “stronger than expected” demand for Google Nexus 7 Link

-Bloomberg: Google Nexus 7 crushes Kindle Link

-TechCrunch: iPad Lover’s Take on Nexus 7 Link

-Yahoo hires Marissa Mayer as CEO Link

Market +1.65%

-China GDP 7.6% vs. 7.6% estimate, 8.1% prior

-Lexmark misses Q2 “revised second quarter outlook reflects a weaker than expected demand environment, particularly in Europe” Link

-NPD videogame sales June 2012 –29% y/y Link

-Acer cuts PC shipment forecast to 5% from 10% due to Windows 8 Link

-Vivendi’s search for Activision buyer off to a slow start Link

-Vast majority of the market return since 1994 is in the 24 hours before Fed meetings Link

-Leon Cooperman’s 14 attributes to succeed Link

-Investing lessons from Dan Loeb Link

-Investing lessons from David Einhorn Link

-"Economic history is a never-ending series of episodes based on falsehoods and lies, not truths.  It represents the path to big money.  The object is to recognize the trend whose premise is false, ride that trend and step off before it is discredited” – George Soros Link

-FBI legal filing on PFGBest futures broker Link

Market –0.50%

Jobless claims 350K vs. 375K estimate, prior 376K revised from 374K. Note many experienced macro analysts said there were seasonal adjustment issues which will unwind in coming weeks (IE number isn’t as good as it appears)

-Warren Buffett: Europe “slipping pretty fast” past 6 weeks Link

-Vegas strip May revenue –18% y/y vs +8% in April Link

-Amazon may delay the next generation Kindle shipments Link

-Infosys lowers FY2013 guidance to 5% vs. 8-10% prior. “Above $1 billion deals have disappeared” Link

-SAP pre-announces positive Q2 license revenue of 1059M euros vs. 980M estimate (8% beat)

-Amazon digital media download market-share: 63% ebooks, 12% music, <5% movies Link

-Inside story on Netflix’s downfall Link

Market closed flat off Fed minutes.

Awful hhgregg comps (the mini Best Buy – electronics retailer) -5.1% June vs. -0.7% March. Video -16.7%/-10.2%, Home office 8.7/34.8

Pellegrini: "super-low rates are artificially juicing the economy, making it hard to get a sense of the economy’s true strength" "You don’t know what the economy would do" if rates were at more normal levels, he says. "There’s a false sense of stability” He made $175M from Paulson then had +40% & +62% years with his own hedge-fund. So 10-20M probably tiny fraction of his wealth

Using 2011 numbers, ChannelAdvisor (managed $3B GMV) has a 2.9% sample survey of $102.1B GMV market (eBay GMV + AMZN 3rd party GMV)

-USDA cuts its forecast for corn yield in 2012 to 146 bushels/acre, down from 166 due to heatwave

-WSJ Walt Mossberg reviews Google Nexus 7 tablet Link

"Google’s tablet is a better choice than the iPad for people on a budget; for those who prefer a lighter, more compact tablet" "quality of the hardware and software in the new Google slate blows away those of the AMZN Kindle Fire" “AMZN Kindle Fire..chunky device that lacks a camera/mic and has heavily modified version of Android, which can be sluggish Nexus 7..can run 600,000 apps, almost as many as Apple offers, and far ahead of the 25,000 available for the AMZN Fire” "In my test, the battery life of the GOOG Nexus 7 exceeded the AMZN Fire’s by a huge margin: Nearly five hours"

-Hedgefund withdrawals highest since 2009 Link

-Hedgefund returns Link

-Spain does more austerity raising VAT to 21%, up 3% Link

-Burberry misses sales estimates Link

-Pellegrini loses money with John Paulson Link

-Record 10 year Treasury auction demand Link

-Stocks rally ahead of big Fed announcements Link

-WSJ: AMZN testing smart-phone. Mass production may start late this year or early next year. Screen 4-5 inches Link

Market closed –0.82%

Reports that any Spanish bank that takes aid will be forced to haircut their preferred shareholders and subordinated bondholders and global economic bellwether Cummings (truck engines) negative sale warning hurt market sentiment

-Cummings guides 2012 revenue to flat vs. previous +10% guidance. Q2 sales $4.45B vs. $5.07B est. “We have seen demand in some markets weaken recently as growth in the global economy has slowed. Order trends in the U.S. for trucks and power generation equipment have softened and demand in Brazil, China and India is not improving as we had previously expected”

-Applied Materials: “today revised its fiscal year 2012 business outlook due to weaker than expected near-term demand in its semiconductor equipment business, primarily among foundry customers”

-PFGBest broker missing $220 million in client funds Link

-ChannelAdvisor June 2012 same-store numbers Link

-Netflix going after Coinstar with DVD rental marketing Link

-25 years of PC history Link

Market –0.16%

Macro

-Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao negative on economy Link

-Previous recent QE market performance Link

-Passport Capital buying mortgage securities Link

-Fed Williams leanings towards QE3 Link

-Oil jumps on Norway strike Link

-Corn drought continues Link

-ECB Draghi signals ready to do more Link

Stocks

-MAKO “now anticipates selling 42 to 48 RIO systems in 2012, which compares to prior guidance of 52 to 58 RIO system sales”

-AMD “today announced that revenue for the second quarter ended June 30, 2012 is expected to decrease approximately 11 percent sequentially. The company previously forecasted second quarter 2012 revenue to increase 3 percent, plus or minus 3 percent sequentially. The lower preliminary revenue results are primarily due to business conditions that materialized late in the second quarter, specifically softer-than-expected channel sales in China and Europe as well as a weaker consumer buying environment impacting the company’s Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) business”

-Facebook to launch job posting board Link

Over the next 6 months I believe Intel will report numbers worse than market expectations and Nvidia will report numbers better than market expectations.

Intel – Why will it be weak?

1) The company lowered expectations in the first half of 2012 and forecasted the strength in the second half of 2012 would make up for the lowered first half due to the ramp of Windows 8. Windows 8 looks like a certifiable dud after reading dozens of negative reviews and the huge red flag of lowered upgrade pricing vs. Windows 7.

2) The secular unit shift from Intel-CPU based client PCs to ARM-CPU based tablets (iPad, Android tablets) is accelerating, which will hurt Intel’s client PC numbers confirmed by recent Dell and HP PC division performances

Nvidia – Why will it be strong?

1) The Kepler GPU product cycle is the first time in many, many years that Nvidia out-performs the competition (AMD) in the trifecta of graphics performance – faster, more power efficient, and quieter. Nvidia is selling everything they can make with the only limitation being 28nm wafer capacity at TSMC.

2) Tegra 3 is finally getting traction. The Tegra-based $199 Google Nexus 7 tablet and other promised to-be-announced high volume <$200 Android tablets should ramp big volumes in the second half of 2012

3)  Looks like Nvidia is back in the good graces of Apple with the MacBook Pro with Retina display design win.

Market closed –0.94%. It was weak due to the jobs report and the euro hitting new 2 year lows, however the market did rally some in the afternoon on headlines from WSJ’s Hilsenrath saying the Fed is more likely to act now after the weak jobs numbers.

Macro

-Global PMI new orders are falling Link

-WSJ Hilsenrath: Weak jobs report lifts chance of Fed action Link

Stocks

-CNN/Wired reviews Google Nexus 7 tablet Link

-Goldman’s 100 GARP stock chart Link

-Staples to sell Google Nexus 7 tablet Link

-Vivendi tests appetite for Activision stock Link

-Amazon said to plan a smart-phone Link

-JAT Capital down 20% YTD Link

-Quant funds post worst month since October Link

-Samsung record profits, HTC not so much Link Link2

-NPD analyst say 3 new Kindle Fire 2 on their way Link

Market down 0.47% on sell-the-news action off the ECB rate cut. June retail sales were generally weak vs. estimates. China did a surprise rate cut and ADP jobs beat handily.

Informatica
-guided license revenue to 70-72M. Merrill’s estimate was 96.8M. A 26.6% miss
-"Clearly, we did not adapt as rapidly as we should have to the changing macroeconomic environment, especially in Europe"
-environment became dramatically worse in June. Particularly in Europe, but also happened in North America
-broad-based. Healthcare was strong, but other than that every vertical performed same

Seagate
-pre-announces $4.5B sales vs. $4.88B estimate. Guides to flat September vs. $4.95B estimate

Costco
-strongest geographic areas midwest and northwest. In international, strongest is Canada and Mexico
-food & sundries mid-single digits y/y. Food inflation low single digits y/y. Consumer electronics mid-single digits y/y
-average transaction flat y/y, traffic +3% y/y

Macro

-China cuts 1 year deposit rate by 25bps to 3%

-ECB cuts main rate by 25bps to 0.75% Link

-ADP jobs 176K vs. 95K est., prior 133K revised to 136K

-Jobless claims 374K vs. 386K est., prior 386K revised to 388K

-ISM services 52.1 vs. 53.0 est., prior 53.7

Source: RetailSails Link

Source: Retail Geeks Link

Stocks

-Nintendo 3DS sales weak in Europe and North America Link

-June retail sales disappoint Link

-NYTimes’s David Pogue reviews Google Nexus 7 tablet Link

-June hedge-fund returns. Andor is back Link