March 31st, 2008
Written by Ravi Shenoy
Orders during the month of February 2008 strengthened order-backlogs. Gridstone Research covers 27 Oil and gas equipment and services companies within its current coverage universe of 143 Energy companies. These companies manufacture equipment for use in production or processing of oil and gas or provide services that aid the exploration of oil and gas. The oil and gas producing and processing companies place orders with equipment and services companies willing to provide the equipment\services at the lowest cost. The price discovery is through a long process which considers the financial and technical strengths of the suppliers. Orders once received are added to list of unexecuted orders and reflected as “Order backlog”. read more…
March 14th, 2008
Written by Naveen Selvaraj
Vikram Rajput also contributed to this note
EMC Corporation(NYSE:EMC) and NetApp(NASDAQ:NTAP) are the two leading enterprise storage vendors. From our analysis of profitability and cash flow metrics, we feel that NTAP has been more successful in taking advantage of the burgeoning demand for storage capacity and more importantly storage management. read more…
March 11th, 2008
Written by Ravi Shenoy
Contracts signed by drilling companies in Feb-08 suggests that 30 year old rigs can earn $500,000 per day
Gridstone Research covers 15 drilling companies within its current coverage universe of 137 oil and gas companies. Some of the drilling companies report deals struck for new rigs and new contracts on old rigs on a regular basis. This note makes an effort to look at the impact of the contracts on the earnings that these drilling companies will report in the future, during the tenure of the contract. read more…
March 10th, 2008
Written by Priyank Govila
Hemina Mehta and Vishal Kapse also contributed to this Note
Increase in average transaction values along with higher traffic resulted in better than expected February ’08 comparable store sales performance among discounters, while department stores and apparel retailers showed an opposite trend. Comparable store sales performance of discounters surpassed that of department stores and apparel retailers. All retailers will be closed for one day in March 2008 due to Easter Sunday, leading to lowered March’08 comparable store sales guidance; this calendar shift is expected to benefit comparable store sales performance in April 2008.
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March 5th, 2008
Written by Sunil Rajak
Sandeep Mukherjee and Sneha Khatri also contributed to this note.
Profitability likely to be under pressure as truck sales continue downward slide
US automakers continued to record increased sales of fuel-efficient small and midsized cars. The month witnessed plummeting sales of SUVs, trucks and large cars as consumers continue to hold back big ticket purchases due to a weak credit environment and housing market and record high energy prices. Automakers continue to have a cautious approach and have reduced their next quarter production levels.
Among US automakers, GM posted a decline of 16.7% in sales while F reported a decline of 6.9% in vehicle sales with sharp decline in truck sales. Non-US automakers had a different story. HMC and NSANY reported sales growth along with truck sales growth while TM reported a decline in vehicle sales despite strong performance of its fuel-efficient subcompact vehicles. The US industry recorded an estimated seasonal adjusted annual rate (SAAR) in the range of 15.5 – 15.8 M units of cars and light trucks in Feb08. read more…
