SaaS Acquisitions Recommended For ADP and Intuit

In a recent Automatic Data Processing (ADP) National Employment report, ADP reported a drop of 157,000 jobs, the biggest decline the company has seen since November 2002. With the economic slump becoming more severe, job cuts have spread from automakers, financial and housing-related companies to retailers and other services. ADP and Intuit both also recently cut their outlook. Let’s take a closer look at their results. >>>

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Autodesk Long-Term Hold

Leading 2D and 3D design software maker Autodesk (ADSK) announced their Q3 results yesterday. The stock might have taken a beating yesterday to close at $16.82 and is now hovering around $13.17, but the company’s performance makes me remain bullish on it. >>>

Dell Should Do SmartPhone Acquisition

Dell Inc (Nasdaq: DELL), the No.2 PC vendor with annual revenue of $61 billion, reported its third quarter results yesterday. Though slowdown in IT spending and demand saw its revenue decline and miss estimates, Dell’s cost-cutting measures have boosted its earnings, beating expectations. Last quarter, Dell beat revenue estimates but missed earnings estimates. This quarter the focus has been on profitability rather than growth. Let’s take a closer look. >>>

Carriers Roundup: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile

The wireless race is heating up: AT&T acquired two companies in a week earlier this month, Verizon got the green light for its Alltel acquisition and T-Mobile launched the Android phone with Google. Let’s take a look at the recent performances of the major wireless carriers, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. >>>

Media Stocks: Disney, Time Warner

The Walt Disney Company (DIS) had been exceeding market expectations over the past few quarters. However, the recently announced quarterly results showed that Disney is one more company that is not immune to the recession and decline in consumer confidence. >>>

NVIDIA Finally Wins Apple’s Heart

NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA), the leading graphics chip maker with annual revenue of $4.1 billion, recently reported a 74% decline in its Q3 earnings due to a 20% decline in revenue. However, earnings topped analyst estimates and shares soared, helped by the design win with Apple. NVIDIA is on my list of Top 10 Semiconductor Stocks. >>>

Online Travel: Priceline, Expedia, Orbitz

The online travel industry’s woes just don’t seem to be coming to an end, not a surprise as Japan follows the European Union and Hong Kong into an official recession. The World Travel Market’s Global Trends Report 2008 notes that global capacity for winter airline schedules is down and hotel occupancy rates continue to fall in developed economies. While most online travel stocks remain strong fundamentally, current valuations are far below the levels that some of these stocks had reached in the past couple of years. >>>

MercadoLibre Outperforms

At a time when many e-commerce companies are slipping on quarterly numbers, MercadoLibre (NASD: MELI), the Latin American online marketplace, exceeded all expectations for their Q3 results, released on November 11. >>>

SaaS Stocks: Concur, NetSuite, Taleo

Last week, I reviewed the performance of some SaaS companies, namely SuccessFactors, RightNow, Omniture and Citrix in the context of the recession. As I have discussed before on this blog and in my Forbes column, I believe SaaS companies will be able to withstand a prolonged downturn. In this post, I look at how Taleo, Concur and NetSuite have fared recently. >>>

Energy Recovery: Strong Buy

Seawater desalination leader Energy Recovery Inc’s, (ERII) Q3 results were disappointing compared with the previous year’s performance, yet the company managed to beat both market expectations and last quarter’s outlook. >>>