amazon.com Inc.
NASDAQ symbol AMZN, is the leading bookseller on the Internet, as well as a leading video and music seller. It also has numerous other store categories, including electronics, computer games, toys and tools. Through Amazon Services, the company also offers programs that let sellers market on its web sites.
DELPHI ENERGY $2.67 (Toronto symbol DEE; TSI Network Rating: Speculative) (403-265-6171; www.delphienergy.ca; Shares outstanding: 116.5 million; Market cap: $311.2 million; No dividends paid) explores for oil and gas in Alberta and B.C. In the three months ended December 31, 2010, Delphi’s combined daily output of natural gas, natural gas liquids and crude oil rose 24.0%, to 8,539 barrels of oil equivalent from 6,888 barrels a year earlier. Delphi’s cash flow rose 26.5%, to $18.0 million from $14.2 million. Its cash flow per share rose 14.3%, to $0.16 from $0.14....
PLEASE NOTE: Our next Hotline will go out on Thursday, April 21, 2011. AMAZON.COM INC., $180.01, symbol AMZN on Nasdaq, plans to sell the latest version of its Kindle portable e-book reader for just $114, which is $25 less than the previous version. To make up for the price cut, the company will display ads as screen savers and in a banner at the bottom of the home screen. It will also offer special deals to users, such as those at Groupon or other daily “best deal” web sites. Amazon introduced its Kindle portable e-book reader for $399 in 2007. Later models have become slimmer and cheaper, with better displays and more memory. The new model is expected to go on sale in U.S. at Target and Best Buy stores, as well as on Amazon’s web site, on May 3, 2011....
PLEASE NOTE: Our next Hotline will go out on Thursday, April 7, 2011. EBAY INC., $31.36, Nasdaq symbol EBAY, is buying GSI Commerce Inc. (Nasdaq symbol GSIC) which sells e-commerce services to over 500 businesses. GSI’s customers include major retailers, such as Toys R Us and Aeropostale, consumer-electronics makers, including Hewlett-Packard, and professional-sports leagues, such as the National Football League. GSI helps these clients process and fulfill online orders, and increase their online sales....
PLEASE NOTE: Our next Hotline will go out on Thursday, April 7, 2011. AMAZON.COM INC., $180.13, symbol AMZN on Nasdaq, has announced a new service, called Amazon Cloud Player, that lets users upload their music to an Amazon server and play it through any web browser, or on smartphones or tablet computers that use Google’s Android operating system. This way, users don’t have to download music to their computers or smartphones and then transfer it to other devices. Cloud Player users get 5 gigabytes of storage for free. That’s enough for about 1,000 songs. Users who buy music MP3 files from Amazon’s online music store will get 20 gigabytes for free for one year....
AMAZON.COM $164.70 (Nasdaq symbol AMZN; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (206-266-1000; www.amazon.com; Shares outstanding: 448.8 million; Market cap: $73.9 billion; No dividends paid) will now offer free streaming of movies and TV shows to its Amazon Prime members. These customers pay $79 a year to get unlimited two-day shipping. The company will offer Prime members more than 5,000 movies and TV shows. Netflix (New York symbol NFLX), Amazon’s rival in the Internet movie market, offers about 30,000 movies and TV shows for $96 a year. Amazon’s new service will reward Prime members. As well, it will draw attention to the company’s movie and TV-show downloading service, Amazon Instant Video, which lets customers buy or rent more than 90,000 commercial-free movies and TV shows (with prices of up to $3.99 for new releases)....
BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA, $57.66, Toronto symbol BNS, reported record earnings this week. That prompted the bank to raise its dividend. In its 2011 first quarter, which ended January 31, 2011, Bank of Nova Scotia earned a record $1.2 billion. That’s up 18.8% from $988 million a year earlier. Earnings per share rose 17.6%, to $1.07 from $0.91, on more shares outstanding. That beat the consensus earnings estimate of $1.06 a share. Revenue rose 5.6%, to $4.1 billion from $3.9 billion. The bank continues to set aside less money to cover bad loans because of the improving economy; that was the main reason for the higher earnings. In the latest quarter, loan-loss provisions fell 27.5%, to $269 million from $371 million a year earlier....
POWERSHARES QQQ ETF $57.14 (Nasdaq symbol QQQQ; buy or sell through brokers; www.invescopowershares.com), formerly called Nasdaq 100 Trust Shares, holds the stocks that represent the Nasdaq 100 Index. That index is made up of the 100 largest shares on the Nasdaq exchange, based on market cap. The Nasdaq 100 Index contains firms from a number of major industries, including computer hardware and software, telecommunications, retail/wholesale trade and biotechnology. It does not contain financial companies. The fund’s expenses are about 0.20% of its assets. The index’s highest-weighted stocks are Apple, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Google, Cisco Systems, Intel, Amazon.com, Oracle Corp., Comcast Corp. and Teva Pharmaceuticals....
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) may have a place in your portfolio. That’s because, unlike many other financial innovations, they don’t load you up with heavy management fees, or tie you down with high redemption charges if you decide to get out of them. Instead, they give you a low-cost, flexible, convenient alternative to mutual funds. ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. Prices are quoted in newspaper stock tables and online. You’ll have to pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell ETFs. However, ETFs’ low management fees still give them a cost advantage over most conventional mutual funds. As well, shares are only added or removed when the underlying index changes. As a result of this low turnover, you won’t incur the regular capital-gains bills generated by the yearly distributions most conventional mutual funds pay out to unitholders....
AMAZON.COM INC., $177.24, symbol AMZN on Nasdaq, will now offer free streaming of movies and TV shows to its Amazon Prime members. These are customers who pay $79 a year to get unlimited two-day shipping from Amazon with no minimum purchase requirements. The company will offer Prime members more than 5,000 movies and TV shows. Netflix (New York symbol NFLX), Amazon’s rival in the Internet movie market, offers about 30,000 movies and TV shows for $96 a year. Amazon’s new service will benefit the company in a number of ways: It will reward Prime members. As well, it will draw attention to the company’s movie and TV-show downloading service, Amazon Instant Video, which lets customers buy or rent more than 90,000 commercial-free movies and TV shows (with prices of up to $3.99 for new releases)....
AMAZON.COM $186.62 (Nasdaq symbol AMZN; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (206- 266-1000; www.amazon.com; Shares outstanding: 448.8 million; Market cap: $83.8 billion; No dividends paid) has agreed to pay $320 million for the 58% of privately held Lovefilm International Ltd. that it didn’t already own. Amazon.com took a minority stake in U.K. based Lovefilm after it sold its DVD rental business in the U.K. and Germany to Lovefilm in 2008. Lovefilm rents movies, TV shows and video games by mail. As well, customers with Internet-enabled TV sets and game consoles can view Lovefilm’s content online. Taking full control of Lovefilm will let Amazon compete with rivals like popular Internet movie service Netflix (New York symbol NFLX)....