intel

BHP BILLITON LTD. ADRs, $67.44, New York symbol BHP, is the world’s largest mining company, with major operations in Australia, South Africa, Chile and the U.K. BHP produces iron ore, coal, oil, aluminum, manganese, diamonds and titanium. The company now wants to expand its potash fertilizer business. This week, it offered to buy Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (Toronto symbol POT), the world’s largest fertilizer producer. Potash Corp. has six potash mines in Saskatchewan, and one in New Brunswick. Five of its mines have reserves of between 60 and 97 years. (Potash Corp. is a recommendation of our Successful Investor newsletter.) BHP is offering $130.00 a share in cash, for a total of $38.6 billion. That’s equal to 21% of BHP’s $187.7-billion market cap. BHP has secured $45 billion in loans to finance the deal. On December 31, 2009, BHP had $14.9 billion of long-term debt, and held cash of $9.0 billion....

LOJACK CORP., $3.55, symbol LOJN on Nasdaq, sells systems that help track and recover vehicles after they’ve been stolen. Lojack sells its products in the U.S. and 30 other countries. The company’s Canadian subsidiary is Boomerang Tracking. In the three months ended June 30, 2010, LoJack’s revenue rose 5.6%, to $37.4 million from $35.4 million a year earlier. The company lost $1.03 a share in the latest quarter, compared to a loss of $0.73 a share. However, the latest quarter included a one-time charge of $0.87 a share for an accounting adjustment. Cash flow was positive in the latest quarter, at $1.1 million, or $0.06 a share. LoJack’s $7.9 million of debt is just 12% of its market cap, and less than half of its cash holdings of $33 million....

Hidden value is one of the key factors we look for when we choose stocks to recommend in our newsletters and investment services, including Wall Street Stock Forecaster, our advisory that covers the U.S. stock markets. (In a recent Wall Street Stock Forecaster hotline, we updated our buy/sell/hold advice on a technology stock that uses one of our favourite hidden assets to maximum effect. Read on for further details.) By hidden value, we mean valuable assets that are not getting the attention they deserve from investors. When a company’s assets are wholly or partially hidden, the stock trades for less than it’s really worth, so you get to buy at a bargain price....

INTEL CORP., $21.02, Nasdaq symbol INTC, reported better-than-expected second-quarter earnings and sales this week. That pushed up the stock by 4%. In the three months ended June 26, 2010, the computer-chip maker earned $2.9 billion, or $0.51 a share. That beat the consensus earnings estimate of $0.43 a share. As well, the latest earnings were up 175.2% from $1.05 billion, or $0.18 a share, a year earlier. The year-earlier results exclude a $1.45-billion charge to settle an antitrust fine in Europe. Intel spends around 15% of its sales on research, so it’s more profitable than it appears. Sales rose 34.2%, to $10.8 billion from $8.0 billion. That beat the consensus sales estimate of $10.25 billion....

Cisco Systems Inc., $23.14, symbol CSCO on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 5.7 billion; Market cap: $131.9 billion), is a leading maker of hardware and software that links and manages computer networks. The company’s hardware includes routers, local-area network (LAN) and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switches, and dial-up access servers. (Servers are computers that manage shared files or programs on a network.) Cisco’s Internet Operating System (IOS) software ties these products together, delivers network services (which interconnect and move information between networks) and lets programs run on networks. Cisco gets about 46% of its revenue from overseas customers. The company’s revenues fell from $39.5 billion in fiscal 2008 (years end July 31) to $36.1 billion in fiscal 2009. However, now that the economy has begun to revive, many businesses have begun updating their networking equipment. As a result, Cisco’s revenue jumped 27.0% in its third quarter, which ended May 1, 2010, to $10.4 billion from $8.2 billion a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, its earnings rose 41.2%, to $2.5 billion, or $0.42 a share, from $1.8 billion, or $0.30 a share. The company bought back 87 million shares during the quarter, at a cost of $2.25 billion....

POWERSHARES QQQ ETF $43.96 (Nasdaq symbol QQQQ; buy or sell through brokers), 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., Gilead Sciences and Teva Pharmaceuticals....

SONY CORP. ADRs $30 (New York symbol SNE; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; ADRs outstanding: 1.0 billion; Market cap: $30.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.4; Dividend yield: 0.9%; WSSF Rating: Average) has teamed up with INTEL CORP. $21 (Nasdaq symbol INTC; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 5.6 billion; Market cap: $117.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.1; Dividend yield: 3.0%; WSSF Rating: Above Average) and Internet search-engine provider Google Inc. (Nasdaq symbol GOOG). Under this new alliance, Sony will build television sets that use Intel’s chips and Google’s search and software expertise. The new sets will let viewers search and download videos from the Internet without an external computer. Sony will start selling the new sets in time for the 2010 Christmas shopping season. This alliance should give Sony a competitive advantage over other television makers. Sony is a buy....

Computer-chip technology changes rapidly. New advances keep driving down chip prices and profit margins. To lower your risk, we look for companies that have the financial strength to keep developing new products. Here are four high-quality chip-related stocks that we see as buys. All four are in a strong position to gain from rising consumer and business spending on new computers and other devices. INTEL CORP. $23 (Nasdaq symbol INTC; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 5.5 billion; Market cap: $126.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.1; Dividend yield: 2.7%; WSSF Rating: Above Average) is the world’s largest computer chip maker. It controls about 80% of the market....

APACHE CORP., $105.44, New York symbol APA, has made two major purchases that will expand its offshore oil-drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. This week, the company agreed to buy Mariner Energy Inc. (New York symbol ME) for $2.7 billion in cash and stock. Mariner has reserves of 181 million barrels of oil equivalent (including natural gas). Besides offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico, Mariner has onshore properties in Texas and New Mexico. Apache will also assume $1.2 billion of Mariner’s debt. The deal should close in the third quarter of 2010. Apache is also buying Devon Energy Corp.’s (New York symbol DVN) oil and gas reserves on the Gulf of Mexico Shelf for $1.05 billion. Devon is a recommendation of our Stock Pickers Digest newsletter. These fields hold 83 million barrels of oil equivalent. Apache aims to complete this purchase by the end of June....

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, but you will quickly make these back because of the low management fees. 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....