wall street
Home renovations spurred by an improved real estate market help keep Stanley Black and Decker one on our best stocks to buy in the U.S.
INTEL CORP., $31.84, Nasdaq symbol INTC, has agreed to acquire Altera Corp. (Nasdaq symbol ALTR). Altera specializes in chips called field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) that users can program to perform specific tasks. This helps make server computers faster. The company focuses on chip design; it outsources manufacturing to other firms, including Intel....
TD BANK $54.90 (Toronto symbol TD; Shares outstanding: 1.8 billion; Market cap: $100.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.7%; www.td.com) is Canada’s largest bank, with $1.03 trillion of assets. It also operates more branches in the U.S. than Canada (1,302 vs. 1,165) and owns 40.72% of TD Ameritrade (New York symbol AMTD), a leading online brokerage. Excluding one-time items, TD’s earnings per share rose 4.6% in its fiscal second quarter ended April 30, 2015, to $1.14 from $1.09 a year earlier. Revenue gained 4.4%, to $7.8 billion from $7.4 billion, as low interest rates continue to spur loan demand. The bank’s loan-loss provisions fell 4.3%, to $375 million from $392 million, because more U.S. credit card customers are repaying their loans on time....
Production problems solved, the 787 Dreamliner has over 1,000 sales, and that keeps Boeing high on our list of blue chips stocks.
NORDSTROM INC., $72.64, New York symbol JWN, has formed an alliance with Toronto-Dominion Bank (Toronto symbol TD), a recommendation of The Successful Investor, our newsletter that focuses on conservative Canadian stocks. Under the deal, TD will purchase Nordstrom’s credit card loans, which total $2.2 billion. To put that in perspective, Nordstrom’s market cap (or the value of all of its outstanding shares) is $14.0 billion. Nordstrom will still get part of the revenue from these credit cards and will keep managing their related loyalty plans. The companies expect to complete the deal in the second half of 2015. Separately, TD has agreed to become the exclusive issuer of Nordstrom-branded Visa and private-label credit cards....
CAE INC., $14.85, Toronto symbol CAE, earned $64.1 million, or $0.24 a share, in its fiscal 2015 fourth quarter, which ended March 31, 2015. That’s up 6.8% from $60.0 million, or $0.23, a year earlier. The latest earnings matched the consensus forecast. Revenue rose 9.7%, to a record $631.6 million from $575.7 million, beating the consensus estimate of $627.2 million. CAE gets 58% of its revenue by selling flight simulators and pilot-training services to airlines, and this business’s revenue rose 13.6% during the quarter. CAE sold 10 simulators during the period, bringing the full-year total to 41; it sold a record 48 simulators in fiscal 2014....
As one of the world’s largest energy stocks, Chevron has the resources, and refineries, to thrive in the face of lower oil prices.
J.P. MORGAN CHASE & CO., $66.47, New York symbol JPM, has agreed to settle charges that it colluded with other major banks to manipulate foreign exchange rates between December 2007 and January 2013. As a result, Morgan will pay a total of $892.0 million in fines. To put that in perspective, the bank earned $5.9 billion, or $1.45 a share, in the three months ended March 31, 2015. Morgan has already set aside funds to cover potential lawsuit payouts, including this one, so this week’s settlement will not hurt its current earnings. It has also strengthened oversight over its trading operations....
One of the tech stocks that has had the greatest success for us, Apple is banking on Apple Pay and Apple Watch for its next growth spurt.
SYMANTEC CORP., $24.48, Nasdaq symbol SYMC, sells computer-security technology, including antivirus and email-filtering software, to businesses and consumers. In its fiscal 2015 fourth quarter, which ended April 3, 2015, Symantec earned $299 million, or $0.43 a share. That fell short of the consensus estimate of $0.44. The latest earnings are also down 10.2% from $333 million, or $0.48 a share, a year earlier. The decline is partly because Symantec is hiring more programmers as it expands its cybersecurity operations. However, the company’s restructuring, which includes cancelling unprofitable deals to pre-install software on new computers and simplifying its product lines, saved it $150 million in fiscal 2015....