Saturday, March 08, 2008

Trading Alerts: Monday, March 10, 2008

Newsprint producer AbitibiBowater Inc (ABH-$10.00) announced a $1.4 billion refinancing plan to address upcoming debt maturities and general liquidity needs.

Shares in Ambac Financial Group Inc (ABK-$9.50) rose 28.03%, or $2.08, Friday after the bond insurer unveiled plans to sell a big piece of itself at a discount. In after-market trading, however, the price reversed more than 15% in volume exceeding 6.4 million shares.

Drug maker Amgen Inc (AMGN-$44.18) said Friday it expanded
black box warnings about risks of death and tumor growth of its blockbuster anemia drugs, Aranesp and Epogen.

If a company has to borrow to make money, Jim Cramer said the stock must be sold. No exceptions. "Even the best borrowers are
still vulnerable in this market," including former darling Annaly Capital Management, Inc (NLY-$15.00). Deutsche Bank, however, defends the real estate investment trust, which fell 18 percent Thursday on concerns over declining prices in agency mortgage-backed securities.

On the "Speculative Friday" segment of Mad Money, Cramer is back on board with Blockbuster Inc (BBI-$2.72). After cutting costs and reducing free rentals last year, the Dallas-based video rental giant posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter results on Thursday and told Wall Street it plans to be profitable in 2008. Cramer sees the current valuation as a
buying opportunity.

Also,in a
Schedule 13D regulatory filing, Fine Capital Partners disclosed a 6.13% passive stake in BBI at purchases prices between $2.94 and $4.02 a share, from November 12 to March 6.

The proposed buyout of BCE, Inc (BCE$-36.07), Canada's biggest telephone company, moved a step forward after a Canadian judge dismissed a lawsuit by a group of bondholders opposed to the deal.

The housing-market meltdown won't hurt
senior-housing companies as much as investors think, according to an article in Barron’s Monday edition. Brookdale Senior Living (BKD-$25.18), the largest U.S. provider of private-pay senior housing, has seen its shares slip 48% over the past year, trading about 19 percent below the Street's consensus target of $31 a share.

Carlyle Capital Corp (CCC-$5.00), the investment fund affiliated with private equity firm The Carlyle Group, said Friday that it's received another wave of margin calls from lenders, which could quickly deplete its remaining resources and lead to impairments of its capital. A meeting among the fund's lenders is scheduled for Monday, at 10:30 a.m. in New York.

MSN Money stock-picking contributor, Russell Carpenter,
articulates a compelling BUY thesis for Mexico's Cemex SAB de CV (CX-$25.15). Shares of the world's third-largest cement maker have lost one-third of their value since hitting a 52-week high of $41.36 last June on concern about an acquisition that broadened its exposure to the U.S. market. However, cement will remain a beneficiary of booming worldwide growth, offsetting a slowdown in U.S. growth caused by the housing bust.

Punk Ziegel
recommends investors buy Citigroup Inc (C-$20.88), a day after the bank announced moves to overhaul its U.S. residential mortgage business, and said new rumors in the market suggest that the financial giant's capital strength may be greater than thought.

After the closing bell Friday, business and legal consultancy company CRA International Inc (CRAI-$38.16) reported preliminary first-quarter fiscal 2008 results
below market estimates, citing a decline in company-wide utilization rates to 70 percent (due to lower-than expected business overseas).

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing subprime lender Countrywide Financial Corp (CFC-$5.07) for possible securities fraud, according to law-enforcement officials and finance-industry executives.

Interstate Bakeries Corp’s (IBCIQ-$0.03) plan to exit bankruptcy protection went off the rails Friday as the maker of Hostess Twinkies and Wonder Bread asked a court
to delay hearing the plan because it has begun talking with a new investor.

Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc (KERX-$5.26) announced that a Phase 3 clinical trial for Sulonex, a drug designed to treat diabetic neuropathy,
failed to meet the study's primary objective, which was to increase the proportion of patients that achieve therapeutic success at 6 months as compared to placebo over background therapy of maximal doses of ACE-inhibitors or ARBs. Therapeutic success was defined as the conversion from microalbuminuria to normoalbuminuria, as measured by albumin/creatinine ratio (ACR), with at least a 25% reduction in ACR relative to baseline ACR

Eli Lilly & Co (LLY-$49.70) confirmed Friday it is
halting development of its Air Inhaled Insulin (AIR) program because of regulatory uncertainties. As a result, the Indianapolis-based drug company expects a first-quarter charge of $90 million to $120 million, or 5 cents to 7 cents per share.

Bond insurer MBIA Inc (MBI-$11.99) has asked Fitch Ratings to withdraw its insurer ratings on six of its units, saying it disagrees with the ratings company's approach.

Salesforce.com (CRM-$56.66), the market and technology
leader in Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service, may be the “last momentum stock standing,” Cramer said on Friday’s Mad Money. Last week, Citigroup analyst, Brent Thill, reiterate a buy opinion on the software stock, upping fiscal year 2009 (January) share-net estimate 3 cents to $0.33and $60 target price to $70 a share.

Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, Inc (SPPI-$2.44) received marketing approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Levoleucovorin for Injection (indicated after high-dose methotrexate therapy in patients with osteosarcoma).

Home lender Thornburg Mortgage Inc (TMA-$1.79) said on Friday falling mortgage prices and liquidity imperiled by a surge in margin calls, "have raised substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern."

In a SC 13G filing after the close of trading on Friday, asset management firm SAC Capital Advisors disclosed a 4.1% stake in XenoPort, Inc (XNPT-$41.75), which is working with British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK-$42.41) on XP13512, an experimental restless leg syndrome drug in late-stage development.

Editor David J. Phillips does not hold a financial interest in any stocks mentioned in this article. The 10Q Detective has a Full Disclosure Policy.

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