Crash won nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Song in the Oscar nominations announced this morning. While the investment implications are extremely limited, this a real feather in the cap for Lionsgate (LGF). Just a few months ago, the film was considered a real long shot for […]
A couple of quick follow-ups to my Weekend Box Office Update that support my bullish trading bias on Lionsgate (LGF). First, this weekend’s Barron’s contained positive commentary on LGF in the Inside Scoop column. The column noted recent insider buying by senior executives along with a big boost in the position of Carl Icahn protégé […]
Over on Street Insight, my fellow contributor Jeff Bagley and I have been tag-teaming the defense of Apple Computer (AAPL) since the company reported its December quarter EPS. We were both bullish prior the earnings release and I really feel Jeff has hit it on the head with his long-term bullishness based upon the unusually […]
If there were an equation that measured media and analyst coverage vs. stock price volatility, Time Warner (TWX) would probably produce an answer nearing infinity. Dare I say a google. Tomorrow provdes the stock another chance to offer some excitement when TWX reports 4Q05 earnings. The results are expected to be quite strong, consistent with […]
While Knight Ridder’s earnings report was sloppy with weak December trends, I am surprised the shares would trade down 2% given that the investment case is totally controlled by the auction underway for the company. On this front, management led off the call by announcing it would take no questions. One analyst did have the […]
Lionsgate (LGF – recently renamed from Lions Gate Entertainment) announced the sale of its studio production facilities in Canada for $36.1 million. To be honest, I did not even realize the company owned its own facilities. According to a report I just read, this asset was going to generate less than $5 million in revenue […]
The weekend box office saw the top dozen films gross 5% less than a year ago but with the final weekend in January in the books, Hollywood has to be pleased with 2006 so far. Heading into this weekend, the box office was up more than 9%, a nice turn from the dismal 2005 performance, […]
It is hard to add value on the Disney-Pixar transaction. I received a dozen virtually identical analyst reports and CNBC was basically DisneyPixarVision for two days. I do want to highlight notes by Rich Bilotti of Morgan Stanley and Dave Miller of Sanders Morris Harris. It is not really anybody’s fault that the notes were […]
It would be very surprising if anything of substance came from the earnings release and conference for the 4Q05 report by Knight Ridder (KRI). First, the company is in the midst of an auction with presentations being made to a number of interested industry and private equity buyers. This will probably restrict what management can […]
Gannett (GCI) shares are rallied strongly, up about 3%, following the company’s fourth quarter earnings report issued before the open on Friday. The action is similar to the response to earnings from New York Times (NYT) and Dow Jones (DJ). Investors are reacting positively to stronger than expected trends in December advertising, hoping this time […]
