Here's a glimpse at the Research Highlights Rebecca Runkle (Tech), Tom Tobin (Healthcare) and Brian McGough (Retail) had on their minds this morning.
TECHNOLOGY: RUNKLE V CRAMER DEAR JIM…ARE YOU MAD? FASB DOES NOT CREATE VALUE!
by Rebecca Runkle and Team
“O! that way madness lies, let me shun that.” William Shakespeare
I read with great amusement and an equal amount of shock the Street Account summary of your Mad Money comments from last night.
Buying – ADBE - Buying back the bullish position that Runkle has had this year on Adobe. Stock is down -7% and I like to buy them when red. Runkle's intraday note to follow on her Tech portal!
Other names we like are MOT and YHOO, but price matters.
HEALTHCARE: STEEL CAGE MATCH III
by Tom Tobin and Team
Judging by the pummeling Managed Care took on decent volume, and out long position in UNH, I had that somebody-knows-something feeling most of the day, so I am expecting the worst when Sen. Baucus is releases his bill this afternoon describing his version of Health Reform. The good news, from people who have seen the advanced copy or spoken to an insider, the Public Plan is not included, replaced instead with a co-op.
AMGN, QGEN and UNH are our favorite names in Healthcare.
See Tom Tobin’s portal for more details
RETAIL – SIZING UP THE DATA
by Brian McGough and Team
There were some interesting callouts from yesterday’s retail sales release (noted below), but based on the tone of questions I get in my inbox on this topic, I think there’s a big lack of understanding about the size and importance of much of this data.
First off, let’s keep in mind that Personal Consumption is about $10 trillion. Retail sales are only $3.7 trillion. Chain store sales are about $500 billion, and yes that number continues to shrink as more retailers opt out of reporting monthly numbers to the National Retail Federation.
Not only is the gap between these three components massive, but let’s look at how the spreads therein have changed over time. As it relates to retail sales vs. consumption, there are ebbs and flows, but both the long and intermediate-term trends are headed lower. The more interesting trend is the importance of chain store sales, which were only 16% of total retail last year, but are now down to 7.8% after Wal*Mart stopped reporting. This number is shrinking, and will continue to do so.
See Brian McGough portal for the call outs on the government numbers…
UA continues to one of our favorite long-term names
