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Prestige Brands (PBH 1.5%) is higher today after Oppenheimer upgraded the stock to Outperform with a $17 price target. The firm believes the company is set to undergo a deleveraging process which will benefit investors. Separately, Janney Montgomery also ups the shares to Buy. Post your comment!

Facebook's weaker-than-expected IPO is producing a tumultuous day for Zynga (ZNGA -5.7%). Shares fell 13.3% before being halted on circuit breakers. They subsequently rebounded a bit, but were halted again, and have remained that way since 12:29 ET. Post your comment!

Shares of Advance Auto Parts (AAP -0.6%) continue to falter despite a spirited defense from Raymond James. Though shares have tailed off 17.7% following the firm's lackluster Q1 report, analyst Daniel Wewer stays bullish with a reiterated Strong Buy rating - undeterred by AAP execs saying that April's business saw a "meaningful slowdown." Post your comment!

As Kantar Comtech reports Windows Phone is creating a foothold in the U.S. and Europe, Microsoft's (MSFT) China chief boasts the OS now claims 7% of the Chinese smartphone market, more than the 6% share he assigns to the iPhone. However, Canalys estimated the iPhone had 19% of the Chinese smartphone market in Q1, after Apple (AAPL) reported FQ2 Chinese sales tripled Y/Y. Sepeately, Lumia 900 (NOK) backed AT&T predicts Windows 8 will give a lift to Windows Phone sales.

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Kraft (KFT 0.7%) reduces its pricing on its Maxwell House brand, according to Reuters. The move matches a 6% cut by peer J.M. Smucker (SJM -0.8%) on house brands earlier this week. Post your comment!

Sysco (SYY -1.9%) slides on a downgrade to Underweight at Barclays, based on high food inflation, aggressive competitor pricing, and lack of dividend growth. the firm also lowers its price target to $27 from $28. 1 comment!

One more piece of fallout from Scott Thompson's resume scandal: F5 Networks (FFIV) discloses Thompson has resigned from the company's board. Post your comment!

By Matt Schilling:

When Meg Whitman was hired by Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) to take over as Chief Executive Officer, her main objective was to restore the once admirable growth HPQ demonstrated to its shareholders. On May 17th HPQ announced that it was planning to cut 8% - 10% of its workforce, or roughly 25,000 jobs in an effort to reduce spending. According to Hewlett-Packard the official announcement of these layoffs could come as early as May 23rd when they report earnings.

Hewlett-Packard is set to report earnings next week and this is where investors should be cautious. Analysts are expecting HPQ to earn $0.91/share on $29.92 billion dollars in revenue, which might be right in-line with their results. That being said, HPQ has beaten street estimates each of the last four quarters by an average of 3.15% per quarter.

There are two things investors should note before acquiring a position in Hewlett-Packard. If the

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On the hour: Dow -0.02%. 10-yr -0.02%. Euro 0.28% vs. dollar. Crude -0.65% to $91.95. Gold 0.8% to $1587.45.
Post your comment!

As Yahoo (YHOO 5.4%) rallies on a report it's nearing a sale of half it's Alibaba (ALBCF.PK) stake for ~$7B, interim CEO (for now, anyway) Ross Levinsohn is putting his mark on the company. In a memo, Levinsohn discloses global media & commerce chief Sam Shrauger, just recently hired by Scott Thompson from PayPal, has been replaced with Americas media chief Mickie Rosen. Also, e-commerce exec Mollie Spillman is replacing Carol Bartz appointee Penny Baldwin as CMO. Post your comment!

The yield on JGBs falls to 0.815%, the lowest level since 2003. Folks of a certain age will remember that summer and remember the seeming impossibility of that level. We're not only back, but the rest of the world is headed there too. German 10-year Bunds, 1.43%, U.S. 10-years, 1.71%. At the short end, Germany has gone even further, its 2-years yielding 0.05% vs. Japan at 0.10%. 1 comment!

Quality Systems (QSII -2.3%) slips on a downgrade to Market Perform at Leerink Swann. The firm cites concerns that growth will slow after management said the number of signed contracts declined to 75 from 128 last quarter. The firm also lowered its price target to $31 from $45 - $47. Post your comment!

Peabody Energy (BTU -2.5%) leases 402M tons of ultra low sulfur coal reserves in the Southern Powder River Basin in Wyoming after submitting a winning bid of $1.11 per mineable ton. BTU now controls 3.3B tons of coal reserves in the Basin; the leased reserves lie adjacent to its North Antelope Rochelle Mine, from where it shipped 109M tons of coal in 2011. Post your comment!

Fitch downgrades 5 Greek banks, including National Bank of Greece, to CCC from B- following an earlier downgrade of the sovereign to CCC. "An exit of Greece from EMU ... could be followed by a withdrawal of international support," and widespread private sector (in addition to public sector) defaults. Post your comment!

By Ross Klosterman:

On May 16, 2012, Amarin Corp (AMRN) submitted its "Response to Non-Final Office Action Dated March 2, 2012" to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The information submitted was in regard to patent number 12/702,889. A response was also submitted for patent number 13/282,145 regarding a "Non-Final Office Action Dated February 23, 2012." As patent information is often confusing and inaccurately disseminated, I will attempt to distill the information Amarin submitted to the USPTO in hopes of clarifying this for readers. I will be primarily commenting on the 12/702,889 patent, as it has been the focus for investors over the past few months. You can read about AMRN in my previous article to gain background on the company.

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LINN Energy (LINE -0.4%) says it will fund $400M of Anadarko Petroleum’s future development costs in Wyoming's giant Salt Creek oil field in exchange for a 23% interest in the CO2-enhanced oil recovery project. Salt Creek averaged 10,800 bbl/day of oil in March, and LINE believes further development will double production by 2015. 1 comment!

Three lunchtime reads:
1) Facebook: Following Amazon to success
2) After Greece goes, can Spain stay in?
3) What Dow Theory says about correction Post your comment!

It's time to remove the 'B' in BRIC and create BANC - a group of commodity-driven currencies (Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Canada), writes Vince Cignarella. The real has a far stronger correlation with these than it does with than with other emerging market currencies. BZF -5.1% YTD. Post your comment!

After falling all the way to its IPO price of $38, Facebook (FB 8.9%) has bounced, and is now trading at $41.37. That's helped the NASDAQ, down ~1% at one point, head back towards breakeven. Zero Hedge notes over 30M shares traded at $38. "That's some serious underwriter buying," it quips. 4 comments!

OfficeMax (OMX 1.9%) and Office Depot (ODP 1.4%) trade higher as Staples (SPLS -1.1%) slumps again. While all three office supply sellers race to downsize and increase e-commerce sales, it's a weak Europe and the threat of Amazon's new B2B site that weighs on SPLS a bit more heavy than on its peers. Post your comment!

Baidu (BIDU) is reportedly working with 3 partners to produce smartphones that will feature its Baidu Cloud applications suite. It's added the phones will sell for a mere $111-$143, be marketed by local vendor Changhong Electric, and will run on China Unicom's (CHU) network. The report comes shortly after one of Baidu showed off one of its devices, a low-end Android model with a 3.5" display and Baidu search box. Netease (NTES) also has plans to sell low-end Android phones. (also) Post your comment!

By Theodore Cohen:

Dendreon (DNDN) is a difficult stock to own ... ask anyone who is or was a shareholder. The history of this company and its travails with the FDA, SEC and the stock market are enough to drive one to drink, if not to a shrink. Not that the company hasn't contributed to the problem.

But even its most ardent critics would be remiss if they didn't acknowledge (1) the strange activities surrounding the Provenge Advisory Committee meeting of March 29, 2007; (2) the internecine warfare between the FDA's then-CDER/ODAC (Pazdur) and CBER; (3) the letters written by special government employees Drs. Howard Scher and Maha Hussain to then-Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach disparaging Provenge (the letters, you will recall, that were leaked to and published by The Cancer Letter either prior to or just after their delivery), and (4) the counter-intuitive put trades by seven hedge funds (that is, large bets

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AutoZone (AZO 1.7%) moves higher on an upgrade to Outperform on valuation at Credit Suisse. The firm cites solid EPS growth and secular drivers that should boost sales, include an aging vehicle fleet and the high miles driven. Post your comment!

Trade surpluses should not be confused with moral vigor, writes Michael Pettis, and Germany now makes the same mistake the U.S. made in the 20s by doing so (illustrated with the retelling of a brilliant story from then-candidate FDR). Spain will leave the euro, he says, not to ease its pain, but because remaining in EMU will be worse. A great read. Post your comment!

Clorox (CLX 0.3%) stands as a dividend champion with an impressive streak of 34 consecutive years of upping its payout to shareholders, according to the dividend-watching blog Dividend Growth Investor. Steady earnings growth driven by non-cyclical consumables spending and an attractive 3.77% yield make shares of CLX rather enticing for income investors. Post your comment!

Environmental and tribal groups file a challenge to a federal air emissions permit for a Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) drilling ship, the latest legal maneuver aimed at stopping the company's exploration plan off Alaska's Arctic coast. Anti-drilling groups have filed at least four other challenges since the Interior Department said it would uphold ~500 drilling leases in the Chukchi Sea. Post your comment!

By Colin Lokey:

In a recent Forbes article, contributor Daniel Fisher suggests that LinkedIn (LNKD) is a more "clever" way to play the social networking craze than Facebook (FB). The argument hinges on the supposed superiority of Linkedin's business model -- the company generates most of its revenue by charging employers to search LinkedIn member profiles for prospective hires. Fisher asserts that this more "conventional" way of doing things is a far more predictable revenue generator than selling advertisements and, as such, will ultimately prove to be a more reliable generator of free cash flow. There are multiple problems with this idea.

First, Fisher bases the argument on the fact that LinkedIn generated free cash flow of $41 million in the first quarter of 2012 while Facebook's free cash flow was negative $50 million for the same period. What he doesn't mention is that LinkedIn's trailing twelve month (TTM) free cash flow was

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While Facebook underwhelms on its big day, Apple (AAPL 1.4%) is outperforming after a string of selloffs. Possibly helping is a bullish note from Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty (previous), who predicts average U.S. household spending on Apple gear will go from $444 in 2011 to $635 in 2013, and reach $888 in 2015, provided rumors (I, II, III) of an iTV pan out. Meanwhile, BMO says its talks with carriers suggest they want to cut iPhone subsidies, but that actually doing so could prove tough.

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ANN INC (ANN)

Q1 2012 Earnings Call

May 18, 2012 8:30 am ET

Executives

Judith Lord

Katherine Lawther Krill - Chief Executive Officer, President and Executive Director

Michael J. Nicholson - Chief Financial Officer, Principal Accounting Officer, Executive Vice President and Treasurer

Analysts

Kimberly C. Greenberger - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Janet Kloppenburg

Roxanne Meyer - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Jennifer Black

Lorraine Maikis Hutchinson - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Paul Lejuez - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Marni Shapiro - The Retail Tracker

Brian J. Tunick - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division

Betty Y. Chen - Wedbush Securities Inc., Research Division

Adrienne Tennant - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, Research Division

Presentation

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ANN INC.'s First Quarter 2012 Earnings Conference Call. At the request of the company, today's conference call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I

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BMO Capital initiates coverage on a few of the big drug companies today: Eli Lilly (LLY -0.1%) and Merck (MRK -0.4%) are initiated with a Market Perform, and Bristol-Myers (BMY 0.1%) is started with an Outperform. Post your comment!