Looked in the mirror lately? If you’re a man of a certain age it’s quite possible you were repulsed by what you saw. Those bags under your eyes. Those wrinkles. Those 4 necks where only one should be. And dear god we’re not even going to touch on the breasts you’ve sprouted. The longer you look in the mirror the more disgusted you get. You start to wonder if maybe your bonus would’ve had a few extra zeros if it weren’t for that massive gut of yours. You want to do something drastic about it and fast but society says no, you must suck it up, unlike the lucky ladies who are free to get as much plastic surgery as they please. Well no longer. A small but burgeoning group of men, like Jim Wehrheim, founder of Wehrheim Financial Services, are standing up and demanding equal rights.

Jim Wehrheim, a 61-year old financial executive, says that although he works out regularly, has a healthy diet, and was generally satisfied with his appearance, he was bothered by “crow’s feet and a double chin.” His wife of two years, who is 19 years younger, was supportive of a surgical solution, he says. Pittsburgh plastic surgeon Leo McCafferty performed a face-lift in January. “Women have breast implants and face-lifts and Botox, so why shouldn’t it be OK for men?” says Mr. Wehrheim.

You don’t have to be afraid anymore.

[WSJ]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Sterne Agee’s Shaw Wu this morning reiterates a Buy rating on Cisco, advising that investors underestimate the possibility of a turnaround.

Wu’s immediate focus, though, is not the turnaround but the fiscal third quarter due to be reported next Wednesday.

He thinks Cisco will turn in slightly less than the $10.8 billion the Street is modeling, but probably meet the consensus 37 cents per share. His “checks” of the supply chain indicate “relative strength in networking,” though the trends are a bit “mixed” for Cisco.

The switching business transition to the “Nexus” product line is going to take some more quarters before resellers and partners come up to speed on the technology, he writes. Routing’s healthier, he thinks, as are the new business products, and overall, North America, emerging markets, and Asia-Pac are doing better than Europe at the moment.

Cisco shares this morning are up 15 cents, or 0.9%, at $17.62.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Shares of Apple (AAPL) are up $8.59, or 2.5%, at $351 this morning following better-than-expected fiscal Q2 results last night, as price targets zoom and estimates rise almost across the board.

The highest price target I see this morning comes from Brian White of Ticonderoga, who previously had the highest as well. His new target is $612, up from $550.

White raised his Q3 estimate for revenue to $25.1 billion from $24.4 billion, and raised his EPS estimate to $5.63 from $5.43. For fiscal 2011, his revenue estimate goes to $106 billion from $102 billion, and his EPS estimate goes to $25.22 from $23.36.

“With the stock now trading at 10x our CY11 EPS estimate (ex-cash),” writes White, “we believe there is plenty of upside left in the stock price as we look forward to continued momentum from the iPad 2, a new iPhone 5 in September, growing adoption of Mac products and a bigger push in the TV market as the year progresses.”

• Abhey Lamba, ISI Group: Reiterates a Buy rating, while raising his price target to $425 from $400. “Given the company’s usual conservatism, we would not be surprised if it ended up delivering closer to $25b in revenues and $7.00 in EPS,” Lamba said of Q3, though he’s current estimating $24.4 billion and $5.67. “The quarter’s results and our field checks continue to indicate that the company has a significant near term upside opportunity that can be captured by continued execution. The biggest bottleneck in its sales currently is its production process for iPads, which we expect to be resolved over the next couple of quarters.” Lamba notes that iPhone average selling price in the quarter of $660 “was the highest it has been since Apple’s December 2008 quarter.” Although the iPad will reduce margins, “We note that the company has gone from unprofitability or barely breaking even in FY01 and FY02 to above industry average margins today.”
• Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray: Reiterates an Overweight rating and a $554 price target, up from $483. Munster raised his unit shipment estimates for Apple for all but the iPod. This calendar year, he sees Apple selling 17.7 million Macs, 79 million iPhones, 32 million iPads, up from 17.5million, 73 million, and 27.4 million, respectively. He now models 42 million iPods, down from 47 million estimated previously. Munster muses on the trajectory of the iPhone: “Because of the iPhone’s high price (~$660 ASP) sales over-index to postpaid markets where carriers offer subsidies. A longer-term question is whether or not Apple will successfully address the prepaid (unsubsidized) phone market, which accounts for about three quarters of the world’s mobile phone unit sales. The company mentioned on last night’s call that iPhone sales in China (about 90% of the China market is prepaid) were up over 3x y/y suggesting either prepaid customers are paying up for the iPhone or prepaid customers are becoming postpaid customers. While a $660 iPhone is too expensive for the broader prepaid market, early indications suggest that the existing iPhone is in high enough demand to tap into at least part of the prepaid market over the next two years.”
• Brian Marshall, Gleacher & Co.: Reiterates a Buy rating and a $450 price target, up from $400 previously. His fiscal 2011 revenue estimate goes to $103.9 billion from $99.5 billion previously, while his EPS estimate rises to $25.85 from $23.54. “Sometimes we have to step back from our AAPL financial model and simply shake our heads in awe…it is amazing how it developed over the years. In CY08, AAPL generated ~$38.9bil of revenue with ~$9.2bil in operating profits (23.7% operating margin) with the iPhone representing ~23% of total sales. Today, we are introducing our CY12 estimates of ~$132.5bil in revenue and ~$40.9bil in operating profits (30.9% operating margin) with the iPhone generating ~46% of total sales. Over this 5-year timeframe, AAPL will have grown its revenue base more than three-fold while simultaneously more than quadrupling its operating profits (assuming our assumptions prove accurate). Furthermore, AAPL is currently supply constrained and only has ~5% share of the global handset and PC market with considerable runway ahead for growth.”
• Bill Shope, Goldman Sachs: Reiterates a Buy rating, while raising his price target to $470 from $450. He raised his 2011 estimate to $104.4 billion and $24.83 in EPS from a prior $101.4 million and $23.10. He sees $127.4 billion next year and $140 billion in 2013. Shope notes that operating profit margin of 31.9% was the highest in Apple’s history. “With the stock now trading at 9X our revised 2012 ex- cash EPS estimate and many sources of uncertainty resolved with the print, we believe the stock should begin to break out of its recent range.”
• T. Michael Walkley, Canaccord Genuity: Reiterates a Buy rating and a price target of $480. For Q3, Walkley expects iPad unit sales of 6.2 million, and his EPS estimate remains at $5.04 per share for the quarter. “In addition to solid growth for the iPhone in leading smartphone markets such as North America, we were impressed by the iPhone’s rapid growth in China. Management indicated China accounted for roughly 10% of total Apple sales in H1/F2011 and we believe China and other emerging markets such as India, Vietnam and Indonesia could drive a multi-year product cycle for Apple with the iPhone and also the iPad in these fast growth markets.”
• Rob Cihra, Caris & Co.: Reiterates a Buy rating and raises his price target to $500 from $460. He raised his revenue estimate this year to $105 billion from $104 billion and raised his EPS estimate to $25.67 from $23.81 previously. He also lowered his EPS estimate for Q3 from $5.29 to $5.04, to meet Apple’s forecast. Cihra’s unperturbed by the potential lack of a new iPhone this summer. “We think it’s mostly noise, as a 1-qtr bump in iPhone cycling does NOT change our view of the investment, since we see Apple and iPhone/ iOS now much more about “platform” vs. “product cycles.” And as we’ve outlined previously, products last maybe a year, “platforms” last decades.” Cihra also reflects on the possibility for “near-field communications” technology in the iPhone — possible, but it may take time: ” if Apple does ultimately add NFC to its iPhone it isn’t likely to just slap in a chip/radio (like some peers) but we think would wait until it had a comprehensive Apple-like “strategy” for leveraging its massive iTunes sub base (and perhaps balance sheet).”
• Brian Blair, Wedge Partners: “We feel like we correctly identified the outperformance of the iPhone, especially relative to much of the recent commentary around lower than expected iPhone volumes at Verizon. We did however, significantly miss the lower iPad units as our checks have pointed to a run rate suggesting a plausible 7 million unit number for the quarter. Our view is that we will see a unit number in that range for June. Our expectation has been for a June launch [of the iPhone 5], keeping with the history of the handset, but we are slowly moving to a view that September is accurate given that we still don’t believe production has begun or that orders are in place for a new model.”
• Kevin Dede, Brigantine Advisors: Reiterates a Buy rating and a $400 price target. He raised his June quarter view to $25.2 billion in revenue and $5.70 per share in EPS, from a prior $21 billion and $4.15. “Almost embarrassing after reducing our June expectations in consideration of the Japan disaster to Apple’s supply chain, we are now reversing course and raising them, even above where our estimates stood before lowering them last week. Inconceivable to us was Apple’s ability to find alternative sources for more than 100 components otherwise sourced from the quake and tsunami damaged area of Japan, and yet the company believes it can meet expectations set just a tad (about 3%) below existing Street consensus for the June quarter.”
• Tavis McCourt, Morgan Keegan: Reiterates an Outperform rating and raises his price target from $441 to $462. “Q2:11 was another very positive quarter of momentum for Apple, especially for iPhone and Mac product lines. We aren’t too concerned about iPad weakness sequentially as this was the product’s first March quarter, so it was hard to forecast exactly what the seasonal dip would be. However, Apple still clearly dominates this category and should experience strong sequential growth off of the March quarter. At this point it is hard to see what trips up Apple’s strong growth for several quarters going forward except for an exogenous shock to the economy.”
• Shaw Wu, Sterne Agee: Reiterates a Buy recommendation and a $445 price target. Wu raised his EPS estimate for the year to $24.50 from $23.50, while keeping his $101 million revenue estimate intact. ” It appears that we and many others underestimated the transition to iPad 2, which is an entirely new design. We had heard from our Asia-Pacific supply chain checks of as many as 3-4 million iPads per month production capacity but apparently this is in the process of being retooled and ramped for iPad 2.”
• Ben Reitzes, Barclays Capital: Reiterates an Overweight rating while raising his price target to $465 from $450. Reitzes cut his fiscal 2011 revenue estimate to $102.3 billion from a prior $103.8 billion on lower iPad estimates, while raising his EPS estimate to $24.30 from $23.50. “We now estimate iPad unit sales of 6.6 million for the June quarter (was 7.4 million) which could prove conservative depending on the ramp of production. We now estimate 26.7 million iPad units for FY11 (was 28.8 million) and 39.8 million for FY12 (was 40 million). While we believe demand for iPad 2 remains strong, we are slightly lowering our iPad estimates given the product has been difficult to track and we prefer to remain conservative.”
• Matthew Hoffman, Cowen & Co.: Reiterates an Outperform rating on Apple shares. He raised his Q3 EPS estimate to $5.44 from $5.30, while reiterating a projection of 8.4 million iPads to be sold this quarter. Hoffman’s fiscal 2011 EPS estimate goes to $25.05 from $23.43 previously.
• Alex Gauna, JMP Securities: Reiterates the Market Perform rating he had put in place back on March 16th. “We continue to caution that slowing supply chain dynamics that accurately presaged lackluster iPod performance and an iPad shortfall could still play out further in a June quarter that will not benefit from a new iPhone refresh.” Gauna raised his fiscal 2011 EPS estimate to $25.89 from $24.44, but says that he’s not changing his 2012 estimate of $28.40 until he knows more about the trends for the iPad 2 and the trends in the iPhone following last quarter’s introduction at Verizon.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Federal securities regulators are considering whether to let fast-growing companies use social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to raise funding by tapping thousands of investors for small amounts of money, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Securities and Exchange Commission may adopt rules to let internet-age technologies be used in fund-raising. The move is part of a larger review by the agency into whether to ease decades-old constraints on how companies can issue new shares to the public. The new funding techniques, known as “crowd funding,” could usher in a new era of capital abundance for Silicon Valley’s startups.

The technique as spread from artists looking to fund their creative works to entrepreneurs trying to bootstrap companies without giving up control to venture capitalists. Typically, a company might raise $100,000 from an internet site where users could sign up to buy $100 worth of shares.

Crowd funding could be a cheap source of cash, competing with angel investors who specialize in giving seed rounds to start-ups. Since the amounts of money are small, the downside risk isn’t too bad for investors. But the trick will be in protecting the public from scammers who have no intention of following through on promises.

But crowd funding could also be appealing to larger companies that are popular with consumers. Those companies wouldn’t have to go through all of the onerous legal disclosures required under securities laws. Mary Schapiro, chairman of the SEC, said in a letter to a law maker on Wednesday that the agency has been discussing crowd funding with small businesses and state regulators. A petition allowing crowd funding up to $100,000 has been backed by 150 organizations and individuals.

In 1992, the SEC allowed small companies to issue shares valued as much as $1 million to ordinary investors without full disclosure of financial information and other legal limits. That effort was abandoned in 1999 because of fraud concerns.

[image credit: Small Business Trends]

Tags: crowd funding, SEC

Companies: Securities and Exchange Commssion

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

The Securities and Exchange Commission may adopt rules to let internet-age technologies be used in fund-raising.

The agency is considering whether to let fast-growing companies use social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to raise funding by tapping thousands of investors for small amounts of money, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The move is part of a larger review by the Securities and Exchange Commission into whether to ease decades-old constraints on how companies can issue new shares to the public. The new funding techniques, known as “crowd funding,” could usher in a new era of capital abundance for Silicon Valley’s startups.

The technique has spread from artists looking to fund their creative works to entrepreneurs trying to bootstrap companies without giving up control to venture capitalists. Typically, a company might raise $100,000 from an internet site where users could sign up to buy $100 worth of shares.

Crowd funding could be a cheap source of cash, competing with angel investors who specialize in giving seed rounds to start-ups. Since the amounts of money are small, the downside risk isn’t too bad for investors. But the trick will be in protecting the public from scammers who have no intention of following through on promises.

Crowd funding could also be appealing to larger companies that are popular with consumers. Those companies wouldn’t have to go through all of the onerous legal disclosures required under securities laws. Mary Schapiro, chairman of the SEC, said in a letter to a law maker on Wednesday that the agency has been discussing crowd funding with small businesses and state regulators. A petition allowing crowd funding up to $100,000 has been backed by 150 organizations and individuals.

In 1992, the SEC allowed small companies to issue shares valued as much as $1 million to ordinary investors without full disclosure of financial information and other legal limits. That effort was abandoned in 1999 because of fraud concerns.

[image credit: Small Business Trends]

Tags: crowd funding, SEC

Companies: Securities and Exchange Commssion

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

The Securities and Exchange Commission may adopt rules to let internet-age technologies be used in fund-raising.

The agency is considering whether to let fast-growing companies use social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to raise funding by tapping thousands of investors for small amounts of money, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The move is part of a larger review by the Securities and Exchange Commission into whether to ease decades-old constraints on how companies can issue new shares to the public. The new funding techniques, known as “crowd funding,” could usher in a new era of capital abundance for Silicon Valley’s startups.

The technique has spread from artists looking to fund their creative works to entrepreneurs trying to bootstrap companies without giving up control to venture capitalists. Typically, a company might raise $100,000 from an internet site where users could sign up to buy $100 worth of shares.

Crowd funding could be a cheap source of cash, competing with angel investors who specialize in giving seed rounds to start-ups. Since the amounts of money are small, the downside risk isn’t too bad for investors. But the trick will be in protecting the public from scammers who have no intention of following through on promises.

Crowd funding could also be appealing to larger companies that are popular with consumers. Those companies wouldn’t have to go through all of the onerous legal disclosures required under securities laws. Mary Schapiro, chairman of the SEC, said in a letter to a law maker on Wednesday that the agency has been discussing crowd funding with small businesses and state regulators. A petition allowing crowd funding up to $100,000 has been backed by 150 organizations and individuals.

In 1992, the SEC allowed small companies to issue shares valued as much as $1 million to ordinary investors without full disclosure of financial information and other legal limits. That effort was abandoned in 1999 because of fraud concerns.

[image credit: Small Business Trends]

Tags: crowd funding, SEC

Companies: Securities and Exchange Commssion

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

You know what’s so fucking hot right now? Tea. You know how we know that? Because the Post has deemed it so. And you know how they know that? Because people like legendary hedge fund manager Spencer Greenberg drink it. Greenberg, you may recall, is the 27 year-old co-founder of Rebellion Research, a firm that uses “artificial intelligence” to invest and manages under $7 million. His passion for leaves is cited today as evidence that this stuff that’s been around for thousands of years is finally now a ‘thing.’ Greenberg, pictured here with his stash and described as resembling Jake Gyllenhaal, we’re told, “is not your average tea enthusiast.”

An “average” tea enthusiast, one guesses, would be someone who just drank it when they were in the mood, maybe keeping a couple bags around the house. That’s child’s play for someone like Spencer. He keeps 40 kinds of tea on hand in his apartment in Union Square and serves tea “virtually every time” he has friends over, who order off a “detailed tea menu” that he created. Among Greenberg’s favorites? Jasmine green and rose black. “Sometimes you’ll smell a flower and you’ll wish you could have something taste like the flower smells,” he says.

Who will join Spence on this teabagging wagon?

Excitement Is Brewing Over An Ancient Drink, As Young Professionals Find A Brand New Bag [NYP]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Folks who had a hard time believing that Twitter was worth $1 billion year ago are going to have an even harder time swallowing the company’s new valuation.

AllThingsDigital’s Kara Swisher reports that Twitter just raised a $200 million round that valued the company at $3.7 billion.

In a company blog post, CEO Dick Costolo confirmed that the company has raised a new round from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and existing investors. (Kleiner partner John Doerr recently said that his firm was wrong to turn Twitter down in its early days). And Twitter has two new board members — Mike McCue, former CEO of Microsoft-acquired TellMe and currently CEO of Flipboard, and David Rosenblatt, former CEO of Google-acquired DoubleClick. (The post doesn’t mention funding amount or valuation.)

Earlier speculation has placed Twitter’s new valuation at $3 billion, which led VentureBeat’s executive editor Owen Thomas to ask (since it’s all speculative math), “Why not $10 billion?”

Costolo titled his post “Meaningful Growth”, and he starts off with a list of numbers showing Twitter’s growth for 2010: 25 billion tweets, 100 million new registered accounts, and growth from 130 to more than 350 employees.

What’s missing is any mention of revenue. It has only been a few months since Costolo declared that Twitter has “cracked the code” on advertising, and co-founder Ev Williams said more recently that the company is still exploring business models.

Earlier today, the company declared, “It’s Business Time” and unveiled an upgraded website at business.twitter.com, including pages highlighting its advertising products (Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends, and Promoted Accounts). But even then, each product is described as “in beta with a small selection of advertisers.” If you want, you can fill out a form — not to place ads, but so Twitter can “notify me” when the company is finally ready to accept your money.

Tags: advertising, Promoted Accounts, Promoted Trends, Promoted Tweets, valuations

Companies: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Twitter

People: Dick Costolo

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Pacific Crest Securities networking analyst Brent Bracelin today raised his rating on shares of Riverbed Technology (RVBD) and Compellent Technologies (CML) to Buy, with $42 and $40 price targets, respectively, based on the trends in corporate IT spending in 2011.
A separate report from Pac Crest this morning said the firm’s [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

Intel chief executive Paul Otellini just appeared on the Fox Business TV Network. In the interview with Fox’s Liz Claman, he explained why Intel is buying the wireless business of Infineon for $1.4 billion and McAfee for $7.68 billion, as well as the cable modem business of Texas Instruments for an undisclosed price. Here’s a link to the Intel video, and the highlights are excerpted below. I have also embedded the videos, part 1 and part 2, at the bottom.

On Steve Job’s reaction to Intel’s purchase of Infineon:

“Steve was very happy. The industry was abuzz that this business unit was on the market, and there were a number of competing companies for it. I think they are very happy that Intel won the bid.”

On why it took Intel so long to make this purchase:

“There were a number of these that were available. In our mind this was the best technology we could find at the right price. We are very happy with the capabilities of the company and their customer list.”

On buying Infineon wireless business:

“The key thing is the technology they have today, the customer connections they have today, and where the technology in general is going. We look forward to a period in the not so distant future where all of these functions can be on a single chip. Intel has great capabilities and applications processors today, but bringing in the capabilities for 3G and ultimately LTE (Long-term Evolution) onto the chip, that makes a lot of sense to us from an economic and power standpoint.”

On how McAfee will be integrated into their products:

“The first products will be things we have worked on before the acquisition discussions, which will come into the PC platforms next year. We will take the combination of hardware based security that Intel already produces and enhance that with software capability from McAfee. That will only get better in PCs over time. Then what we would like to do is drive that same capability not just into smartphones, but also anything that is going to get smart and get connected; your television, your cars, are all going to have internet connections. You want that same protection. We call this a third pillar of computing. We have energy-efficient performance, we have connectivity, and now we’ve got security.”

On when they will be able to put Infineon technology and atom chip technology onto a single chip:

“You will see them combined inside a phone as separate chips next year. The single chip implementation will be farther down the road.”

On whether having Apple as a client was a driving force in their desire to purchase Infineon:

“It wasn’t the overwhelming factor. These technologies today are discrete chips. We like the fact that they have a good revenue stream, but really where the technology can go over time is important to us. We have a had a multi-radio strategy for many years starting with WiFi and WiMax, this brings 3G and ultimately LTE and GPS capabilities into our portfolio to be able to use in all of our devices.”

On the strategy behind selling XScale only to reenter the wireless realm with the purchase of Infineon:

“It’s 180 degrees from what we sold. What we had was an XScale-based applications processor business with a little bit of comms technology in it. Today what we are picking up is a big comms business with the baseband technology the protocol stack and all the software that goes with it. People want the capability of Intel architecture for their apps processor and the capability of Intel Silicon, and the combination of those was something we didn’t have in the divestiture of the XScale business four or five years ago.”

On his criticism of the Obama administration not being “business friendly”:

“I wasn’t taking on the administration per say, I was taking on the trends that I have seen in the last couple of administrations. The two specific things I talked about were the R&D tax credit, making that permanent. That has not been permanent for 25 years. The same thing with corporate tax rates. Raising them in this environment is really not conducive to making  companies competitive globally, which makes them less prone to hire people here. This is not just this administration, this is talking about this trend towards what we need to be more competitive as a nation going forward.”

On what advice he would give Obama on how to create jobs:

“The most important thing the current administration can do is remove the number of variables out there. There are so many things where business leaders can’t predict what’s going to happen. Businesses don’t like uncertainty. When you start reducing the variables and putting predictability into the system, you can now make informed decisions.”

On the prediction for PC industry growth:

“We are still tracking as an industry to have a growth rate this year in the 18 to 20% range, which is the best year in the industry in quite some time.”

On whether he expects to acquire any other companies in the near future:

“This is three announcements in two weeks. We also purchased the cable modem business from Texas Instruments. All these have been in flight for some time. This is enough for us to chew on for a while. Having said that though, if the right technology company becomes available at the right price, we’ll take a look at it. We don’t have an acquisition strategy per say. We have a number of strategies around platforms, and we will use acquisition to selectively fill holes that we don’t have.”

Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com

Companies: fox, Infineon, Intel

People: Paul Otellini, Steve Jobs

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » Deals & More