Las Vegas Sands up 17% on earnings

Wynn Resorts Ltd. (NASDAQ: WYNN) may have set a high bar for Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS) and its earnings report today, but cost cuts helped the company to beat its estimates. Las Vegas Sands reported GAAP net income of $62.4 million, but the non-GAAP operating income was $0.03 EPS and revenue was $1.14 billion. Thomson Reuters had estimates pegged at -$0.01 EPS and $1.17 billion in revenues. That is another instance of cost savings helping the bottom-line more than the top-line seeing improvements.

In the Vegas set it seems that cost savings helped to overcome weak table revenues. What is interesting is that the company said it had a record quarter regarding future group room night bookings. It also noted that it has more groups already on the books for 2010 than it expects to realize for all of 2009.

The company’s annualized cost savings will exceed $500 million across the company and it continues to look for opportunities on the cost front. That was 90% realized for the year as of September 30. Las Vegas Sands’ unrestricted cash balance at the end of the quarter was $3.09 billion and total debt outstanding was $11.76 billion.

Shares closed up 12% at $14.76 today, and shares are trading around $15.48 (5%) shortly after the report in the after-hours session!!
http://247wallst.com/2009/10/29/les-vegas-sands-wins-on-cost-cuts-lvs-wynn/

BP's up 5% after earnings report

BP buoys petroleum shares in sector rebound
By Steve Gelsi, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- BP shares paced gainers in the petroleum sector as energy stocks rebounded Tuesday from two straight days of losses and crude prices rose on an expected drop in weekly petroleum inventories.

BP 57.97, +2.49, +4.49%

XOI 1,096, +9.84, +0.91%

Investors sifted through better-than-expected earnings from BP (NYSE:BP) and a steep loss from refining giant Valero (NYSE:VLO) .

Crude oil for December delivery rose 48 cents, or 0.5%, to $79.09 a barrel, rebounding from morning weakness.

Analysts expect a build of 900,000 barrels in U.S. commercial crude stocks for the week ended Oct. 23, according to analysts polled by Platts. They also project a decline of 1 million barrels in gasoline stocks and a drop of 1.1 million barrels in distillate inventories

The NYSE Arca Oil Index (INDEX:XOI) rose 1.6% to 1,104.

The NYSE Arca Natural Gas Index (INDEX:XNG) rose 1.7% to 520.

The Philadelphia Oil Service Index (INDEX:OSX) fell 0.1% to 200.

BP rallied 5.7% to $58.63 after the company's adjusted profit of $4.98 billion soundly beat the analyst estimate of $3.2 billion. Adjusted production rose 4%, and BP's tax rate fell to 29% from 36%.

"BP's contribution to what is becoming a strong third quarter earnings season is likely to meet with broker upgrades, potentially strengthening the current market consensus even further from its current buy status," Richard Hunter, analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers, told the Houston Chronicle. See full story.

Meanwhile, shares of Valero fell 4.4% to $19.37 after the refiner said it lost nearly $500 million in the third quarter on costs for scaling back operations, and weak margins in the refining sector. See full story.

Among stocks in the spotlight, Cabot Oil & Gas (NYSE:COG) drew an upgrade to overweight from neutral at J. P. Morgan, following the company's third-quarter earnings.

Analysts cited the company's results in the Marcellus and Haynesville regions, as well as its above-average production growth. Cabot's third-quarter operating earnings of 38 cents a share topped J.P. Morgan's forecast of 36 cents a share.

Shares of Cabot rose 10% to $42.13.

National Oilwell Varco (NYSE:NOV) fell 2% to $43.38 after the company drew a downgrade from Tudor Pickering Holt to hold from accumulate.

After an 81% rise so far this year, the stock has reached Tudor Pickering's target valuation. A slower build up in orders from Brazil also removes a potential near-term catalyst to buy the stock, Tudor Pickering said.

"Good company, executing exceptionally, but we've gotten paid for it and now time to wait for re-entry point (maybe high $30's)," the analysts wrote in a note to clients.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bp-up-valero-down-in-mixed-energy-sector-action-2009-10-27?siteid=yhoof

Barron's 10 Tech takeover targets

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB125633689630504703.html

BUY OIL OIL OIL SERVICE NAMES!!

Oil is just starting to catch up to gold and other commodities in the last few weeks and it has a long way to go. There is a perfect storm of factors (weak dollar, tremendous uncertainty, a bullish equity market) that is conducive to a commodities boom right now and oil names will benefit. I think the best way to invest on this theme, is to buy oil service companies. Oil service companies are suppliers of equipment or services to oil fields and offshore platforms, such as drilling, exploration, and construction. Transocean, Diamond Offshore, Noble, Halliburton, Baker-Hughes, and Schlumberger are some examples. Instead of picking 1, you can use oil service ETF's which contain a basket of most of these companies. My favorites are: OIH, PXJ, and IEZ. You can use 2x leverage by using DIG and 3x leverage using the ERX, but be careful as you can lose money as quickly as you can make it. If you totally disagree with me, you can short sell with 2x leverage by using DUG. Oil is just gonna get higher from here ($77) over the next couple months.

On another note:

It is possible to manage your investments on your own!! The performance of the stock market in last decade taught us that buying and holding index funds for 30 years is not the best way to manage your money. Do you really want to look back when you're ready to retire and realize you have the same amount or less money than you put in 20 years ago, but if you did it right you could have 10x that or more?? You have to be flexible and aggressive when the markets call for it, and have the discipline to sell and get defensive when times are tough. This can be done...more on this topic later.

Dow hits 10,000, how much further can we go?

The Dow hit a psychological milestone today by getting over 10,000, a place it hasn't been in over a year. Now is a good time to look back at your decisions of the past year and evaluate how you've done. Did you stay the course when it looked like the world was going to end at the beginning of the year? Did you abandon ship and get out of the market entirely and switch to cash?? Were you fearless and undeterred and voraciously bought stocks when they were at their cheapest and have since doubled or tripled your money??

I wish I can say I was fearless...that I realized that the recession wasn't going to turn into a depression...that I foresaw March as the greatest buying opportunity in our lifetime. That couldn't be further from the truth. Back then, I was extremely bearish on the banks and the economy. I thought we were headed for an apocalypse. I was so confident that we were gonna crash that I tried to profit from the peril by shorting all the bank stocks, certain that they were gonna go to zero within a month. I was so sure that stocks were going lower that I sold most of my families mutual funds (except for gold) in an effort to avoid further losses. A couple days after I did all this, Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citi announced that their 1st quarter losses were going to be much smaller than previously thought. The market took off. Shortly there after, Wells Fargo was so excited to announce their positive 1st quarter earnings numbers that they announced a week early, catching the markets by surprise...the Dow took off again.

At this point I lost a significant amount of money, but I was still undeterred in my bearish view and believed that this positive upswing was temporary. I couldn't fathom that after months of hearing how bad things are gonna get, that the situation was already starting to get better. Didn't make sense to me. I bet more aggressively against the market in my personal account. Then the federal government announced it was coming to the aid of all the distressed banks and basically decided to help the whole economy by throwing hundreds of billions of dollars and, well you know what happens in the ensuing months.

I remained bearish on the economy till about June. I was constantly waiting for the downturn and placed bearish bets accordingly. I thought my friends that were buying into the rally were nuts. Were they not looking at the same facts that I was??? Finally, I realized that I was playing the stock market that was in my head and not the one that was actually happening right in front of me. Why was I fighting this bullish run? I adopted more of a, "if you can't beat'em, join'em," and things started to get better from there.

The market was on fire and I was finally on the right side of it. The riskiest stocks were the one's going up the most because they got beat up the most. I started investing in commodities, oil and gas stocks, technology, and biotech. There was one pre-conceived notion I had to get out of my head: I had to realize that you will never buy a stock at it's cheapest and you will never sell a stock at the top. I wouldn't buy a stock like Apple because it wasn't at 85 anymore, it was at 95. I kept trying to wait till it got back to 85, but it never did. Finally I decided to stop fighting the tape, suck it up, and buy it at $120. I still hold that position (it's $192 now!). With every stock that you own you have to ask yourself, "would I still buy this stock at this price?" If the answer is no, then you should sell it, if yes, then you should buy more of it.

You don't need a list of 50 stocks in your portfolio, especially if you don't have millions of dollars, you just need to find 4-8 good companies or ETF's, preferably in different industries so you have diversification, and slowly build positions in them over time. For example, I've built the following equity portfolio for one of my young clients and it's done quite well for her IRA:

20% in BP (oil company w/ 6.5% dividend) You can also use the OIH ETF to get oil exposure

20% XLK (technology ETF containing companies such as Apple, Google, RIMM, Intel, Cisco

20% XBI (Biotech ETF--pharma companies have lots of cash and are acquiring smaller biotech firms now cause they can pick them up for cheap valuations, but they are paying large premiums for them so it brings up the whole sector)

20% GLD and GDX (gold ETF and gold miners etf)

20% BIK (Emerging markets BRIC ETF-Brazil, China, Russia, India leading companies)

This is a good and simple aggressive portfolio for a young person who can take risk. She also has corporate bonds which pay steady interest to you and are more conservative.

Will the rally last forever?? Of course not, but you should ride it out while it lasts and make as much money as possible before it turns around. Don't try and pick the point it's gonna pullback, that's a loser's game and you will get burned. There's no reason for the markets to have a major pullback this year. There is too much money on the sidelines and big hedge funds need to show their clients that they're worth the 2% and 20% in fees that they charge so they have to participate in this rally and keep driving the markets up. Do I think we'll go much over 11000?? Doubtful as that bear in me still thinks there's lots of unresolved problems in this economy that need addressing, but I think 10500 is right around the corner.