Today’s Top 5 – AMD, Silver Wheaton, Schwab, Adobe, First Solar

June 22nd, 2011 by Trefis Team
SLW: Wheaton Precious Metals logo
SLW
Wheaton Precious Metals

In today’s recap we look at weakness in AMD’s (NYSE:AMD) stock and strength in Silver Wheaton’s (NYSE: SLW) shares to see what might be driving investor sentiment in these stocks. We discuss would motives might be behind Charles Schwab Corporation’s (NYSE:SCHW) free ETF offerings, and we take a look at Adobe’s (NASDAQ:ADBE) earnings and outlook following a solid earnings report. Finally we look at what could drive First Solar’s (NASDAQ:FSLR) US sales and share price higher.

Is AMD’s Slide a Buying Opportunity?

AMD’s (NYSE:AMD) stock has been skidding lower, which we originally attributed to macroeconomic concerns in the U.S.; however, it seems that investors are concerned about AMD’s outlook in particular. [ss_text] AMD has finally released its Llano chips for PCs that combine the power of GPU and CPU on the same chip that will compete directly with Intel’s (NASDAQ:INTC) Sandy Bridge processors. What this means is that AMD will now have a better chance against Intel, and integrated graphics business for companies like Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA).

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Fundamental Drivers to Silver Wheaton’s Rally

Silver Wheaton’s (NYSE: SLW) shares have jumped in recent weeks and are trading above $33 currently. We saw a sharp mover higher in silver spot prices last week in part due to strong fundamental demand from major markets like India and China in addition to overall risk-off trade in global equity markets last week which caused investors to pile back into precious metals like gold and silver. Below we include our quick analysis on some of the fundamental drivers of the recent moves and what it means for Silver Wheaton.
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How Schwab Gains from Offering Free ETF Trading
Charles Schwab Corporation (NYSE:SCHW) revealed that it would offer new 401(k) retirement plans to its customers consisting entirely of exchange-traded mutual funds (ETFs) for free. [1] We look at at how this idea could actually add value to Schwab as it competes with other online brokerage, banking and financial services firms like E-Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC), Ameritrade (NYSE:AMTD), Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC). 

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Adobe Dodges Japanese Troubles, Reassures Investors on Outlook

Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) recently announced its Q2 2011 earnings, in which its revenues of just over $1 billion exceeded the previous mid-point forecast of $995 million that the company previously set. The company also reiterated its 2011 outlook of 10% growth year over year. [ss_text] Adobe’s business depends heavily on the success of its Creative Software, which is suite of software consisting of popular products like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash Professional and InDesign. The company competes with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Quark and Corel in this market. Creative software accounts for more than 50% of our near $35 price estimate for Adobe stock. Our price estimate stands about 10% above market price.

See article

First Solar’s US Sales Could Grow 5x in 5 years

First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) may have lost its long-held position as the largest producer of photovoltaic (PV) modules to Suntech Power (NYSE:STP) last year, but this has only made the solar industry giant push its business in existing and emerging solar markets harder. With the growth in the solar sector worldwide largely driven by European countries in the past, near term incremental growth will come from the U.S. Here we provide an overview of First Solar’s solar module sales in the US and highlight how the competitive threats from other solar industry players like SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWRA), LDK Solar (NYSE:LDK) and Yingli Green Energy (NYSE:YGE).

See note

Notes:
  1. Schwab’s Bold Bet on ETFs, The Wall Street Journal, June 1 2011 [↩]