Tag Archives: Skyworks Solutions

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Will Wal-Mart Be the Death of Near-Field Communications?

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By Rich Duprey, The Motley Fool

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According to a recent Harris Interactive survey, most consumers feel smartphone payments will eventually replace credit and debit cards and cash for most purchases but it’s likely not going to happen within the next five years.

That bodes well for the long-term outlook for chip makers like NXP Semiconductors and Skyworks Solutions , which are leaders in the field of near-field communications, or NFC. That’s the technology that allows mobile devices to securely communicate with a payment terminal. Wave your NFC-enabled smartphone in front of an NFC-enabled terminal and you can easily make a payment.

Objects are closer than they appear
The interest expressed in the survey is part of the reason behind why NXP feels 2013 is the year that NFC technology takes off. Google has been in the forefront of the issue through its Wallet mobile payment system and Android smartphones like Samsung’s Galaxy have been equipped with NFC chips to take advantage of it wherever it’s available. Indeed, Samsung recently partnered with Visa to provide an NFC platform that financial institutions can trust.

Banks will be able to load payment account information to a secure chip embedded in Samsung devices using Visa’s mobile provisioning service linked to Samsung’s service that creates secure data storage domains for card issuers.

Notably, however, Apple has yet to jump into the fray. Although many watchers had anticipated the iPhone 5 to include an NFC chip, it was not to be, even though it had acquired such capabilities through its AuthenTec acquisition last year. And with Skyworks already a chip supplier for the iPhone, should Apple decide it needs to be a part of the NFC revolution, it has ready access to a key player in the field.

Scanning the horizon
Yet retail king Wal-Mart may be leading the way in killing off the chances of NFC gaining a real foothold. Rather than investing in the expensive new terminal upgrades that would be required to make NFC in its stores a reality, it’s rolling out an iPhone app called Scan & Go that allows consumers to scan and bag their purchases while shopping and simply scan a quick-response pixilated QR code square at the checkout terminal to complete the purchase.

While that may be a means for it to ultimately save money on cashier salaries, it could provide the pathway for other retailers to follow. Wal-Mart is expanding the test program to 200 stores in 14 markets, and though the app is only available for the iPhone, it’s easy to see that (depending upon its success) it could eventually roll out to all 14,000 stores and be available across all smartphone platforms.

Stop & Shop supermarkets have offered a similar app for both iPhones and Android devices for several years, but Wal-Mart’s entry could be the thing that brings it mainstream. Because near-field communications has taken longer than expected to get up and running, just as widespread adoption looks to be within …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Here's What This $7 Billion Hedge Fund Company Has Been Buying

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By Selena Maranjian, The Motley Fool

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Every quarter, many money managers have to disclose what they’ve bought and sold, via “13F” filings. Their latest moves can shine a bright light on smart stock picks.

Today let’s look at Maverick Capital, founded by Lee Ainslie and Sam Wyly in 1993. Avoiding bonds, commodities, currencies, and options, it sticks with stocks, holding both long and short positions. It employs fundamental analysis, and examines management closely.

The company’s reportable stock portfolio totaled $6.8 billion in value as of December 31, 2012.

Interesting developments
So what does Maverick Capital‘s latest quarterly 13F filing tell us? Here are a few interesting details:

The biggest new holdings are EMC and Crown Castle International. Other new holdings of interest include United Parcel Service . The delivery giant has seen its performance stutter a bit due to massive pension-related write-offs, but its volume has been growing, it has been raising its rates, and it recently boosted its dividend by 9%. (It now yields 2.9%. The company has committed to hiring 25,000 veterans, and it stands to benefit if Congress continues gutting the Post Office.

Among holdings in which Maverick Capital increased its stake was Citrix Systems . The company is impressing some with its virtualization business, adding on mobile capabilities through its acquisition of Zenprise, and growing its recurring licensing revenue. The company’s last earnings report was solid, but management tempered some expectations for 2013.

Maverick Capital reduced its stake in lots of companies, including Skyworks Solutions , which is a semiconductor company supplying, among other things, radio chips for iDevices. Its focus extends beyond smartphones, though, as it also supplies the car market and medical devices. Recent weakness in Apple has hurt Skyworks, but its long-term prospects remain strong, in part due to a strong balance sheet and robust profit margins.

Finally, Maverick Capital‘s biggest closed positions included Citigroup and Endo Health Solutions. Other closed positions of interest include SuperValu and Renren . SuperValu is in the tough supermarket business, where profit margins are thin, and competition tight. The company has drawn a $3.3 billion bid from a private-equity firm, in a deal where SuperValu gives up its big-name supermarkets, and ends up focusing more on its wholesale business and remaining chains, such as Save-A-Lot. The company still has a lot of debt, but with a forward P/E ratio of three, there’s a lot of potential, too.

Chinese social networking specialist Renren is often compared to Facebook, but there are some major differences – such as the fact that Renren is not yet profitable or free-cash-flow positive. Its recent quarterly earnings report was strong, with revenue up 49%, and a smaller-than-expected net loss, but management lowered near-term expectations, too. The company’s online gaming business has been doing particularly well, and management expects it to play a role in monetizing mobile operations.

We should never blindly copy any investor’s moves, no matter how talented the investor. But it can be useful to keep …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Buy, Sell, or Hold: RF Micro Devices

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By Selena Maranjian, The Motley Fool

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When considering any stock for your portfolio, don’t be swayed by just the positives. Examine its pros and cons and decide whether it’s possible upside outweighs its risks. Let’s take a look at RF Micro Devices today, and see why you might want to buy, sell, or hold it.

Founded in 1991 and based in North Carolina, RF Micro Devices is a semiconductor company specializing in radio frequency (RF) components and technologies. Its offerings enable and support mobile connectivity and communications. The company has a market capitalization of about $1.3 billion, and its stock is up about 4% over the past year and down 3.3%, on average, annually over the past decade.

Buy
The first thing to like about the company is the company it keeps. It’s supplying technology for products that are proliferating rapidly — very rapidly. We’re talking phones and smartphones and tablets, for example.

Not all the numbers in its financial statements are appealing, but some are. Its long-term debt has fallen sharply, from more than $600 million in 2008 to just $119 million recently. It’s not cash-poor either, with its cash and short-term investments coffers recently holding $300 million. Given that it’s been free-cash-flow positive for several years in a row now, that bodes well for its health.

Meanwhile, while many mobile device suppliers have their fortunes very tied to Apple , RF Micro Devices is less tied to it, though it does supply products such as the iPhone 5. Instead, the company is a major supplier for Nokia , which has found success providing less developed economies with less expensive mobile phones. This is broadening RF Micro Devices’ customer base. (Nokia may be in trouble, though, as smarter phones gain traction and its market share in China is shrinking.)

RF Micro Devices’s Wi-Fi business is expected to grow strongly. In its last quarter, it topped analyst expectations and posted a shrinking loss.

Sell
Warren Buffett has long offered a good reason to sell stocks such as RF Micro Devices: He avoids companies that are outside his circle of competence, and companies where he can’t comfortably predict how they’ll be doing in five, 10, or 20 years. He’s confident, for example, that people will still be drinking sodas in a decade, but the fortunes of firms in the fast-changing technology arena are much murkier.

Indeed, while RF Micro Devices’ offerings have often complemented those of Qualcomm , with mobile device makers buying supplies from both, Qualcomm has recently launched a new chipset that manages older and newer wireless standards (such as 4G LTE) and includes front-end signal processing, power management, and radio band tuning. In other words, it may eat RF Micro Devices’ lunch, along with the lunches of several other players, such as Skyworks Solutions . Presto! RF Micro Devices’ future suddenly looks different, or at least less certain, which was why its shares dropped some 15% on the news. An analyst at …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Even America's Best Companies Don't Always Make Good Investments

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By Daniel Sparks, The Motley Fool

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The Motley Fool’s recent list of the 25 Best Companies in America features some excellent businesses. But as Fool contributor Daniel Sparks discusses with Fool.com’s Alison Southwick in the video below, a great company doesn’t always make a great investment. To illustrate, Daniel takes a closer look at Teradata and Skyworks Solutions .

The Motley Fool’s chief investment officer has selected his No. 1 stock for the next year. Find out which stock it is in the brand-new free report: “The Motley Fool’s Top Stock for 2013.” Just click here to access the report and find out the name of this under-the-radar company.

The article Even America’s Best Companies Don’t Always Make Good Investments originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Daniel Sparks has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Teradata. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

3 Stocks to Get on Your Watchlist

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By Sean Williams, The Motley Fool

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I follow quite a lot of companies, so the usefulness of a watchlist to me cannot be overstated. Without my watchlist, I’d be unable to keep up on my favorite sectors and see what’s really moving the market. Even worse, I’d be lost when the time came to choose which stock I’m buying or shorting next.

Today is Watchlist Wednesday, so I’m discussing three companies that have crossed my radar in the past week — and at what point I may consider taking action on these calls with my own money. Keep in mind that these aren’t concrete buy or sell recommendations, nor do I guarantee I’ll take action on the companies being discussed. What I can promise is that you can follow my real-life transactions through my profile and that I, like everyone else here at The Motley Fool, will continue to hold the integrity of our disclosure policy in the highest regard.

Skyworks Solutions
I freely admit to pounding the table on Skyworks Solutions every couple of months. But, given its dominance in power-amplifying modules and RF components in mobile devices, I don’t see how this company isn’t a staple on everyone’s watchlist.

Last month the RF supplier market (of which Skyworks is also a member) received quite the scare when Qualcomm unveiled its next-generation all-in-one RF360, which is capable of dealing with band fragmentation on the front-end and would make the current RF components mostly dead weight. This is terrible news for weaker-positioned RF suppliers like RF Micro Devices, which have been scrambling to produce 4G LTE-capable components. RF Micro, for instance, has been reducing its reliance on Nokia, but still counts quite a bit of revenue from 2G and 3G RF sales to the company. 

Skyworks, on the other hand, has a tight-knit relationship with Apple and that isn’t likely to change anytime soon. Skyworks’ most recent quarter — which saw it report revenue of $454 million, up 15% from the year-ago period, and EPS of $0.55 — handily surpassed analysts’ expectations. As icing on the cake, Skyworks ended the quarter with nearly $2 in cash and no debt. With ample R&D funds on hand and a bare-bones forward P/E of just 8, I feel Skyworks could be primed for a big move this year.

Endeavour Silver
Since making Endeavour a stock near a 52-week low worth buying in late January, it’s done nothing but make me look foolish and head lower. Endeavour’s problems are pretty simple to understand, with lower production at its newly purchased El Cubo mine and lower spot silver prices holding back its bottom-line profits. However, my opinion is that’s about to change in a big way.

Just last week Endeavour delivered its ninth straight increase in proven, probable, indicated, and inferred resources on the heels of its eighth straight year of rising production. Silver equivalent proven and probable reserves now sit at 34.2 million ounces, up 67% from …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Are America's Best Tech Companies Actually Good Investments?

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By Daniel Sparks, The Motley Fool

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The Motley Fool recently sifted through thousands of publicly traded companies to identify the 25 Best Stocks in America. For investors out there eyeing the technology sector, I’ll analyze the top tech picks on the list. Spoiler alert: Don’t go all in just yet.

The Motley Fool’s extensive study scored companies “by their success in serving investors, customers, employees, and the world at large.” In the table below, I’ve included the top three technology companies’ respective scores and overall ranks in the list. In this article, we’ll focus on Teradata and Skyworks, since I recently outlined Google as a top pick for March.

Company

Overall Rank

Investor Score

Customer Score

Employee Score

World Score

Teradata

2

9.3

6.8

8.9

8

Google

4

8.5

6

9.5

9

Skyworks Solutions 

5

7.1

8.9

8.5

7

Teradata
Since it landed Wal-Mart as a client in 1992, Teradata has set the industry standard for high-end data warehousing. Teradata helps large businesses make sense of overwhelming amounts of data, so that managers can make better decisions. As evidence of its pricing power and market leadership, the company’s gross margin has held steady at about 56% for the last three years. Competitor and tech behemoth IBM comes in as a distant second, with trailing-12-month profit margins of 48%. 

The business of high-end data warehousing is extremely sticky. Current clients are unlikely to switch to another data warehouse provider due to the complexity, deep integration, and seven-figure costs. Furthermore, Teradata typically keeps its clients close and develops ongoing relationships with them. When we break down Teradata’s 2012 revenue, 51% comes from either consulting or maintenance services.

Furthermore, Teradata has been able to reward investors with 9% annualized revenue growth and 17% annualized EPS growth for five years straight. In fact, Teradata’s EPS growth has actually accelerated during the last five years, thanks mostly to Teradata’s push into data analysis tools, which has opened the door to new opportunities for expansion. The result? Teradata’s stock has handily outperformed both the S&P 500 and close rivals IBM, Oracle, and SAP.

Teradata, however, has a tough road ahead. Larger rivals like IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft are expanding into Teradata’s turf with competing offerings, and potentially challenging its leadership in the industry with their outsized financial power. Though Teradata may be a leader in high-end data warehousing, Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft make up 80% of the database market. Both their large financial resources and their software prowess position them to compete aggressively when it comes to business analytics solutions. IBM‘s acquisitions of Cognos, SPSS, Initiate Systems, and Netezza — all business intelligence solutions — during the last few years are clear evidence of its determination to compete in Teradata’s space.

With competition increasing, Teradata’s future is uncertain. The company will undoubtedly continue to rank as a significant player for years to come, but it could lose …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance