Applied Optoelectronics Inc (AAOI) Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript

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Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI)Q4 2018 Earnings Conference CallFebruary 21, 2019, 4:30 p.m. ET

Contents: Prepared Remarks Questions and Answers Call Participants Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good afternoon. I will be your conference operator. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Applied Optoelectronics fourth quarter and year 2018 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, please press * then 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press * then 2. Please note this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Maria Riley, Investor Relations for AOI. Ms. Riley, you may begin.

Maria Riley -- Investor Relations

Thank you. I'm Maria Riley, Applied Optoelectronics Investor Relations. And I'm pleased to welcome you to AOI's fourth quarter and year 2018 financial results conference call. After the market closed today, AOI issued a press release announcing its fourth quarter and year 2018 results and provided its outlook for the first quarter of 2019. The release is also available on the company's website at ao.inc.com. This call is being recorded and webcast live. A link to the recording can be found on the investor relations page at the AOI website and will be archived for one year. Joining us on today's call is Dr. Thompson Lin, AOI's founder, chairman, and CEO and Dr. Stefan Murry, AOI's chief financial officer and chief strategy officer. Thompson will give an overview of AOI's Q4 results. And Stefan will provide financial details and the outlook for the first quarter 2019. A question and answer session will follow our prepared remarks. Before we begin, I would like to remind you to review AOI's Safe Harbor Statement.

On today's call, management will make forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties as well as assumptions and current expectations which could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. You can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as may, will, should, expect, plan, anticipate, believe, or estimate, and by other similar expressions. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update forward-looking statements for any reason after the date of this earning call, to confirm these statements to actual results, or to changes in the company's expectations. More information about other risks that may impact the company's business are set forth in the risk factor section of the company's reports on file with the SEC.

Also, all financial numbers discussed today are on a non-GAAP basis unless specially noted otherwise. Non-GAAP financial measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation between our GAAP and non-GAAP measures as well as a discussion of why we present non-GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings press release that is available on our website. Before moving to the financial results, I'd like to announce that we will host an investor session at OFC on March 5th at the San Diego convention center.

This discussion will be webcast live. And a link to the webcast will be available on the investor relations page of the AOI website. We hope to have the opportunity to see many of you there. Lastly, I'd like to note the date of our first quarter of 2019 earnings call is currently scheduled for Wednesday, May 8th, 2019. Now I would like to turn the call over to Dr. Thompson Lin, Applied Optoelectronics founder, chairman, and CEO. Thompson?

Thompson Lin -- Founder, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Maria. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you for joining us today. We are summarizing our performance in the quarter with delivered on CAD revenue of $58.9 million and on CAD EPS of a loss of $0.02 which was in line with our guidance. However, our gross margin was below expectations as we incurred higher than anticipated costs to resolve the inventory issues we experienced last quarter. Looking ahead, we expect gross margin to begin to gradually improve starting this quarter. For the year, AOI delivered revenue of $268.4 million generated across a margin of 35.5% and on CAD earning of $1.04 per diluted share. For 2018, that is changed for the whole optics market and for AOI. I would like to note a few of our accomplishments that we believe have strengthened our position in the long-term. First, while our customer praise continue to be concentrated, we have made progress in our initiate to broaden this space.

This started with a large purchase commitment early in the year from a sure hyperscale data center customer based in the US. And during the summer, we came up design win with large data center operator in China. Diversifying our customer base is a top priority for AOI. And we are pleased with the progress we made on this front in 2018. All in for the year, we secured a total of 26 new design wins of which, 12 were with new customers, including a large US base data center customer that we secured this quarter. This compares favorably with 2017 where we had 19 design wins in total and 10 with new customers. We believe that in this size, we appraise on diversifying our customer base has continued to bear fruit. Second, we continue to demonstrate our strong commitment to our customers. Quiet times must require us to make difficult choices. With near-term 12, we believe that our focus on our customers, we are enduring relationships that can continue to develop in 2019 and beyond.

I'm proud to say that we have maintained all of our top customers. Third, we continue to innovate and expand our technology dealership in advanced optics. This included our advance in 200G and 400G in the data center and Remote-PHY for our CATV customers. Just last month, we released a silicon photonics base, two 400G optical module. That is now currently available for customers importing. This technology preform will enable our data center customers to scale the infrastructure beyond 400G to automatically 1.6 terabits per second. The customer response has been very positive for our leading age suite of products. We've been confident in our ability to monetize our innovation as the market evolves and adopts next-generation technologies.

Fourth, we continue our market diversification efforts by shipping product to our telecom customers to be tested for use in next-generation 5G mobile networks. Many of these 5G optical products will need to perform well under demanding, although premature conditions. And we believe that our experience in manufacturing optical devices used in similar condition for CATV applications will have us secure a foothold in this market. While we are still early in the 5G cycle, we believe 5G will be significant driver of the high-speed optical component market likely starting later this year. Overall, we are pleased with the technical achievement we have made this year, the progress we met in expanding our customer base, and our continued support of our existing customers. I wanna thank the AOI team for their hard work and dedication this year.

Before I turn the call over to Stefan to discuss our results in more detail, I would like to make a few comments on the market dynamics we currently see in the data center market. There are other industry player has commanded in recent weeks about the poor visibility in China and the excess inventory situation in the data center market. We are not immune to these dynamics. It is clear from our conversation, we saw how to scale data center customers. But inventory in the supply chain has gotten ahead of deployment due, in part, to a transition to 100G. While it is still early in the year and visibility is limited, we believe that the second half of 2019 will be stronger than the first as inventory is warped down over the next couple quarters. Therefore, have seen some of our data center customers in China taking a more conservative approach in their CapEx deployment due to concerns of slowing economic growth in the country.

However, because of this factor, we are shortening outlook, and out-of-line trends driving demands for our product has not changed nor has our status with our customers. We serve some of the most dynamic and revelatory, evolving companies in the world and believe their need for high-speed computing power we make elementary for their business. With the technology we have developed and plan to bring to market, we believe we are in a strong competitive position to address our customers' needs as the many prove. We remain focused on building on our strong foundation as a leader in the events optical technology and expanding our footprint within the market. With that, I will turn the call over to Stefan to review the details of our Q4 performance and outlook for next quarter. Stefan?

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

Thank you, Thompson. Non-GAAP revenue for the fourth quarter was $58.9 million which was in-line with our guidance range of $56 million to $63 million. Our data center revenue came in at $42.6 million compared with $62 million in Q4 of last year. In the quarter, 60% of our data center revenue was derived from our 100G data center products. And 38% was from our 40G products. Our production capacity remained constrained in the quarter due to the additional product testing steps we implemented last quarter to screen for any potentially troublesome laser devices from our inventory, including work in process. As discussed last quarter, we identified and remedied the root cause of the problem that affected a small number of our lasers. And we added additional testing steps including temporary steps to screen existing inventory. We remain on track to return to normal lead times by the end of this quarter. This quarter, we also issued a $900,000.00 credit to a customer.

We expect this credit to be non-recurring and have therefore adjusted it out of our GAAP revenue. As Thompson mentioned, based on conversations with our hyperscale and data center customers, we believe there was some inventory buildup in the supply chain as customers transitioned to 100G. we believe this will obfuscate demand and visibility in 2019. We currently expect demand in the first two quarters of the year will be sequentially down from our most recent quarters. We currently expect the second half of the year to improve over the first. However, we are still early in the year, and visibility is limited. We continue to ship to and have good relationships with all of our hyperscale customers and believe we are in a solid position to expand our business with them when market conditions improve. We continue to have strong technical engagement with our customers and are making good progress on developing our next generation of data center products.

Last month, we announced the release of a silicon photonics base 400G optical module that is now currently available for customer sampling. These modules adhere to the requirements of onboard optics and incorporate several new technologies, including an advanced silicon photonics-based optical subassembly that is the result of years of R&D effort by AOI and our technology partners. This next generation module is significant because the suite of technologies it incorporates will enable future similar modules to scale beyond 400G, ultimately to 1.6 terabits per second, thereby enabling continued scaling of our customers' infrastructure. We gathered very positive feedback while demonstrating early prototypes at the European conference on optical communications last year and look forward to seeing the custom response after showcasing this technology at OFC next month.

We believe the new and innovative technologies that we have developed and cost reduction efforts position us well to continue to expand the reach of our products to a broad group of data center customers and diversify our customer base. While we will always rely on a relatively concentrated number of customers, diversifying our customer base remains a top priority. In the quarter, we had three design wins including one with a large US-based data center customer which is a new customer to AOI. This brings our total number of design wins to 26 for the year, including 12 with new customers to AOI. This exceeds our 2017 totals in both number of design wins and new customer wins, demonstrating the effectiveness of our continuing efforts to diversify our customer base. In our cable television business, we remain encouraged by the customer activity in this market. We generated revenue of $12.7 million compared with $14.3 million reported in Q4 of last year.

This was a result of some weakness in demand, mainly in Europe and Asia partially offset by demand from North American MSOs. In the quarter, we started to ship volume orders for our Remote-PHY product. And we remained in active qualification trials with four additional customers for this technology. Our telecom products delivered revenue of $2.8 million compared with $3.2 million in Q4 of last year. For the quarter, 72% of our revenue was from data center products, 21% from CATV products with the remaining 7% from FTTH, telecom, and other. In the quarter, we had four 10% or greater customers, three in the data center business that contributed 38%, 18%, and 11% of total revenue respectively, and one in the CATV business that contributed 11% of total revenue. For the year 2018, these same four customers represented 39%, 22%, 12%, and 10%, respectively, of total revenue. Moving beyond revenue, in the quarter, we generated gross margin of 24.7% compared with the 34% recorded last quarter.

Our gross margin came in below our expectation due to higher than anticipated costs incurred while we worked to resolve the inventory issue we experienced last quarter. Looking ahead, we expect gross margin to improve gradually starting this quarter. Total operating expenses in the quarter were $18.7 million or 31.8% of revenue compared with $22.8 million or 40.4% of revenue in the prior quarter. In the quarter, our operating expenses decreased sequentially due to lower bonus accruals as a result of our performance in the year. Operating loss in Q4 was $4.2 million compared with an operating loss of $3.6 million in the prior quarter. Non-GAAP net loss after tax for the fourth quarter was $0.5 million or a loss of $0.02 per basic share compared with a net income of $17.9 million or $0.89 per diluted share in Q4 of 2017. GAAP net loss for Q4 was $8.6 million or a loss of $0.43 per basic share compared with a GAAP net income of $5.7 million or $0.28 per diluted share in Q4 of last year.

The basic shares outstanding used for computing the net loss in Q4 were 19.8 million shares. Turning now to the balance sheet, we ended Q4 with $58 million in total cash, cash equivalents, short-term investments, and restricted cash compared with $64.1 million at the end of the previous quarter. As of December 31, we have $93.3 million in inventory, a decrease from $107.9 million in Q3. Our cash balance reflects the use of approximately $11.6 million in cash to fund operations during the quarter. We made a total of $19.6 million in capital investments in the quarter including $17.2 million in production equipment and machinery and $1.6 million on construction and building improvements.

This brings our total capital investments for the year to approximately $77.4 million which was below our most recent $90 million CapEx forecast as we reduced purchases of certain equipment to maintain production volume in line with demand while, at the same time, investing in the additional testing equipment needed to meet the new testing requirements implemented last quarter. Looking ahead, we expect capital expenditures in 2019 to be approximately $56 million which factors in a continuation of the construction of our new factory in China. We continue to monitor end market conditions and may adjust our spending plans as necessary. Our total debt at year-end was $84 million, up from approximately $50 million at the end of 2017. Much of this debt is associated with our capital expansion activities with maturities extending out several years.

Just as we continuously monitor our spending plans to match market conditions, we regularly assess our capital structure to ensure we have the right mix of funding for current operations and future expansion. Moving now to our Q1 outlook, we expect Q1 revenue to be between $50 million and $55 million. We expect Q1 non-GAAP gross margin to be in the range of 26.5% to 28.5%. Net loss is expected to be in the range of $3.7 million to $5.8 million and non-GAAP loss per share between $0.18 per share and $0.29 per share using a weighted average basic share count of approximately 19.9 million shares. We expect our Q1 effective tax rate on our non-GAAP net income to be between 32% and 40%. With that, I will turn it back over to the operator for the Q&A session. Operator?

Questions and Answers:

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press * the n1 on your touchtone phone. If using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press * then 2. Our first question is from Simon Leopold at Raymond James.

Simon Leopold -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst

Thank you for taking the question here. I think that you made this in the prepared remarks. But I just wanna make sure that I clarify. I believe you stated that your relationships with your key web-scale customers remain sound. I know there's been a lot of speculation that the Facebook deal that you talked about a year ago has either been revised or changed or canceled. Could you just clarify your standing with Facebook, please?

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

Yeah, Simon. So, I can't obviously comment due to non-disclosure agreements on specific individual customers. However, as we pointed out in our prepared remarks, and I'll say again, we believe all of our major, hyperscale data center customer relationships remain intact.

Simon Leopold -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst

Great. And just to follow on, when you talked about the inventory that's in the channel, is this concentrated with one customer, two customers, three customers? How should we think about the concentration of the inventory buildup you referred to?

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

Well, I think, first of all, we're not the only company that's talked about this a little bit. I think what we're seeing is consistent across the industry. But we see some buildup of inventory across multiple customers, obviously to a greater or lesser extent depending on which customer you're talking about.

Simon Leopold -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst

Thanks. And one last one if I might. You recently filed an 8K regarding modifying some loan agreements, a credit line, credit agreement. And one sentence in there caught my attention that the bank is asking for monthly financial reports rather than quarterly reports. That surprised me. That's a classic yellow flag that somebody's concerned about cash flow. Could you help us understand what was behind that?

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

Actually, the bank has requesting that for some time. And I previously agreed to it at some point when we did another loan agreement. I didn't wanna amend just for that one item. I don't think there's really much more to it than that.

Simon Leopold -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst

Okay. Thank you for taking the questions.

Operator

Next question is from Fahad Najam at Cowen.

Fahad Najam -- Cowen & Co. -- Analyst

Thanks for taking my question. Stefan, if you could help us understand in terms of the broader picture the dynamics in 100-gig PSM for the pricing environment and then also the pricing environment by CWDF or do you see the same level of height in price decline that you saw last year? Is it beginning to normalize? And maybe you can be a little bit more gradual about product markets that might help us understand what's happening beyond the inventory issues.

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

Yeah. Well, Fahad, as you know, we don't guide more than one quarter out and generally not on a product by product basis. I think overall, in terms of pricing, what we expect to see this year is for pricing declines to be similar to what they were last year, perhaps a little bit less but about the same number. And as far as how that's gonna break out between CWDM and PSM, it's -- again, we're not gonna give that guidance on that granular basis.

Fahad Najam -- Cowen & Co. -- Analyst

If I may ask you -- speaking with the broader picture, there have been a certain degree of consolidation in this space. Luxtera got acquired by Cisco which is a customer of yours for your TV products. You've got acquired by Momentum. ColorChip, which was in the process of being sold to some Chinese buyers apparently now in financial distress. To that extent, any change in the market and competitive dynamics? Are you seeing a noticeable development in that front? And also, can you comment on any prospective risk of share losses that your customers -- do you think you are maintaining your share? Or is it just purely a function of quarterly as the gross?

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

Okay. So, there's a couple questions embedded in there. I'll try to address them one at a time. First of all, regarding the broader topic of consolidation, I think it's fair to say that customers generally wanna have a variety of suppliers to choose from. When that group shrinks, they have less choice. And perhaps that could bode well for AOI. But I think ultimately, their decision is really based on the same kind of decision-making metrics that they've always used in the past and that we've always talked about, things like the technology roadmap, how well your roadmap aligns with their future needs and price and quality, things like that. So, on balance, I think the consolidation is probably neutral.

But it doesn't hurt AOI I would say. You asked specifically about Luxtera or Cisco's acquisition of Luxtera. I think I can just say on that front that AOI hasn't supplied any products to Cisco that would compete with Luxtera's products. As you mentioned in your question, we're a supplier mainly of cable TV products. And to my knowledge, Luxtera didn't have any of those products. So, I don't' think there's really any risk to AOI's business there. And there was one more question in there. I forgot what it was. I'm sorry. Could you ask --

Fahad Najam -- Cowen & Co. -- Analyst

If you could comment on your respective share at your hyperscale customers. Do you think you're maintaining share at each other's customers?

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

So, again, we obviously can't comment on specific customers. What I could say is we have very good relationships with all of our large hyperscale customers, as we mentioned in our prepared remarks. And I think what we're really excited about now is as those customers start to look ahead to 200G and, particularly, 400G, the level of discussion that we're having, very detailed discussion and the tenor of that discussion I think is very promising for us. So, we're excited about that transition. And I think there's no indication that we're not gonna be a major part of our customer's plans both in the nearer term and in the longer term.

Fahad Najam -- Cowen & Co. -- Analyst

Appreciate the answers. I'll cede the floor.

Operator

Once again, to ask a question, you may press * then 1 on your touchtone phone. Our next question comes from Dave Kang at B Riley.

Lee Kroll -- B Riley -- Analyst

Hey, guys. This is actually Lee Kroll filling in for Dave Kang. Thanks for taking my questions. First off, I just wanted to ask -- maybe it's a little more trivial. But with this tepid near-term demand trend, is it your expectation that you'll still be able to double 100G volume in 2019 relative to your prior comments?

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

When we say that the demand picture in the second half of the year particularly is uncertain, that's exactly what we mean. And I wouldn't wanna put a mark on the map, so to speak, in terms of where we think we can go. The near-term demand is looking muted. That's for sure. There are some very positive developments that could happen in the second half of the year that we're working through with some of our customers to try to see how that goes. We've talked in the last few earnings calls -- and actually, if you go back for a year or so -- about an increasing cadence of new design wins. And to the extent that some of those design wins could start to contribute, particularly later in the year, that could be very exciting. But again, the visibility is limited, as we said, and I wouldn't wanna give you an indication based on that limited visibility.

Lee Kroll -- B Riley -- Analyst

Got it. And then I guess you sort of answered it, but you indicated Q1 kicks down leading into Q2 indicating the trough in terms of revenue. But are there any specific demand drivers in the second half you could point to that would give you the confidence that revenue could grow sequentially in Q3?

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

Yeah. We're hearing indications of early adoption of 400-gig technology by certain customers, for example. And we're also very excited about the progress that we're making in terms of 5G technology. Now that's probably more of a 2020 thing. But that telecom market is one where we haven't been a major player previously. And I think it doesn't take a lot of design wins and sales into that market to really improve our dynamic there. We talked also about Remote-PHY. I think there's every indication in the cable TV market that Remote-PHY technology is gonna be a bigger part of the second half of the year certainly than it is in the first. So, there's a number of positive demand trends there. I think counterbalancing that obviously is the uncertainty surrounding, particularly, China. Again, we're certainly not the only company that's talked about an uncertain demand environment in China.

I think many of our customers there are looking at the potential of a slowing economy over there and reevaluating their plans around what they think that means for their business. And they're all in a process of trying to make that determination. And so, I suppose the upside of the number of design wins and things that we have. The downside risk is we're not quite sure how things in China are gonna go. I will point out, in terms of China, historically, we have not been -- a large percentage of our revenue has not derived from China. A number of our newer design wins have been, however, in China. And so, it's not so much that we're gonna be losing the existing business there but that some of the design wins that we expected to kick in earlier in the year now look like they may be a little later in the year. And the extent to which they occur is a little difficult to calibrate at this point.

Lee Kroll -- B Riley -- Analyst

Got it. And then just a last one from me. Could you maybe talk about the inventory situation and maybe delineate the inventory backup in the channel 40G relative to 100G?

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

I think the inventory backup is probably more about 100G than it is about 40G. But I can't really quantify that exact backup for you.

Lee Kroll -- B Riley -- Analyst

Got it. Thank you for taking my questions.

Operator

The next question is from Richard Shannon at Craig-Hallum.

Richard Shannon -- Craig-Hallum -- Analyst

Thanks, Thompson and Stefan for taking my questions. I apologize. I jumped on the call a little late. So, I may have missed some things. First of all, Stefan, did I hear you say that 100-gig was 72% of data center?

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

I believe that's right. Let me just check the number here. Data center was 72% of our revenue. Are you asking about 100-gig versus 40-gig?

Richard Shannon -- Craig-Hallum -- Analyst

Yes, please.

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

Let's find that number for you. Sixty percent of our data center revenue is from 100-gig and 38% from 40-gig.

Richard Shannon -- Craig-Hallum -- Analyst

Okay. So, 60%'s up quite a bit from 34% the prior quarter then, right?

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

That's correct. Yup.

Richard Shannon -- Craig-Hallum -- Analyst

Okay. Excellent. This year, you talked about a design win with a large US data center customer. Can you describe that in any detail, like specifically on speed and how you expect that to progress to eventually generating volume revenues there?

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

I can't give too many details, as you can imagine. We're under a non-disclosure agreement with this customer. But the customer I would -- I would classify this customer as a recognizable name. But it's not one that is as big, in terms of scale, as some of our other, larger hyperscale data center customers. So, this is a smaller customer. And its likely to not be contributing as meaningfully, certainly, as some of our other, larger data center customers. However, I think it's worth pointing out that what we're really trying to demonstrate here is that our efforts toward broadening our customer base are being successful.

So, we're adding new customers. We're getting design wins and new business coming from these customers. And yes, it's fair to say that many of those customers aren't gonna be as big as some of our previously announced large, hyperscale customers. There just aren't that many of those types of customers out there. But over time, incrementally, with a lot of hard work and attention to these customers' needs, we're managing to gain a strong foothold in a wider swath of customers which I think, long-term, is really what's very healthy for AOI.

Richard Shannon -- Craig-Hallum -- Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. Thanks for that. A couple more from me. Stefan, can you help us understand the exposure -- I don't know if you wanna talk about it in terms of when you'll see it or at the end of the year, whatever. But your contributions you could see from 200-gig and 400-gig.

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

Yeah. I think we've been pretty consistent in saying the 200-gig is gonna be a relatively small market. I think we're not seeing -- there are a few customers who are certainly interested in it, some who have purchased from us or are purchasing from us. But I think it's likely to remain a relatively small part of the market. I think 400-gig is a much bigger potential market. I think that's the next stepping stone for a lot of our customers. And as I've said earlier, I think we see a lot of interest in 400-gig from some customers. Some customers are indicating that they would like to see that 400-gig in production later in the year. And we'll see. We're certainly working very hard to achieve that timeframe. And I'm sure our competitors are as well so that hopefully, that ecosystem will be there. And hopefully, the customer decides to take that leap because I think it's an important stepping stone for AOI and the industry.

Richard Shannon -- Craig-Hallum -- Analyst

Okay. Helpful. My last question, probably for you, Stefan, on gross margins. I don't have all the details given I was just traveling to get to my office here. But how should we think about gross margins trending from the levels of first quarter guidance? I think you said it's gonna grow in the second quarter. And then thinking about the context of where you have been the last couple quarters and your previously communicated goals of -- I think it was in the high-30s or low-40s. I honestly can't remember. If you can help us think about the context of gross margins with that, that'd be great, please.

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

Yeah. So, we do expect gross margins to gradually improve starting this quarter. And I think a lot of the uncertainty that we have regarding revenue and general market conditions also extends a little bit to gross margin. But I think generally speaking, what we'd expect to see is improvement in gross margins throughout the year. In order to get to those higher gross margins, we need to work our way through all the additional testing measures that we talked about. As we said in our prepared remarks, that should be largely finished by the end of this quarter.

And we're gonna continue insourcing more of the building materials that we've been building in line with our previous goals. I think some of those insourcing efforts took a backseat toward the additional testing and implementing some of the changes to our processes that needed to be implemented. And as we resume that, I think we'll be able to see some of the benefits of that falling to the gross margin line as well. And as far as where we see gross margins going in the future, again, I think the range of high-30s to low-40s is an achievable range for us. I don't wanna put a timeframe on when we can get there, but I think it's achievable.

Richard Shannon -- Craig-Hallum -- Analyst

Okay. Thank you for that. That's all the questions from me. I'll jump out of line.

Operator

At this time, we show no further questions. And I will turn the call over to Dr. Thompson Lin for closing remarks.

Thompson Lin -- Founder, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Thank you for joining us today. As always, we thank our investors, customers, and employees for your continued support.

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Duration: 38 minutes

Call participants:

Maria Riley -- Investor Relations

Thompson Lin -- Founder, Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer

Stefan Murry -- Chief Financial Officer & Chief Strategy Officer

Simon Leopold -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst

Fahad Najam -- Cowen & Co. -- Analyst

Lee Kroll -- B Riley -- Analyst

Richard Shannon -- Craig-Hallum -- Analyst

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What We Learned From the January FOMC Meeting Minutes

When the Federal Reserve decided to keep rates the same at the conclusion of its January meeting, the policy-making Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) shifted its tone dramatically in its statement. It was telling the market that it would be patient when considering future rate hikes, a welcome change from its previous statements that had been calling for further rate hikes in 2019.

We just got a glimpse Wednesday afternoon of the minutes from that meeting, and we've gotten some insight on the story behind the shift in policy.

Image source: Getty Images.

Economic conditions don't look quite so upbeat

From the minutes, we've learned that the FOMC took into account data on soft inflation, the (then-ongoing) government shutdown, and the potential impact of the U.S.-China trade negotiations on the economy when the committee decided to pump the brakes on its path of rate hikes.

Another change apparent in the minutes is a lack of inflation concerns among FOMC members. Previously, the committee's members had expressed concerns that keeping rates low could cause inflation to spike. In January, however, members said that keeping rates where they are (a target range of 2.25%-2.50% for the federal funds rate) didn't pose a major inflation risk for the time being. That was a big change in tone.

Some clarity on the Fed's balance sheet reduction

One big area of concern has been the Fed's balance sheet reduction, which there hasn't been too much clarity on recently. The Fed currently holds $3.8 trillion in bonds on its balance sheet and has been slowly reducing its holdings since late 2017.

Addressing this reduction, the FOMC said that asset sales had been going smoothly and haven't appeared to influence markets at all, and that the federal funds rate remains the primary tool for adjusting monetary policy. However, the minutes did provide some clues on what investors can expect going forward:

"Almost all participants thought that it would be desirable to announce before too long a plan to stop reducing the Federal Reserve's asset holdings later this year. Such an announcement would provide more certainty about the process for completing the normalization of the size of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet."

In other words, the Fed's balance sheet runoff will more than likely stop before the end of 2019.

U.S. markets had little reaction but were generally up following the report's release.

IBM Is on a Spectacular Streak, Will It Come to a Bad End?

According to the data available in S&P Global Market Intelligence, IBM (NYSE:IBM) hasn't booked an impairment of goodwill in 29 years -- from 1989 to 2018. Big Blue has made 178 acquisitions in that time, spending at least $77 billion in the process.

Image source: IBM.

What's goodwill, you ask? In the simplest terms, it's the excess paid above fair market value to acquire an asset, usually a business. In the case of Red Hat (NYSE:RHT), IBM is paying $33.8 billion to acquire the company. Since Red Hat was trading for $20.5 billion in market cap at the time of the deal, it's a good bet that IBM will be adding at least $13 billion more in goodwill and intangible assets to its balance sheet, likely bringing the total carried to over $50 billion.

The table below shows why this matters. Since 2015, over 30% of IBM's assets have been rolled up in intangibles such as patents, customer lists, brand names, product reputation, market share, and the like.

Metric 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Goodwill	$31.2 billion	$30.6 billion	$32.0 billion	$36.2 billion	$36.8 billion
Other intangibles	$3.9 billion	$3.1 billion	$3.5 billion	$4.7 billion	$3.7 billion
Subtotal	$35.1 billion	$33.7 billion	$35.5 billion	$40.9 billion	$40.5 billion
Total assets	$126.2 billion	$117.3 billion	$110.5 billion	$117.5 billion	$125.4 billion
% of total assets	27.8%	28.7%	32.2%	35%	32.3%

Data source:  S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The bad side of goodwill

In the short term, paying for goodwill is easy to justify. Again, take Red Hat. Not only is the company a leading provider of open-source tools and software, it also has the leading brand name in Linux, which is one of the world's most used operating systems and essential infrastructure for today's corporate computing environments. The company also has relationships with a huge number of developers, serves large, long-term accounts, and produces close to $1 billion in excess cash flow annually. You could reasonably argue that IBM is paying a fair fee for one of the best companies in tech. I find it extremely unlikely that IBM will ever have to write down its investment in Red Hat.

If only that mattered.

Here's the problem. Public companies no longer get to amortize and retire goodwill as they once did. In fact, according to accounting standards, each year management is required to test the value of its acquired assets and determine whether fair value has dropped enough to force an "impairment," a write-off to earnings equal (roughly) to the excess fair value that's been forfeited. Each time IBM rolls up a new deal, the odds of an impairment of goodwill increases, especially on the fair value of businesses that were acquired many years ago and that may no longer be central to selling Big Blue's products and services.

So far, IBM has avoided writedowns by keeping and using the tech it's acquired. But if you read the annual report, that may be changing:

In the fourth quarter, the company performed its annual goodwill impairment analysis. The qualitative assessment illustrated evidence of a potential impairment triggering event as a result of the financial performance of the Systems reporting unit. The quantitative analysis resulted in no impairment as the reporting unit's estimated fair value exceeded the carrying amount by over 100 percent.

This same language appears in IBM's annual reports for 2013, 2014, and 2016. It's at least possible that a portion (or all) of the $1.862 billion in goodwill assigned to the systems unit as of Dec. 31, 2017 could be written down in the coming quarters or years. At the very least it's a warning sign since IBM has never suffered a writedown of goodwill and since it is stockpiling goodwill much faster than revenue.

But it's actually worse than that. According to data supplied by S&P Global Market Intelligence, since 1990, IBM's revenue is up 0.52% annualized while net profit is up 1.43% annualized, and cash flow from operations is up 2.58% annualized. Goodwill and intangibles? Up 8.41% annualized over the same period. Investors holding IBM stock throughout that 28-year period would be up 338.6%, versus 740.5% for the S&P 500. Even with all those pricey acquisitions, you'd have done better with simple indexing than you would have buying and holding IBM stock.

Where this has happened before

If you're thinking that this analysis may be a long road to nowhere, I'll admit that you could have a point. There's no sure way to tell whether IBM management is due for a goodwill writedown. And yet I think it's worthwhile spending some time under the hood in cases like these. Investors can pay a steep price when years of accumulated goodwill become an anchor too heavy to carry. Consider what's happened to General Electric (NYSE:GE). A $10 billion-plus deal for Alstom has gone horribly wrong in recent years, forcing a $23 billion markdown of goodwill late last year.

I wouldn't presume to say IBM is in a similar position, but I'm confident enough that Big Blue will shed some goodwill in the next two years that I've shorted the stock in my CAPS portfolio. So I hope you don't own IBM stock. But if you do, I hope that I'm wrong.

Coca-Cola FEMSA (KOF) Receives Daily Media Impact Score of 0.17

Media stories about Coca-Cola FEMSA (NYSE:KOF) have trended neutral recently, InfoTrie Sentiment reports. The research firm scores the sentiment of press coverage by analyzing more than six thousand blog and news sources in real time. The firm ranks coverage of companies on a scale of -5 to 5, with scores closest to five being the most favorable. Coca-Cola FEMSA earned a coverage optimism score of 0.17 on their scale. InfoTrie also gave news stories about the company an news buzz score of 10 out of 10, meaning that recent press coverage is extremely likely to have an impact on the company’s share price in the near future.

Several equities research analysts have commented on KOF shares. Zacks Investment Research raised shares of Coca-Cola FEMSA from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 15th. Santander raised shares of Coca-Cola FEMSA from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 23rd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. The stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $72.50.

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Shares of Coca-Cola FEMSA stock opened at $61.29 on Monday. Coca-Cola FEMSA has a 12-month low of $54.53 and a 12-month high of $76.24. The stock has a market capitalization of $12.88 billion, a PE ratio of 18.80 and a beta of 0.70. The company has a current ratio of 1.52, a quick ratio of 1.32 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61.

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Coca-Cola FEMSA Company Profile

Coca-Cola FEMSA, SAB. de C.V., a franchise bottler, produces, markets, sells, and distributes Coca-Cola trademark beverages. The company offers sparkling beverages, including colas and flavored sparkling beverages; and waters and still beverages, such as juice drinks, coffee, teas, milk, value-added dairy, sports drinks, energy drinks, and plant-based drinks.

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January Data Breaches Expose 370,000 Personal Records

More than 370,000 sensitive personal records were exposed in data breaches during the month of January according to the latest monthly report from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC). Nearly a third of the records were the result of a single breach at an insurance company based in Texas.

The ITRC maintains records of data breaches in five categories–banking/credit/financial, business, educational, government/military, and medical/health care. Exposed records are further divided into sensitive and non-sensitive totals. Non-sensitive data includes email-related credentials that are not considered to be personally identifiable information; sensitive records include such things as Social Security numbers, credit card information, and health records.

In January the ITRC reported that 7.6 million non-sensitive records were released in addition to 370,027 sensitive. In the largest breach, Centerstone Insurance and Financial Services, which does business under the name BenefitMall, reported that more than 111,000 emails containing personally identifiable information were targeted in a “data security incident.”

That single incident accounted for all the banking/credit/financial records exposed in January. The good news is that last January’s total for the month was 4.38 million exposed records, including 3.4 million credit card records at Jason’s Deli.

In the medical/healthcare category, 241,412 records were exposed in January, representing about 65% of all records exposed during the month. A Texas-based healthcare provider, Las Colinas Orthopedic Surgery & Sports Medicine, reported the theft of some 76,000 records.

The business category accounted for just 12,000 exposed records last month, 3.2% of the January total.

Educational institutions exposed 4,024 records in January, just 1.1% of the total for the month and government/military organizations exposes 1,002 records.

In 2018, a total of 446.5 million personally identifiable records were exposed, a year-over-year increase of 126%. Some 343 million of those records were exposed in a breach at Marriott International’s Starwood Resorts loyalty program records.

ALSO READ: January Data Breaches Expose 370,000 Personal Records

Here's Why You Might Pay More for Medicare

Tens of millions of Americans rely on Medicare for their primary healthcare coverage. For those 65 and older, Medicare's an essential part of their financial planning, and even though its coverage is reasonably affordable, coming up with the money to make premium payments is a challenge for many.

For most people, monthly premiums for Part B medical coverage are set at fixed levels each year, while the premiums for those who elect to get prescription drug coverage under Medicare Part D vary depending on the specific plan you choose. However, what many don't realize is that if your income goes above certain limits, then you'll end up having to pay more for Medicare -- and in some cases, it's a lot more.

Image source: Getty Images.

How Medicare coverage usually works

For most Medicare participants, paying for coverage works as follows:

As long as you or a spouse had a long enough work history, then there's no monthly premium for hospital insurance coverage under Medicare Part A. Instead, there are deductibles and copayment amounts if you end up needing to use that coverage. Medicare Part B typically comes with monthly premiums. For 2019, the base amount that most people pay is $135.50 per month. Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage isn't mandatory, but if you participate, then you'll pay a monthly premium to your plan provider. The amount can vary widely and depends on the drugs covered and the amount of coverage you get. What the extra premiums look like

However, lawmakers instituted premium surcharges for Part B and Part D premiums for those whose incomes were above certain levels. A summary of those extra charges is below.

Income Level for Individual Taxpayers*

Income Level for Joint Filers

Added Monthly Charge for Part B Premium

Added Monthly Charge for Part D Premium

$85,000 to $107,000	$170,000 to $214,000	$54.10	$12.40
$107,000 to $133,500	$214,000 to $267,000	$135.40	$31.90
$133,500 to $160,000	$267,000 to $320,000	$216.70	$51.40
$160,000 to $500,000	$320,000 to $750,000	$297.90	$70.90
More than $500,000	More than $750,000	$325	$77.40

Data source: Medicare.gov. *Excludes married persons filing separately if they lived together at any time during the year.

If you're married and file separate returns and you lived with your spouse at any point during the year, there are just two income ranges. Those making $85,000 to $415,000 pay the $297.90 and $70.90 surcharges for Parts B and D respectively, while those making more than $415,000 pay $325 and $77.40 extra each month.

The intent here is to have high-income Medicare participants pay more of the actual cost of their coverage. The additional premiums are intended to have high-income participants pay 35%, 50%, 65%, 80%, or 85% of the total cost of providing coverage, rather than the 25% baseline amount that the standard Part B premium represents.

When does Medicare look at income?

One tricky thing about these surcharges is that Medicare doesn't look at your income in real time. Instead, there's a lag between when your income goes above the limits and when you'll see surcharges. Currently, those paying a surcharge in 2019 do so based on their 2017 income level.

However, if your income has gone down or you've had a change in family status, then you can potentially get the surcharge reduced. You'll need to provide documentation that verifies what happened and the impact on your income.

Be smart about Medicare

Only a small number of Medicare participants have incomes that trigger these surcharges. But it's something to keep in mind if you're looking at options like a lump-sum pension payout or a large withdrawal from tax-favored retirement plans like IRAs or 401(k)s, because those moves can dramatically increase your taxable income in a way that could force you to pay these higher amounts for your Medicare coverage.

Fossil Group Earnings: FOSL Stock Plummeted on Weak Q4 EPS, Revenue

Fossil Group earnings (NASDAQ:FOSL) were posted late in the day on Wednesday and the watch maker unveiled that its earnings and revenue for its last period of its fiscal 2018 were below what analysts were calling for, sending FOSL stock plummeting more than 15% after hours.

The Richardson, Texas-based fashion apparel designer announced that for its fourth quarter of its fiscal 2018, it brought in net income of $47.6 million following a loss during the same period in the year-ago quarter. This amounted to 94 cents per share, or $1.01 per share when adjusting for restructuring costs.

Analysts were calling for Fossil Group to bring in adjusted earnings of $1.27 per share, according to data compiled by Zacks Investment Research. The company’s adjusted earnings came in at 64 cents per share during its year-ago quarter when adjusting for non-recurring items.

The watch and accessories maker added that its revenue for its fourth quarter was $786.9 million, which was also below what the Wall Street consensus estimate that Zacks was calling for. For its fiscal 2018, Fossil Group reported that it brought in its loss down to $3.5 million, or 7 cents per share, while its revenue came in at $2.54 per share.

FOSL stock was down about 2.7% during regular trading hours Wednesday as the company geared up to report for its latest quarter of the last fiscal year. Following an underwhelming earnings report that saw its adjusted profit and revenue miss expectations, shares were sinking close to 16% after the bell.

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Buy ICICI Bank; target of Rs 427: Prabhudas Lilladher

Prabhudas Lilladher's research report on ICICI Bank

ICICIBC showcased strong earnings beating estimates on back of better NII & fees/treasury, while bank did keep higher provisions rate but it helped improve PCR by 900bps QoQ to 68.5%. Slippages of Rs20.9bn was multi quarter lows and much below expectations, while large recovery helped asset quality ratios to improve substantially and also see benefit in margins. Overall stress levels are also reducing with much better upgrades seen in this quarter bringing down overall BB & Below book to 3.3% of loans. ICICI's franchise scores better in liabilities (both CASA/TDs), technology and products, while other metrics like high PCR helping normalize credit cost, potential recoveries from NCLT lists and fees will help return ratios on a gradual uptick. ICICIBC remains 20-25% discount to Axis with similar profile and should see discount narrowing.

Outlook

We retain BUY with revised TP of Rs427 (from Rs415) based on 2.0x (from 1.8x) on core sep-20 ABV and Rs117 to subs.

For all recommendations report, click here

Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts/broking houses/rating agencies on moneycontrol.com are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.

Read More First Published on Feb 12, 2019 01:34 pm

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMHC) Downgraded to “Buy” at BidaskClub

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (NASDAQ:HMHC) was downgraded by analysts at BidaskClub from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued on Saturday.

A number of other analysts have also weighed in on HMHC. ValuEngine raised Houghton Mifflin Harcourt from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 8th. TheStreet raised Houghton Mifflin Harcourt from a “d” rating to a “c-” rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 28th. Finally, Zacks Investment Research raised Houghton Mifflin Harcourt from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 17th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the stock. The stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $8.42.

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NASDAQ:HMHC opened at $9.93 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $1.23 billion, a PE ratio of -7.94 and a beta of 0.94. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has a fifty-two week low of $5.10 and a fifty-two week high of $10.64. The company has a quick ratio of 1.17, a current ratio of 1.48 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.92.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (NASDAQ:HMHC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 8th. The business services provider reported $0.70 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.58 by $0.12. The firm had revenue of $536.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $507.37 million. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had a negative return on equity of 15.66% and a negative net margin of 4.69%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 3.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.73 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will post -1.01 earnings per share for the current year.

In other Houghton Mifflin Harcourt news, Director John R. Mckernan, Jr. purchased 11,200 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 26th. The stock was bought at an average price of $9.08 per share, with a total value of $101,696.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 30,429 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $276,295.32. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider John J. Lynch, Jr. purchased 112,518 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 13th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $8.89 per share, with a total value of $1,000,285.02. Following the purchase, the insider now directly owns 140,362 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,247,818.18. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Company insiders own 1.07% of the company’s stock.

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in HMHC. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank lifted its stake in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt by 70.1% in the fourth quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank now owns 8,048 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $71,000 after acquiring an additional 3,317 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC bought a new position in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the fourth quarter worth $110,000. Stone Run Capital LLC bought a new position in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the third quarter worth $119,000. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado bought a new position in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the third quarter worth $197,000. Finally, Campbell & CO Investment Adviser LLC raised its holdings in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt by 54.6% in the third quarter. Campbell & CO Investment Adviser LLC now owns 43,600 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $305,000 after purchasing an additional 15,400 shares in the last quarter. 95.06% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company Profile

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company, a learning company, provides content, services, and technology solutions for educational institutions and consumers worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Education and Trade Publishing. The Education segment provides educational products, technology platforms, and services, including print and digital content in the form of textbooks, digital courseware, instructional aids, educational assessment, and intervention solutions for students.

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U.S. stocks finish mixed on Friday

U.S. stocks closed mixed on Friday, as global growth and trade worries continue to weigh on investor appetite. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.25% fell 63 points, or 0.3%, the S&P 500 SPX, +0.07% ended up less than 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.14% rose 0.1%. Adding to geopolitical tensions was the news President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order next week banning Chinese wireless equipment from U.S. networks. In company news, shares of Skechers USA SKX, +15.20% rose around 15% after reporting better-than-expected earnings late Thursday.

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SCYNEXIS (SCYX) Rating Lowered to Hold at Zacks Investment Research

SCYNEXIS (NASDAQ:SCYX) was downgraded by Zacks Investment Research from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a note issued to investors on Friday.

According to Zacks, “SCYNEXIS, Inc. is a pharmaceutical company. It is engaged in the discovery, development, and commercialization of anti-infectives to address unmet therapeutic needs. The Company is developing its lead product candidate, SCY-078, as an oral and intravenous (IV) drug for the treatment of serious and life-threatening invasive fungal infections in humans. It also provides contract research and development services. SCYNEXIS, Inc. is headquartered in Durham, North Carolina. “

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A number of other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on the company. Brookline Capital Management reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of SCYNEXIS in a research report on Friday, January 4th. ValuEngine downgraded SCYNEXIS from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 25th. Maxim Group set a $4.00 price objective on SCYNEXIS and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 13th. Finally, HC Wainwright set a $5.00 price objective on SCYNEXIS and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 23rd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company. The stock presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $4.78.

Shares of SCYX stock opened at $1.16 on Friday. SCYNEXIS has a 1-year low of $0.35 and a 1-year high of $2.15. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27, a current ratio of 4.53 and a quick ratio of 4.53.

SCYNEXIS (NASDAQ:SCYX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 13th. The company reported $0.01 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.17) by $0.18. SCYNEXIS had a negative return on equity of 102.52% and a negative net margin of 8,592.97%. The company had revenue of $0.06 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $0.06 million. On average, analysts forecast that SCYNEXIS will post -0.51 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Renaissance Technologies LLC acquired a new stake in SCYNEXIS in the second quarter worth about $190,000. Northern Trust Corp boosted its holdings in SCYNEXIS by 132.7% in the second quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 116,079 shares of the company’s stock worth $190,000 after acquiring an additional 66,193 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. boosted its holdings in SCYNEXIS by 61.5% in the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 180,751 shares of the company’s stock worth $296,000 after acquiring an additional 68,830 shares in the last quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC acquired a new stake in SCYNEXIS in the third quarter worth about $240,000. Finally, Stonepine Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in SCYNEXIS in the third quarter worth about $539,000. 41.53% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About SCYNEXIS

SCYNEXIS, Inc, a drug development company, develops and commercializes anti-infectives to address unmet therapeutic needs. It is developing its lead product candidate, SCY-078, as a novel oral and intravenous drug for the treatment of various fungal infections, including serious and life-threatening invasive fungal infections.

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Earnings Report Brings Improvement and Uncertainty to Spotify Stock

Spotify (NYSE:SPOT) surprised investors on multiple fronts. The popular streaming music service beat estimates by reporting its first-ever quarterly profit. It further defied expectations by using much of this profit to purchase two firms involved with podcasting. Unfortunately for SPOT bulls, Spotify stock fell following this news.

Source: Spotify

This move leaves investors with the question as to whether prospective buyers should invest in Spotify’s new direction. Given this lack of clarity, I believe investors should wait before going into SPOT stock. Spotify Stock Reports a Surprise Profit, Enters Podcasting

Yesterday, SPOT released its fourth-quarter earnings report. Spotify’s revenue came in at $1.7 billion, falling just shy of the $1.71 billion analyst estimate. It shows a substantial increase from the $1.36 billion revenue figure from the same quarter last year.

However, investors still sold off the equity on that news.

On a happier note, SPOT announced it had earned its first quarterly profit. The company earned 41 cents per share, about $502 million. Analysts had predicted a loss of 22 cents per share.

SPOT has fallen by more than 7% over two days following this revenue loss. Analysts also expect SPOT stock to revert to reporting quarterly losses for the next several quarters. Hence, forward guidance left investors with few financially based reasons to cheer.

However, some potential for a turnaround lies with how the Stockholm-based company put some of those earnings to work. Spotify purchased a broadcasting studio called Gimlet Media as well as Anchor, a creation app. Although Spotify did not release the cost of these purchases, Gimlet was rumored to have sold for $230 million.

The Optimistic, Unclear Path for SPOT Stock

Currently, 90% of Spotify’s income comes from premium services. Ad revenue constitutes most of the remainder. Still, this could face threats from Spotify’s lack of a discernible moat. SPOT now competes with much larger firms such as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL, NASDAQ:GOOG), and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) in music streaming.

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Yes, Spotify has become one of the world’s largest streaming services. However, it achieved this using content produced by others. Now, larger players have copied this business model. These big players are mega-cap stocks with tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in cash. Spotify stock stands as barely a large cap that reports a rare quarterly profit.

To Spotify’s credit, pivoting into podcasts allows for the creation of original, proprietary content. In this area, its peer Sirius (NASDAQ:SIRI) has created programs, some of which have gone on to critical acclaim. Now, Spotify could follow the same path to success.

If Spotify creates podcasts that attract listeners, SPOT stock will almost certainly benefit. However, with this move, Spotify begins its transition from music streamer to podcast content provider. These podcasts could determine whether Spotify survives long term or if it gets swept aside by big tech.

The Bottom Line on Spotify Stock

Spotify stock investors face a great deal of uncertainty following the purchase of Gimlet and Anchor. To be sure, SPOT defied expectations by reporting a profit at a time when most everyone had expected just another loss. The subsequent selloff likely came about due to its revenue miss and not other factors.

Still, it is the “other factors” that may become important going forward, namely the move into podcast production.

Competition from the biggest names in tech looms over SPOT. As a smaller music streaming company, it will likely struggle to survive. However, as a content creator, it has a chance to offer what its competitors cannot match. The long-term success of Spotify probably stock hinges on that content. While I feel that makes SPOT too uncertain to buy, it at least positions the company to avoid a near-certain failure.

As of this writing, Will Healy did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned stocks. You can follow Will on Twitter at @HealyWriti

Toyota's Profit Growth Stalls as Rising Costs Offset Gains

Toyota Motor Corporation (NYSE:TM) said that its operating profit in the quarter that ended on Dec. 31 was roughly flat versus the year-ago period, at 676.1 billion yen ($6.13 billion), as higher costs offset gains from strong Lexus sales and favorable exchange-rate movements. But net income fell sharply on an accounting charge for unrealized investment losses.

Toyota cut its guidance for net income in the full fiscal year that will end on March 31, because of declines in value of some equity holdings. But it reiterated its prior guidance for revenue and operating income.

Strong sales of the Toyota Levin, as the sporty version of the compact Corolla is called in China, helped Toyota to a good quarter despite a weak overall market in China. Image source: Toyota Motor Corporation.

Toyota earnings: The raw numbers

Like many Japanese companies, Toyota uses a fiscal year that begins on April 1. The quarter that ended on Dec. 31, 2018, was the third quarter of Toyota's 2019 fiscal year.

All financial results are shown in yen. Vehicle sales are rounded to the nearest thousand.

Metric Q3 FY 2019 Q3 FY 2018 Change (YOY)

Revenue	7.80 trillion yen	7.61 trillion yen	2.6%
Vehicle sales	2,282,000	2,289,000	(0.3%)
Operating income	676.1 billion yen	673.6 billion yen	0.4%
Operating margin	8.7%	8.9%	(0.2 ppts)
Net income	180.9 billion yen	941.8 billion yen	(81%)
Yen per U.S. dollar, average during period	113 yen	113 yen	No change
Yen per euro, average during period	129 yen	133 yen	(4 yen)

Data source: Toyota Motor Corporation. Vehicle sales include the vehicles sold by Toyota's joint ventures in China. YOY = year over year; "ppts" = percentage points.

Why Toyota's net income fell 81%

Toyota said that two factors unrelated to its core business accounted for most of the steep year-over-year decline in net income:

An accounting loss of 395.4 billion yen related to unrealized losses on equity securities: Toyota didn't give details, but the company owns 16.5% of Subaru Corporation, and Subaru's share price fell by almost 31% in the quarter. In the year-ago period, Toyota had a gain of 291.9 billion yen related to the U.S. tax-law overhaul. That wasn't repeated in the most recent quarter. How Toyota's business units performed

Toyota reports separate operating results for each of its regional business units as well as its captive financing arm. Here's how each performed in the quarter that ended on Dec. 31, 2018:

In Japan, Toyota's operating income rose 4.5% to 492.5 billion yen, as sales rose 2.4% to about 565,000 vehicles. The company's ongoing cost-reduction effort helped boost its operating margin in its home market to 11.6% from 11.3% in the year-ago period. In North America, Toyota's operating income fell 2.2% to 26.4 billion yen. Sales fell 7.5% from a year ago, to about 680,000 vehicles, on weak demand for the company's bread-and-butter sedans. Toyota's operating margin in North America was a very thin 1%, unchanged from a year ago. In Europe, Toyota's operating income rose 7.2% to 25.1 billion yen despite a 2.1% drop in sales, as the euro fell in value versus the yen. Toyota's margin in Europe rose to 3.2% from 3% a year ago. In Asia, excluding Japan but including China, Toyota's operating income fell 2.7% to 118.7 billion yen. Sales in the region rose sharply, up 14.9% to about 464,000, as demand for Toyota's inexpensive sedans in China stayed strong despite a decline in the overall market. Toyota's margin in Asia fell to 7.9% from 9.1% a year ago. Toyota's "rest of the world" region includes Latin America, Oceania, Africa, and the Middle East. Here, Toyota's operating income fell 40% to 20.4 billion yen, with a margin of 3.5% (down 2 percentage points), as sales fell 5.5% from a year ago to about 341,000 vehicles. Toyota's financial services unit earned 89.7 billion yen in operating income, up 17% from a year ago, on growth in its lending business and higher auction values for vehicles returned as leases ended. Looking ahead: Changes to Toyota's full-year guidance

As noted above, Toyota cut its full-year net-income forecast, but maintained its prior guidance for revenue and operating income and slightly boosted its expectation for overall sales. For the fiscal year that will end on March 31, 2019, Toyota now expects:

Sales (excluding China joint ventures) of about 8,950,000 vehicles up from 8,900,000 vehicles in its prior forecast (fiscal 2018 result: 8,964,000) Revenue of about 29.5 trillion yen, unchanged from its prior forecast (fiscal 2018 result: 29.38 trillion yen) Operating income of 2.4 trillion yen, unchanged from the prior forecast (fiscal 2018 result: 2.4 trillion yen) Operating margin of 8.1%, unchanged from the prior forecast (fiscal 2018 result: 8.2%) Net income of 1.87 trillion yen, down from 2.3 trillion yen in the prior forecast (fiscal 2018 result: 2.49 trillion yen)

Toyota also now expects average exchange rates of 110 yen to the U.S. dollar (unchanged from prior guidance) and 128 yen to the euro (prior guidance: 130 yen).

Here's Why AMD Can Rally Once Again

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) have sold off massively over the past three months, as investors have been taken aback by the degree to which the drop-off in sales of graphics cards for cryptocurrency mining has impacted its performance. The chipmaker expects a drop in annual sales for the December quarter, which is a far cry from the terrific year-over-year growth that it was delivering just a couple of quarters ago.

But that hasn't discouraged AMD from coming out strongly at the recently concluded CES 2019. The company looks all set to take the game to its archrival NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) thanks to its solid product development moves, which should eventually pave the way for a turnaround.

Image Source: Getty Images.

What went wrong?

AMD's Vega graphics cards have helped it take the game to NVIDIA in the GPU market. According to Jon Peddie Research, AMD held 36% of the discrete graphics cards market at the end of the second quarter of 2018, a sharp increase from the 21% market share it was sitting on back in 2015.

However, cryptocurrency-driven sales played a key role in AMD's rise in the GPU market. That's evident from the fact that the company's market share dropped suddenly to just 25.7% in the third quarter of 2018, coinciding with the tail-off of crypto-driven GPU demand. This indicates that AMD's cards weren't in great demand from PC gaming enthusiasts, which isn't very surprising considering that the Vega lineup wasn't as good as its NVIDIA counterpart for gaming purposes.

In fact, the Vega cards weren't able to match the performance of one-year-old NVIDIA cards when they were launched. In the meantime, NVIDIA took its game a notch higher with the latest-generation Turing GPUs, some of which pack futuristic tech such as ray tracing. That created a gap between the GPU technologies of the two companies, as AMD's Vega cards were launched back in August 2017, while NVIDIA's Turing lineup went on sale in September 2018.

AMD plays offense

AMD is looking to bridge the gap with its latest Radeon VII graphics card that's based on a 7-nanometer manufacturing process. The company claims to deliver a 29% bump in gaming performance with this new card over the previous Vega 64 flagship without any additional power consumption. That's because the previous generation Vega cards were based on a 14nm node.

A smaller manufacturing node means that the transistors on the chip are placed closer to each other, allowing it to conjure more processing power and consume less energy. What's more, the Radeon VII can go head to head in terms of performance with NVIDIA's flagship RTX 2080, as per official benchmarks, and costs $100 less.

As such, AMD could replicate its tried and tested strategy of offering an almost identically performing chip at a lower price to eat into NVIDIA's market and probably make a dent in the high-end PC hardware space. But NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang believes that is an unlikely proposition.

According to Huang, the Radeon VII is "underwhelming," and NVIDIA's RTX 2080 GPU can "crush it" thanks to advanced technologies such as ray tracing. But one shouldn't forget that ray tracing isn't supported by a ton of games right now, so AMD isn't at a huge disadvantage. Additionally, AMD claims that its own ray tracing technology is in "deep development," and successful implementation of that technology could give it a leg up over NVIDIA because of its competitive pricing.

So, AMD can curry favor with gamers by matching the performance of NVIDIA's cards and undercut them on pricing at the same time. That should allow the company to take advantage of NVIDIA's price-boosting strategy, cut into the latter's market share to boost sales, and hopefully turn its business around as more 7nm GPUs hit the shelves later this year.

Top 10 Gold Stocks To Invest In Right Now

tags:GSS,NXG,NGD,ORE,CME,

Kinross Gold (NYSE:KGC) (TSE:K) had its price objective reduced by JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $6.00 to $5.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Monday, Stock Target Advisor reports. The brokerage presently has a “neutral” rating on the mining company’s stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s target price suggests a potential upside of 66.11% from the stock’s previous close.

KGC has been the topic of a number of other reports. ValuEngine lowered shares of Kinross Gold from a “sell” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Friday, August 17th. Credit Suisse Group started coverage on shares of Kinross Gold in a research note on Thursday, September 6th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $4.00 price objective on the stock. Citigroup dropped their price objective on shares of Kinross Gold from $4.00 to $3.25 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, August 29th. National Bank Financial reiterated an “outperform spec overweight” rating on shares of Kinross Gold in a report on Monday, June 18th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada downgraded shares of Kinross Gold from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and lowered their target price for the company from $5.00 to $4.75 in a report on Monday, August 20th. They noted that the move was a valuation call. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Kinross Gold currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $4.39.

Top 10 Gold Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Golden Star Resources Ltd(GSS)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Joseph Griffin]

  Get a free copy of the Zacks research report on Golden Star Resources (GSS)

  For more information about research offerings from Zacks Investment Research, visit Zacks.com

• [By Max Byerly]

  Get a free copy of the Zacks research report on Golden Star Resources (GSS)

  For more information about research offerings from Zacks Investment Research, visit Zacks.com

• [By Max Byerly]

  Golden Star Resources Ltd. (NYSEAMERICAN:GSS) was the target of a significant increase in short interest in September. As of September 28th, there was short interest totalling 10,021,831 shares, an increase of 6.9% from the September 14th total of 9,371,344 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 1,038,207 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 9.7 days. Approximately 4.7% of the company’s shares are sold short.

Top 10 Gold Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Northgate Minerals Corporation(NXG)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Shane Hupp]

  Shares of NEX Group PLC (LON:NXG) have been given an average rating of “Hold” by the nine ratings firms that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, four have assigned a hold recommendation and four have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is GBX 696 ($9.21).

Top 10 Gold Stocks To Invest In Right Now: NEW GOLD INC.(NGD)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Paul Ausick]

  New Gold Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN: NGD) dropped about 2.9% Monday to post a new 52-week low of $2.35. Shares closed at $2.42 on Friday and the stock’s 52-week high is $4.25. Volume was about 10% below the daily average of around 5.8 million shares. The gold mining company had no news.

• [By Paul Ausick]

  New Gold Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN: NGD) dropped about 3.8% Thursday to post a new 52-week low of $2.28. Shares closed at $2.37 on Wednesday and the stock’s 52-week high is $4.25. Volume was about 15% below the daily average of around 5.9 million shares. The company had no specific news.

• [By Shane Hupp]

  News articles about New Gold (NASDAQ:NGD) have trended somewhat positive recently, according to Accern Sentiment Analysis. The research group ranks the sentiment of media coverage by monitoring more than 20 million blog and news sources in real time. Accern ranks coverage of publicly-traded companies on a scale of negative one to positive one, with scores nearest to one being the most favorable. New Gold earned a news impact score of 0.01 on Accern’s scale. Accern also gave media coverage about the company an impact score of 46.1175522193993 out of 100, indicating that recent media coverage is somewhat unlikely to have an effect on the stock’s share price in the near future.

• [By Ethan Ryder]

  Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft FI raised its holdings in shares of New Gold Inc (Pre-Merger) (NYSEAMERICAN:NGD) by 5.3% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,015,289 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after buying an additional 101,852 shares during the period. Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft FI owned about 0.35% of New Gold Inc (Pre-Merger) worth $4,192,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

• [By Lisa Levin] Gainers ARMO BioSciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARMO) shares rose 67.5 percent to $49.96 in pre-market trading after Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) announced plans to acquire ARMO BioSciences for $50 per share. Turtle Beach Corporation (NASDAQ: HEAR) rose 62.8 percent to $11.30 in pre-market trading after the company reported Q1 results and raised its FY18 outlook. vTv Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: VTVT) rose 23.4 percent to $2.11 in pre-market trading following announcement that the company will pre-specify new subgroup with the FDA and report Phase 3 Part B results in June. Resonant Inc. (NASDAQ: RESN) rose 19.1 percent to $5.00 in pre-market trading after reporting Q1 results. RXi Pharmaceuticals Corporation (NASDAQ: RXII) rose 17.7 percent to $2.39 in pre-market trading following Q1 results. Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ: CLNE) rose 15.2 percent to $2.20 in pre-market trading after French company Total announced plans to acquire 25 percent stake in Clean Energy Fuels for $83.4 million. Everspin Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRAM) rose 14.6 percent to $8.50 in pre-market trading after the company reported strong results for its first quarter. Carvana Co. (NYSE: CVNA) shares rose 11 percent to $27.50 in pre-market trading after reporting upbeat Q1 sales. Sunrun Inc. (NASDAQ: RUN) rose 8.9 percent to $10.70 in pre-market trading following upbeat quarterly earnings. MediciNova, Inc. (NASDAQ: MNOV) rose 8.1 percent to $11.35 in pre-market trading after the company announced opening of Investigational New Drug Application for MN-166 (ibudilast) in glioblastoma. New Gold Inc. (NYSE: NGD) shares rose 7.7 percent to $2.65 in pre-market trading after the company reported that its President and CEO Hannes Portmann left the company. The company named Raymond Threlkeld as successor. Otter Tail Corporation (NASDAQ: OTTR) shares rose 7.4 percent to $46.60 in the pre-market trading session. Himax Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: HIMX) shares rose
• [By Lisa Levin]

  Check out these big penny stock gainers and losers

  Losers Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE: TER) fell 10.8 percent to $37.02 in pre-market trading after the company issued downbeat Q2 guidance. Edwards Lifesciences Corporation (NYSE: EW) fell 9.2 percent to $122.29 in pre-market trading. Edwards Lifesciences reported better-than-expected results for its first quarter, but issued weak earnings guidance for the second quarter. New Gold Inc. (NYSE: NGD) fell 8.8 percent to $2.30 in pre-market trading after rising 4.13 percent on Tuesday. Gold Fields Limited (ADR) (NYSE: GFI) fell 8.6 percent to $3.61 in pre-market trading. Natus Medical Incorporated (NASDAQ: BABY) fell 8.2 percent to $32.95 in pre-market trading after the company issued weak forecast for the second quarter. Atossa Genetics Inc. (NASDAQ: ATOS) shares fell 7.9 percent to $3.50 in pre-market trading after climbing 27.09 percent on Tuesday. Bright Scholar Education Holdings Limited (NYSE: BEDU) shares fell 6.7 percent to $13.58 in pre-market trading after reporting Q1 results. Sangamo Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: SGMO) fell 5.9 percent to $16.75 in pre-market trading following announcement of a $200 million common stock offering. Foresight Autonomous Holdings Ltd (NASDAQ: FRSX) shares fell 5.7 percent to $3.29 in pre-market trading after declining 3.32 percent on Tuesday. Euronav NV (NYSE: EURN) fell 4.8 percent to $8.40 in pre-market trading. Limelight Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: LLNW) shares fell 4.3 percent to $4.69 in pre-market trading. Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc (NASDAQ: GLPI) shares fell 4.1 percent to $32.92 in pre-market trading after the company issued downbeat quarterly results and reported the retirement of CFO William Clifford

Top 10 Gold Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Orezone Gold Corp (ORE)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Stephan Byrd]

  Galactrum (ORE) is a PoW/PoS coin that uses the
  Lyra2RE hashing algorithm. It launched on November 11th, 2017. Galactrum’s total supply is 2,092,679 coins and its circulating supply is 1,372,679 coins. Galactrum’s official Twitter account is @galactrum. Galactrum’s official website is galactrum.org.

• [By Peter Graham]

  Sandstorm's due diligence is thorough, they don't just invest in any company. They like West Africa because they understand the area and the opportunities that exist there. Sandstorm is a royalty and streaming company, so they make these investments and receive cashflow deals that often kick in much later on. But they have already established a presence in Burkina and have deals in place with larger companies like Orezone Gold (TSXV: ORE) and Endeavour Mining (TSX: EDV). Sandstorm's investment also potentially gives us access to their marketing department through something they call Launch Lab, and it looks like it will really benefit our own marketing efforts and will expose us to more opportunities over the coming year.

• [By Jim Robertson]

  Finally, Richard Seville, the CEO of Brisbane-based Orocobre Ltd (ASX: ORE) which began lithium sales in 2015 from northern Argentina and also experienced difficulty boosting output, commented that an "inability to access traditional funds has delayed the development of the sector" and that "these projects aren't easy -- so the banks just don't want to go there."

• [By Shane Hupp]

  Galactrum (ORE) is a PoW/PoS coin that uses the
  Lyra2RE hashing algorithm. It was first traded on December 13th, 2017. Galactrum’s total supply is 2,781,952 coins and its circulating supply is 2,061,952 coins. Galactrum’s official website is galactrum.org. Galactrum’s official Twitter account is @galactrum.

Top 10 Gold Stocks To Invest In Right Now: CME Group Inc.(CME)

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By ]

  Case in point, I've held CME Group (NYSE: CME) in my High-Yield Investing portfolio for almost four years now. When I first took a position in the summer of 2014, the stock offered a regular quarterly dividend of $0.47 per share that added up to a modest yield of 2.6%. Many income investors skipped over it without a second glance.

• [By Shane Hupp]

  CME Group Inc (NASDAQ:CME) Director Ronald A. Pankau sold 260 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $163.17, for a total transaction of $42,424.20. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 3,900 shares in the company, valued at approximately $636,363. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website.

• [By Logan Wallace]

  Investors sold shares of CME Group Inc (NASDAQ:CME) on strength during trading hours on Wednesday. $43.03 million flowed into the stock on the tick-up and $84.28 million flowed out of the stock on the tick-down, for a money net flow of $41.25 million out of the stock. Of all stocks tracked, CME Group had the 11th highest net out-flow for the day. CME Group traded up $0.26 for the day and closed at $170.48

• [By Lee Jackson]

  This stock has had a solid 2018 and is a top pick at Deutsche Bank. CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CME) exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes, including futures and options. CME brings buyers and sellers together through its Globex electronic trading platform and its trading facilities in New York and Chicago.

• [By Ethan Ryder]

  CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) was downgraded by investment analysts at BidaskClub from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report issued on Thursday.

• [By Logan Wallace]

  Cashme (CURRENCY:CME) traded down 0.1% against the dollar during the 24-hour period ending at 14:00 PM Eastern on August 31st. Cashme has a total market capitalization of $0.00 and approximately $0.00 worth of Cashme was traded on exchanges in the last 24 hours. One Cashme coin can currently be purchased for approximately $0.0003 or 0.00000003 BTC on popular cryptocurrency exchanges. In the last week, Cashme has traded 55.3% higher against the dollar.