TGT

Dividend Increases/Decreases for the Week Ending June 10

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Below we provide a list of firms that raised/lowered their dividends during the week ending June 10. The dividend reports of covered firms on this list will be updated shortly with the new information. To access our dividend reports use the ‘Symbol’ search box in our website header. Firms Raising Their Dividends This Week Advanced Drainage Systems (WMS): now $0.06 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.05. Armanino Foods of Distinction (AMNF): now $0.02 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.019. C.R. Bard (BCR): now $0.26 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.24. FedEx (FDX): now $0.40 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.25. H&R Block (HRB): now $0.22 per share quarterly dividend, was $0.20. National Fuel Gas Company (NFG): now $0.405 per share … Read more

Uncertainty in Retail Remains

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Image Source: Mike Mozart By Kris Rosemann Just one day after shares of Walmart (WMT) fell on sentiment from the poor quarterly report from rival Target (TGT), “Target and Non-GAAP Earnings (May 2016),” Walmart reported strong first quarter earnings and shares leapt nearly 10% in the May 19 trading session. Other retailers, however, haven’t been as lucky, experiencing material share price declines as of late due to ongoing weakness across many verticals of the retail space. Some noteworthy retailers that have been punished as a result of poor first quarter performance include Macy’s (M), Kohl’s (KSS), and Nordstrom (JWN), among others, including the aforementioned Target. The material weakness across retail comes despite US retail and food service sales beating expectations … Read more

Target and Non-GAAP Earnings

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Image Source: Mike Mozart Another day of earnings — another bad day for retail. May 18 brought a disappointing first-quarter report from retail bellwether Target (TGT) that sent the prices of it and most of its big box brethren including WalMart (WMT), Best Buy (BBY), and hhgregg (HGG) lower on the session, the latter two lower due to weakness in Target’s electronics vertical during the period. We’re reiterating our $71 per share fair value estimate of Target at the time of this writing. Except perhaps home improvement retailers Lowe’s (LOW) and Home Depot (HD), which continue to post desirable comparable store sales increases (+7.3% and +6.5% in the first quarter, respectively), and arguably the auto retailers, including AutoZone (AZO) and … Read more

Target’s E-Commerce Growth the Real Story

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Image: Target’s mascot Bullseye sporting new shades at a local job fair. We have a difficult time dismissing Target’s (TGT) short-sightedness in abandoning its efforts in Canada, as in time, its ability to continue to drive traffic and store count in the US higher will plateau. In no way will this occur anytime soon, or within the next few years or so, but it will, and Target will have wished it wouldn’t have given up in Canada. But that’s not the story today Skeptics are looking wrong in a big way, as Target showcased a pace of e-commerce expansion better than that of Wal-Mart (WMT) and even Amazon (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY) in its most recently-reported fourth quarter. Digital sales … Read more

Warming Up to IBM, Walmart Disappoints Again

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Most of us woke up to the news February 18 that Apple (AAPL) would be vigorously defending the privacy of its customers against a potential “overreaching” by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and/or others. The crux of the matter is whether Apple should unlock a phone that had been used by a shooter in the San Bernardino attacks early December, per the request of the FBI, as doing so may eventually jeopardize the personal safety and security of all Americans. Several tech CEOs have come out to support Apple, but any outcome on the matter will be difficult to predict. In a day and age where privacy is a major hot-button issue, CEO Tim Cook knows he needs to step … Read more

Creed, Apple, and the Fitbit

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By Brian Nelson, CFA Hanging out in malls on Thanksgiving isn’t really our thing at Valuentum, but what we’re hearing thus far is that “Thanksgiving shopping was a bust.” It even felt as though tourism was down a bit as traditional near-impassable auto traffic was surprisingly absent in at least one key family destination, the gateway to the Smokies in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and maybe keeping travelers from commuting through the city of Chicago was the potential for riots following the release of the dash cam video allegedly showing a police officer shooting a youth 16 times in November of last year. My trip from northern Illinois to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and back was rather uneventful, not that I am complaining about … Read more

Same Stories Prevail at Walmart and Target

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When consumers think of retail, Walmart (WMT) and Target (TGT) are probably two of the biggest companies that come to mind. After all, the two big box retail giants have taken the US by storm throughout much of the 1990s and 2000s. But the shift to e-commerce with the proliferation of Amazon (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY) coupled with broad-based consumer backlash with respect to worker wages and credit card breaches, respectively, have created a whirlwind of negative public perception at the two giants as of late. Will worker unrest and Target’s failed attempt to expand beyond the borders of the US mark the generational stock price peaks at the two giants, respectively? Are both past their prime? The likelihood of … Read more

Things Are So Bad They’re Actually Good?

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Brazil’s (EWZ) economy, nearly 60% of South America’s (ILF) gross continental output, entered into technical recession following the second consecutive quarter of GDP declines, the latest reading a fall of nearly 2%. Economic data assessing the health of Brazil’s largest South American trade partner, Argentina (ARGT), remains “flawed”, according to the International Monetary Fund, which believes the country will only grow marginally in 2015 and remain stagnant in 2016. Including contributions from Venezuela, which is dealing with near-hyperinflation, the combined gross national product of the three struggling countries accounts for approximately three-fourths of South America’s entire economy. Though less than half the size of Brazil’s, Canada’s (EWC) economy has also fallen into recession during the first half of the year, … Read more

Target-CVS Agreement: What It Really Means

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Image Source: Mike Mozart Target (TGT) and CVS Health (CVS) announced an agreement June 15 in which CVS would acquire, rebrand, and operate Target’s pharmacies and clinics for the price of approximately $1.9 billion. After the deal closes, CVS will operate 1,660 of Target’s pharmacies in its stores under the CVS/pharmacy brand name. The nearly 80 Target clinics involved in the deal will be rebranded as MinuteClinic, and CVS plans to open up to 20 new clinics in Target stores, part of the CVS/minuteclinic goal to operate 1,500 clinics by 2017. Target and CVS also plan to open five to ten small, flexible store formats that will be branded TargetExpress and include a CVS/pharmacy. After Target’s recent Canada debacle, we … Read more

The Global Pandemic of Cybercrime, Cyber Espionage and Cyber Warfare

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“The new generation of cyber-attacks on organizations, including large and small enterprises and governments worldwide, is characterized by an unprecedented escalation in the complexity and scale of advanced malware created by criminal organizations and nation-states. These modern attacks are built on dynamic, stealthy and targeted malware that penetrates defenses in multiple stages and through multiple entry points of an IT network. These highly targeted, “single-use” cyber-attacks easily circumvent legacy security solutions that rely on pattern-matching detection technologies. Additionally, because legacy solutions reference outdated signatures of past threats, they also generate a high number of false-positive alerts.” – Fireeye Annual Report, 2014 The statistics are striking. According to a 2011 survey of ~580 US IT experts by research center Ponemon Institute, … Read more