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Adobe Teams With Box To Improve Digital Document Workflow

Digital media software company Adobe Systems ( ADBE ) has teamed up with online document storage firm Box ( BOX ) to improve enterprise document workflow. Through the partnership announced Tuesday , Adobe will provide Document Cloud services to Box customers. Those services include e-signatures and the ability to edit PDF documents directly in Box. Adobe created the PDF, or portable document format. The partnership’s goal is to help transform document workflows, Bryan Lamkin, Adobe executive vice president and general manager of digital media, told IBD. Too many document workflows today still involve paper for signatures when they could be kept entirely electronic, he said. Adobe teamed up with Box because it’s a popular service among businesses for storing and sharing documents securely, Lamkin said. Box customers have stored more than 2 billion PDF documents on the service. “We want to go to where the PDFs are,” Lamkin said. “It’s a very natural partnership to team up with Box.” Box CEO Aaron Levie concurred. “Our job, and Adobe’s mission as well, is to transform the way that organizations and businesses are working with their digital information,” Levie told IBD. “What you’ll see in this partnership is what the future of the digital landscape looks like, where you have two best-of-breed companies coming together and leveraging our respective platforms to drive new experiences in the cloud.” Access to Adobe Document Cloud services, such as Acrobat DC and Adobe Sign, from the Box website is expected by the end of May. The ability to add a Box account to Acrobat DC and Acrobat Reader on the desktop is expected around the same time. Adobe, an IBD Leaderboard stock, was down a fraction, near 95.50, in morning trading on the stock market today . It hit a record high of 98 on March 18. Box stock was up more than 1% Tuesday morning, near 13.50. UBS analyst Brent Thill on Tuesday reiterated his buy rating on Adobe with a price target of 114. After meeting with Adobe’s management, Thill concluded that Adobe has “plenty of runway for years” from its current business pursuits. Adobe’s annual revenue run rate of $5.5 billion is a fraction of the company’s total addressable market of $48 billion, he said. Adobe has three cloud computing businesses: Creative Cloud, Marketing Cloud and Document Cloud. The biggest is Creative Cloud, which includes software for creative professionals such as Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Marketing Cloud provides online marketing and advertising services. Document Cloud leverages Adobe’s popular online document-sharing product Acrobat and its ubiquitous PDF format. RELATED: Adobe Stock Gets Price-Target Hike But Seen As Fairly Valued

Apple Supplier NXP Semiconductors Earnings Top Ahead Of Apple Report

Apple ( AAPL ) supplier NXP Semiconductors ( NXPI ) late Monday reported first-quarter earnings that fell a little less than estimates, a day before Apple itself is expected to report declining profit and a sharp drop in iPhone sales. NXP Semi gave guidance that was in line to slightly above forecasts. Earnings per share fell nearly 16% to $1.14 a share excluding various items vs. $1.35 a year earlier. Revenue, fueled by acquisitions, climbed about 52% to $2.224 billion from $1.467 billion a year earlier. Economists had expected EPS of $1.09 and sales of $2.21 billion. Comparable revenue fell 11% vs. a year earlier, NXP said, citing “semiconductor industry weakness that accelerated throughout the second half of 2015.” For Q2, NXP Semiconductors sees revenue of $2.295 billion to $2.395 billion, with the midpoint at $2.345 billion. It expects EPS of $1.30-$1.40, with the midpoint at $1.35. Analysts expected EPS of $1.32 and revenue of $2.34 billion. NXP Semiconductors is a leading chip supplier for the Apple iPhone and Samsung smartphones. But it’s also a major supplier of chips for the auto industry, especially after its recent acquisition of Freescale Semiconductor. Auto-related chip sales hit $805 million, up 167% vs. a year earlier on a reported basis, or just 1% with Freescale’s year-earlier results included. But auto-related sales should rise in the “mid- to high-single digit” percentages in Q2, NXP said in its Tuesday morning conference call. NXP is aiming for a long-term gross profit margin of 51%-55 and an operating margin above 30%. In Q1, NXP’s gross profit was 26.8% on a GAAP basis and 50% non-GAAP. Operating profit was -21.2%, or 23.3% non-GAAP. NXP shares jumped 5.3% to 87.75 in morning trade on the stock market today  after rising as high as 89.79. Shares closed down 1.2% to 83.34 on Monday, closing just above the 200-day line, where NXP has been finding support lately. Apple fell 0.5% to 104.51 intraday, after falling below its 50-day line intraday. The stock retreated 0.6% to 105.08 on Monday. Analysts expect Apple earnings to fall 14% to $2 a share and sales 10% to $51.97 billion, with iPhone unit sales down 21%. On Monday, NXP investors reacted to news that its chips are not in the latest Apple Retina MacBook, according to an iFixit teardown , after having several chips in the 2015 model.   Broadcom ( AVGO ) and Texas Instruments ( TXN ) remain big chip suppliers. Texas Instruments reports earnings on Wednesday. Texas Instruments rose 0.5% Tuesday morning while Broadcom climbed 1.4%.  

Amazon Is Not The Only Name In Online Retail

When investors think about online retail stocks, certainly the first name that comes to mind is retail behemoth Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ). Not only has it surpassed brick-and-mortar competitor Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT ) as the largest global retailer, but in the growing world of online retail, it holds approximately a quarter of the market share . Amazon will report its first quarter earnings on April 28th after the close. Amazon had a streak going of beating earnings until last quarter when it missed analyst expectations by 38%. Going into this quarter, it faces many of the same issues. The company is heavily reinvesting into business: partnering with Air Transport Services Group (NASDAQ: ATSG ) to boost shipping and logistics, buying content for its newly announced stand-alone streaming video service, and investing in new devices such as the Echo. Despite its position as a market leader and its bright growth prospects, as an investment, Amazon stock is down more than 8.5% YTD versus a positive return of 2.5% for the S&P 500 Index. Thanks to an uncertain earnings outlook coupled with a premium P/E ratio of more than 500X earnings, Amazon has failed to beat the market this year. Fortunately, Amazon is not the only name to play in the online retail space. EQM Indexes launched its Online Retail Index ((IBUYXT)) on December 1, 2015. The Index is now being tracked by the Amplify Online Retail ETF (NASDAQ: IBUY ), which launched on April 20 of this year. The index is comprised of a basket of global companies involved in three primary market segments: online retail, online marketplace, and online travel. The index is NOT capitalization weighted which allows equal exposure to other companies in the industry. The Investment Case for Online Retail Almost everyone has purchased merchandise online. Ecommerce is the fastest growing segment of retail sales. Global online sales are expected to grow 117% by 2018 . So as an investment theme, you can make a strong argument that online retail is a good place to have exposure. Online retail exhibits strong growth characteristics, continues to gain market share relative to brick-and-mortar retail, and is expanding globally. Thanks to advantages such as competitive pricing, shopping convenience, greater product selection, and rapid delivery, online commerce appears to be a disruptive technology that is here to stay. The mall isn’t dead, it has just moved online! Other Names in Online Retail Looking at the year-to-date performance of the stocks within the EQM Online Retail Index, Amazon is not even among the top-ten performers. Indeed, many of the top-performing names are companies that 1) US investors only have limited access to, OR 2) are names that they may not be familiar with. Let’s start with the top-performing name in the Index this year aptly named Start Today ( OTCPK:SATLF ), a Japanese e-commerce apparel retailer. The stock, which trades locally in Japan, but also as a U.S. ADR, is up more than 29% on a US dollar basis this year. Online retailer Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK ) is also up more than 24% this year, after posting strong Q4 results in February. Also up in excess of 23% this year is Canadian-based Shopify (NYSE: SHOP ), a leading cloud-based commerce platform designed for small and medium-sized businesses. Clearly, Amazon stock is not the only game in town! Online retail offers a diverse and global set of opportunities. Indeed, retail is not the only industry that has been transformed by online commerce. Online travel has almost put travel agencies out of business by democratizing the price and availability of travel and vacation options. Besides U.S. names in the online travel space such as Priceline (NASDAQ: PCLN ), Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE ), and TripAdvisor (NASDAQ: TRIP ), there are many global players that have delivered strong growth and investment performance. Makemytrip Ltd. (NASDAQ: MMYT ) is an India-based online travel retailer that allows travelers to research and plan trips. One of the key strengths of online commerce is that it is not limited by geographic boundaries. While Makemytrip may cater to specific demographics, its offerings are available around the globe. The stock is up 8.9% YTD. So just like ecommerce offers broad access to all types of merchandise, owning a basket of names in online retail offers diversified exposure to this attractive thematic opportunity. That is not to say that all performance is rosy in online-retail land. Chinese online beauty retailer Jumei International (NYSE: JMEI ), online jewelry retailer Blue Nile (NASDAQ: NILE ), and UK food delivery service Just Eat Plc ( OTC:JSTLF ) are all down in excess of 20% this year as they have struggled to execute. Expect more consolidation in the online retail industry, especially in online travel, as the stronger players gobble up their smaller competitors. Expedia acquired competitor Home Away last December in the online travel space. And Japanese travel booking site Ikyu was purchased by Yahoo! Japan in a deal that closed in February . What about other retail ETFs? Interestingly, while other retail sector ETFs offer broad exposure to traditional retail, their exposure to ecommerce and virtual retail is extremely limited. Look at the limited exposure among retail and internet ETF offerings. ETF Ticker # of Online Retail Stocks % Weight AMZN % Weight Non-US? Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SDPR Fund XLY 5 17.17 11.25 N SPDR S&P Retail ETF XRT 12 11.35 1.17 N PowerShares Dynamic Retail Portfolio PMR 1 3.03 0.00 N Market Vectors Retail ETF RTH 2 19.50 14.95 Y First Trust Dow Jones Internet Index Fund FDN 7 30.55 10.18 N as of 12/31/15 Furthermore, most of these ETFs are U.S. focused and fail to offer exposure to the many non-U.S. companies that are innovators in the space. Conclusion In summary, there are many reasons investors should want exposure to a globally diverse basket of stocks focused on online retail sales, rather than owning just a name or two: Get diversified investment exposure to the fastest growing global segments of online commerce: online retail, online marketplace, and online travel Participate in the accelerating growth potential being fueled by trends such as mobile growth and user-interface innovation Gain access to online retail growth opportunities outside the U.S. At the end of the day, the universe of opportunities is broader and more diverse than just Amazon. Disclosure It is not possible to invest directly in an index. Exposure to an asset class represented by an index is available through investable instruments based on that index. EQM Indexes does not sponsor, endorse, sell, promote or manage any investment fund or other investment vehicle that is offered by third parties and that seeks to provide an investment return based on the performance of any index. EQM Indexes makes no assurance that investment products based on the Index will accurately track index performance or provide positive investment returns. EQM Indexes is not an investment advisor, and makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in any such investment fund or other investment vehicle. A decision to invest in any such investment fund or other investment vehicle should not be made in reliance on any of the statements set forth on this website. Prospective investors are advised to make an investment in any such fund or other vehicle only after carefully considering the risks associated with investing in such funds, as detailed in an offering memorandum or similar document that is prepared by or on behalf of the issuer of the investment fund or other vehicle. Inclusion of a security within an index is not a recommendation by EQM Indexes to buy, sell, or hold such security, nor is it considered to be investment advice. Disclosure: I am/we are long IBUY. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. Editor’s Note: This article discusses one or more securities that do not trade on a major U.S. exchange. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.