Tag Archives: technology

Nice Gouges Verint Systems Share On Emerging Market Shake-Up

Nice Systems ( NICE ) gouged Big Data cybersecurity rival  Verint Systems ‘ ( VRNT ) market share last year, with Nice’s share rising 2% as Verint’s enterprise business lost 12%, Deutsche Bank analyst Nandan Amladi wrote Wednesday. Amladi and Credit Suisse analyst Michael Nemeroff both downgraded Verint stock on Wednesday, after the company late Tuesday posted Q4 and 2016 results that missed expectations and gave 2017 guidance that also lagged views. Intraday on the stock market today , Verint stock plunged 12%, near 31. Nice stock was up a fraction in early afternoon trading Wednesday, near 65. For its fiscal Q4 ended Jan. 31, Verint reported $281.8 million in non-GAAP sales and 90 cents earnings per share ex items, down a respective 10% and 15% year over year. Both measures missed the consensus of seven analysts polled by Thomson Reuters for $318 million and $1.17. On the conference call Tuesday, Verint blamed macroeconomic weakness in emerging markets for the miss. For the year, non-GAAP sales fell 2% to $1.14 billion and EPS ex items fell 9% to $3.04. The consensus modeled $1.17 billion and $3.30. Amladi downgraded Verint stock to neutral from hold and cut his price target to 35 from 50. The emerging markets will continue slowing, and enterprise sales won’t be as strong as Verint suggests, he wrote in a research report. Late Tuesday, Verint guided to a 10%-15% decline in current-quarter security sales, slightly offset by mid- to high-single-digit enterprise sales growth. Fiscal 2017 sales, EPS and margins are expected to be flat. Amladi noted Verint is 50% exposed to the weak emerging-market segment, and that the company’s cyber intelligence head departed in February. Verint hasn’t seen a “blockbuster” deal since a $100 million accord in 2014, and current seven-figure deals are on the government side rather than enterprise, he said. Credit Suisse’s Nemeroff says investors could overlook Verint’s poor revenue guide if the company cut costs to leverage earnings, but adding that such a move “is not their strategy at this time.” Excluding a $150 million, two-year share buyback program — about 7% of Verint’s market cap — growth will stagnate in 2017 for the second year running, Nemeroff wrote in a report. He cut his price target to 29 from 45 and downgraded Verint stock to underperform from neutral. William Blair analyst Jonathan Ho, on the other hand, sees Verint recovering from its poor Q4, the third time in the past four quarters in which Verint either missed expectations or guided down. Investors should take advantage of the cheap valuation, he wrote in a report. “We believe the business should revert to normal,” he wrote. “However, we concede that there is a significant amount of macro uncertainty based on factors that could affect the timing of a rebound that are outside the company’s control.” Ho reiterated an outperform rating on Verint stock. Image provided by Shutterstock .

Intercept Pharma Gets Dueling Initiation Reports As FDA Panel Nears

Shares of biotech Intercept Pharmaceuticals ( ICPT ) were up in twice-average volume Wednesday, after two analysts launched coverage ahead of a crucial FDA panel vote. Credit Suisse’s Alethia Young initiated with a buy rating, while Salveen Richter at Goldman Sachs initiated with a neutral rating, though they agreed on the general outlines of the investment thesis. Intercept’s lead drug candidate, obeticholic acid (OCA), is up for an FDA advisory committee discussion on April 7 as a treatment for primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), a rare, chronic liver disease. If approved by the FDA’s May 29 deadline, it would be Intercept’s first commercial product. Young estimates that annual sales for obeticholic acid could hit $259 million in 2018, though Richter forecasts it at only $170 million at peak. Both analysts, however, agree that the really big potential market for OCA is in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a much more common liver disease without a current treatment. That could draw $3.5 billion a year, Richter estimates, but that’s a ways in the future: The next batch of data from the NASH clinical trial isn’t expected until 2018. Between the panel meeting and the NASH data, Richter sees “a dearth of catalysts” to drive Intercept’s stock, leading him to set his price target at 114. Young, however, says approval and launch for treatment of PBC, both in the U.S. and Europe, could provide more upside for the stock. Her peak sales estimate in NASH is almost twice Richter’s at $6.5 billion. She set her price target at 200. Intercept stock rose 5% in early trading on the stock market today , but by early afternoon it was up 1%, near 125.50. Shares hit a 19-month high above 314 last May.

Like Apple, Google Android Said Ordered To Unlock Smartphones

Apple ( AAPL ) isn’t the only tech giant to face government demands to unlock cellphones. Alphabet ( GOOGL ) unit Google reportedly has been ordered to help federal agents open cellphones in seven states. The American Civil Liberties Union found 63 instances stretching back to 2008 where the government sought a court order to help it access data from a locked cellphone, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Apple’s first iPhone was released in mid-2007. Details of the cases came after the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday told a federal judge that it no longer needed to compel Apple to help unlock  the password-protected iPhone 5C used by Syed Farook, one of the two now-deceased shooters in the San Bernardino, Calif., massacre. The DOJ said the FBI was able to access data on the iPhone with the assistance of an unidentified outside party, without Apple’s help. Apple had argued that a court order forcing it to write software to bypass its own security protections would have set a dangerous precedent. Creating a “back door” for the government’s use would have made all iPhones more vulnerable to hackers, criminals and spies, the company said. Google told the WSJ: “We carefully scrutinize subpoenas and court orders to make sure they meet both the letter and spirit of the law. However, we’ve never received an All Writs Act order like the one Apple recently fought that demands we build new tools that actively compromise our products’ security. … We would strongly object to such an order.” Google is among the many tech companies that have backed Apple in its fight with the FBI. The ACLU, though, says the All Writs Act was used in the Google cases, which involve investigations by the FBI, Secret Service, Homeland Security Department, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Land Management, the WSJ said. Prosecutors have sought to use the All Writs Act, a law from the 18 th  century, to compel the smartphone makers to allow access to data, unleashing a massive privacy debate. The first cases relying on the All Writs Act date back to 2008. In one of the Google cases, a 2015 drug investigation in California, prosecutors got a court order compelling Google to provide assistance in getting data from an Alcatel and a Kyocera cellphone, that used Google’s Android operating system, the WSJ said, citing court records. The ACLU found Google was also the subject of All Writs Act cases in Alabama, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon and South Dakota, according to the report. A court filing last month from Apple indicated there were about a dozen cases in which the Justice Department was pursuing similar orders involving Apple iPhones. Google’s Android is an open source operating system that runs on phones manufactured by a number of companies, while Apple’s iOS is used just on its iPhones. Apple stock was up 1% in early afternoon trading in the stock market today , near 109. Alphabet stock was up a fraction, near 771.