Tag Archives: technology

Sucampo Q4 Beats Estimates, Affirms Guidance, Driving Up Stock

Sucampo Pharmaceuticals ( SCMP ) popped to a two-month high Tuesday after its Q4 earnings beat estimates. Sucampo said it made 43 cents a share in the quarter, excluding one-time items, up 108% from the year-earlier quarter. That beat analysts’ consensus of 19 cents, according to Thomson Reuters. On a GAAP basis, Sucampo made 23 cents a share. Sales climbed 47% to $55.4 million, about $13 million above consensus. For the full year, Sucampo made 95 cents a share, up 136% from 2014, while revenue rose 33% to $153.2 million. For the current year, the company affirmed its previous guidance of 97 cents to $1.07 in EPS on sales of $195 million to $205 million. Sucampo stock jumped almost 15% in early trading to 16, its highest point since Jan. 5, but closed up just 4.3% at 14.54. The company’s lead drug Amitiza provided most of the revenue, with prescriptions growing 10% over Q4 2014 to 390,228. Sucampo’s income derives from royalties paid by its partners, Takeda in the U.S. and Mylan ( MYL ) in Japan; Sucampo also took a $5 million milestone payment from Mylan in the quarter as part of their partnership. The Q4 results included the acquisition of R-Tech Ueno in December, which gave Sucampo a greater share in Amitiza’s global economics as well as some pipeline products. “The key revenue driver, Amitiza, is doing better than we expected outside the U.S., and even in the U.S. sales remained strong as the end-market sales reported by Takeda for royalty calculation were $102.3 million vs. our estimate of $98.2 million,” wrote UBS analyst Ami Fadia in a research note. “4Q 2015 was the first reported quarter that included the R-Tech deal and we are starting to see the improvement in earnings we were expecting from this deal.” Guggenheim analyst Louise Chen lowered her 2016 earnings estimate slightly due to the guidance, but said several factors could provide upside this year: M&A, data readouts on some pipeline products this year, and new formulations and indications for Amitiza, which is currently used for constipation. She estimated that Sucampo has the financial capacity to make a buyout in the $400 million to $500 million range.  

5 Top-Rated Chip Stocks: Are They Buys After Rough Market Day?

Semiconductor stocks are broadly down as major stock market indexes slip. Even top-rated chipmakers gave back gains in Tuesday afternoon trading. Some are near buy points, with the overall market still in a confirmed uptrend — but touchy amid weak China trade news and other economic concerns. In context, the profit-taking in chip stocks follows their 20% rally off February lows. Macom Technology ( MTSI ), an IBD Leaderboard stock and one of many Apple ( AAPL ) suppliers, was down 4% in afternoon trading in the stock market today , putting it just below buy range from a double-bottom base with a buy point of 41.42. Macom makes radio frequency chips for networks and cellular systems, among other things. It’s still up 8% this month. Broadcom ( AVGO ) gapped up Friday after its strong earnings report , and the IBD 50 stock is now logging a second day easing from that jump. It’s in buy range above a 138.79 buy point from a double-bottom base. Broadcom, recently merged with Avago Technologies, sells a broad range of analog and digital chip solutions. And it’s another supplier to Apple, which has an expected iPhone SE reveal event March 21 . Cirrus Logic ( CRUS ), a fabless chip supplier and yet another vendor to Apple, is trading about 9% under a potential buy point from a nine-month consolidation pattern, after its 4.5% drop intraday Tuesday. Mellanox Technologies ( MLNX ) was down almost 1% in afternoon trading, in buy range from a cup-with-handle base. The Apple supplier has given back early-March gains the last four days, after gapping up sharply in late February. Mellanox sells high-performance, end-to-end interconnect solutions for data center servers and storage systems. Nvidia ( NVDA ), down a little over 1% Tuesday and now about 6% under a buy point, is a maker of graphics chips used in gaming and with a growing specialty helping to power self-driving cars and advanced car safety systems. The IBD 50 company is a partner to electric car maker  Tesla Motors ( TSLA ), among many other auto manufacturers, with its technology going into Tesla’s big-screen infotainment consoles. Chip Stock Charts As the market has recovered, many chipmakers have moved above their key 50-day moving averages. In this video, we cover how some top-ranked semiconductor stocks opened the week, through Monday’s closing bell: Loading the player…   IBD’s Electronics-Semiconductor Manufacturing industry group was down 2% intraday Tuesday, while the S&P 500 index was off nearly 1%. RELATED: Samsung Galaxy S7: Qualcomm, Qorvo Displace Cirrus Logic, Broadcom

Artificial Intelligence A Job Killer? Software Developers Fear So

Software developers fear that the rise of artificial intelligence might take away their jobs. That came out as the top worry of the biggest percentage of respondents to a survey of 550 software developers, conducted by research firm Evans Data. In the survey, 29% of the engineers agreed with the statement that their top fear is “I and my development efforts are replaced by artificial intelligence.” This was more troublesome than their software platform becoming obsolete, which was the second-most-cited worry at 23%, or that the new platforms they’re focusing on fail to gain market acceptance, at 14%. According to the survey, the thought of obsolescence due to AI also was more threatening than becoming old without a pension, being stifled at work by bad managers or by seeing their skills becoming irrelevant. While the developers who worried about AI were found across industries and platforms, one strong correlation was that they were more likely to self-identify with being loners rather than team players. Decades of research and billions of dollars have been poured into the development of artificial intelligence, which is quickly expanding from the tech elite to the smallest startups. Facebook ( FB ), Alphabet ( GOOGL ) and IBM ( IBM ) among other tech leaders have big ambitions for pushing the envelope of artificial intelligence. Facebook is using AI to decipher the best ways to bring Internet service to remote areas of the world and to make its News Feed feature more relevant to users of the social network. Alphabet is using it to enhance Google search abilities, improve voice recognition and to derive more data from images and video. IBM, which has perhaps the deepest investments and most far-reaching ability of any company in the field, now offers AI services through its cloud-based platform, used by companies to improve business decisions and operations, based on its Watson cognitive computing platform. More than 500 companies have deals with IBM to use Watson cloud services to develop commercial products and apps. Since 2010, AI startups have received $967 million in funding, according to CB Insights. Among the most active investors is Intel ( INTC ), which has invested in 16 AI companies.