Stock Watch - 04/16/2007

I’m happy to annouce the Derrich.com Stock Portfolio is up again this week (as of the close of trading on Friday, April 13th). The portfolio welcomed 2 stocks on April 6th: COH (NYSE) and FMS (NYSE), up 1.15% and 1.22% respectively since April 5th. Not counting the addition of these two stocks, the portfolio is up 15.31%.

So due to the “newness” of our two picks, the overall gain is currently 10.47%…and hopefully climbing.

Coach Downgraded, Still A Top Performer
Despite what some consider discouraging news, the downgrading of Coach (via Forbes.com) by Standard & Poor’s Equity Research analyst, Marie Driscoll, is still underscored by good news. Driscoll downgraded the stock to “hold” from “buy”, arguing that shares are approaching her 12-month target price of $53. The article goes on to say that

[Driscoll] still sees Coach as the leading U.S.-leading positioned accessories brand executing on multiple growth levers with acumen…and thinks the shares are fairly valued at current levels, noting that the stock is now at a 40%-plus premium to apparel retail peers and a 70% premium to the S&P 500, based on calendar 2007 estimates.

Sounds good to me. If you haven’t gotten into Coach at this point, wait for a stock sale. I wouldn’t let these comments discourage you from a future purchase.

Google Keeps DoubleClick Out Of Microsoft’s Hands & Jumps Further Ahead Of Yahoo!
What a move by Google. Just when I thought Yahoo! might be making up some ground, Google shocks the world yet again. After the questionable $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube last year, Google outbid Microsoft for DoubleClick by bidding $3.1 billion for the online advertising company. No doubt that the combination will significantly expand opportunities for advertisers, agencies, and publishers and improve users’ online experience as stated in Friday’s DoubleClick Press Release. FYI, AOL and MySpace are two of DoubleClick’s major customers.

In an article released late yesterday at MarketWatch.com, Microsoft basically suggested that the purchase of DoubleClick should raise antitrust and privacy concerns. The Wall Street Journal quoted Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, as saying

Google’s purchase of DoubleClick combines the two largest providers of online advertising delivery and is going to reduce substantially the market competition on which Web sites rely on to provide advertising…taken together, Google and DoubleClick would handle more than 80% of the advertisements served up to third-party Web sites when a user pulls up a page, the Journal reported.

Other companies also expressed their concerns in the purchase including AT&T, Inc., Time Warner, Inc.

According to Larry Dignan from ZDNet.com, “Google just validated Yahoo’s display business, which just a year ago was the ugly stepsister of keyword ads”. Hopefully the market won’t lose faith in Yahoo! and its online ad campaign…not before the end of the year, when Google hopes to finalize the purchase of DoubleClick.

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