FC Member Blog

Michael Wachs

BY michael wachs michael wachs | 08-14-2009 | 10:07 AM

This blog is written by a member of our blogging community and expresses that member's views alone.

What should investors look for this week? The earnings calendar will be
light again, as equity and bond markets will be closed for Good Friday,
but look for reports from Alcoa (NYSE: AA) and retailer Bed Bath &
Beyond (NASDAQ: BBBY) Tuesday after the close followed by Genentech
(NYSE: DNA) Thursday after the bell.

MICHAEL WACHS CEOCAST NEWS

Roughly 19% of the S&P 500, or 95 companies, are due to report
results this week, including 12 Dow components. While those individual
companies may do just fine, the overall earnings reporting period is
expected to be pretty bleak. S&P 500 growth in the first quarter is
currently forecast at 3.3%, according to the latest Thomson Financial
estimates. That's the worst its been in 3.5 years and far below the
historic average. Even when you factor in that reported earnings tend
to beat estimates by around 3 percent, earnings are still on track to
grow less than 10%, breaking a double-digit percentage streak that's
gone back for 14 quarters.

MICHAEL WACHS CEOCAST INC IAS
Energy, Inc. (OTCBB: IASCA), which has an option to acquired up to a
100% interest in an Chinese Internet company, filed its financial
results for the three months ended July 31, 2008. While revenue was
$5,407 during the quarter, it is important to remember that the company
is winding down its oil operations and continues to aggressively expand
its interest in Power Telecom Limited, which entirely owns
www.video1314.com, a Hong Kong based company that is a Chinese Web 2.0
platform similar to YouTube. IASCA now owns a 60% interest in Video1314
and the website is averaging more than half a million visits each day.
The company plans to grow the number of monthly hits to 50 million by
the end of 2008 through the introduction of more user-friendly
interfaces in the near future. Once again, we remind investors that
just 2 years ago, Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion and that
www.video1314.com is planning to greatly expand upon the functionality
offered by YouTube. The stock ended the week at $0.18, down 4 cents.

CEOCAST AND MICHAEL WACHS BUSINESS