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[link widoczny dla zalogowanych] Fighting the proposed ban([link widoczny dla zalogowanych])
Newark Star-Ledger: ([link widoczny dla zalogowanych])Newport-brand cigarettes have a long-standing, deep-rooted tradition of sleaze. It dates back to the 1950s, when the brand deliberately tried to entice black children into smoking by handing them free samples.
And it continues today. Lorillard Inc., which makes Newport ― the country’s most popular brand of menthol cigarettes ― is engaged in an all-out war to prevent the feds from banning menthol cigarettes([link widoczny dla zalogowanych]).
The company has already bought up Internet domain names like MentholKillsMinorities.com, in an effort to pre-empt health advocates. ([link widoczny dla zalogowanych])Even sneakier is its use of an African-American public relations consultant, Charlotte Roy. Her firm is paid by Lorillard, but she doesn’t feel a need to mention that when she contacts media outlets,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], The Wall Street Journal reported.
Short-sellers and hedge funds may be shadowy,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but sometimes they are the smartest guys in the room. They've done their homework, and they're willing to bet their capital against the crowd -- an investing strategy that can be as lucrative as it is contrarian.
On Motley Fool CAPS, we've also got leading analysts who find the chinks in a company's armor and correctly call its fall. Our "Underdogs" have earned 100 or more CAPS points by correctly predicting that one or more stocks would underperform the market. However, we're going to focus on the stocks these top members expect will outperform the market. If these CAPS investors have scored big by correctly predicting which stocks will fail, it may be worth our while to see which others they think will succeed.
Underdog
Member Rating
Company
CAPS Rating
(out of 5)
noirblood
98.76
Altria (NYSE: MO)
****
gyrodynasty
98.71
Boyd Gaming (NYSE: BYD)
***
Plumbroke200
99.14
Visa (NYSE: V)
****
Not every short sale goes as planned, making shorting a risky proposition. Stock prices can be irrational longer than you have money to stay in the game. So don't use this as a list of stocks to sell or buy -- just the launching pad for further research.
Underdogs still wag their tails
The bounce back to luxury that has helped Coach, Tiffany, and other high-end goods companies could be the key to a surprising quarter for cigarette maker Altria. Throughout the recession it has faced tough competition from the cheaper brands of Reynolds American and Lorillard.
But even as they rail against the evils of smoking, state and local governments use consumer loyalty to raise revenue through tax hikes on tobacco products. They know consumers will continue to pay, regardless. Yet the confiscatory rates are reducing the overall tobacco industry size, but Altria's premium Marlboro brand still has been able to increase its share of the market.
Altria has resisted cutting prices on its brand, and in fact has raised prices on some brands. With earnings scheduled for release tomorrow, we'll get to see whether consumers' willingness to pay up for luxury goods includes premium brand cigarettes.
CAPS member bobSaysRelax says if the do-gooders in Congress carry through on their threat to ban menthol cigarettes,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Altria will be better positioned than Lorillard.
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Strongest tobacco maker who sells necessities. Regardless of the taxes, their loyal and addicted customers will continue to buy. May benefit strongly if govt bans menthol cigarettes, much safer play than [Lorillard].
Let us know on the Altria CAPS page whether the cigarette maker will smoke analyst estimates.
Doubling down
While the Chinese gambling mecca of Macau is booming again, the stateside destinations of Las Vegas and Atlantic City are still in the dumps. The Vegas strip saw gambling revenue fall 4% in November, while Atlantic City was down 13% in December. For Boyd Gaming, New Jersey's takeover of some Atlantic City operations can't come quick enough.
New Jersey's governor is poised to take over the policing, land use, and development around Atlantic City's gambling houses, both on the Boardwalk and elsewhere. Looking to create a city-within-a-city, Chris Christie wants to turn these erstwhile municipal functions over to an independent authority to create a family friendly zone. While the city's crime rate is well below the national averages, visitors still don't want to venture too far away from the casinos.
The plan reminds me of when New York City altered what was once a seedy 42d St., filled with peep shows, sex shops, and other gritty denizens, into a bright, fun strip with tourist destinations. A Disneyfication, if you will (the company led the way in redeveloping the area), but that's still a long way off for Atlantic City. In the meantime, Boyd, which is a 50% owner of the Borgata in Atlantic City, is facing the departure of its co-owner, MGM Resorts.
That could be why CAPS member Senescent thinks there's more hope in Vegas bolstering Boyd's business.
General cheapness and Vegas recovery. Two ways takeover potential-attractive to someone like Icahn who might need Boyd management to help with Fontainebleau-also might be able to pick up some Station assets cheaply
Add the stock to your watchlist and have all the Foolish news and analysis about it gathered in one place.
A well-dressed opportunity
We all know that paying with credit is like a time bomb waiting to go off in our wallets. Better for you to use cash, or your local bank's debit card. The Federal Reserve, however, dropped a bunker buster on Visa and Mastercard last month when it proposed limiting debit-card interchange fees to some 80% below what's currently charged.
Interchange fees are the small amounts Visa and MasterCard charge merchants each time you swipe a card. The Fed's move is not a direct assault on their business, rather it's going to make big banks less willing to issue the branded debit cards that now litter our purses. While that is a risk,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], I'm find myself agreeing with X4GG who calls the worries overblown: "Great business model with large moat. Spits out free cashflow like crazy. Currently cheap as concerns over debit card ruling are overblown."
There's no need to fear ...
Underdogs often shine brightest with their backs against the wall. Still, it takes more than a few All-Star picks and a quick paragraph to make buy or sell decisions. Start your own research on these stocks on Motley Fool CAPS where your opinion can still save the day. While there,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], you can read a company's financial reports,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], scrutinize key data and charts, and examine the comments your fellow investors have made, all from a stock's CAPS page.
Roy arranged for Niger Innis, national spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality, to speak out against a menthol ban. He told Chicago radio listeners it could result in an underground market and would be “taking away a legal preference and choice for African Americans.”([link widoczny dla zalogowanych])
What bunk, says Reginald Jackson, executive director of the Black Ministers Council of New Jersey.
For Lorillard, the Best Defense is a Handful of Domain Names
Who knew? Lorillard, maker of the popular menthol cigarette brand Newport, which accounts for 90 percent of its sales,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], is apparently pretty savvy about the Internets... for an old-line cigarette manufacturer([link widoczny dla zalogowanych]). (The company is America's oldest tobacco company).
This savvy surely explains why the company wasted no time snapping up the domain names MentholKillsMinorities.com, MentholAddictsYouth.com and FDAMustBanMenthol.com while battling the Food and Drug Administration over the safety of menthol cigarettes.
According to The Wall Street Journal, ([link widoczny dla zalogowanych])the battle heats up next week when a special FDA committee reviews data related to menthol tobacco products. The panel is scheduled to make a determination in March.
Of course, Lorillard was well-ahead of the curve on this according to the Journal.
Lorillard's domain-buying binge began last February, a few weeks before the FDA committee first convened. On Feb. 24, ([link widoczny dla zalogowanych])Lorillard registered about 50 variations of the term "menthol," including the dot-com,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], dot-net and dot-org versions of KillerMenthol, BanMenthol and MentholKills.
The domain registrations are disturbing to William S. Robinson, executive director of the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network in Durham,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], N.C. It "makes me mad that they would declare war in a quiet way on those who are trying to protect the public health,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]," he says.
Critics have long claimed that menthol cigarette manufacturers target minorities above and beyond other smokers and, further, that the cigarettes are more harmful than regular cigarettes.([link widoczny dla zalogowanych]) I remember being very concerned about crystallizing my lungs" with menthol cigarettes back in my early smoking days, and that was in the 80s. Is it true? Can we really say Lorillard's Newport brand target minorities,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], particularly African Americans?
Sure, some of their ads do feature African Ameri......cans. Yeah, like that one. But look,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], that's from 1970 and...Okay, well, maybe that's from the 1980s,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but still...Hey! It looks like that dude from the 70s ad might have scored!
Oh no, speaking of scoring...Wow. I mean, I guess the good thing is that the guy can smoke a pack of Newports and still play basketball... on ice? In the world of Lorillard do all black people carry around basketballs in the snow?
And then this...I'd like to have been in the creative presentation meeting with the ad agency and Lorillard execs when this ad was approved: "See,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the message here is universal and aspirational: ([link widoczny dla zalogowanych])When you smoke Newport, you become like tiny black people who, between smokes, like to frolic with a giant football." LOL,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]! Okay, Lorillard. Good one!
Of course, to be fair, not all Newport ads target minorities. This one apparently targets the highly-coveted rugged seafaring captain from Gloucester, MA demographic. The only problem with this demographic is they tend to perish while fishing for swordfish in unusually intense storm conditions in the Atlantic.
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