"We maintain our 'neutral' rating on Crocs given our long-term concerns about the sustainability of the company's industry leading earnings-before-interest-and-taxes margins and return on investment capital," said Cowen in a research report.
But Freddie George at Seymour Pierce kept his hold rating on the business: We are not making any changes to our 2009/10 pre-tax profit forecasts of £625m leading to earnings per share of 24.5p and we are retaining our hold recommendation.
Indeed, in the recent past a full range of banking "experts" have greatly underestimated the negative impact of falling net interest income (and thus greatly overestimated banks' earning power) as the interest-rate environment became unfavorable, leading to earnings shortfalls and highlighting poor capital allocation.
After the market closed Thursday the company announced its fiscal 2011 first-quarter sales increased 50.6% to $1 billion, from $664.2 million, leading to earnings of $137.6 million, or 23 cents per share, from last year's loss of $201.3 million, or 37 cents per share.
Barclays said: Arm's equity story will continue to be one based on strong top-line growth contributing to sector-leading earnings and cash flow growth.
Credit Suisse was more positive, starting coverage with an outperform rating and 400p target price: We see synergy potential substantially above management guidance not priced in by the market which, together with industrial volume growth should drive peer-leading earnings growth over the next two years.
Yet, analysts are now much more accurately predicting Apple's earnings, leading to misses with profits of $8.2 billion for last quarter.
He's expecting CBG to post sector-leading earnings-per-share growth this year and looks for continued modest margin expansion.
Indeed, if pensions were provided in the private sector they would have to be capitalized, which would require higher contributions and therefore lower cash earnings, leading to still greater pressures for higher pay.
Caterpillars fourth quarter, while well ahead of expectations, saw its profits buried by reduced dealer inventories, leading to an earnings drop of 64.9%.
