Insiders' Blog

Tiffany & Co. (NYSE: TIF) and Signet Jewelers (NYSE: SIG) are both up on the session Wednesday following positive results from peer Zale Corp (NYSE: ZLC) earlier.

Zale reported surprise Q3 EPS of 13 cents, versus expectations calling for a loss of 2 cents per share. Comps rose 2.6 percent on a constant-currency basis.

News comes as Signet is expected to report Q1 results Thursday morning. The Street sees EPS of $1.11 on revs of $1.02 billion, versus EPS of 96 cents and revs of $900 million in the same period last year.

Both Tiffany and Signet are up about 0.5 percent on the session.

As prices of low-end 14-inch capacitive touchscreen display panels move lower, its expected that touchscreen-enabled notebook PCs will occupy 24.6 percent of global notebook shipments by 2016.

IHS (NYSE: IHS) iSuppli said shipments of touchscreen notebooks will rip over 400 percent to 24 million units this year, moving to 78 million by 2016.

Prices on the 14-inch capacitive touchscreen display panels will fall from around $65 last year down to $35 per unit in 2013.

Speaking at the Society for Information Display (SID) IHS/SID 2013 Business Conference, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) VP of Global Ecosystem Development Zane Ball commented, "Touch displays are reinventing the PC market and there is a substantial growth opportunity in this area...At Intel, we have adopted a strategy that touch should be everywhere. We believe that as touch moves into the PC space, it will be a transformative product and will unlock new demand."

Ball noted that mobile PC designs utilizing its Haswell chipset were already underway.

Intel said it had to do a little convincing with its supply chain that PC demand was still there and is confident that consumers will clamor for touch-technology in any number of mobile form factors.

Shares of Intel are up 1.4 percent Wednesday.

Whole Foods Market, Inc. (Nasdaq: WFM) is hanging in positive territory Wednesday following a discussion between co-CEO Walt Robb and stock sage Jim Cramer Tuesday night.

Gross margins are "steadily increasing" for Whole Foods, Robb noted. He feels like a goal of 1,000 location might also prove conservative for the company given recent activity. Whole Foods has a three-year pipeline of stores in the works and he is excited about the prospects moving forward.

Three key elements for Whole Foods have been diversity of its product range, increased promotions, and competitive pricing, Robb said. He feels that customers appreciate the high standards of Whole Foods given its solid 30-year history.

Cramer continues recommending Whole Foods.

Whole Foods reported Q2 EPS of 76 cents on revs of $3.03 billion with comps increasing 6.9 percent. Numbers compared to consensus views calling for EPS of 73 cents and revs of $3.03 billion. Shares are up over 13 percent since the May 7th report.

Looking to stave off concerns that competition will eat its lunch, Pandora Media (NYSE: P) took being social with music to the next level: the addition of Facebook (Nasdaq: FB).

In an earlier release, Pandora said it was releasing a new Timeline App for Facebook. The app will allow listeners on both mobile and web "to automatically publish their music activity to their Facebook Timeline and curate their musical identity within the Music section for timeline," Pandora noted.

Notaby, Pandora said it has 200 million registered users, but its latest monthly update said active listeners were closer to 70.1 million at the end of April.

Shares of Pandora are up 2.2 percent Wednesday. Earlier, Needham & Co. raised its price target on the company by $4 to $20, while Albert Fried downgraded Pandora from Overweight to Market Perform.

Yesterday it was learned that Sony's (NYSE: SNE) board is considering spinning the company's entertainment arm, an idea that was proposed by hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb of Third Point. According to reports, Sony's board may have already had discussions, though apparently they will now take a more formal look at Loeb's idea.

Previous comments from Sony suggested it was not open to splitting its businesses, but apparently that is no longer the case. However, despite the market's reaction to the news, many insiders are not holding their breath Sony will untimely decide on a breakup.

Commenting, Sony chief executive Kazuo Hirai said, "We will engage in thorough discussions at the board level to decide on Sony's response. It is an important matter that relates to Sony's core businesses and management, so the board must hold ample discussions."

Hirai stressed that talks are still in early stages, and it remains unclear how serious Sony's board is. Many are wondering if Sony's board is simply being polite to the American. Interestingly, Mr. Loeb hand delivered the proposal to Mr. Hirai, showing his respect for the countries complex culture.

In comments made on May 15th, JPMorgan analyst JJ Park said the recent share price spike was "overblown."

"We also believe that the value of Sony's entertainment and financial arms could significantly increase if they were spun-off. However, the market doesn't account for potential negative value of remaining CE businesses. Hence, recent share price hike on the news appears to be overblown, in our view," said Park.

Goldman Sachs analyst Takashi Watanabe put it this way - "Even if Sony had cash from a hypothetical sale of movies and music, we do not currently see any potential electronics investments that could deliver higher returns. Given this, we believe it would make more sense under present conditions for Sony to keep the entertainment businesses and their potential contributions to operating profits and cash flow."

Sony's stock is higher by 36% in the past 30 day, so clearly many are betting Loeb will be successful. Hopefully, for investors' sake, he will be successful at more than just spurring polite discussions.