Topic: Growth Stocks

Stock Pickers Digest Hotline – Friday, December 19, 2008

Article Excerpt

ADOBE SYSTEMS INC. $22.13, symbol ADBE on Nasdaq, rose as high as $24 this week after reporting record earnings in the latest quarter. Excluding one-time items, earnings per share in the three months ended November 28, 2008 rose 22.4%, to $0.60 from $0.49 a year earlier. Revenues rose 0.5%, to $915.3 million from $911.2 million. In the latest quarter, slower than anticipated sales of Adobe’s new Creative Suite 4 software dampened sales. The stronger U.S. dollar also hurt Adobe’s revenues. The company now gets more than half of its revenues from outside the U.S., so a higher dollar lowers the contribution of foreign sales. In response to slower sales expected in 2009, Adobe will now cut 600 jobs (8% of its workforce) and reduce expenses such as travel costs. Adobe holds cash of $2 billion or $3.82 a share. Long-term debt of $350 million is a low 3% of its market cap of $11.5 billion. That gives the company plenty of room…