Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: TiVo, The DIRECTV Group, Comcast Corp., Cox Radio and Citi Trends

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: TiVo, Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), The DIRECTV Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: DTV), Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA), Cox Radio, Inc. (NYSE: CXR) and Citi Trends, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTRN).

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Here are highlights from Thursday’s Analyst Blog:

TiVo Not on Fast-Forward

TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO) faces increasing competition from cable and satellite providers, who have also begun offering DVR services with its digital cable in one set-top box at no upfront costs, and at comparable monthly subscription rates. Despite superior functionality, TiVo's market share has shrunk since.

Aggravating the share loss, The DIRECTV Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: DTV), which accounts for 2.8 million or nearly two-thirds of TiVo's subscriber base, began to offer a second competing HD DVR last year. As a result, TiVo has experienced large subscriber attrition.

Its new licensing deals with Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and Cox Radio, Inc. (NYSE: CXR) seem very unlikely to fill the subscriber and revenue gap left by the loss of DIRECTV, while TiVo's new TV ratings monitoring service, Stop||Watch will take many quarters to gain acceptance by all the major networks.

Citi Trends Down, Still Not Cheap

Citi Trends, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTRN) reported weak third-quarter sales results and issued disappointing guidance. Sales were up 5.4%, about $7 million below our estimate. Citi Trends' third-quarter EPS guidance is a net loss of $0.09 to $0.13 per share, well below our previous estimate of a net loss of $0.02 per share. We are lowering 2008 EPS estimate from $1.16 to $0.94 and our 2009 EPS estimate from $1.30 to $1.01.

Coming into the third quarter, we believed that business would deteriorate in the second half of the year. However, we are surprised at the severity of the downturn.

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