Filed under: Products and services, Competitive strategy, Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Marketing and advertising, McDonald’s (MCD), Yum Brands (YUM), Battle of the Brands

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and check out other Battle of the Brands posts.

Businesswise, it’s no real competition between Subway and Quiznos. Subway, the number 1 sub sandwich chain, claims to have more than 29,000 locations in 86 countries, earning more than $11 billion in 2007. Quiznos, on the other hand, has more than 5,000 locations in 20 countries, earning $130 million in 2004, making it a distant number 2. In fact, Subway is the third largest fast-food chain globally after Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM) (Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, etc.) with 34,000 locations and McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD), with 31,000 locations.

Both Subway and Quiznos are privately owned, franchise fast-food chains. While Quiznos is a limited liability company controlled by chairman Rick Schaden and his family, Subway is a wholly owned subsidiary of Doctor’s Associates, Inc., a company founded in 1965 by Fred De Luca and Dr. Peter Buck specifically to oversee the Subway chain of restaurants.

Subway menus vary by store. For instance, its restaurants in Muslim countries serve Halal menu, and Subway has kosher restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, Kansas City, and a suburb of Cleveland. All locations feature submarine sandwiches, ranging from four-inch “mini subs” to its three-foot giant subs. Popular sandwiches include Turkey Breast, Italian BMT, and the Subway Club. All of Quiznos’ sandwiches are served toasted, and its best-sellers include the Classic Italian, the Mesquite Chicken with Bacon, the Prime Rib Cheesesteak, the Chicken Carbonara. Last fall Quzinos introduced flatbread “sammies.”

When it comes to advertising, Quzinos has been all over the map, including ads featuring a man suckled at a mom wolf’s teat, speaking “Baby Bob” ads, a dig at its larger rival with ads featuring a “Wrong Way” restaurant — and then there were the creepy but short-lived Spongmonkey ads. Subway’s best-known spokesman is Jared Fogle, who in 1999 is said to have lost 245 pounds on a diet featuring Subway sandwiches.

But don’t think that the smaller Quzinos has had no influence on Subway. In 2003, when most Subway locations switched their beverage contracts from PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) products to Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) products, Coca-Cola helped pay for the initial rollout of toaster ovens to Subway restaurants in North America, This granted customers the option to have sandwiches toasted, in response to increased competition from Quiznos.

But the real competition is not between one company and another, but between their product offerings. Who has the tastiest offerings? Who provides the ideal value? Vote in our poll and let us know what you think.

Vote in our poll for Subway or Quiznos as your preferred brand, and let us know in the comments why you love it.

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sonchat writes with news that Nevada’s “Gov. Jim Gibbons intends to bill the widow of missing multimillionaire adventurer Steve Fossett for $687,000 the state spent in searching for the famed aviator last fall, a spokesman stated.” Though is some places, charging for the cost of a search effort is routine, apparently in Nevada it isn’t.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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OshMan writes “University of Pennsylvania’s ModLab is doing some interesting stuff with modular robots. In this case involving totally no weapons! An example clip on YouTube shows one of their cluster robots re-assembling itself after being kicked apart. For more information about the program check out their site. So let the Borg and Terminator jokes begin!”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Filed under: Major movement, Earnings reports, Good news, Industry, Centex Corp (CTX), Options, Technical Analysis, Housing

Centex Corp. (NYSE: CTX) shares opened lower today, but have risen throughout the day, even after the company posted a fourth-quarter loss of $911 million, or $7.34 per share, well below analyst estimates of a $2.43 per-share loss. Revenue tumbled 37% for the quarter to $2.31 billion, as CTX cut its average selling price 15% to help build up sales. Investors must believe that the worst is over for CTX. If you think this stock won’t be falling too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged play on CTX.

After hitting a one-year high of $49.85 last Might, the stock hit a one-year low of $17.77 in November. This morning, CTX opened at $20.02. So far this day the stock has hit a low of $19.79 and a high of $22.25. As of 12:15, CTX is trading at $21.92, down 1.10 (-5.3%). The chart for CTX looks bearish and steady, while S&P gives the stock a neutral 3 Stars (out of 5) Hold rating.

For a bearish hedged play on this stock, I would think about a June bull-put credit spread below the $17.50 range. A bull-put credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of put options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn’t do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we’ll make an 11.1% return in two months as long as CTX is above $17.50 at June expiration. Centex would have to fall by more than 20% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.

CTX hasn’t been above $17.50 at all in the past year and has shown support around $19.50 recently. This trade could be risky if the US housing market gets even worse, but even if that happens, this stock might even rise, judging by today’s action.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer.

DISCLOSURE: Mr. Archer owns and/or controls diversified portfolios of long and short stock and option positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about. At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls positions in CTX.

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Filed under: Before the bell, Earnings reports, Forecasts, Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Market matters, Chevron Corp (CVX), Comcast Cl’A’ (CMCSA), Sun Microsystems (JAVA), Economic data, Housing, Federal Reserve

The market hasn’t seemed to have fully made up its mind yet regarding Wednesday’s Federal Reserve announcement about its policy. While stocks shot up immediately after the announcement, markets completed the Wednesday in the red. Still, this morning stocks futures edged higher as investors not only continued to digest the news, but awaited several more economic reports. The Bank of England saying the worst of the credit crisis may be over, definitely helps boost sentiment this morning.

Indeed, stocks ended Wednesday’s session lower despite the Dow topping 13,000 briefly after the Fed’s statement. It seemed also investors were divided, some preferring the Fed to signal clearly a pause in rate cuts so the dollar would gain strength and halt the rise in commodity prices and hence inflationary pressures. Meanwhile others were more concerned about the economy and perhaps preferred either a more positive language regarding the economy or indications of further measure. Regardless, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 11.81 points, or 0.09%, and the S&P 500 index shed 5.35 points, or 0.38%. The Nasdaq dropped 13 points, or 0.55%.

On the economic calendar for Thursday are the March figures for personal income and spending, which includes a key inflation measure. The ISM index for manufacturing activity also is on tap as well as construction spending. The weekly jobless claims is due before the opening bell, but April jobs report is due tomorrow, and that’ll likely affect markets the most.

Naturally, the Fed rate cut had an impact on the dollar, which rose to the highest level in five weeks against the euro and climbed versus the yen as investors, who have already priced in the cut, took into account the possible pause in the easing monetary stance. Of course, the BoE signaling it believes the worst of the credit crunch might be over, helped strengthen the currency as well, as it stated “risk appetite and confidence were apt to gradually return to the financial system.” Also, the Bank projects total credit losses could eventually reach approximately $170 billion, lower than current market estimates.

Automakers will also report April vehicle and truck sales throughout the day. Both Ford (NYSE: F) and GM (NYSE: GM) reported better-than-expected earning for the first quarter, with Ford even swinging to profit, but sales are still forecast to drop 6.7% and 8.5% respectively.

Earnings on tap this day include oil giant Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) which might very well set a new record for corporate profits, with analysts expecting earnings of $2.12 per share. Chevron (NYSE: CVX) will also report first quarter results today. Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) is expected to report earnings of 18 cents a share and Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) earnings of 19 cents a share.

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Filed under: Earnings reports, Bad news, Products and services, Eastman Kodak (EK)

Shares of the top maker of photographic film, Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE: EK), have been tumbling in morning trading after putting up less than impressive earnings.

The company wasn’t able to come in above analyst estimates, despite the fact that its loss narrowed to $115 million, or 40 cents a share in the first-quarter. Compared to its first period last year, its quarterly numbers showed a nice rebound, as the company reported a much higher loss of 53 cents a share last year.The photography products maker improved its performance on digital photography products and services, but this wasn’t enough to offset higher silver and aluminum cost and increased spending on its inkjet printer business.

Going into today’s earnings report Wall Street had been looking to see the company show Q1 loss of 3 cents a share. Excluding one-time items, the company said that it loss came in at 39 cents a share, far more than the loss that analysts predicted. So with the actual numbers, Eastman Kodak is looking for a pretty bad day in today’s session.

Looking at the quarter’s revenue figures, we see a year-over-year rise of only 1%, climbing to $2.093 billion from $2.08 billion. The good news is that Eastman Kodak saw its digital sales jumping 10%, with consumer digital imaging sales bringing an even higher growth of 20%. The bad news is that operating losses from its divisions were deep enough to put a shadow on its quarterly revenue numbers. Analysts, on average, forecast sales of $2.037 billion in the first-quarter, according to Thomson Financial.

Wall Street expressed disappointment over Eastman Kodak’s weak earnings figures, and pushed shares of the company down 6.82% so far today.

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the online investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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UPDATE 1-Market Chatter — Corporate finance press digest - Reuters
LONDON, May 1 (Reuters) - The following corporate finance-related stories involving U.S. and European companies were reported by media on Thursday: * Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT.O: Quote , Profile , Research ) board met on Wednesday to discuss its stand

India’s IRFC’s 72 bln rupees long-term borrowing programme rated ‘LAAA - Forbes
MUMBAI (Thomson Financial) - Indian rating bureau ICRA stated it has assigned an ‘LAAA’ rating to Indian Railway Finance Corp.’s (IRFC) 72 billion rupees long term borrowing programme for the year 2008-09, citing IRFC’s sovereign ownership, strategic

State targets ‘pay to play’ - Chicago Tribune
SPRINGFIELD - With Illinois’ previous governor imprisoned for corruption and the current one engulfed by a top fundraiser’s influence-peddling trial, lawmakers Wednesday took a tentative step toward barring companies that want say business from

Australia’s Allco forecasts $1.4 billion loss - CNN Money
NEW YORK (Associated Press) - Australia’s Allco Finance Group Ltd. said Thursday it may record a loss of more than $1.4 billion in fiscal 2008 due to write-downs, impairment charges and the sale of assets at less than value. The expectation of a

Deutsche Bank, Banco BPI Plan to Sell Debt: European Bond Alert - Bloomberg
May 1 (Bloomberg) — Deutsche Bank AG is among borrowers planning to raise the equivalent of at least 4.5 billion euros ($7 billion) from the sale of bonds in euros and pounds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Companies sold $554 billion of

House Finance recommends more school funding changes - Boston Globe
CONCORD, N.H.— After a decade of trying to come up with a constitutional school aid system, New Hampshire House budget writers want more time. They also want to give school districts more time to begin kindergarten programs. The House Finance

Interest rates unlikely to rise: FM - Hindustan Times
Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday said he does not expect interest rates to go up in reasonable future following the RBI’s move to hike mandatory deposits of banks by 0.25 per cent. He also expected loans to housing sector to increase

Finance Minister expects state-run banks to hold rates - Reuters India
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - State-run banks are unlikely to raise rates after the central bank tightened bank reserve stipulations this week, Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram stated on Thursday. In its second move in just a few weeks to drain

GMAC posts $589 mln loss, might not have 2008 profit - Reuters
NEW YORK, April 29 (Reuters) - Finance company GMAC on Tuesday said its first-quarter loss almost doubled as more customers fell behind on mortgage payments, and stated it might not turn a profit this year. The loss increased to $589 million from $305

Italians irate after all incomes posted on world wide web - Guardian Unlimited
The incomes of every Italian citizen were published on the internet without any prior warning by the country’s outgoing government, just days before it was due to leave power. Claiming it was part of a crackdown on tax evasion, the finance ministry

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Filed under: Products and services, Marketing and advertising, IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI), Battle of the Brands

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you like, and check out other Battle of the Brands posts.

The battle between QVC and HSN is really about celebrity entrepreneurs.

QVC counts the likes of Joan Rivers and Marie Osmond in its stable of shills. Suzanne Somers and Susan Lucci hock their wares on HSN, which is owned by Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ: IACI) conglomerate.

Somewhere around the 1980s or 1990s, Rivers lost her sense of shame and began opening up about everything, including her numerous plastic surgeries. Rivers still is hysterical. Typical is a current blog post about Passover in which she joked that people eat Matzo (unleavened bread) “Because, you pig, you inherited your mother’s large, fat thighs and you should lay off the carbs for at least one day each year.”

Anyway, you just gotta love Rivers. She’s survived her husband’s suicide, the scorn of Johnny Carson and the ridicule of celebrities on the red carpet. Granted that I won’t be buying products such as the Joan Rivers Lilly of the Valley Bee Pin, which according to the QVC website “shines with orange and green epoxy enamel and cream simulated pearls as the buds.”

Sounds lovely, no?

Yes, I know that Marie Osmond’s dolls, some of which cost cost a pretty penny, have their fans. I’m sure that people also dig Somers’s clothing and jewelry line, which QVC says “capture her beloved, upbeat personality and star quality.” Soap queen Lucci offers “romantic fashions, glamorous and skin-toning beauty systems make you feel like a starlet.”

If I were a woman instead of a 40-year-old guy whose idea of fashion is a bowling shirt and sandals, I guess that would impress me. I guess women — the smart ones — want to be Lucci rather than Britney Spears. Nonetheless, I am awarding the brand title winner based on the strength of Rivers’ celebrity alone.

She’s taking selling out to an art. Bravo. Spears, who will no doubt be selling stuff to pay her legal bills, should take note.

Vote in our poll for QVC or HSN as your preferred brand, and let us know in the comments why you love it.

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Filed under: Good news, Products and services, Consumer experience, World wide web, Tech for the rest of us, Workspace

The recently reported three day e-mail blackout experienced by the consumer world wide web customers of Hughes Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: HUGH) has ended. Even though the system has not swung over to its new enhanced version, it appears that Hughes technical staff has opted to reawaken the previous e-mail application to restore that service to its customers. Personal comment from the company regarding this situation was unavailable as of this writing.

What little preview I received of the attempted e-mail upgrade by HughesNet was enticing. It looked streamlined, intuitive and was definitely appealing to the eye. When the company completes its adjustments and makes the hoped for upgrade available, I’ll provide my full assessment of the new service for our readers.

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Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), Battle of the Brands

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and check out other Battle of the Brands posts.

Among the phrases that mystify me is “Too sweet” — I was born with 28 sweet teeth. The sweetener holder in most restaurants today holds at least two different ersatz sugars; Sweet’N Low and Splenda. Which is better?

Sweet’N Low has the history. It first came on the market back in 1957 when the key ingredient, saccharin was packaged in the same single-serving sleeves used for sugar. It is still owned by the originators, privately held Cumberland Packing Group. Although the intensely sweet saccharin had been around since the start of the century, it took Sweet’N Low marketing and an increasing focus on the nation’s waistline to popularize it.

The product’s primary advantage is cost; a packet sells for slightly over a penny a serving. Downsides include bitterness that some users distinguish, and the inability to use it in baking and cooking, as it breaks down under heat.

Splenda, owned by a division of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is the brand name of another sweetener, sucralose, invented in the UK in 1976. It has become popular both for its flavor, which many deem more sugarlike, and its ability to withstand the heat of baking and cooking. Splenda is found not only in single-pack portions, but in a wide variety of prepared foods.

On the downside, Splenda is more than twice as expensive per serving, and some health concerns still remain, primarily about its effect on the thymus.

My take? Even though Splenda is more costly, it is still a reasonably priced substitute to sugar, and to my tongue a much closer flavor. In this battle, I find Splenda just splendid.

Vote in our poll for Splenda or Sweet’N Low as your preferred brand, and let us know in the comments why you love it.

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