Trefis
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Viacom was one of the content owners that pulled its channels from Time Warner Cable's iPad app recently. This combined with its changing stance regarding Hulu points to the growing friction between content owners and those companies involved in distribution through new streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu and now tablets. As the landscape changes for delivering content, we expect to see Viacom along with competitors like News Corp, Time Warner CBS and Disney position for a greater share of the revenues and benefit from providing content to through these new channels.

First Solar has joined forces with 33 other clean power companies including rivals like SunPower and Nanosolar to appeal against the Republican proposal to axe the funding for the Department of Energy's loan-guarantee program. The proposal was included in a budget bill passed in early February and was a shock to many in the renewables community as it could potentially derail the high growth in solar and wind energy adoption.

Ford Motor Co. recently reported its highest net income in more than 10 years. We currently estimate Ford's International operations contribute 35% to its stock price – similar to its North American operations that contribute 35.6% if we include both cars and trucks together. In 2010, with $7.4 billion of automotive sales, Ford's Asia Pacific & Africa operations contributed 6.2% to its total automotive sales of $119 billion (up 0.9% from its contribution in 2009). We expect that international operations will become increasingly more valuable for Ford. Ford competes globally with automakers like BMW, GM, Daimler, Audi, Honda, Toyota and others.

We have a price estimate of $20.59, which is around 37% above the current market price.

Although Yahoo has not been able to catch up with the overall online advertising growth, this has not deterred the company from experimenting with growth areas. In the online advertising market, local marketing is one of the upcoming trends and has attracted players like Google, AOL and Facebook in addition to Yahoo. Here we will analyze the growth prospects of this trend and how it could benefit Yahoo in particular. We currently maintain $17.88 price estimate for Yahoo stock, which is about 6% above market price.

Facebook Mobile has been rapidly expanding its reach, growing from 100 million users per month in February 2010 to 250 million users per month in March 2011. Should this type of growth continue, there could be upside to our intrinsic value estimate for Facebook, which we currently peg at $45.1 billion. Facebook competes with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL in the text and display advertising market as well as the search advertising market.

The recent Japanese earthquake led to supply constraints and consequently higher prices for many of Apple's component suppliers. However, Apple has agreed to absorb the additional costs related to components in exchange for smooth shipments. Although Apple's profitability could be slightly impacted due to higher costs, we believe it's still a market share game for Apple's hit products like the new iPad 2 and so ensuring on time deliveries will put more pressure on the likes of Motorola Mobility and Research in Motion that are trying to work their way into the tablet market. We maintain $420 price estimate for Apple stock, which is about 20% above market price.

IBM sells middleware software and technology services such as outsourcing and integration to large and medium sized businesses worldwide and competes with firms like Oracle and Red Hat. The firm is also among the global leaders in business systems and competes with hardware vendors like HP and Dell in the server market as well as EMC and NetApp in the storage market.

We have a $185 Trefis price estimate for IBM's stock and estimate that the firm derives the bulk of its value from its middleware software and technology businesses which make up nearly 46% and 28% of the firm's equity value respectively.

NYSE Euronext (NYX) acquired American Stock Exchange (Amex) in 2008 to expand its equities, options and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) trading business. Recently NYSE announced plans to sell the majority of its stake in the Amex stock options market to seven companies -- including top banks, trading houses and brokerages. With this move, the company hopes to increase its trading volumes by giving major brokerages an incentive to bring their business to Amex. Major competitors are Nasdaq OMX (NDAQ), CME Group (CME), BATS Global and Direct Edge.

Lowe's (LOW) is the world's second largest retailer of home improvement products after Home Depot (HD). Walmart (WMT) and Target (TGT) also cater the home improvements market. Lowe's offers a wide range of home improvement products and installation services to individual home owners as well as professional builders. In addition to the physical stores, consumers can buy products through the company's dedicated website. Lowe's business is vulnerable to the housing market swings and the recent slowdown has affected its sales to a great extent in the past few years.

OpenTable(OPEN) has come a long way since Chuck Templeton envisioned the idea in 1998 after observing the difficulty his wife faced while trying to book a dinner reservation by phone. Today, it is the leading provider of free and real-time online restaurant reservations for users looking to book reservations online as well as a reservation and guest management solution for restaurants. The company is comfortably ahead of its competitors like Urbanspoon, owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp and UK-based companies liveRES Ltd and Livebookings Ltd. It also seems to have hit the right note with its decision to take Groupon head-on by selling third-party restaurants coupons through its website.

We currently maintain a $94.90 price estimate for OpenTable, which is about 10% below the stock's market price.

Charles Schwab Corporation(SCHW) recently announced its decision to acquire optionsXpress in a friendly all-stock deal, as the company takes aim at the growing foreign exchange market. The move adds to Schwab's arsenal as it competes with firms like E-Trade(ETFC), Ameritrade(AMTD), Fidelity and Bank of America(BAC).

Our $19.74 price estimate for Charles Schwab implies a roughly 10% premium to the stock's market price.

NetApp (NTAP), the fourth-largest player in the external disk storage market, creates innovative storage and data management solutions for small and medium-sized companies around the world. It competes mainly with other storage majors like EMC (EMC), IBM (IBM), HP (HPQ) and Dell (DELL).

Juniper's (JNPR) shares have risen significantly since the company's previous earnings release unlike Cisco (CSCO), which have trended in the opposite direction. This could imply that investors are more excited about Juniper's upcoming products relative to Cisco's. One of these is its new data center technology previously called Project Stratus, which is now being branded QFabric. Besides Cisco, Juniper also competes with Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) and Huawei-3Com in the network equipment business.

Our price estimate for Juniper's stock stands at $32.59, which is roughly 23% below the current market price.

American Express (AXP) followed in Visa's (V) steps and announced a digital payment and commerce platform dubbed Serve, which enables the consumers to make purchases and person-to-person payments online via mobile phones and at merchants that accept American Express cards. MasterCard (MA) is also planning to launch its own offering for personal payments.

We estimate that American Express derives 73% of our $49.61 price estimate from card transaction and execution fees while Visa derives almost 29% of its $85.03 Trefis price estimate from transaction fees.

Warner Brothers, Time Warner's (TWX) movie entertainment arm, is going to launch part 2 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows in 3D during 2011. We take this opportunity to estimate the value of such movies from Time Warner's perspective. Time Warner competes with Viacom (VIA), News Corp. (NWS), CBS (CBS) and Disney (DIS) in the media and entertainment business.

Our price estimate for Time Warner's stock stands at $35.51, in line with market price.