RIM’s NIGHTMARE and 3 SIZZLING Stories

As much as 15 percent of the domestic retail notebooks selling above $700 in May were ultrabooks, reports NPD, which is an increase from the less than 7 percent posted in January. Some observers take this as evidence that Intel’s (NASDAQ:INTC) expensive endeavors to push sales of the MacBook Air-like Windows (NASDAQ:MSFT) systems is taking off following a sluggish start. A problem though, says NPD, is that the average selling price for ultrabooks was $885, which is a $15 drop from April, but is still above Intel’s targets and far exceeds Windows notebook’s average price of $510.

Standard & Poor’s downgrades its outlook on Alpha Natural Resources’ (NYSE:ANR) BB- junk rating from stable to negative, which indications its predictions of continued challenges in the market for domestic steam coal for power plants. The agency still has its rating on ANR one notch above that of Moody’s B1, which it bestowed earlier in the week.

Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) closed Friday with a market cap of $3.8 billion, which, ex-cash and investments, leaves an enterprise value of just $1.6 billion, or $3.10 per share. A portion of that cash is likely to disappear in the coming quarters due to hardware losses and restructuring costs, which led Barclays to estimate that RIM’s cash balance will drop to $3 per share from a current $4.40 a share by intro time for BlackBerry 10. MKM sees RIM’s cash at only $2 per share, judging from expected outflows.

American Eagle (NYSE:AEO), having been unable to find a suitable buyer, reports that it expects to suffer an after-tax loss of between $35 million and $50 million to wind down its 77kids franchise. Further, it’s expected that the closing related charges will be taken modtly in the second and third quarters.