AllThingsD » stock market

Groupon's Shares Continue Falling to Close at All-Time Low

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 23:26:44 +0000

Everyone loves a discount, and yet no one seems to be buying.

Less than five months after going public, Groupon’s stock is trading at more than half-off.

Today, the daily deals company’s shares slid another 3.2 percent, or 48 cents, to close at $14.54 a share. That’s less than half the $31.14 that some investors paid at the stock’s high point, just after it went public in early November.

At today’s close, the company’s stock hits a new low, though it slumped to similar levels at the end of November.

The stock has not recovered since last Friday, when Groupon revised its results for the fourth quarter due to higher-than-expected return rates during the holiday period.

Today, lawyers announced that multiple class actions have been filed against the Chicago company. The law firms, however, don’t have a lead plaintiff, and are looking for someone who participated in the company’s IPO and suffered financial losses. The complaint charges that certain officers issued materially false and misleading statements regarding financial results.

As part of the announcement on Friday, Groupon reaffirmed its guidance for the first quarter, and is still expecting revenue of up to $550 million, and net income from operations of up to $35 million. The company will release its first-quarter results on May 14.

Apple's Size Clouds Market

Jonathan Cheng and Brendan Intindola — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:30:45 +0000

In analyzing U.S. corporate earnings and stock-market trends, apples-to-apples comparisons may now require tossing out the Apple.

Apple Inc.’s success selling consumer gadgets has pushed its share price above $500, cementing its place as the U.S.’s largest company, with a market capitalization of $475 billion. But its gargantuan size is making it difficult for Wall Street to get a big-picture view of the earnings and margins for other American corporations.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Some Venture Funds Hit "Pause" on Big Deals

Pui-Wing Tam — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:30:12 +0000

Over the past year, Marc Andreessen invested in a series of high-profile Web companies, including Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Groupon Inc. Now the Silicon Valley venture capitalist is hitting the pause button on such big-name deals.

Since participating in a $112 million funding of Web darling Airbnb Inc. in July that valued the online room-rental company at more than $1 billion, Mr. Andreessen said his venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has “taken a step back.”

With some deals for private companies “definitely on the expensive side” amid a choppy stock market and concerns over a European debt crisis, Mr. Andreessen said he is looking to invest in fast-growing tech start-ups that aren’t as well known and where “pricing is still under control.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Apple Shares Hit Yet Another Lifetime High

Arik Hesseldahl — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:49:23 +0000

On the day it announced that sales of the iPhone 4S surpassed four million units over the weekend, shares in Apple hit their second record high in as many days. Shares peaked at $426.70 a share, up $4.70 from Friday’s close of $422, before falling back in midday trading. Share price has risen by more than 27 percent this year.

Apple Crunched in Nasdaq Rebalance

Tom Lauricella — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 05:45:56 +0000

Nasdaq is taking a bite out of Apple.

In a move likely to ripple across the stock market, Nasdaq OMX plans to announce Tuesday a rare rebalancing of its Nasdaq-100 index, which will reduce the big weighting of Apple Inc. The company currently makes up more than 20 percent of the index.

The rebalancing was driven in part by the seemingly unstoppable rise in Apple shares, which are up more than fourfold in the past two years. The tech company’s big weighting means that a change in fortune for the maker of iPhones, iPods and iPads has a huge impact on one of the most heavily traded indexes in the market. After the rebalancing, which takes effect May 2, Apple will make up 12 percent of the Nasdaq-100.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Talking Schmidt: Google's CEO in His Own Words

John Paczkowski — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:30:04 +0000

Eric Schmidt once said Google’s “policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.” But during his soon-to-end tenure as CEO he happily high-stepped across that line like the grand marshal of the Tone-Deaf Technocrat Parade, as I once joked. Below, a collection of some of his more remarkable pronouncements.

ON THE CREEPY LINE
“There is what I call the creepy line.The Google policy on a lot of things is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.”
–October 2010

ON BRAIN IMPLANTS, WHICH WOULD CROSS THE CREEPY LINE
“I would argue that implanting something in your brain is beyond the creepy line–at least for the moment, until the technology gets better. As far as I know, we do not have a medical lab working on implants … As far as I know.”
–October 2010

ON PRIVACY:
“Streetview, we drive exactly once. So you can just move, right?”
–October 2010

ON CARS:
“It’s a bug that cars were invented before computers.”
–September 2010

ON THE BORG:
“What we’re really doing is building an augmented version of humanity, building computers to help humans do the things they don’t do well better.”
–September 2010

ON EXTENDING GOOGLE’S MISSION TO YOUR BRAIN:
“With your permission, you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches. We don’t need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.”
–September 2010

ON YOUR FACEBOOK PHOTOS
“Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don’t have 14 photos of yourself on the internet? You’ve got Facebook photos!”
–August 2010

ON FINANCE:
“One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that.”
–March 2010

ON YOUR NEEDS:
“I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.”
–August 2010

ON PRIVACY:
“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
–December 2009

ON M&A AND “ADULT SUPERVISION”:
“One day Larry and Sergey bought Android, and I didn’t even notice. Think about the strategic opportunities that has created. Sergey found Google Earth one day while he was surfing on the Web. And then he walked into my office and told me he bought them. “And I said, ‘for how much, Sergey?’ And it turned out to be a few million.”
–October 2009

ON ‘DON’T BE EVIL’
“‘Don’t be evil’ is misunderstood. We don’t have an ‘Evilmeter’ we can sort of apply–you know–what is good and what is evil….The rule allows for conversation. I thought when I joined the company this was crap…it must be a joke. I was sitting in a room in [the] first six months…talking about some advertising…and someone said that it is evil. It stopped the product. It’s a cultural rule, a way of forcing the conversation especially in areas that are ambiguous.”
–June 2008

ON THE ‘EVILMETER’:
“We actually did an evil scale and decided not to serve [China] at all was worse evil.”
– Jan. 2006

ON EVIL:
“Evil is what Sergey says is evil.”
–-December 2002

ON IDIOTS:
“People are surprised to find out that an awful lot of people think that they’re idiots.”
–Date Unknown

ON RUNNING GOOGLE:
“Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed!”
–-January 2011

Adobe Turns In Profit on Strong Sales

Jeanette Borzo — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 23:16:02 +0000

Adobe Systems Inc. swung to a fiscal fourth-quarter profit, as strong product sales boosted revenue.

The software maker forecast first-quarter earnings of 54 cents to 59 cents a share on revenue of $1 billion to $1.05 billion. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect earnings of 51 cents on revenue of $992 million for the current quarter.

In after-hours trading on Monday, Adobe shares were up 4.5% to $30.48 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Google CEO Apologizes for Street View Schmidtstorm

John Paczkowski — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:54:27 +0000

Apologies from Google CEO Eric Schmidt are as rare as Bing bookmarks at Google HQ, so consider the one offered below– for his cavalier suggestion that folks worried about Google Street View invading their privacy should “just move”–something of a milestone.

“As you can see from the unedited interview, my comments were made during a fairly long back and forth on privacy. I clearly misspoke. If you are worried about Street View and want your house removed please contact Google and we will remove it.”

– Google CEO Eric Schmidt on his suggestion that folks concerned about the company’s Street View service “just move“

PREVIOUSLY:

Google CEO’s Advice to the Street-View Shy: The Video

Schmidt: Don’t Like Google Street View Photographing Your House? Then Move.

Schmidt: Don't Like Google Street View Photographing Your House? Then Move.

John Paczkowski — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 10:00:29 +0000

UPDATE:

Google CEO’s Advice to the Street-View Shy: The Video

Google CEO Apologizes For Street View Quip

“The problem with Google is that Eric Schmidt is creepy….The industry is filled with eccentric CEOs–billionaires who, say, wear a wardrobe that consists of nothing but identical black shirts and Levi’s 501 jeans, or who dress as a samurai warrior, including swords, at their home. But Schmidt doesn’t seem eccentric (or at least not merely so). He seems creepy.”

– John Gruber, Daring Fireball

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says the company’s “policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.” And while that may be true of Google, it’s clearly not true of Schmidt, who lately has been happily high stepping across the creepy line like the grand marshal of the Tone-Deaf Technocrat Parade.

In the past year alone he has:

Addressed criticisms of Google’s stance on privacy by saying, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
Claimed people want Google to “tell them what they should be doing next.”
Said of Google, “We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.”
Said this: “One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that.”
Suggested name changes to protect adults from the Web’s record of their youthful indiscretions.
Said this: “What we’re really doing is building an augmented version of humanity, building computers to help humans do the things they don’t do well better.”

Nice selection of remarks with which to begin a Bartlett’s Unsettling Quotations From Powerful CEOs, right?

And Schmidt’s far from done. Appearing on CNN’s “Parker Spitzer” program last week, he said that people who don’t like Google’s Street View cars taking pictures of their homes and businesses “can just move” afterward to protect their privacy. Ironically, he said this on the very day that Google admitted those cars captured more than just fragments of personal payload data.

Interestingly, CNN has since edited that quote out of Schmidt’s segment. Did Google ask CNN to remove it? Who knows. Perhaps the company has finally realized that Schmidt’s penchant for indulging in this sort of pedantic dorkery doesn’t do much for its public image.

Freaking people out with asinine power-tripping pronouncements might be great fun for Schmidt, but it isn’t a wise PR strategy, particularly when Google is a company about which the public and government are increasingly concerned.

Schmidt really should know this.

Actually, it’s hard to believe he doesn’t.

Which is just…creepy.

UPDATE: Here’s Google’s official comment on Schmidt’s “just move” remark as given MarketWatch: “The point Eric was making is that our Street View service provides only a static picture in time, and doesn’t provide real-time imagery or provide any information about where people are. Of course, we also allow users to request that their home be removed from Street View.”

UPDATE: CNN says Google did not ask that Schmidt’s remark be removed from the broadcast version of the show. “Producers routinely make editorial decisions about what sound bites to include in their shows,” a spokesperson told me via e-mail. “In this case, the clip was posted on cnn.com and disseminated to other media outlets and was widely available.”

What A Double-Dip Recession Would Mean For Venture Capital

Mark Suster — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 07:00:43 +0000

One year ago I worried that consumers were overstretched with debt, and unemployment would continue to rise, which in turn would drive the stock market south and cut the rate of venture capital investment even further.

When I wrote this the Dow Jones Industrial Average had already come roaring back from 6,600 to 9,865 so it was certainly against conventional wisdom. It eventually closed at 11,204 in April before sliding back to 10,000 as I sit here and type. My fears haven’t abated, so I’d like to offer my current thinking on the economy and what it portends for the VC industry and fund-raising for entrepreneurs. I have a vested interest in being wrong about tough times ahead, but as the old saying goes, “hope for best, plan for the worst.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Goalkeeping Gets Easier at Mint.com

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:47:27 +0000

When most people hear the word “budget,” they groan about all the numbers and spreadsheets involved in setting financial goals. Instead they procrastinate and continue spending without any specific savings goals. Case in point: I recently postponed a meeting with my financial planner because I didn’t have the energy after a long business trip to work through my finances.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now Mint.com, a website that already offers user-friendly options for studying how one’s money is spent, has introduced an easy way to set budget objectives, link them to accounts and learn specific steps on how to reach those goals. The goals can even be personalized with digital photos, like an image of the car you’re saving up to buy. And this service, which launched Tuesday, doesn’t cost a cent.

I’ve been testing Intuit Inc.’s free, updated Mint.com service, specifically focusing on its new Mint Goals feature. The idea of adding goals that tie into real accounts has been a long time coming for the finance-management website. Mint previously offered a Planning section on its site, but it required too much manual input, including setting up personal budget categories, and guesswork about how much one should spend.

The Goals feature uses pop-up windows where users can quickly input data, like annual salary, to get estimates on how much they can afford to spend on things like a vacation, as well as how much they need to save for that vacation. Monthly savings estimates can be set to aggressive savings plans or conservative ones with just a mouse click.

Finances in One Place

Mint.com has been around for almost three years and is already used by millions of people. Its proprietary algorithms encrypt data so people will feel confident enough to input their usernames and passwords for their online financial accounts, allowing them to see all of their financial activity in one place. These accounts include those tied to credit cards, banks, retirement savings and others. Mint is known for displaying colorful visuals like pie charts and graphs, so it’s easy for people to see where they’re spending their money or how it’s being invested.

Mint.com’s new Goals tab (top right) offers users a choice of eight popular goals and one to customize. Colorful thermometers (top left) show how much progress was made toward a goal. Details of a particular goal (above) and a “Next Steps” checklist of tasks to complete.

Mint Goals is a new tab on the Mint.com site, and clicking on it directs users to a group of eight popular goals and one that can be customized (more will be added over time). The preset list includes goals to get out of debt, buy a home, buy a car, save for college, take a trip or save for retirement. A digital checklist in each goal called “Next Steps” gives people serious, doable tasks to complete, so they can actually make progress toward a goal in ways other than just putting money aside. This instant gratification saved me from doing a lot of calculating.

The Best Account

When you set up a goal for the first time, Mint suggests what type of account would work best for saving toward it. Examples include a 529 savings plan for people who are saving to put their kids through college or a Roth IRA for retirement savings. Mint will also tell you the provider with the best interest rate.

Unlike some other websites that encourage saving, like SmartyPig.com, Mint isn’t a bank, so you’ll have to leave the Mint site to create accounts and manage money transfers rather than starting them right on the site. Aaron Patzer, the company’s founder and CEO, expects the site will enable setting up savings accounts and money transfers by the end of this year.

Each goal includes the overall amount of money intended to be saved, today’s balance, planned and projected dates for reaching the goal and how much has been saved this month (like $200 of $750). I liked looking at Mint’s colorful thermometers, which quickly showed me how I was progressing in a particular goal.

For example, the Buy a Home goal checklist includes steps like finding a Realtor, getting homeowner’s insurance and getting prequalified for a loan. A panel beside each of these items also offers an educational explanation of what these steps really mean. Many explanations include links to a blog called MintLife, where blog posts from Mint employees and some freelancers offer deep explanations about financial questions.

Ads With Context

The Goals feature comes with contextual ads, which help it remain free. One checklist item suggests opening a high-yield savings account and also offers links to the Discover and American Express websites, which offer the accounts. If you’ve started a Mint Goal to save for a trip to Iceland, travel insurance is suggested, along with Web links to sites that sell trip insurance.

While these links might allow people to get started right away on a particular task, they also beg the question of whether these are the best options for users—or just the biggest advertisers on Mint. Mr. Patzer explained that companies for these ads are chosen according to what’s best for the user and are selected from a list of savings options ranked by the site’s editors.

Goals can be linked to several of your accounts on Mint so they’re updated with real-time data. A long-term retirement goal can link to a 401(k), brokerage account and retirement account. If the stock market takes a dive and money is lost in an account, that loss is automatically reflected in the overall goal’s balance. If you tie a savings account to a goal to save for a house, every dollar added to that account (on the bank’s end) is automatically reflected in the goal.

Mint already gave people a visually engaging way to know more about what their money is doing, but Mint Goals give people a real reason to come back to the site more often.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Do I Care About Apple's Market Cap? No. But I Sure as Hell Wish We Hadn't Sold Off That Apple Stock We Bought in '97

John Paczkowski — Thu, 27 May 2010 13:51:18 +0000

How does Microsoft feel about being overtaken by Apple as the world’s largest technology company?

It couldn’t care less.

Well, that’s what CEO Steve Ballmer says, anyway.

Asked Wednesday if it bothers him that Apple (AAPL) has finally surpassed Microsoft (MSFT) in total value (click on chart below to enlarge), Ballmer shrugged it off.

“It is a long game. We have good competitors, but we too are very good competitor,” he said. “We are executing very well and that is going to lead to great products and great success….I will make more profit and certainly there is no technology company on the planet that is as profitable as we are….Stock markets will take care of the rest.”

The Web Survives the Stock Market Crash

Peter Kafka — Thu, 06 May 2010 20:31:03 +0000

Well, that was an exciting few minutes, right? In case you missed it: The markets just tanked–the Dow dropped a thousand points–and then came back. Blame Greece and/or a trader who is very bad at his or her job. (Really?)

But while a stock market plunge is a big deal, it didn’t seem to be a wipe-out-the-Web-sized deal. Not even a Michael Jackson-sized deal.

I’ve seen reports of wobbles at some financial sites, but the Internet in general seems to have held up okay. Which makes sense–the swoon was fast and scary, but only if you were the kind of person who pays attention to breaking news.

Akamai (AKAM), which moves bits around the Web and claims to handle 20 percent of the world’s traffic, says today’s surges have been relatively minor. You can see for yourself, at this real-time traffic monitor.

If you click in, you’ll notice that Web traffic is up significantly in the U.K. But no reason to panic over that one–there’s a pretty big election going on.

Greycroft Raises New Fund Amid Tough Industry Conditions

Pui-Wing Tam — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:59:24 +0000

The National Venture Capital Association earlier this week declared that the first quarter of this year was the slowest for venture-capital firms trying to raise money since 1993. Despite such conditions, venture-capital firm Greycroft Partners has just closed a new fund.

The firm, founded by private-equity investor Alan Patricof in 2006 to invest in digital media startups, has raised a new $130.7 million fund following a $75 million fund in 2006. Rounding up the cash for the new fund wasn’t an easy process, however.

Ian Sigalow, a partner at Greycroft, says the firm started raising money more than a year ago in March 2009. In total, the firm had 160 first meetings with potential investors and dealt with many months where no investors committed, he says. “The first quarter of 2009 was miserable,” Mr. Sigalow says, recalling the deep-freeze that followed the stock market meltdown in late 2008. “It was cold. (Some investors) were saying why would we invest in a new fund?”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Yahoo Is Teed Up to Buy a Sports Site–BoomTown Is Betting on Citizen Sports for the Score!

Kara Swisher — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:48:51 +0000

According to numerous sources inside and outside the company, Yahoo is poised to slam dunk–I apologize, but sports puns are so easy–an acquisition of an online sports site this week.

And, predicted several of those sources, it is most likely to be San Francisco-based Citizen Sports, a maker of popular apps and games that allow fans to interact on the Apple (AAPL) iPhone and Facebook.

Interestingly, Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz is the keynote speaker at the high-profile sports business conference IMG World Sports Congress Wednesday morning in Los Angeles.

There is a plethora of interesting Web sports sites for Yahoo to choose from, including Yardbarker, SB Nation and Rotowire.

With Yahoo’s strong sports content business, especially in fantasy sports and news, and Bartz’s recent statements about making smaller talent and tech acquisitions–as well as the company’s recent focus on social networking and mobile integration–Citizen Sports is a perfect choice.

Citizen Sports started off in 2005 as ProTrade, an “athlete stock market entertainment company,” with $10 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partners Kevin Compton and Doug Mackenzie through Radar Ventures.

Other investors included Kleiner Perkins partner Will Hearst, said the Citizen Sports Web site, “as well as major sports figures, including former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and three-time Super Bowl champ Troy Aikman; Arizona Diamondbacks General Partner Jeff Moorad; legendary NFL Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh; and Northgate Capital Venture founder Brent Jones, the former all-pro San Francisco 49ers tight end.”

But the site has morphed into an innovative digital enabler of interaction among fans of all kinds of sports, via its fantasy sports games and Sportacular iPhone app, as well as numerous apps on Facebook.

It also has tight relationships with Sports Illustrated magazine and other sports partners.

Most interesting is that one of its co-founders, Jeff Ma, was one of the members of the infamous MIT blackjack team, made famous in the book, “Bringing Down the House” and the film, “21.”

It is unclear how much Citizen Sports would sell for, but estimates put its price at about $40 to $50 million.

Both Citizen Sports and Yahoo declined to comment.

Search Users Evidently Just a Bunch of Megan Fox-Ogling, WWE-Patronizing Nascar Fans

John Paczkowski — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:31:11 +0000

If our search engine queries are, on some level, a reflection of who we are as a people, then we are a sorry, sorry lot indeed. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo all released their lists of the top search queries for 2009 today and they reveal us to be a nation of Twittering, celebrity-obsessed, swine flu-suffering, vampire-loving, Megan Fox-ogling, Lady Gaga-humming, World Wrestling Entertainment-patronizing, Windows-using Nascar fans.

These search engines are, in the words of Google, organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful, and the best use we can make of them is to read up on the latest in the Gosselin scandal or dig up some paparazzi shots of Megan Fox? That’s just…sad.

Below, the 2009 “Zeitgeist” as viewed through the lenses of Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Bing.

GOOGLE

michael jackson
facebook
tuenti
twitter
sanalika
new moon
lady gaga
windows 7
dantri.com.vn
torpedo gratis

YAHOO

Michael Jackson
Twilight
WWE
Megan Fox
Britney Spears
Naruto
American Idol
Kim Kardashian
NASCAR
Runescape

BING

Michael Jackson
Twitter
Swine Flu
Stock Market
Farrah Fawcett
Patrick Swayze
Cash for Clunkers
Jon and Kate Gosselin
Billy Mays
Jaycee Dugard

A Bing Bug? If Not, How Did This Dude Beat Out Megan Fox and the Even Prettier Robert Pattinson for Most-Searched Celeb?

Kara Swisher — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:25:39 +0000

Since Bing only debuted at mid-year (and launched at the D: All Things Digital conference too), BoomTown is willing to cut it some slack.

Until the Microsoft (MSFT) search service revealed on its blog last night that Perez Hilton–the irksome entertainment gossip blogger–beat out “Transformers” hottie Megan Fox and “Twilight” hottie-er Robert Pattinson for the top celebrity searched using Bing in 2009.

Clearly, its algorithm needs some tweaking by real people.

Bing is the first of the top search lists to come up for 2009, to be followed soon by Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO).

“If you’re curious how we determined the top searches, we analyzed billions of search queries and developed the list based on searches made with Bing,” wrote Bing GM Danielle Tiedt.

“Not surprisingly, we saw a lot of folks using Bing for quick access to favorite sites like Facebook, MSN, YouTube and Craigslist. We also saw a lot of more complex searches such as product related queries in which people used Bing to help decide what MP3 player to buy and travel searches to help find the best deals on a tropical vacation.”

But this time of year, it is mostly about the lists, so Bing noted that Michael Jackson–no surprise–was the top trending topic, followed in order by: Twitter, swine flu, stock market, Farrah Fawcett, Patrick Swayze, Cash for Clunkers, Jon and Kate Gosselin, Billy Mays and Jaycee Dugard.

In other words, Bing users are celebrity death-obsessed, econalypse-worried, plague-wary people who cannot be without information about the worst married couple ever.

Cisco CEO Optimistic About the Economy

Ben Worthen — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:35:53 +0000

Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers was one of the first tech executives to predict that the recession–then limited to the financial sector–would spread to the rest of the economy. Now he’s among the first to say it’s on the way back.

The economy has started a “gradual recovery,” Chambers said Wednesday during a meeting with Wall Street Journal reporters and editors, echoing optimism he expressed when discussing Cisco’s fourth-quarter results in August. Chambers said that he bases his assessment of the economy on several factors, including the stock market, conversations with customers and the rate at which Cisco (CSCO) receives orders. Based on these criteria, he believes that the U.S. is coming out of the recession. He added that Asia seems to be picking up as well, but that he expects Europe to lag behind.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Back for Yet Another Season: The "What Will GE Do With NBC?" Show

Peter Kafka — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:02:23 +0000

Even when the M&A market was shut down, Wall Street couldn’t stop speculating about GE’s intentions for its NBC Universal unit. And now that it’s deal-making time again, the chatter is getting very noisy.

Hence the flurry of coverage over yesterday’s remarks by Vivendi CEO Jean-Bernard Levy, in which he said…not very much.

But even Levy’s noncomments are important, since his company may have a good deal to say about the fate of NBCU. That’s because Vivendi owns a 20 percent stake in the company, and it looks increasingly likely to sell this year. And that could trigger a whole series of moves. The Wall Street Journal:

Vivendi, the Paris-based entertainment conglomerate, has an annual option to unload its NBCU stake which it is allowed to exercise beginning each November. The option was part of a deal made in 2003 when Vivendi sold its theme parks and television assets in the U.S. to GE for cash and stock.

If Vivendi exercises the option this year, Mr. Levy said, it will plan to offer the shares in the public stock market unless GE exercises its right to buy the stake.

If Vivendi says it will exercise the option this year, GE would have nine months to pony up an estimated $4 billion to $5 billion if it chooses to buy Vivendi’s stake at a time when it already is struggling to shore up its financial position. Otherwise, Vivendi’s minority stake in NBCU could be put in play, raising a host of potential complications for GE’s ownership of the media company.

Yet another option: GE (GE) and Vivendi work together to sell off all of NBC via a direct sale–Comcast (CMCSA) and Time Warner (TWX) are the names you always hear as obvious strategic buyers, though I’m not sure that’s the case–or even via an IPO.

Here Comes the Google Ad Exchange

Peter Kafka — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:00:56 +0000

Google is about to flip the switch on its long-awaited Ad Exchange.

The search giant will reportedly open up its AdX service, which is supposed to bring together ad buyers and sellers the same way a stock market does, within the next two weeks. ClickZ says the exchange is supposed to open in conjunction with next week’s AdWeek festivities in New York.

That timeline sounds right to me. Google (GOOG) has already been inviting selected clients to try out the system, which is based on the one DoubleClick ran before Google acquired the firm last year. Google told potential buyers via email that it will begin integrating their ads into the exchange this week.

None of this will have any impact on Google’s search users, but it’s potentially important for online advertisers and publishers.

Until now, the online exchange market has been dominated by Yahoo’s (YHOO) Right Media, but Google will become an instant rival as soon as it opens its doors. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s (MSFT) offering, AdECN, seems stuck in the starting gate.

Google’s exchange will open shortly after the departure of its manager, Michael Rubenstein, who is now president of ad tech start-up AppNexus.

A Google Lawyer Waves Goodbye, Lands at Twitter

Peter Kafka — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:38:01 +0000

We’re used to seeing Google vets leave for Facebook. Now they’re headed to Twitter.

The buzzy microblogging service has just grabbed its highest-profile Google (GOOG) exec to date: Alexander Macgillivray, a deputy general counsel at the search firm, is coming aboard as Twitter’s top lawyer.

Macgillivray is best known as the lead Google attorney on high-profile intellectual property cases like its fights with book publishers, the Associated Press and Viacom (VIA). Twitter has yet to find itself mired in that sort of thing, but give it time.

Macgillivray is just the latest Googler to land at Twitter. Earlier this year, the start-up nabbed Doug Bowman, the search giant’s lead designer, to join the ranks of several other Googleplex veterans, including, of course, co-founders Ev Williams and Biz Stone.

There are lots of reasons to leave a big company for a scrappy start-up, but just to spell out one obvious one: If you’re into risk, there is a whole lot more upside at Twitter these days.

The company’s last funding round pegged its value at $240 million, and if it ends up being acquired in the next few years, that number could be much higher. But Google shares stalled long before last fall’s stock market collapse (click chart to enlarge):

[Image credit: Doc Searls]

Stock ManAAPLation? [Updated]

John Paczkowski — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:38:22 +0000

On Dec. 30, with just a couple of hours left in the penultimate trading session of the year, Apple’s (AAPL) shares hit $87.99 and seemed to be well on their way back to $90. But before they could break $88, claims that Steve Jobs’s declining health is the real reason the Apple CEO won’t deliver the keynote at Macworld 2009 cut the legs out from under them. The rumor was quickly dismissed, but not before AAPL plunged to $85.04.

As I noted that day, the timing of the rumor seemed a bit suspicious. With little in the way of news during the holiday week, Jobs’s decision to bail on the Macworld keynote issue still fresh in our minds and his health an obvious shareholder concern, it seemed a bit like an AAPL manipulator’s perfect storm.

Apparently, there may be a bit more to that armchair theory than I thought. Over at Traderhood, writers with far more stock analysis acumen than I, suggest that Apple shares were poised for a huge breakout in price the afternoon of Dec. 30, bolstered by a general upward trend in the market and their own ascending triangle (click on chart below) when they very suspiciously had the wind knocked out of them. “Amazingly at the very point where AAPL’s spike at the tip of the ascending triangle should happen, rumor was introduced and killed the setup completely,” Traderhood blogger Conschmillo explains. “I mean you can have things to happen unexpectedly. It happens all the time, it is a stock market, but to have them placed this [precisely] when everything else is taking off, AAPL included, makes me believe, there is more than meets the eye to why AAPL price is down. If this rumor was not introduced, AAPL would be somewhere around $93.”

So, a favorable technical set-up was thwarted at the moment the odds favored the opposite happening. Coincidence?

UPDATE: Apparently, it was a coincidence. Brian Lam, Editorial Director of Gizmodo, which published the rumor, tells me the site was tipped off well before Dec. 30.

[Image credit: Tin foil hat courtesy Patrick Daley]

(Thanks Barry )

IE Market Share: Down Nearly 15 Percent in Two Years

John Paczkowski — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:30:12 +0000

The stock market’s performance this past year isn’t the only thing that’s charting historic lows. According to preliminary metrics from Net Applications, the share of the browser market held by Microsoft’s (MSFT) Internet Explorer has slipped below 70 percent (click on chart above). IE’s market share topped out at 68.15 percent in December, down from 69.77 percent in November and 71.27 percent in October. Astonishing, given that it began the year at around 75 percent. Meanwhile, Firefox, Apple’s (AAPL) Safari, Google’s (GOOG) Chrome and even Netscape rose in share, with Firefox exceeding 20 percent for a full month, a trend that Net Applications expects will continue through December and beyond.

Now, Net Applications cautions that the December holiday season strongly favored residential over business usage, which increases the relative usage share of Mac, Firefox, Safari and Chrome. So perhaps the IE’s lower usage during the month was a bit more pronounced than it might otherwise have been. But that doesn’t change the fact that its reign is clearly in decline. In January of 2007, IE held nearly 80 percent market share; now it holds 68.15. Still, the lion’s share of the market, but a share that has slipped nearly 15 percent in just two years, (click on chart below) and given recent news, seems certain to slip further in the months ahead.

Report: 2008 IPO Market Obviously Lousy

John Paczkowski — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:40:47 +0000

With the economy in contraction and the stock market going all to hell, 2008 was not a good year for the IPO market. In fact, volumewise, it’s looking like it was one of the worst in the last 13 years. Global IPO activity has more than halved since 2007, according to Ernst & Young’s year-end Global IPO update. Through November 2008 a total of 745 IPOs worldwide raised $95.3 billion in capital. That’s sharply off from 2007, when there were 1,790 offerings, which raised some $256.9 billion.

Clearly, the so-called IPO window has been slammed shut by the capital crisis. Indeed, data from Dealogic show that 298 IPOs were postponed or withdrawn over the past 11 months–quite a few more than the 167 that met that fate in all of the 2007. And those companies that went through with their offerings didn’t fare so well. Almost 50 percent of new issues fell on their first day of trading, and aftermarket performance was poor, according to Renaissance Capital; the average new issue was down 38 percent by year-end.

“Performance of 2008 new issues in the US was abysmal by historical standards, although not surprising given the steep decline in equities,” says Renaissance. “The average first day pop was a paltry 2%, down from the more than 10% average first day return investors became accustomed to in each of the last five years. A whopping 58% of all new issues traded down in their market debut, the worst first day showing in at least a decade and almost four times the IPO market’s 10-year average.”

Little wonder, then, that the U.S. went three months without an IPO during the second half of the year–the longest dry spell since the recession of the 1970s.

When will the IPO market return? Tough to say. Renaissance says there’s a lot of pent-up demand by potential issuers to raise equity capital. But they’re not likely to test the IPO waters until the financial markets stabilize.

$22-a-share? What a Bunch of Yahoos …

John Paczkowski — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:00:06 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]