AllThingsD » The Wall Street Journal

Some Facebook Underwriters Helped Short Sellers

Tom Lauricella, Jenny Strasburg and Jonathan Cheng — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:00:43 +0000

As traders at Morgan Stanley were frantically trying to shore up Facebook Inc.’s share price following the company’s initial public offering, other managers on the deal were helping short sellers bet that the newly minted stock would fall.

Trading desks at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., two of the firms that helped Morgan Stanley underwrite the IPO, were among those lending out Facebook shares that hedge funds needed for short sales, according to people familiar with the matter.

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SpaceX Capsule Reaches Milestone With Space Maneuvers

Andy Pasztor — Thu, 24 May 2012 19:49:43 +0000

A private unmanned spacecraft appeared to complete a series of maneuvers around the international space station flawlessly on Thursday, clearing the last major hurdle before a historic docking attempt planned for Friday.

The tests demonstrated that sensors, navigation equipment, communications links and computer-controlled propulsion systems aboard the Dragon capsule were working properly.

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Some Big Firms Got Facebook Warning

Gina Chon, Jenny Strasburg and Anupreeta Das — Thu, 24 May 2012 12:15:47 +0000

Capital Research & Management wanted to buy into the Facebook Inc. initial public offering. But days before the IPO, an underwriting bank on the deal warned the big investment firm about Facebook’s dimming revenue prospects.

The Los Angeles firm, armed with information from a May 11 “roadshow” meeting with underwriters and Facebook, along with similar estimates of its own, slashed the number of shares it intended to buy. The night before trading began, a Capital Research manager told a banker at Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter, that the deal’s pricing was “ridiculous,” according to a person familiar with the situation. Some Capital Research fund managers didn’t buy into the IPO at all, say people familiar with the matter.

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Pandora's Loss Widens, but Sales Jump

Tess Stynes — Wed, 23 May 2012 23:21:29 +0000

Pandora Media Inc. on Wednesday reported a wider loss for its fiscal first quarter on higher costs, but its revenue jumped 58 percent and the Internet radio company raised its outlook.

Its shares rose 11 percent to $11.45 in after-hours trading.

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Lenovo's Quarterly Net Climbs 59 Percent

Paul Mozer — Wed, 23 May 2012 18:55:06 +0000

Lenovo Group Ltd. bucked the tough times in the personal-computer business with a 59 percent rise in fiscal fourth-quarter net profit, and the company said it expects profitability to improve as it increases its efforts in consumer gadgets such as smartphones.

The world’s No. 2 PC maker by shipments after Hewlett-Packard Co. said its world-wide PC shipments rose 44 percent in the quarter ended March 31, compared with a 5 percent industrywide increase. Its profitability has outpaced that of rivals Dell Inc. and HP as the Chinese company has targeted fast-growing emerging markets while its two rivals have revamped their businesses to move away from low-margin PC production. The global PC industry has taken a hit in recent years as users have increasingly traded their computers for smartphones and tablet computers.

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Investors File Suit Against Facebook, Underwriters

David Benoit — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:57:19 +0000

Three Facebook Inc. investors filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, alleging the company and its underwriters failed to properly disclose changes to analysts’ forecasts made at the underwriting banks.

The suit follows reports that analysts at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut their revenue forecasts on Facebook amid the investor roadshow, a change that wasn’t widely disseminated.

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For AOL, a Costly Gamble on Local News Draws Trouble

Keach Hagey — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:00:12 +0000

Patch.com, a network of small-town news sites owned by AOL Inc., has emerged at the center of a tug of war over the Internet company’s future.

The high cost of running the local-news sites has fueled a campaign by dissident investor Starboard Value LP against AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong’s strategy of investing heavily in online content.

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Inside Fumbled Facebook Offering

Shayndi Raice, Anupreeta Das and Gina Chon — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:46:17 +0000

Less than three days before Facebook Inc.’s initial public offering, Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman decided to boost the number of shares the company would offer investors by 25 percent, said people familiar with the planning. His main adviser at lead underwriter Morgan Stanley assured him there was plenty of demand, they said.

That decision by the 41-year-old Facebook executive may have doomed any real chance the social-networking company had that its shares would jump when trading began — a hallmark of successful IPOs. On Tuesday, the second full day of trading, Facebook shares fell $3.03, or 8.9 percent, to $31, after falling 11 percent on Monday. Investors are blaming the downdraft on the last-moment expansion of the offering.

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Plan for U.S. "Entrepreneur’s Visa" Moves Forward

Corey Boles — Tue, 22 May 2012 17:41:42 +0000

A bipartisan group of senators will introduce legislation Tuesday that would seek to make it easier for foreign students who hold post-graduate degrees in math, science or engineering from American colleges to remain in the U.S. after they finish their studies.

The legislation would also create an entrepreneur’s visa to allow people who start new businesses and create jobs to remain in the country.

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Alibaba Regains Control

Loretta Chao — Tue, 22 May 2012 14:30:14 +0000

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s deal to buy back shares from Yahoo Inc. gives the Chinese e-commerce company the control it craves to grapple with mounting domestic competition and logistical challenges.

The deal marks the unraveling of one of the most celebrated tie-ups between Western and Chinese Internet companies, which gave a boost to Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma in the partnership’s early days but became strained in recent years.

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Private Spacecraft Lifts Off Toward Space Station

Andy Pasztor — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:30:45 +0000

The first private spacecraft aiming to dock with the international space station blasted off from Florida early Tuesday with split-second precision, but the biggest tests for the mission are still days ahead.

The predawn skies around Cape Canaveral filled with the bright glow and deep rumble of Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s Falcon 9 rocket lifting off the pad, carrying an unmanned Dragon spacecraft on a highly anticipated test flight scheduled to last about two weeks. Within three minutes, the Falcon 9 reached a velocity of 10 times the speed of sound, with the first stage dropping off and the second stage continuing to speed toward orbit.

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Five Cable Firms to Share Wi-Fi Hot Spots

Shalini Ramachandran — Mon, 21 May 2012 18:39:38 +0000

Five large cable operators said Monday they will join forces to give customers access to each other’s wireless Internet hot spots in the most sweeping Wi-Fi roaming agreement struck by the industry to date.

The consortium includes Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp., Bright House Networks LLC and Cox Communications Inc. Consumers will be able to access more than 50,000 Wi-Fi hot spots in the New York area, Los Angeles, Tampa, Orlando and Philadelphia. Most of the operators offer the service only as a perk to current broadband subscribers — but Time Warner Cable has offered a pay-as-you-go option for non-customers as well.

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Hand-Gesture Technologies Wave Bye to Desktop Mouse

Jessica E. Vascellaro — Mon, 21 May 2012 12:30:44 +0000

A race to liberate computer users from the mouse is kicking into high gear, inspired by the potential of turning hands and other body parts into digital controllers.

The goal: to manage computers and other devices with gestures rather than pointing and clicking a mouse or touching a display directly. Backers believe that the approach can make it not only easier to carry out many existing chores but also take on trickier tasks such as creating 3-D models, verifying whether clothes fit, training athletes and browsing medical imagery during surgery without touching anything.

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Nasdaq Acknowledges Troubles With Facebook Deal

Jenny Strasburg and Jacob Bunge — Sun, 20 May 2012 20:04:40 +0000

Robert Greifeld, chief executive of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., on Sunday acknowledged design problems with Nasdaq’s technology after the exchange operator was widely seen as bungling the landmark listing of shares of Facebook Inc. on Friday.

Mr. Greifeld said in an interview with reporters that problems with order cancelations interfered with the IPO process. Tests Nasdaq had conducted ahead of the highly anticipated offering failed to detect the problems, he said.

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China Clears Google's Motorola Mobility Deal

John Letzing — Sat, 19 May 2012 21:15:32 +0000

Google said Saturday that Chinese antitrust authorities have cleared the Internet giant’s proposed purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., pushing the $12.5 billion deal over its last regulatory hurdle.

Google, a Silicon Valley giant that built its business on Web services, startled the tech industry last August by saying it would buy the company, a much older, Illinois-based maker of mobile devices and other hardware.

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Tencent to Restructure Business

Paul Mozur — Sat, 19 May 2012 15:07:07 +0000

Tencent Holdings said Friday it will restructure its business operations into six groups and named a new chief operating officer as the Chinese Internet company moves to improve efficiency and grow beyond its core gaming business.

The move is aimed at helping its smaller operations, such as its mobile, search and e-commerce businesses, gain more independence, analysts said. Over the past year Tencent’s profit growth has slowed as it has sought to spend on a wide array of initiatives to solidify its holdings in areas such as mobile chat and online shopping.

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Groupon Stock Spike Probed

Jean Eaglesham and David Benoit — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:10:25 +0000

A Wall Street regulator is examining trading in Groupon Inc. that sent its stock price soaring hours before a favorable earnings announcement Monday, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The review by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or Finra, is at an early stage, the person said. It follows unusually heavy trading in shares of the online-coupon company in the run-up to its release of strong financial results.

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Here Are 10 Reasons Not to Buy Facebook Before You Buy It Anyway

David Weidner — Thu, 17 May 2012 22:35:30 +0000

By now, you’ve probably made your mind up about Facebook Inc.’s initial public offering. You’re buying it — at any price and by any means necessary. No one is going to convince you otherwise.

But before you place your order, it is my fiduciary duty to remind you all of the risks involved with this investment.

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Can Tumblr Turn a Profit?

Angus Loten — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:00:52 +0000

David Karp has focused on expanding Tumblr Inc.’s network of free bloggers for the past five years. Today, 55 million of them are posting text, photos and videos on the site. Even Beyoncé and Jay-Z turned to Tumblr’s blogging platform earlier this year to release the first photos of their newborn to the public.

But now, both Mr. Karp, a 25-year-old New Yorker, and his company are heading into a risky new phase: Making the site profitable. For the first time, he is making plans to sell advertising and sponsorships to Tumblr’s network of bloggers and their followers.

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And the Blood Money?

Bo Kim — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:01:04 +0000

The smart money is flying out of Facebook as the dumb money piles in.

– From The Wall Street Journal’s Rolfe Winkler

Dish's Ads to End All Ads

Shalini Ramachandran — Thu, 17 May 2012 00:32:03 +0000

Dish Network Corp. plans to promote its new ad-skipping feature with, ironically enough, a television ad — that is, if broadcast TV networks agree to run the spot.

Amid mounting anger about the capability, at least two are resisting. Fox and NBC both said Wednesday they won’t accept ads promoting the satellite-TV operator’s new digital video recorder that contains the ad-skipping capability.

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Apple Moves Toward Larger iPhone Screens

Lorraine Luk and Juro Osawa — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:30:06 +0000

Apple Inc., which is expected to launch its next-generation iPhone later this year, has ordered screens from its Asian suppliers that are bigger than the ones used in iPhones since they debuted in 2007, people familiar with the situation said.

Production is set to begin next month for the screens, which measure at least 4 inches diagonally compared with 3.5 inches on the iPhone 4S, the latest phone from Apple, the people said.

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GM to Stop Advertising on Facebook

Sharon Terlep, Suzanne Vranica and Shayndi Raice — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:44:39 +0000

General Motors Co. plans to stop advertising on Facebook after the company’s marketing executives determined their paid ads had little impact on consumers, people familiar with the matter said — a move that comes as more companies question the effectiveness of advertising on the social networking site.

The largest U.S. auto maker will continue to expand its use of marketing through Facebook’s pages, in which companies can display content at no cost, these people said.

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Sony, Panasonic in TV Tie-Up Talks

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:49:45 +0000

Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp. are in talks to jointly develop or produce next-generation flat-panel television sets, people familiar with the matter said Tuesday, in a move that aims to defray the heavy cost of manufacturing a new display technology.

The discussions center on a possible partnership for production or developing manufacturing technology for organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, television sets, the people said.

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Web Sites Use DNA to Create Family Trees

Geoffrey A. Fowler — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:01:40 +0000

Who’s your daddy? Now a Web site may know for sure.

Companies crossing DNA-mapping technology with social networking are developing a brave new world in which samples of customers’ genes can be used to map family trees, find relationships people never knew they had, and identify adopted children’s biological parents.

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