Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, is considering launching a
hostile bid for Yahoo! as early next week if Yahoo! does not begin talks
soon, chief financial officer, Chris Liddell, said yesterday after the
world’s biggest software maker reported an 11 per cent drop in its
third-quarter profit to $4.39 billion.$ Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 25 Apr 2008 | 10:00 pm
The Serious Fraud Office is to challenge the ruling that it must rethink the
halting of its investigation into a £43 billion arms deals between BAE
Systems and Saudi Arabia. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 25 Apr 2008 | 12:21 pm
UK house prices will fall by almost 20pc over the next two years, according to analysts at Capital Economics.The economics consultancy has slashed its forecasts for UK prices and now expects them to fall 8pc this year and 10pc in 2009, down from its original expectation of a 5pc fall in 2008. Source: Telegraph Business | 25 Apr 2008 | 11:24 am
AirTran Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AAI) has priced $65 million a 5 1/2% convertible Senior Notes due 2015. The company is also given underwriters a 30 day overallotment option for $9.75 million additional in notes. Morgan Stanley was the lead underwriter and Credit Suisse served as co-lead manager. The equivalent conversion price is $3.84 per share. The airline has concurrently priced 22.3125 million shares of its common stock price of $3.20 per share. Underwriters have been granted more than 3.3 million shares as an overallotment option. AirTran has a market cap of $294 million and shares closed at $3.20. As you...
Japanese government bonds fell sharply Friday, triggering a trading halt to the lead futures contract mid-session on the Tokyo Stock Exchange before ending the day at their lowest level in six months.
Software giant Microsoft Corp. announced its fiscal third-quarter earnings Thursday, posting a quarterly profit that. Microsoft also offered fiscal 2009 guidance that beat Wall Street's estimates.
Shares of ProSiebenSat.1, Germany’s largest television group, slump in the aftermath of a weak performance turned in by its free-TV business that weighed on first-quarter results.
TOKYO (Reuters) - An unexpected tax bill sent Honda Motor Co's quarterly profit tumbling 86 percent, and Japan's No.2 carmaker warned of a weak year ahead due to a stronger yen, rising materials costs and a soft U.S. car market.
Reuters - An unexpected tax bill sent Honda Motor
Co's quarterly profit tumbling 86 percent, and Japan's No.2
carmaker warned of a weak year ahead due to a stronger yen,
rising materials costs and a soft U.S. car market.
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Shares in telecom equipment maker Ericsson rocketed more than 20 percent on Friday, their biggest gain in nearly five years, after the company unveiled surprisingly strong first-quarter profits.
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - World number two truck maker Volvo AB posted first-quarter pretax earnings above market expectations on Friday and was more upbeat on its key European market, sending its shares sharply higher.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese electronics maker Toshiba Corp posted on Friday a better-than-expected 95 percent drop in quarterly profit amid tumbling chip prices and an exit from high-definition DVDs, and said it expected 2 percent earnings growth this year.
Reuters - Japanese electronics maker Toshiba Corp
posted on Friday a better-than-expected 95 percent drop in
quarterly profit amid tumbling chip prices and an exit from
high-definition DVDs, and said it expected 2 percent earnings
growth this year. Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 25 Apr 2008 | 10:24 am
The economy grew at its slowest pace for three years during the first quarter
because of stuttering growth in the UK services sector. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 25 Apr 2008 | 10:22 am
HANOVER (Reuters) - The world's fifth-largest automotive parts supplier, Continental , is on course to log another year of record earnings as it streamlines its portfolio and integrates its recently acquired VDO business.
Analysts hung crepe for hours after Microsoft (MSFT) announced it quarterly results. Revenue did not grow enough and earnings were light. Sales were actually down at the company's three huge divisions: client, servers, and business. Most investors did take heart in the company's 2009 forecasts of better days. What may have been lost in the mayhem is that Redmond has two emerging business, both of which they have been in for years, which are starting to show promise. Just as important, neither is directly related to software. After half a decade and billions of dollars in losses, Microsoft's game division,...
Declining exports are blamed for the slowdown in South Korea's economy in the first three months of 2008. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 25 Apr 2008 | 10:09 am
Japan’s biggest securities firm, Nomura Holdings Inc. reported Friday a $1.48 billion loss in the fourth quarter on a sharp increase in provisions on transactions with monoline insurers as well as losses linked to mortgage-backed securities.
Shares of Ericsson AB soar 22% after the world’s largest maker of mobile networks posts better-than-expected first-quarter profit and sales, and flags a recovery in the U.S.
An oil pipeline which provides a third of the UK's daily oil output is to close as a result of the Grangemouth dispute. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 25 Apr 2008 | 10:00 am
U.S. stock futures on Friday pointed to a third day of gains, with a continued rise for the dollar and growing confidence in the financial sector helping markets look past a slightly bearish earnings outlook from Microsoft.
The world's second largest advertising group reported underlying growth of 5 per cent, at the lower end of forecasts, as western Europe showed signs of a slowdown Source: FT.com - US homepage | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:51 am
Shares in WPP were hit after the world's second-largest advertising group reported a weaker performance in several European markets in March and first quarter comparable growth rates shy of some analysts'... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:51 am
SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics , the world's top maker of memory chips, beat forecasts with a 37 percent rise in quarterly profit on stellar performances in flat screens and mobile phones, sending its shares 4 percent higher.
Anyone who appreciates antiques or collectibles understands the bliss that comes from scoring some one-in-a-million piece at one-hundredth of its price -and then telling everybody about your amazing catch. Perhaps the best place to discover that perfect find, and a best-kept secret of antiques dealers, is the estate sale.
The prevailing wisdom is that oil prices will keep rising. One CIBC analyst recently said it will hit $200 by 2010, driving US gasoline prices to $7. The Brazilians say they will rescue us from all of that. They claim to have found enough oil to power this hemisphere for ages. According to Bloomberg, Brazil has discovered huge deposits of crude. The news agency writes "Brazil's discoveries of what may be two of the world's three biggest oil finds in the past 30 years could help end the Western Hemisphere's reliance on Middle East crude." While the discoveries may not...
Ericsson led Europe's leaderboard on Friday after the Swedish mobile telecoms company reported better-than-expected first-quarter profits.The technology sector was well supported after Samsung Electronics,... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:43 am
TOKYO/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Investors dumped Japanese bonds on Friday, betting the world's biggest central banks were shifting their focus to fighting inflation rather than cushioning a fragile global economy from the credit crisis.
A securities filing shows Countrywide Financial Corp. CEO Angelo Mozilo earned about $10.8 million in total compensation and cashed out $121.5 million in stock options last year. The... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:36 am
CNN commentator Jack Cafferty is a insolent fellow. He commented about the Chinese saying "They're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years". Nice touch. Cafferty was upset about all of the lead-painted toys and other dangerous products that the Chinese are sending to our shores. The Chinese struck back. A group of people from the mainland have sued CNN for $1.3 billion, $1 for each person in the country. According to Reuters "The case against the Atlanta-based cable channel, its parent company Turner Broadcasting and Jack Cafferty, the offending commentator, comes after...
Argentina's economy minister resigns after less than five months in the job in the wake of a bitter farmers' strike. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:25 am
For nearly two years, Adriel and Lance Bush tried unsuccessfully to sell their 1925 home in West Palm Beach, Fla. First the couple went the traditional route: They hired a realtor (three of them, in fact) who gave them standard advice, like getting rid of all the clutter caused by their twin toddler boys. They also renovated their master bath and added granite counters to the kitchen. Still no takers, which wasn't surprising: Home sales in the West Palm Beach area have fallen by double digits.
The UK economy grew 0.4% in the first three months of the year, its weakest quarterly growth in three years. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:20 am
WASHINGTON - The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday charged a Wall Street trader with spreading lies about Blackstone Group's attempted purchase of Alliance Data Systems Corp. and profiting from... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:19 am
Kenneth Langone, head of the New York Stock Exchange's compensation committee when it approved a $190 million pay package for then-Chairman Richard Grasso, lost a bid to have a New York state lawsuit against... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:19 am
THE New York Times' news room is bracing for a bloodbath in the next 10 days. The word from inside is that approximately 50 unionized journalists have accepted the buyout proposal, and only another 20... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:19 am
Although twice rejected in earlier bids for Wendy's, billionaire Nelson Peltz is now getting the last laugh - buying it in his third try for a super value price. Peltz only a year ago had offered $3.6... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:19 am
Web tracker comScore, seeking to repair its tarnished reputation, took Wall Street to task yesterday for misinterpreting its reports suggesting Google's paid-click growth had slowed. In a publicized letter,... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:19 am
A New York judge yesterday did not rule on a request by six Wall Street banks to throw out a lawsuit brought against them by two private-equity firms in the battle over the $27 billion takeover of Clear... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:19 am
John Thain is proof again that Wall Street's new graduating class of chiefs can run their ships better than their predecessors. The soft-spoken Thain showed yesterday he's hardly the meek administrator... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:19 am
Motorola Inc. posted a wider loss and may lose more money this quarter than analysts estimated, hurt by a lack of new mobile phones to compete with Apple Inc. and Nokia Oyj. The stock declined 3.1 percent... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:19 am
Kentucky's soggy spring has put corn planting well behind schedule for farmers like Randy Hagan, who spent more time tinkering in his shop than working in his fields. After finally... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:12 am
Nomura becomes the latest bank to announce big losses linked to the value of US mortgage-backed securities. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:09 am
Reuters - Investors dumped Japanese bonds
on Friday, betting the world's biggest central banks were
shifting their focus to fighting inflation rather than
cushioning a fragile global economy from the credit crisis.
TOKYO/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Investors dumped Japanese bonds on Friday, betting the world's biggest central banks were shifting their focus to fighting inflation rather than cushioning a... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 9:06 am
The Forties pipeline system, which pumps crude oil from the North Sea, is set
to shut down tonight, as 1,200 workers at the Grangemouth refinery in
Scotland prepare to walk out in a dispute over pensions. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 25 Apr 2008 | 8:53 am
Chinese officials will meet representatives of the Dalai Lama, the official Xinhua news agency reported, in a move that would mark a change in tactics for Beijing Source: FT.com - US homepage | 25 Apr 2008 | 8:41 am
Japan's core consumer prices accelerated at their fastest pace in a decade in March on higher food and transportation costs, data released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications showed Friday.
Shares in advertising group WPP dropped around 5% Friday after an unexpected European slowdown in March took the shine off good first quarter revenue growth.
According to Nasdaq data for the period ending April 15, short sellers moved aggressively out of tech shares. The figure compare with those posted on March 31. The short interest in Microsoft (MSFT) fell 9.3 million to 109.1 million, perhaps on hopes that it will lower or drops its bid for Yahoo! (YHOO). Shares short in Intel (INTC) dropped 7.3 million to 55.9 million. The chip company's results showed that PC sales were not slowing as much as has been expected. Shares short in Cisco (CSCO) dropped 6.8 million to 62.9 million. Shares short in RF Micro (RFMD) dropped 4.9...
Imperial Tobacco was formed in 1901 from the combination of 13 family-run British tobacco companies trying to individually stave off takeover by The American Tobacco Company. Source: Telegraph Business | 25 Apr 2008 | 8:30 am
Reuters - World number two truck maker Volvo AB
posted first-quarter pretax earnings above market expectations
on Friday and was more upbeat on its key European market,
sending its shares sharply higher.
On April 25, a MarketWatch report on Japanese inflation misstated the month of the Tokyo metropolitan area core inflation data. See the corrected story.
The federal government, eager to boost the flagging economy, will start distributing special tax rebates on Monday - five days earlier than expected, the Treasury Department said Thursday.
According to Reuters, two Chinese citizens have filed a $1.3 billion suit against CNN(TWX) for insulting the people in their country. Reuters reports that Honda's net fell and that the company said the yen would hurt results in 2009. Reuters writes that Microsoft (MSFT) made a final threat that it "reveal new plans" if Yahoo! (YHOO) will not negotiate a buy-out. Reuters writest that Wall St. was disappointed by Microsoft's numbers. Reuters reports that results at American Express (AXP) fell. The Wall Street Journal reports that the FHA spent $157 million last year to keep lenders from foreclosing on properties....
German tax authorities are to launch a new wave of 20 separate tax evasion investigations in the next two weeks, a press report said Friday, after a first push netted hundreds of millions... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 7:55 am
Monique Blake won't be shopping for new clothes. William Acosta got rid of his cell phone. Paula Rockwell put off buying a home. In ways both large and small, Americans are doing... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 7:31 am
Markets in Asia were mixed. The Nikkei rose 2.4% to 13,863. Sony (SNE) rose 5.3% to 4780. Toyota (TM) rose 3.1% to 5290. The Hang Seng fell .6% to 25,518. China Netcom (CN) fell 2.3% to 23.10. China Petroleum (SNP) dropped 2% to 5.26. The Shianghia Composite fell 7% to 3,558. Data from Reuters Douglas A. McIntyre
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Telecom equipment maker Ericsson posted better first-quarter profits and margins than expected, sending its shares rocketing on the firm's first upbeat news since an... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 7:22 am
Samsung Electronics says quarterly profits jumped 37% helped by strong sales of mobiles and flat-screen TVs. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 25 Apr 2008 | 7:12 am
Chinese and European Union leaders launched a high-level dialogue Friday on tensions over China's swelling trade surplus with Europe amid friction about Tibet. "Our meeting today marks Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 7:10 am
WPP acknowledged today that growth during March was slower than expected
despite strong sales from a resilient US advertising market. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 25 Apr 2008 | 7:10 am
Supermarkets and cigarette firms have been engaged in unlawful practices linked to retail prices, the OFT alleges. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 25 Apr 2008 | 7:09 am
Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp. announced Friday plans to acquire stakes in two mining projects in Chile from Antofagasta PLC amid booming demand for copper. Marubeni... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 7:05 am
The new chairman of the music group is well respected, even as he takes the place of industry icon Clive Davis.
One week after taking over as chairman and chief executive of BMG Label Group, Barry Weiss appears to be toiling away behind the scenes, unconcerned about the long shadow cast by his predecessor, Clive Davis .
Wall Street rallied Thursday after the government's jobless claims data and Ford Motor 'sfirst-quarter results helped re-inject some optimism about the economy into the market.
It carries an edge as it competes with 'Sarah Marshall' and 'Harold & Kumar.'
The folks behind Universal Pictures' new comedy "Baby Mama" must feel a bit like the guy in that old pop song: "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right."
Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate control the content, but will their effort yield big rewards?
A partnership of Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Lionsgate to launch a movie channel and video-on-demand service is a risky test of the promise of new media.
Caruso's gilded Americana mall defies Americans' economic mood
Cash registers are ringing less often as Americans worry about recession. But the developer of an extravagant Glendale shopping center is betting big that luxury stays in fashion. ¶ It's a gamble that has paid off before for builder Rick Caruso. This time, he set out to top his popular Grove mall in Los Angeles' Fairfax district with an even more elaborate re-creation of a small town center in downtown Glendale, set to open May 2. ¶ The $400-million Americana at Brand covers four blocks and includes pricey apartments and condominiums above dozens of tony shops, restaurants and an 18-screen movie complex. ¶ With open streets, trees and statuary, the center has the feel of a resort village. ¶ "It's much more of a town in the scale of buildings and size of open space," Caruso said. ¶ Like the Grove, it is organized around pedestrian thoroughfares and a town square. But unlike traditional malls, it has no department stores. It will have a Tiffany & Co., a Lacoste store and a Cheesecake Factory.
The naughty Internet pictures spark concern about the star of Disney's lucrative 'Hannah Montana' franchise.
When a 15-year-old girl flashes a hint of her green bra in a playfully naughty photo on the Internet, hardly anyone -- aside from perhaps her parents -- blinks.
The Shanghai index rises 9.3% after Beijing reduces a levy on transactions. It's the biggest daily gain in seven years.
After months of stock market declines that saw Shanghai's composite index fall nearly 50% in half a year, China's government has stepped in and given investors a boost.
Supermarket operator Safeway Inc. reported Thursday that its profit rose 11% in the first quarter amid slowing sales growth, results that were boosted by the Easter holiday, a weak dollar and higher gasoline sales.
The actor is given the maximum penalty for failing to file income tax returns for three years.
Actor Wesley Snipes, star of such action movies as the "Blade" trilogy, was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday for failing to file income tax returns for three years.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese annual inflation hit a decade-high of 1.2 percent in March, helping trigger one of the biggest ever sell-offs in yen bonds as investors realized Japan has no... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 6:58 am
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - World number two truck maker Volvo AB posted first-quarter pretax earnings above market expectations on Friday and raised its market forecast for Europe, saying order Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 25 Apr 2008 | 6:44 am
Smokers may have been overcharged for cigarettes after the Office of Fair
Trading (OFT) accused two big tobacco companies and 11 retailers of alleged
unlawful co-ordination of prices. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 25 Apr 2008 | 6:37 am
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's tax bureau has accused Honda Motor Co Ltd of failing to report a total of about 140 billion yen ($1.3 billion) in domestic income over two years to March 2006, the Nikkei business daily said on Friday, quoting sources familiar with the matter.
Air China reports a 147% rise in three-month profit helped by a travel boom and the strengthening yuan. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 25 Apr 2008 | 6:16 am
Several years ago, Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor was chatting with his mother when he found out that she was a regular reader of newspaper obituary sections. Not only did she read them in her local paper, the Boston Globe, she also followed them in the newspaper of her hometown of Bloomington, Illinois, a place she hadn’t lived in for 50 years, on the off chance that she might read about someone she knew. It occurred then to Taylor that a lot of the characteristics that made job postings so successful online, such as the ability of users to search in multiple categories and be notified of new events, could also apply to obituaries. He stuck the idea into his mental file.
Fast-forward to 2008, and Taylor, 47, is now putting his long-gestating idea into action. His latest venture, Eons.com, on online community targeted at baby boomers for which he serves as C.E.O., has just spun off a new company called Tributes.com, a website that serves as a clearinghouse for obituaries and death notices. Its revenue is expected to come largely from advertising and hosting fees from funeral homes, but the company will also charge users to create their own tributes to and memorials for loved ones on the site.
“Regardless of which business it is, the consumers have said that their preferred way of getting information is the internet over traditional print,” says Taylor. “For a while, you’ll see obits in both newspapers and on the Web, but my prediction is that eventually they will all be online.” Newspaper owners and publishers must see Taylor as the Grim Reaper, banging another nail into the coffin of their industry, just as he did with classified help-wanted ads.
After building Monster.com, which he launched in 1994, into an almost $1 billion company, Taylor left in 2005 to launch Eons.com. Taylor’s success with Monster helped the startup attract $32 million in venture capital from blue-chip firms like Sequoia Capital, Charles River Ventures, and Intel Capital.
Eons.com has been no Monster.com—after attracting lots of initial attention, traffic dropped considerably and the company was forced to lay off one-third of its workforce—but its launch was fortuitous. On one of Eons’ topic channels focusing on relationships, Taylor saw an opportunity to implement his idea of bringing obituaries online. The first inkling that it could be something was when Eons created a message board for tributes to Rosa Parks on the first anniversary of the civil rights activist’s death, in 2006. The page received a flood of traffic and postings. In February, Taylor decided to turn Eons.com’s focus toward social networking and to spin off the site’s obituaries section into its own company, Tributes.com, raising $4.2 million for it from backers, including Dow Jones.
According to Elaine Haney, a former Eons.com executive who is now president of Tributes.com, the site is keeping a relatively low profile before its planned redesign in June and a big consumer-marketing push in September.
There’s another reason to keep a low profile until they get it right: Tributes.com faces a lot of competition. Unlike the early days of the Web, when Monster.com could make strides simply because of being online before others, today even newspapers themselves print death notices and obituaries on their own websites. And there are several other websites with a similar conceit, the best-known of which is Legacy.com, a private company started in 1998 that turned profitable in 2003, according to its spokesperson. Instead of competing directly with newspapers, however, Legacy.com has chosen to partner with and charge them a fee for hosting their online obituaries. It counts as clients more than 500 major newspapers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Legacy.com also hosts popular guest books and allows users to write and store their own obituaries; the site boasts 11 million unique visitors per month.
Legacy.com is not concerned about Taylor’s new venture. “Others have come and gone in this space, and we certainly take note of any new competitor, but the arrival of an online company interested in obituaries doesn’t alter our strategy in any way,” says Hayes Ferguson, Legacy.com’s chief operating officer.
Taylor says Tributes.com’s competitive edge will be its searchable central database.
“We can introduce the idea of finding information based on your contacts in the past, and you can be on the watch for people who went to your church or your school or people who you used to work with,” Taylor says.
But Taylor is patient, having learned from his experience at Monster.com how long it can take to chip away at a new market. He notes that the Conference Board recently estimated that last year the internet helped more people find jobs than did traditional media.
Speak loudly, and carry a soft stick. That approach won't get you very far, but it was all Microsoft had to offer.
When Microsoft presented its earnings Thursday, the software giant, as expected, talked big about how it deserves to own Yahoo. Less expected was how soft the stick was that it used to hammer home its point.
First, the big talk. "Yahoo continues to lose search share, and profitability continues to decline year on year," said Microsoft C.F.O. Chris Liddell, taking the unorthodox step of discussing a rival's performance on its own earnings call.
After noting that there were twice as many eavesdroppers on the Microsoft call as usual, he pushed in the knife, reminding everyone that Yahoo's results this week "were in line with the drivers that they gave on the last earnings call on January 29, when the stock price closed at $19.05".
Liddell then pointed to a deadline this weekend for Yahoo to come crawling, suggesting that Microsoft might either start talking directly to Yahoo shareholders or--echoing comments from chief executive Steve Ballmer earlier Thursday--simply walk away. "Speed is of the essence," Liddell intoned. "Unfortunately the transaction has been anything but speedy."
Now about that soft stick. To strengthen its case, Microsoft needed to deliver the kind of blockbuster report it showed in the last two quarters. While earnings per share of 47 cents was above the 44-cent forecast, Wall Street is stuck in a dark mood these days. So it focused instead on weakness--and found it in Microsoft's top line.
Revenue in the quarter was flat with the March quarter of 2007, which really wasn't a surprise. A year ago, Vista sales were booming but they have naturally slowed down since the launch. So Microsoft's so-called "client" revenue, which is derived largely from Windows software, fell 24 percent to $4 billion.
The real surprise was that Vista delivered even less than the scaled-down number analysts were looking for. After all, industry research had shown that global shipments of desktops and laptops were surprisingly strong last quarter, up between 12 percent and 15 percent.
Why didn't Microsoft benefit more from that demand? The answer may lie in its Silicon Valley arch-nemesis, Apple (which on Wednesday said its Mac computers were flying off shelves).
"If you delve into the numbers, Apple looks like it has a bigger portion of the market," said Brendan Barnicle, an analyst at Pacific Crest. "Maybe Apple is doing so well it's starting to actually affect some of Microsoft's clients."
And although Liddell insisted speed is of the essence for Yahoo, he was much more forgiving when it comes to Microsoft's online advertising business. Microsoft spent $6 billion on aQuantive last May, yet Liddell acknowledged Thursday that aQuantive's "real revenue potential is some years out."
What's more, revenue in Microsoft's online services division may have doubled on year to $843 million, but that was still less than Google's $3.7 billion in net revenue in the same period. It also marked the seventh straight quarter that Microsoft's online division lost money.
Still, some analysts were encouraged by Microsoft's outlook in the next fiscal year. Andy Miedler of Edward Jones said that the diversified revenue streams, including Xbox and server and enterprise software, would help Microsoft's revenue grow 12 percent in the year though June 2009.
That's down from the 17 percent revenue growth this fiscal year, but not bad considering that there are no upgrades planned for key products like Vista and the Office suite.
Miedler, who has a hold rating on Microsoft because he believes its $31 a share bid for Yahoo and the potential integration costs are rich, said there wasn't enough in either Microsoft's or Yahoo's earnings this quarter to tilt the needle in favor of either company.
"We're back where we were at the beginning," he said. "It doesn't change things one way or the other."
Barnicle at Pacific Crest agrees. "I think Microsoft may wait a while and see if they can sweat the Yahoo shareholders into believing that they might really walk away."
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp disappointed investors looking for stellar earnings on Thursday with soft Windows software sales and a below-target profit forecast, which overshadowed a strong outlook for next year.
American Express sees first quarter profits fall 6%, after the number of cardholders defaulting on debts rises. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 25 Apr 2008 | 1:12 am
Reuters - Microsoft Corp gave Yahoo
Inc no hope of a higher takeover price, saying it was ready to
go hostile or even call off its bid if Yahoo maintains
"unrealistic expectations" of a better deal.
SAN FRANCISCO/SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp gave Yahoo Inc no hope of a higher takeover price, saying it was ready to go hostile or even call off its bid if Yahoo maintains "unrealistic expectations" of a better deal.
Microsoft sees third quarter profits decline, hit by lower demand, but the results beat forecasts. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 25 Apr 2008 | 12:08 am
Inchcape, the global car dealership, is buying a 75.1pc stake in Russia's Musa Motors Group for up to $450m (£225m) in anticipation of what the UK company believes will be Europe's biggest retail automotive market within two years. Source: Telegraph Business | 25 Apr 2008 | 12:01 am
J Sainsbury, the UK's third-biggest supermarket, will vastly increase its non-food products with the launch of a 1,700-item homewares range this weekend. Source: Telegraph Business | 25 Apr 2008 | 12:01 am
Asset management group Schroders has suffered its first credit crisis writedowns, resulting in a 55pc collapse in first-quarter profits and a 6.6pc fall in the shares. Source: Telegraph Business | 25 Apr 2008 | 12:01 am
The Serious Fraud Office has been given the go-ahead to appeal directly to the House of Lords against a High Court ruling that it had acted "unlawfully" when it called off its Saudi arms probe. Source: Telegraph Business | 25 Apr 2008 | 12:01 am
Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC), London's best-performing blue-chip this year, took a breather yesterday as investors started to cash in on its performance. Source: Telegraph Business | 25 Apr 2008 | 12:01 am
Chinese authorities moved to rescue the collapsing Shanghai stock exchange by cutting stamp duty - and saw the main index leap almost 10pc. Source: Telegraph Business | 25 Apr 2008 | 12:01 am
The UK's second biggest pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca saw profit before tax fall 5pc to $2.1bn (£1.1bn) for the first quarter of the year. Source: Telegraph Business | 25 Apr 2008 | 12:01 am
John de Mol, the Dutch TV executive behind Big Brother, is backing a management buyout of leading independent production company RDF Media. Source: Telegraph Business | 25 Apr 2008 | 12:01 am
Credit Suisse, the Swiss investment bank, reported its first quarterly loss
for nearly five years yesterday after asset writedowns reached $5.2 billion
($£2.6 billion). Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 24 Apr 2008 | 11:00 pm
The American airline industry lost $1.5 billion ($£760 million) in the first
three months of the year and fears are growing that European carriers will
be the next to feel the pain. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 24 Apr 2008 | 11:00 pm
Free cars and mortgage-free living are being dangled in front of house-hunters
in Bangalore as developers battle to halt a property slump in India's
Silicon Valley. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 24 Apr 2008 | 11:00 pm
What will we promise the world's hungry this time? When I was a girl, my father, King Hussein of Jordan, related a story about the last global food crisis and a famous promise made to the world's hungry by Henry Kissinger, who was then US Secretary of State. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 24 Apr 2008 | 11:00 pm
The arguments that CNET's (CNET) board should retain its current management went away today when the company announced it Q1 results. Total revenue was up a very modest 3% to $91.4 million. Non-GAAP operating income before depreciation, amortization, stock compensation expense, restructuring charges and stockholder proposals and stock option investigation related costs, net, was $1.7 million compared to $11.0 million during the first quarter of 2007. CNET's revenue is not growing as fast as internet advertising in general. That is almost impossible to explain given management's argument that it has some of the best online content destinations in the world....
Merrill Lynch is holding talks with TPG to discuss closer co-operation, including the possibility of the private equity firm investing in Merrill if the investment bank needs more capital Source: FT.com - US homepage | 24 Apr 2008 | 10:31 pm
Barney Frank, the powerful Democratic chairman of the House financial services committee, issued a stark warning at a breakfast meeting with reporters in Washington Source: FT.com - US homepage | 24 Apr 2008 | 10:29 pm
Microsoft brushed off broader economic worries to give a confident projection of double-digit growth over the next year, although short-term weakness in sales of its core Windows product sent its shares sliding Source: FT.com - US homepage | 24 Apr 2008 | 10:22 pm
On tonight's MAD MONEY on CNBC, Jim Cramer continued his GREEN WEEK stock picks. Tonight he wanted to cover the buy on weakness for these stocks and tonight he covered wind power stocks. He said it is impractical in many parts of the country, but he noted many parts where wind will work. Cramer did note that the wind power tax credit could expire at the end of the year, and that would hurt the sector even though this is the cheapest energy out there. Here are his picks: Trinity Industries Inc. (NYSE: TRN) was one Cramer thought was only...
Ever wonder why Microsoft is so urgently pursuing a Yahoo takeover? Look no further than today's earnings statement.
Revenue from its two big software products—operating systems and office productivity—both dropped sharply in the fiscal third quarter from the previous three months. Microsoft was saved from disaster only by a jump in sales of its hardware, particularly its Xbox 360 game console.
"Our third-quarter results demonstrate the benefit of our diversified business model," chief financial officer Chris Liddell said.
And how much more comforting would it be to have a bigger slice of online-advertising revenue? It's apparently not going to come from organic growth at MSN, so Microsoft would love to have an established name like Yahoo as the third leg of its stool.
Overall, Microsoft earned $4.38 billion, or 47 cents a share, on revenue of $14.45 billion in the latest quarter. Net income was down more than 11 percent, from $4.93 billion, or 50 cents a share, in the same quarter a year earlier. Revenue rose 0.4 percent from a year ago, but still fell short of analysts' forecast of about $14.57 billion. Earnings, however, topped estimates by two cents a share.
Baidu.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) just posted earnings of $0.67 non-GAAP EPS on $81.9 million revenues. The estimates for the Chinese online search engine leader from First Call were $0.60 EPS on $75.39 million in revenues. Traffic acquisition costs (TAC) was $10.9 million. Baidu.com also gave guidance on a preliminary basis for the next quarter with revenues of $111 to $114 million. Next quarter estimates from First Call are $0.91 EPS on $100.6 million in revenues. As of March 31, 2008, Baidu's cash and equivalents were $237.6 million. Its online marketing customers during the first quarter grew to approximately 161,000, an...
A Wall Street short-seller was charged by the SEC with spreading false rumours in a case that suggests regulators are taking a fresh look at behaviour that many companies say is now rampant Source: FT.com - US homepage | 24 Apr 2008 | 9:03 pm
Several multibillion-dollar hedge funds have disappeared in the past couple of weeks, without benefit of a bailout from the Federal Reserve or JPMorgan. Analysts say dozens more could be looking at the same fate. Stephen Beard reports from London. Source: Marketplace | 24 Apr 2008 | 8:13 pm
Congress today gave itself until next week to consider the $280 billion farm bill, which includes funding for food stamps, nutrition programs and subsidies for farmers over five years. Which means a little something for everyone. Jeremy Hobson reports. Source: Marketplace | 24 Apr 2008 | 8:13 pm
There are about 2 billion square-feet of self-storage space for rent in this country. Almost 7 square-feet of storage outside the home for every man, woman and child -- and demand is rising. Andrew Phelps decided to revisit his. Source: Marketplace | 24 Apr 2008 | 8:13 pm
Product recalls, from pet food to toys, have prompted calls for tighter import inspections. The House is considering a proposal to charge food and drug producers hundreds of millions of dollars to improve product safety. Dan Grech reports. Source: Marketplace | 24 Apr 2008 | 8:12 pm
Just like food and energy, garment costs are going up. In fact, the increases are, in part, because of food and energy. Sarah Gardner unravels the cost of clothing. Source: Marketplace | 24 Apr 2008 | 8:12 pm
Target says it's had to write off a chunk of its outstanding credit-card debt. It's bad news for one of the country's biggest retailers, and worse for card holders who are discovering they can't pay what they owe. Jeff Tyler reports. Source: Marketplace | 24 Apr 2008 | 8:12 pm
While Congress considering a supplemental spending request Iraq and Afghanistan, Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson is among the lawmakers who say it's past time for the U.S. to stop paying for reconstruction. He talks with Kai Ryssdal. Source: Marketplace | 24 Apr 2008 | 8:12 pm
Special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction Stuart Bowen has issued a report that says the country could net $70 billion in oil revenues this year -- more than enough for Baghdad to begin paying its own way. He talks with Kai Ryssdal. Source: Marketplace | 24 Apr 2008 | 8:12 pm
Failed Abano suitor Crescent Capital Partners is taking legal action to recover a dividend payment, which Abano says it is holding as reimbursement for expenses relating to the takeover offer.
Abano said that while Crescent was... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 24 Apr 2008 | 8:00 pm
Federal prosecutors indicted a high-ranking pharmaceutical executive today for allegedly lying to regulators about a patent agreement involving the popular blood-thinning drug Plavix, which is used by heart-attack, stroke, and other patients.
Prosecutors charged Andrew Bodnar, former senior vice president of Bristol-Myers Squibb, with lying to the Federal Trade Commission about what representations he made during negotiations with a rival company, Apotex.
According to the one-count indictment, Bodnar reassured Apotex during a 2006 meeting that Bristol would not launch a generic version of Plavix if Apotex agreed to a settlement that delayed the launch of its Plavix generic until 2011.
At the time, Apotex and Bristol were in litigation over the validity of Plavix's patent and were negotiating a settlement. The stakes are high because Plavix is the most widely prescribed blood-thinning drug. Some 48 million Americans take it daily to prevent potentially fatal blood clots, generating $3.5 billion in sales in the United States alone in 2005.
At the same time, Bristol-Myers was bound by a separate, unrelated consent decree with the F.T.C. that required the New York company to submit any proposed patent settlements for review and approval.
The commission had warned that it would not approve a settlement of the litigation if Bristol agreed not to compete in the Plavix generic market by not launching its own generic version.
Bodnar was charge with violating the Federal False Statements Act, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
"Lying to the federal government is a serious felony that obstructs the law- enforcement process," said Thomas Barnett, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division.
Last June, Bristol agreed to plead guilty and pay a $1 million criminal fine for misleading the government about the Plavix patent deal.
Samsung Group plans to invest about 27 trillion won ($34 billion) to 28 trillion won this year in facilities and research. The investment by Samsung includes more than 10 trillion won to be spent by flagship Samsung Electronics. ... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 24 Apr 2008 | 7:30 pm
AFP - Two major US bulk retailers are rationing the sale of large bags of rice to consumers amid a growing global food crisis marked by skyrocketing prices and heavy pressure on demand.
Better returns and less debt at meat processor PPCS have helped turn a half-year loss into a profit.
Revenue for the six months ending February was $884.9 million, up from $871.5 million the previous year. Net profit was $11.2... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 24 Apr 2008 | 7:00 pm
The euro was under pressure against the dollar as investors awaited German corporate sentiment data for clues on the health of the economy in the euro zone.
Soft economic data and comments from policymakers indicating the weaker... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 24 Apr 2008 | 6:30 pm
Kiwibank's decision to cut its key lending rate despite a hold on rates from the Reserve Bank has not been followed by the main trading banks.
State-owned Kiwibank said yesterday it was cutting its two-year lending rate to 9.29... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 24 Apr 2008 | 6:00 pm
European bank UniCredit will write down some 650 million ($1298 million) on asset-backed securities in the first quarter.
The bank said it would have a trading loss of about 675 million but a consolidated profit of around 1 billion... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 24 Apr 2008 | 5:30 pm
The Blue Chip liquidators say no investors in the failed property scheme have so far been forced into a mortgagee sale.
The Business Herald reported this week that Tasman Mortgages was sending out final demand notices to investors... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 24 Apr 2008 | 5:00 pm
NZX chief executive Mark Weldon is upbeat about the company's outlook for the next six months, despite acknowledging that the global market slump is likely to mean few new listings this year.
Weldon yesterday delivered the NZX... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 24 Apr 2008 | 5:00 pm
DeCode C.E.O. Kari Stefansson is on the telephone from Iceland insisting that I immediately go on statins—cholesterol-lowering drugs that help prevent heart disease. A physician as well as an entrepreneur, he has just told me I am at a high risk for a myocardial infarction—a heart attack—based on a gene test run by his company.
"You have a very bad gene marker," he says, "you need to take this seriously!"
I had just begun my own personal journey to delve into millions of DNA markers inside me to check for diseases, and already things were looking dire. Or were they? In the weeks after Stefansson's call, I would receive results from three new websites that tested my DNA and offered assessments of my personal genetic risk factors for not only heart attack, but also a raft of diseases ranging from diabetes to multiple sclerosis.
The findings suggest that this information is based on an exciting but still uncertain science that can produce contradictory results about something I take pretty seriously: my heart.
Stefansson had called me about a genetic marker identified by scientists as rs10757278. Last year, researchers at his company and elsewhere linked a certain version of genetic coding in this marker with an elevated risk of heart disease. This "variation" was discovered by comparing the genes of people in North America and Europe who have had a heart attack to those who haven't.
In the language of genetics, the high-risk result for this marker is a GG—the "G" coming from the familiar genetic symbols for nucleotides (G, T, C, and A) that are arranged in pairs along lengthy strings of DNA. These "base pairs" line up like computer code to direct the growth and functions of cells. Differences in these codes—in the letters—are what accounts for variation among people: everything from the color of one's eyes to the likelihood of developing a certain disease.
About 20 percent of Caucasians carry the GG, which confers about a 1.64 times the average risk factor for a heart attack—a 64 percent greater risk than average. This is a moderate risk compared with, say, someone with high cholesterol, who has at least two times the normal risk.
The other possible variations for this marker are AG, which gives a carrier about a 1.24 risk factor, and AA, which is a "1", an average risk. For Caucasian men, this average is about 40 percent that he will have a heart attack sometime in his life.
I apologize for getting into numbers and risk factors that may be mind-numbing to some. My defense is that we all need to begin to understand the language of markers and probabilities, which is likely to become part of basic health care in the next decade or so.
Gene
Gene Marker
At-Risk Mutation
Author's Results
Risk Factor
Source
CDKN2A/CDB
rs10757278
G
GG
1.64
DeCode
"I want you to call me when you start statins!" Stefansson said to me as our call wound up. I said I would think about it and told him good-bye, knowing that I was not about to go on statins based on a genetic risk factor that I didn't entirely understand.
I'm a healthy person from a mostly long-lived family, and I frankly don't give much thought to when I might get sick or die. I also know that DeCode's test did not factor in my family history, which is still the best indicator for one's proclivity for heritable diseases. No one in my family has had serious heart disease.
A few weeks after Stefansson's call, I got more genetic results on his company's new online testing service, DeCodeMe, which provided my risk factors for heart attack and 17 other diseases. (The company charges $995 for the service—a fee it waives for some journalists, including me—and delivers its results over the Web.)
I logged onto to the DeCodeme website, found my results, and immediately went to "myocardial infarction"—which the site now refers to by the more familiar "heart attack." I surprised myself by feeling a tinge of apprehension, wondering if Stefansson could be right.
Imagine my surprise when I saw my results. For the two genetic markers tested on DeCode, my risk for heart attack was not high—it was lower than average. On my own crude Excel chart (see below) it was a threat level "yellow" on my chart. Based on the two genetic markers tested by DeCode, I was 0.86 for one, and 1 for the other.
If all this wasn't confusing enough, a few weeks later, I accessed the other two major online consumer sites, 23andme and Navigenics (then in a prelaunch beta form), and again got heart-jolting results. Navigenics agreed with Kari Stefansson's original assessment that I was at high risk, giving me scores of 1.72 and 1.53 for their two markers—threat level "red" on my personal scale. 23andme's results were 1.23 times average—a medium risk, threat level "orange."
*The link between these markers and this gene has not been confirmed. **This is a risk assessed for men age 45 to 84; the others are a lifetime risk. Enlarge this chart
I asked myself: What the heck? Which is it, high, medium or low risk?
For starters, none of the sites tested me for the rs10757278 marker, despite its importance as a predictive marker in several studies. The reason is one of expediency.
It turns out that this marker does not appear on the gene chip used to analyze DNA for the DeCodeMe website. This chip—called an "array"—is made by San Diego-based Illumina, which sells "off the rack" arrays used by deCodeme and 23andMe, and includes only about a tenth of the 10 million genetic markers that scientists believe account for much of the diversity in humans.
For my original test run by DeCode, they used a custom-designed array that tested for rs10757278. For their consumer site, they used the standard chip, not their custom one.
But the Illumina array does test for other DNA markers that are closely associated with rs10757278. They all occur in the same region on chromosome nine, and each confers a similar heart attack risk factor (a linkage disequilibrium, for all you scientists out there). One of these linked markers is rs10116277—which deCodeme used instead of rs10757278.
When I called DeCode to ask about the contradiction between my results from the custom chip and from the consumer website, company scientists said that I was an anomaly. Most people, they said, test the same for both of these markers. That is, if they are at a high risk for rs10116277, they test the same for rs10757278.
I'm part of a minority that tested differently for the two markers, with one coming out as high risk (red), and the other average (black). DeCodeMe also tested for a second genetic marker on chromosome 1 that gave me a below-average risk.
Navigenics tested me on a second marker linked to rs10757278—they use a different off-the-rack array than deCodeme—and I came out high risk again. This is why their score for me is in the upper range of danger.
Michele Cargill, head of Translational Genetics for Navigenics, told me that their marker is a perfect linkage disequilibrium for rs10757278, though the studies cited on the Navigenics site do point out that for a small group of people, these markers are not identical.
"We're just beginning to understand what this information looks like for individuals," acknowledged Cargill, "but we think there is enough information to tell you things that will help you make decisions about your lifestyle and health."
Heart disease isn't the only sticking point. The problem of conflicting results—based on looking at different genetic markers for the same disease—is also apparent for type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, age-related macular degeneration, and more. It all leaves this consumer a bit confused about what to believe.
As these tests evolve, the science needs to better understand contrasting results—like mine for heart attack—and how to interpret individual results with greater accuracy. Standards also need to be established for which markers are most relevant, and how risk factors are determined for single markers and groups of markers.
As geneticist Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, said Wednesday during a meeting I attended in Washington, D.C.: "We don't want to squash these companies, but there needs to be some oversight. We need a public site to show consumers what is accurate and valid. Otherwise we risk turning off the public."
This will come, but, at the moment, this consumer can only suggest that buyers beware the pitfalls in these early days of this promising technology.
Next Week: Genes for wet or dry earwax and other results and ruminations about recreational genetics and genetic voyeurism (the privacy issue).
News of F&P Appliances' plans to move more of its manufacturing overseas was sad for the company's workers and anyone who values New Zealand's remaining manufacturing jobs.
The sharemarket, however, loved it.
The company's shares... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 24 Apr 2008 | 5:00 pm
At first glance, Gossip Girl is just another tawdry teen dramadey, but take a look at the show's viewership -- or more precisely, how it's viewed -- and you'll see that the CW's underdog is a shape of things to come.
While its ratings are mediocre at best, the show has cultivated a huge following online. Now, in a misguided effort to pump up traditional viewership numbers, the network has decided to stop streaming Gossip Girl.
Like so many shows targeting the younger set -- My So-Called Life, Popular,Freaks & Geeks -- GG's ratings are struggling, at least when you look at traditional Nielsen ratings. The show on average pulls in roughly 2.6 million viewers (Lost, when it's considered a failure, takes in 12.8 million). "But that didn't mean they weren't watching," write Jessica Pressler and Chris Rovzar in the latest issue of New York Magazine.
New episodes routinely arrived at the No. 1 most-downloaded spot on iTunes, and then there were the hundreds of thousands who were downloading free week-old episodes on the CW's site. Even executives at Nielsen threw up their hands and admitted that Gossip Girl appeared to be speaking to an audience so young and tech-savvy they hadn't really figured it out just yet.
This isn't the first show to find internet success -- Lost and The Office are big download hits, too. But this is the first show that seems to have succeeded primarily on the internet. There's something about the combination of the show's premise, the viewers' age, and the available technology that has given Gossip Girl a life of its own online. Not only do fans watch the show on their computers, but they post sightings of the actors on gossip blogs and exchange rumors (about both the show and its stars) on fan sites. You can even play Gossip Girl's Upper East Side on Second Life. It's not appointment television; it's a 24-hour conversation. We are all Gossip Girl! And the whole experience can happen sans television.
Rather than figure out how to cash in on this new way of watching television, the CW's president of entertainment, Dawn Ostroff, has made one of the worst decisions of her career: She's shutting down streams. From now until the end of the season, all new episodes can only be seen on Monday nights at 9 p.m. in front of the TV, recorded on DVR or via iTunes.
Those hundreds of thousands of viewers who were watching directly on the CW's site will either have to tune in or turn to P2P networks to download the show illegally. And knowing how savvy kids are, that very well may be what happens. Doesn't Ostroff know you can't tell a teen what to do?
This past Monday, the first episode to not be streamed pulled in 2.44 million viewers -- a 1 percent jump from the last episode to air before the Hollywood writers' strike (though ratings for the 18-49 demo were up 7 percent to 8 percent from the show's pre-strike average). Either way, those hundreds of thousands who were watching online don't seem to be tuning in during regularly scheduled programming.
The sharemarket drifted up in a quiet end to the short week before today's Anzac Day holiday.
The benchmark NZX-50 index closed up 0.2 per cent, or 8.34 points, at 3616.81, having risen 25 points on Wednesday. The index was about... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 24 Apr 2008 | 5:00 pm
After turmoil in the markets, and especially after the collapse of Bear Stearns, there have been calls for regulators to investigate rumors spread by short sellers, seemingly inviting a grand fishing expedition.
But how does one winnow the speculative from the intentionally false from the vast amounts of gossip that gets trafficked every day on Wall Street?
"Tracking down a rumor is like chasing the wind," Peter Henning, a professor at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, told Dow Jones. "You're not going to catch it."
But the Securities and Exchange Commission has now caught one, although he appears to be a minnow.
The commission has accused Paul S. Berliner, a Wall Street trader formerly associated with Schottenfeld Group, of spreading false rumors about Blackstone Group's proposed $6.4 billion deal for Alliance Data Systems while selling shares of A.D.S. short, or betting that their price would fall.
Berliner, the commission said, spread rumors on November 29 that the deal was being renegotiated at a lower price of $70 per share through "instant messages to numerous individuals, including traders at brokerage firms and hedge funds," the commission said in a statement. "The false rumor also was picked up by the media."
Within 30 minutes of the dissemination of the rumors, the commission says, shares of A.D.S. fell as much 17 percent.
The rumors were believable because the $81.75-per-share buyout appeared to be taking a long time to close amid the credit crunch and remains in limbo today.
Without admitting or denying wrongdoing, Berliner has agreed to settle the complaint by disgorging $26,129 in profits and interest, paying a penalty of $130,000. He is also barred from association with any broker or dealer.
"The message of this case is simple and direct. The commission will vigorously investigate and prosecute those who manipulate markets with this witch's brew of damaging rumors and short sales," said Christopher Cox, the S.E.C chairman.
In the wake of the intelligence bungles that propelled the United States into the Iraq war, it's no secret that the nation's spies have been working to improve the quality of their analysis. Now the top U.S. military intelligence agency has come up with a new tool for teaching recruits critical thinking skills: videogames.
The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has just taken delivery of three PC-based games, developed by simulation studio Visual Purple under a $2.6 million contract between the DIA and defense contractor Concurrent Technologies. The goal is to quickly train the next generation of spies to analyze complex issues like Islamic fundamentalism.
Given a choice between a droning classroom lecture or a videogame, the best method for teaching Generation Y was obvious. "It is clear that our new workforce is very comfortable with this approach," says Bruce Bennett, chief of the analysis-training branch at the DIA's Joint Military Intelligence Training Center.
Wired.com had an opportunity to play all three games, Rapid Onset, Vital Passage and Sudden Thrust. The titles may conjure images of blitzkrieg, but the games themselves are actually a surprisingly clever and occasionally surreal blend of education, humor and intellectual challenge, aimed at teaching the player how to think.
All three games put the player into the shoes of a young, eager but sometimes hapless DIA analyst.
Rapid Onset can best be described as Zen Buddhism meets the National Intelligence Estimate. It begins with the rookie analyst dreaming of meeting a white-robed guru on a mountaintop. The guru proceeds to throw him off the mountain; clinging to a rope, the analyst can only climb back up if he recites the Eight Questions of Intelligence Analysis.
Young Grasshopper then wakes up and goes to the office, where his boss (who just happens to look like the guru) asks him to analyze the implications of a Chinese purchase of a rusting ex-Soviet aircraft carrier. He can only solve the problem by applying the eight analytical questions. For example, does a foreign news report on the sale have a bias or point of view that might color its conclusions? Does the article cite evidence, or does it rely on opinion and conjecture?
The second game, Vital Passage, is a whodunit that begins with scenes of a tanker under attack in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. The question is, who attacked the tanker and how? In a reminder of the dangers of jumping to conclusions, our young analyst finds himself in a conference room full of bickering colleagues, each stridently advocating his or her particular theory (It was Iran! No, It was Iraq! It was a missile! No, it was a torpedo!). Our hero must use the approved analytical process to analyze and choose among competing hypotheses.
Anti-terrorist forces land by helicopter in Sudden Thrust. The goal of the games is to focus players on epistemology. Photo courtesy of: Visual Purple LLC
Written by Hollywood screenwriter David Freed, Sudden Thrust is the closest of the DIA trilogy to an action-packed videogame. Our analyst finds himself in a crisis situation when terrorists sail a hijacked natural-gas tanker into New York Harbor. Despite limited and inconclusive information, he and his colleagues must determine what the terrorists are up to, and send the analysis to the secretary of defense.
Sudden Thrust has scenes of helicopters and Navy Seals, but those are just atmospherics, like spooky music during a horror flick. The goal of the games is to focus players on epistemology, or how we know what we know. As our hero's boss puts it, "In our business, conjecture is a four-letter word."
Each game only takes about 90 minutes to three hours, and has multiple story lines that branch depending on a player's actions. All DIA analysts will eventually play them, from rookies to old hands who will use them for refresher training. The DIA has about 2,000 analysts, but the agency has been tasked with training another 2,000 in the U.S. military's combatant commands, many of whom work overseas far from training facilities. With classroom space and instructors at a premium, Bennett estimates that every hour spent training with a game saves one hour of classroom instruction, plus travel time and expense.
The DIA isn't alone in turning to videogames for training. The U.S. Army Intelligence Center is using a custom game to train interrogators, or "human collectors," as they are euphemistically known. Known by the staggering title of Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Tactical Proficiency Trainer Human Intelligence Control Cell, the simulation was designed by General Dynamics from the shooter Far Cry.
The Army game features a virtual detainee and interpreter; the player-interrogator speaks through voice-recognition software to the virtual interpreter, who translates the questions to the prisoner. Designed for rookie interrogators and more experienced personnel needing a refresher course, IEWTPTHICC teaches the player how to work through an interpreter, use culturally appropriate speech and analyze a detainee's body language, according to Lt. Col. Cherie Wallace, deputy head of the new systems training and integration office at the Army intelligence center at Fort Huachuca, Ariz.
The game does not teach coercive interrogation techniques, like waterboarding. But it may eventually be modified to show how offensive or abusive questioning will cause detainees to become less cooperative, says Dennis Mitchell, chief of the intelligence center's training devices branch. "One of the persons who helped us out on it was an instructor who trained people on what the current [interrogation] manual is, and what the rules of war are, and how you treat prisoners of war acceptably."
Intelligence videogames are an example of the way in which the government's training methods are changing. Traditional decision-making exercises have been done through the classroom BOGSAT (Bunch of Guys Sitting Around a Table). But videogame technology offers the possibility of running long-distance exercises with human- and computer-controlled avatars.
The National Defense University in Washington, D.C., for example, is experimenting with virtual conference rooms in Second Life. However, network security administrators are less then thrilled with videogames on their systems, which is why the DIA had to purchase standalone laptops so the games are kept separate from the main computer network. By 2009, the three games will be browser-based and capable of operating from classified servers. "In the intelligence world, we don't necessarily have the latest equipment," Bennett says.
A.J. Rossmiller, who served as a DIA Iraq analyst from 2004 to 2006, expects the games to be moderately useful. The classroom training he received as a fledgling analyst was "pretty weak," according to Rossmiller, author of Still Broken: A Recruit's Inside Account of Intelligence Failures, from Baghdad to the Pentagon. But videogames won't fix what he sees as systemic flaws in American intelligence, where conclusions by analysts are distorted as they work their way up the chain of command. "A lot of problems are stated as analytical when they're management problems," Rossmiller says.
And games as teaching tools are only as effective as the assumptions behind them, says John Prados, a designer of hobby war games as well as an historian who has studied U.S. intelligence. For example, prescripted events in a game will tend to reflect the biases of the game's designers as they steer the player toward certain decisions.
The next step is to figure out a way to use gaming technology for training in working with other agencies -- an oft-noted weakness within the intelligence community. "Maybe it's pie in the sky, but can we link multiple computers, so that I can have eight or 10 people in the room playing the same game," Bennett says. "I can be the DIA guy, someone else in DIA can play the CIA guy, and somebody else can be an FBI or a DEA person. If we don't share information, we lose the game." Related Links Weapons of Mass Production Weapons of Mass Production: Extended Essay Is the Surge Working? Iraqi Bonds Say No.
AFP - Credit Suisse bank has plunged to its first quarterly loss in five years, figures released Thursday showed, as the bank reported heavy extra writedowns linked to the US subprime home-loan crisis.
Joyce Park, co-founder and CTO of Renkoo (developer of Booze Mail), says all is not well in Facebook Developer Land. Park complains that many application developers get ahead despite the fact that they violate Facebook's terms of service.
"So far, [Facebook has] built a system where you can only win by cheating," Park said at a panel discussion at Web 2.0 Expo, a conference in San Francisco. "They don't enforce their policies clearly, transparently or consistently . . . And when you try to talk about it with them, they give you this, 'We're young, we're figuring it out' line, but this is business."
Although Park was reluctant to name names, she says she's seen quite a few applications that have copied parts of social graphs to their servers.
And on another note, she thinks a lot of the ads on Facebook are "skanky."
"They're these cheesy sexyish ads . . . And who does that help?"
North Korea helped Syria construct a nuclear reactor that was "within weeks of completion" when Israel destroyed the facility last September, according to a senior US official Source: FT.com - US homepage | 24 Apr 2008 | 2:36 pm
Several bank C.E.O.'s have called the end of the credit crunch only to be embarrassed soon thereafter. Credit Suisse is taking the opposite tack.
"In this crisis, a number of times people have seen a light at the end of the tunnel, and it has ended up being a train coming down the tracks," Brady Dougan, the American chief executive of the Swiss bank, told reporters.
Even though Credit Suisse has taken a much-bigger-than-expected hit of $5.3 billion on its credit derivatives, leading to a loss of $2 billion in the first quarter—its first in nearly five years—analysts were largely pleased with the write-down.
"We are close to a proper cleanup in Credit Suisse, which is clearly positive on risk exposures," Kian Abouhossein, an analyst with J.P. Morgan Chase in London wrote in a note to investors, according to Dow Jones.
Mike Verdin on Breakingviews.com says Credit Suisse is in good shape should there be more turmoil in the credit markets:
"The size of the write-downs reflects not just what appear to be conservative valuations—it has marked its leveraged loans to 85 cents in the dollar compared with the 88 cents which Royal Bank of Scotland reported on Tuesday—but its enthusiasm for getting toxic assets out of its system as well."
Analysts and investors were also encouraged that one of Credit Suisse's main businesses continued to grow despite the credit crisis. Net inflows of new money into asset management rose by more than 13.5 billion Swiss francs.
Reuters - An unexpected tax bill sent Honda Motor
Co's quarterly profit tumbling 86 percent, and Japan's No.2
carmaker warned of a weak year ahead due to a stronger yen,
rising materials costs and a soft U.S. car market.
AP - Monique Blake won't be shopping for new clothes. William Acosta got rid of his cell phone. Paula Rockwell put off buying a home.
Reuters - Investors dumped Japanese bonds
on Friday, betting the world's biggest central banks were
shifting their focus to fighting inflation rather than
cushioning a fragile global economy from the credit crisis.
Reuters - World number two truck maker Volvo AB
posted first-quarter pretax earnings above market expectations
on Friday and was more upbeat on its key European market,
sending its shares sharply higher.
Reuters - Microsoft Corp gave Yahoo
Inc no hope of a higher takeover price, saying it was ready to
go hostile or even call off its bid if Yahoo maintains
"unrealistic expectations" of a better deal.
AFP - Two major US bulk retailers are rationing the sale of large bags of rice to consumers amid a growing global food crisis marked by skyrocketing prices and heavy pressure on demand.
AFP - Credit Suisse bank has plunged to its first quarterly loss in five years, figures released Thursday showed, as the bank reported heavy extra writedowns linked to the US subprime home-loan crisis.
