• Feb 01 traded 125,300 shares and closed at $14.59
• Jan 31 traded 58,300 shares and closed at $14.25
• Jan 30 traded 33,400 shares and closed at $14.28
• Jan 27 traded 16,200 shares and closed at $14.20
• Jan 26 traded 400 shares and closed at $13.50
• Jan 25 traded 1,300 shares and closed at $13.59

We said it before and we will say it again… This ETF owns no shares of Facebook as of yet.  It will have to after the Facebook IPO but it does not now.  Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (NYSE: IPG) owns shares but barely rose today.  Affiliates of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) own shares, and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) owns shares.  The social media company only has a halo-effect around the theme of social media.

Facebook is and was one of our Top 17 IPOs For 2012, but so was Twitter, Living Social and Yelp.

LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE: LNKD) closed up 6.4% at $76.98 solely on being a rival and Zynga Inc. (NASDAQ: ZNGA) rose 16% to $12.39 due to its being north of 10% of Facebook’s revenues.

What is so funny is that even FriendFinder Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: FFN), the adult-themed social networking site and one of the worst IPOs of modern time, rose solely because of the social media halo.  That gain was 16% to $1.33 against a 52-week range (actually under a year) of $0.51 to $10.01.

The one business development company which does own Facebook shares is GSV Capital Corporation (NASDAQ: GSVC).  Its shares have risen since the impending filing was telegraphed last Friday and the stock rose by over 7% to $18.51 today.

This is called the Halo-effect if there ever was one.

Facebook’s full IPO details are here.

JON C. OGG

Moody’s has said today that it sees only a “limited impact” on France’s “Aaa” rating (with a stable outlook) based upon the Dexia bailout.  The question for us was never just over Dexia.  The question is how much it will take to backstop the debt from 5 or 10 more banks that are even larger than Dexia.  It is that which will be the true ratings agency test in the months ahead.

We recently showed which nations were also at risk of losing their “AAA” ratings after the United States rating was downgraded.  France was more at risk than Germany.  This was also before the debt drag in Europe took hold all over again.  We noted, “With France being a key guarantor in the EU and the woes of the PIIGS nations, France could easily find itself at-risk of losing its the triple-A rating. Its banks also own substantial U.S. debt. We still view the debt rating risks more harshly than the ratings agencies on a longer-term basis.”

One of the reasons that neither Germany nor France would want to immediately release a capitalization plan is because the governments have to weigh on how much help they can really offer before it becomes an actionable event by the ratings agencies.  It may be sad, but this only makes sense.

If an indefinite support package is announced, something that seems unlikely, then the ratings agencies may view that at least France has taken on an endless liability.  A couple of weeks will give the central banks time to discuss potential backstop packages so that France (and/or Germany) would not jeopardize the prized “AAA” ratings.

The equity market participants are begging for the Europeans to help.  It has taken far too long for a hint of a response, but it has at least now finally been delivered.  The ratings game for the “AAA” may be the biggest hurdle to how much France and Germany can truly offer.  It would seem logical that France and Germany will offer assistance a bit shy of where the ratings agencies determine would be a credit event.

JON C. OGG

Bloggers will be able to plug-in a coupon widget from Savings.com if they publish their blogs through WordPress.  If other publishing systems do not have a plugin, expect them to almost immediately. 

The deals and coupons from Saving.com will be from its database of over 20,000 deals and coupons from over 9,000 merchants.  Some of the merchants were listed as Lands’ End, Old Navy, Target, and Sears.  If you go to the Savings.com site, The Home Depot, Bloomingdale’s, The Limited, Crocs, 1-800-Flowers, J.C. Penney, Gap, and others are listed as partners.

Savings.com noted that it has some 400,000+ deals aggregated from online and national retailers, local businesses and daily deal sites; and it further noted that over 5 million per month use the site to find the best deals.

Our take has never been that Groupon is a dead company.  It has a great name in this field and a large following.  The problem has been in its past revenue recognition model, the reports of it burning through endless millions to grow, and that the private market chatter on its valuation was just way too high.  We could easily say the same about Living Social, Coupons.com, Deal Find, and all of the larger sites out there doing daily deals.

Who knows when coupons were invented… Social media existed before Groupon came to life.  Social media existed before almost all of these new daily deals and couponing sites come to be.  That being said, the intellectual property barriers that exist elsewhere do not generally apply as much.  That in turn means that success depends upon those companies whose management teams have the most contacts and which have the most resources to grow.

Daily deals and online coupons are now coming to blogs.  Who would have thought that the newspaper companies allowed another business to get around them with no effort.  There is probably only so much room for so many players.  Ultimately, valuations have to be reflective of how much money could be made off a business and how much the underlying products cost themselves. 

JON C. OGG

Other companies getting in on the ratings action include CRH PLC (NYSE: CRH), Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK), Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC), Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN), CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL), Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE: EK), and Compass Diversified Holdings (NYSE: CODI).

CRH PLC (NYSE: CRH) received an affirmation of its ‘BBB’ senior unsecured rating  with a stable outlook from Fitch. CRH is a building materials company based in Ireland that also operates in the US. The company’s market cap is more than $11 billion. HSBC recently upgraded the stock from ‘Underweight’ to ‘Neutral’.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) received ratings from Standard & Poor’s on $350 million of floating-rate, asset-backed notes. The Class A senior note ($326.75 million) received a ‘AAA’ rating; the Class B subordinated note ($12.05 million) received a ‘AA’ rating; and the Class C subordinated note ($11.2 million) received an ‘A’ rating. The coverage amount on the Class A note is 13.96%, falling to 9.90% on the Class B note and 6.39% on the Class C note. The backing for the notes includes beneficial interest in lease contracts, related vehicles, and fleet receivables.

Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) subsidiary Wachovia Bank received lowered ratings on 10 commercial mortgage backed securities classes from S&P. Eleven other classes in the mortgage trust series had ratings re-affirmed. S&P based the downgrade on the fact five of the pool’s assets, worth $48.9 million, are in the hands of a special servicer. Three of the properties are in foreclosure, one is 30-days delinquent, and only one is current.

Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN) has completed its acquisition of National Semiconductor and S&P withdrew its corporate credit rating on National Semi and replaced it with Texas Instruments’ ‘A+’ rating with a stable outlook.

CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL) subsidiary Qwest has received a ‘BBB-’ rating on $950 million in senior notes due 2021. Qwest will add the proceeds to net proceeds of $557 million from a recent issue of notes due in 2051 to redeem $1.5 billion in notes due next year. CenturyLink’s corporate credit rating remains at ‘BB’ and its outlook is stable. The Qwest acquisition makes CenturyLink the third-largest wireline phone carrier in the US.

Eastman Kodak Co. (NYSE: EK) received a downgrade on all its ratings from Moody’s following its drawdown of $160 million from its corporate revolving credit facility of $400 million. Moody’s concludes that the drawdown signals weaker cash flow and that the company will consume cash next year, hurting Kodak’s liquidity. The corporate famil rating was downgraded from ‘Caa2′ to ‘Caa3′. Outstanding debt was also downgraded one or two notches.

Compass Diversified Holdings (NYSE: CODI) received a downgrade on its speculative grade liquidity rating from Moody’s. The rating dropped from ‘SGL-2′ to ‘SGL-3′ due to a recent acquisition which Compass paid for from its revolving credit facility. The company is expected to refinance the debt with longer term debt, and Moody’s said that it would likely revert to the higher rating if that happens. Compass owns a stable of nine companies and pays a very high dividend yield of 11.5%.

Paul Ausick

TechCrunch noting some interesting changes in Web search possibilities in a Google (GOOG) search-dominated world..

Is eBay (EBAY) going to buy StumbleUpon as previously reported?

Is open source software getting too much like proprietary software?

Dell’s (DELL) cost cutting answer: ship more than 1 server in a box……

Someone else agrees that Cisco (CSCO) can be bought on buybacks.

At 8.5-times cash value, can you really call Broadcom (BRCM) a "value stock"?

General Electric (GE) may be able to fend off attempts to break itself up to please some holders.

Order pushouts happening at Texas Instruments (TXN).

Not exactly breaking news, but a good read on how Apple (AAPL) has doubled Mac’s market share in the last 8 months.

-The 24/7 Wall St. Editorial Staff