Posts for Ticker ‘NWS’

Today’s Best Market Rumors (11/18/2009) (MCD)(BAC)(GOOG)

Updated throughout the day.

Updated 1.48 PM EST:  News Corp’s (NYSE:NWS) MySpace is in talks to buy free music streaming site imeem. (AP)

Update 1.42 PM EST:  Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) will launch its own Android phone  (TechCrunch)

Carl Icahn is aggressively buying shares in MGM  (HollyWood Daily)

Apollo Management may try to list on the NYSE. (FT)

Paulson & Co. believe that Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) will double by the end of 2011.

Oil prices at $80 could damage the economy.  (Fortune)

The low volume of the rally is raising concern about why investors are not convinced the market is going higher  (CNBC)

Subway may open 1,000 stores in Russia by 2015, a challenge to McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD)  (Reuters)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: November 18, 2009 – 8:17 am in Rumors, , , ,

A Split With Google (GOOG) Would Hurt News Corp (NWS) And WSJ Badly

bearRupert Murdoch, head of News Corp (NYSE:NWS), has made it clear that he is done with the BBC and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) stealing his content and using it to make money. He may sue both companies under the “fair use” laws to keep them from using material from his huge media empire.

Murdoch should be careful what he wishes for. According to a study from Experian Hitwise, “on a weekly basis Google and Google news are the top traffic providers for WSJ.com account for over 25% of WSJ.com’s traffic.” And, “over 44% of WSJ.com visitors coming from Google are “new” users who haven’t visited the domain in the last 30 days.”

Murdoch may have his way and badly damage his WSJ.com business in the process.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: November 10, 2009 – 4:54 am in Internet, Law, ,

Media Digest 11/10/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg

newspaperReuters:   Markets hit their 2009 highs.

Reuters:   Dodd is set to unveil his financial reform bill which calls for merging many bank regulators.

Reuters:   Kraft’s (NYSE:KFT) bid for Cadbury turned hostile.

Reuters:   A survey of economists predicted strong GDP growth in 2010. Read More »

Posted on: November 10, 2009 – 3:57 am in Press Digest, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today’s Best Market Rumors (11/9/2009) (RAI)(WFC)(NWS)(JAVA)(GE)(S)(CLWR)

magazinUpdated throughout the day.

Updated at 11.49 AM EST:  Reynolds Americam (NYSE:RAI) may buy Niconovum, a Swedish maker of nicotine gum and mouth sprays (Boomberg)

Updated at 10.12 AM EST: Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) may pay back its TARP funds. (BreakingViews)

Updated at 9.48 AM EST: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (NYSE:NWS) may sue the BBC for breach of copyright for “stealing” material from his newspapers. (FT)

It will take a bid of 800 pence to get Cadbury to agree to a Kraft (NYSE:KFT) takeover. The current hostile bid is for 713 pence.  (various)

GE (NYSE:GE) and Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) have agreed to value NBCU at $30 billion  (WSJ)

The EU may approved Oracle’s (NASDAQ:ORCL) buy-out of Sun (NASDAQ:JAVA) if it gives up some of its control of the MySQL database software  (BusinesssWeek)

The rally in GE’s (NYSE:GE) stock may not last very long.  (TheStreet)

China may raise fuel prices this week.  (CNBC)

Delta (NYSE:DAL) and American Air (NYSE:AMR) are increasing their pressure on the Japanese government to forge joint ventures with Japan Airlines.  (The Deal)

New collaborative software tools from Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) will put it into direct competition with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)  (CNET)

Sprint (NYSE:S), Intel (NYSE:INTC), and Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC) may put another $1.5 billion into 4G provider Clearwire  (NASDAQ:CLWR)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: November 9, 2009 – 9:04 am in Rumors, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Media Digest 11/9/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg

newspaperReuters:   Hurricane Ida is heading toward Gulf oil fields.

Reuters:   Kraft (NYSE:KFT) will make its bid for Cadbury.

Reuters:   GE (NYSE:GE) and Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) have agreed to an NBCU valuation.

Reuters:   The IMF is considering an insurance levy on banks. Read More »

Posted on: November 9, 2009 – 4:03 am in Press Digest, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Media Digest 10/5/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg

newspaperReuters:   Toyota (NYSE:TM) returned to a profit.

Reuters:   The Fed will keep rates near zero for an extended period.

Reuters:   Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) beat forecasts.

Reuters:   Gold is near $1,100. Read More »

Posted on: November 5, 2009 – 3:58 am in Press Digest, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The New York Times’ Coming Jihad Against The Huffington Post

newspaperThe old media is running out of time. The online editions of The Washington Post (NYSE:WPO), New York Times (NYSE:NYT), and Time, Inc (NYSE:TWX) properties do well, but not well enough to off-set losses at their print properties. Read More »

Posted on: October 30, 2009 – 5:22 am in Law, Media, , , , ,

Today’s Best Market Rumors (10/29/2009) (SNI)(NWS)(YHOO)

newspaperUpdated throughout the day.

Updated 10.45 AM EST   There is not as much cash on the sidelines as most investors expect.  (Reuters)

Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) has frozen hiring on the team evaluating integration with the Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Bing search platform  (BusinessInsider)

GMAC’s request for more bailout money may hurt the chances of its CEO, Al de Molina, getting the top job at Bank of America (NYSE:BAC)

Galleon may have paid millions of dollars to Wall St. firms for market information.  (FT)

Former NBC CEO Bob Wright thinks an IPO of the unit as a means to get it out of GE (NYSE:GE) are very small. (PaidContent)

The dollar will rally in coming months.  (Forbes)

News Corp (NYSE:NWS) and Scripps Networks Interactive (NYSE:SNI) have made $800 million offers for 65% of the Travel Channel.  (The Deal)

Holiday shopping may drop more than expected this year.  (CNBC)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: October 29, 2009 – 9:15 am in Rumors, , , , , ,

Today’s Best Market Rumors (10/28/2009) (UBS)(SNE)(BCS)(CBS)

newspaperUpdated throughout the day.

Update 12.05 PM EST:  UBS (NYSE:UBS) may spin off PaineWebber  (Breakingviews)

GMAC has asked the Treasury Department for several billion more dollars in loans. (NYTimes)

Barry Diller’s IACI (NASDAQ:IACI) might be willing to sell its search business.  (NYPost)

News Corp (NYSE:NWS) and CBS (NYSE:CBS) are trying to get cable companies including Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC) to pay for carrying their broadcast channels.  (WSJ)

Statistics on ”global cooling” may be bogus.  (Ars Technica)

AMD’s (NYSE:AMD) former CEO Hector Ruiz may have leaked tips to one of the people accused of insider trading in the Galleon case.  (various)

The German hedge fund firm K1 is part of an international criminal investigation after allegedly stiffing banks including Barclays (NYSE:BCS), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM). and BNP Paribas with $400 million of losses.  (Bloomberg)

Covance (NYSE:CVD) shares are undervalued by 50%  (BusinessWeek)

Sony (NYSE:SNE) is expected to loss money for the fourth straight quarter.  (Forbes)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: October 28, 2009 – 9:13 am in Rumors, , , , , , , , , ,

New York Times (NYT) Loses Over 7% Of Circulation, Washington Post (WPO) Down 6%

Daily circulation at the nation’s newspapers dropped 10% for the six months ending September 30 according to industry measurement service Audit Bureau of Circulations.

newspaperIt is not clear whether newspapers are helping themselves by shrinking both the size of the pages they are printed on and the number of daily subscribers that they have. The industry’s theory is that if it charges more for newsstand copies and home delivery that marginal readers will fall away and profit-per-reader will rise.

The only problem with a shrinking reader base is that advertising rates have to come down as well. Fewer readers, and advertisers want a better deal. Read More »

Posted on: October 26, 2009 – 10:37 am in Internet, Media, Old Media, , , ,

Is Twitter The Next Hula Hoop?

twitterMicrosoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Google (NASDAQ:MSFT) have each formed a partnership with micro- blogging company Twitter. The search engines at the firms will survey the real time “tweets” , which are small text messages of only a few words, from Twitter’s millions of users. There is some important information to be gathered in all that “real time” communication, or at least Microsoft and Google think so.

Access to Twitter’s tens of millions of users may give insights to marketers who want to know how people use their brands, to news organizations who want to know what people will watch or read, or the government which may want to spy on people plotting by using Twitter as their means of communications. Read More »

Posted on: October 22, 2009 – 6:01 am in Internet, , ,

Today’s Best Market Rumors (10/20/2009) (NWS)(NVDA)(BCS)

newspaperUpdated throughout the day.

Updated 12.33 PM EST: The CIA will start spying on social media activity  (CNET)

Updated 10.15 AM EST:  Oil could hit $175 a barrel by 2016 making oil-realted stocks a bad investment.  (Barron’s)

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and Barclays (NYSE:BCS) are refusing to trade with faltering hedge fund Galleon  (WSJ)

Former News Corp (NYSE:NWS) No. 2 Peter Cherin is advising Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) on its bid to buy NBCU from GE (NYSE:GE)  (NYTimes)

Boeing (NYSE:BA) will post poorer-than-expected quarterly results (TheStreet.com)

Q4 GDP growth could jump to 5.5 %  (Forbes)

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) can search Twitter tweets, even if they have security protection.  (Mashable)

As Galleon sells holdings to fund redemptions some of the stocks it holds could come under price pressure. These include Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO), Dell (NASDAQ:DELL), Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), and eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY)  (Barron’s)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: October 20, 2009 – 8:53 am in Rumors, , , , , , , , , , ,

Media Digest (10/20/2009) Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg

newspaperReuters:   Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) beat earnings forecasts.

Reuters:   The IRS is probing some homebuyers’ tax credit gains.

Reuters:   The US is ready to bring more insider trading cases.

Reuters:   More US companies are cutting bonuses. Read More »

Posted on: October 20, 2009 – 4:02 am in Press Digest, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Media Digest (10/15/2009) Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg

newspaperReuters:   Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) is having trouble justifying its huge bonuses.

Reuters:   Bruce Wasserstein, M&A giant and head of Lazard (NYSE:LAZ), died.

Reuters:   Congress will probe compensation at AIG (NYSE:AIG).

Reuters:   US foreclosures fell for a second month but stayed high. Read More »

Posted on: October 15, 2009 – 4:04 am in Press Digest, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today’s Best Market Rumors (9/14/2009) (WMT)(S)(RBS)(MSFT)(AIG)(LINTA)

newspaperUpdated throughout the day.

Updated 12.02 PM EST:  Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) will have a national roll-out of its “no contract” cellular service which could put sales pressure on Sprint (NYSE:S) (Reuters)

Updated 9.23 AM EST:  Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (NYSE:NWS) and John Malone’s Liberty Media (NASDAQ:LINTA) are interested in GE’s NBCU  (Reuters & CNBC)

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is shipping versions of its 3Gs iPhone with alterations to fight back at hackers.  (iClarified)

RBS (NYSE:RBS) may sell 300 branches.  (FT)

The head of AIG’s (NYSE:AIG) International Lease Finance aircraft leasing firm, Steven Udvar-Hazy, may buy $2 billion in planes from the huge insurance firm to start his own company.  (Bloomberg)

Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) in interested in NBC Universal because it thinks it can buy the company well below its value because of GE’s (NYSE:GE) desperation to exit the business. Vivendi is playing hardball on the price of its 20% stake in NBCU (NYPost).

Net neutrality and the rise in the transfer of large data files will make the internet collapse (Ars Technica)

Former employees of Citadel Investment Group will start their own hedge fund  (WSJ)

The release of Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows 7 could push up Apple’s Mac sales.  (Fortune)

You can join our open email distribution list to get updates each morning on analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s and secondary offerings, Warren Buffett and other guru activity, M&A and more.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: October 14, 2009 – 9:17 am in Rumors, , , , , , , , , ,

The Path to DJIA 10,000 (C, AIG, JNJ, JPM, IBM, NWS, DIA)

Bull and Bear ImageThe Dow Jones Industrial Average is within sight of the psychological 10,000 mark.  Again. This is a price-weighted index rather than a market cap-weighted index, which makes the index not as representative of the overall market.  Yet when Joe Public asks “what did the market do today?” that almost always means what the Dow Jones Industrial Average did.  And today the DJIA came within 1% of hitting the DJIA 10,000 mark.  This level is a psychological event and not a key technical event, and its member constituency earnings this week could easily make that 10,000 mark come true.  What is funny (or sad) is that if the most recent changes to the index weren’t made, we would have already seen the DJIA hit the mark.
Read More »

Posted on: October 12, 2009 – 12:59 pm in ETF, Editor's Picks, Index, , , , , , ,

Media Digest 10/12/2009

newspaperReuters:   E-mails and the credit crisis will be key to the trial of Bear Stearns workers.

Reuters:  The approval process for Tengzhong to buy Hummer has started in China.

Reuters:   Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG) beat expectations.

Reuters:   Liz Claiborne’s (NYSE:LIZ) decision to sell its brands at J C Penny (NYSE:JCP) should help both companies. Read More »

Posted on: October 12, 2009 – 4:03 am in Press Digest, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Facebook Visits Triple In A Year, MySpace Falls By Half

twitterFacebook is doing well. Most experts already know that. But, the No.1 social network’s size has surged at a remarkable rate over the last year. Nearly 60% of the visits to the top social networks in September were to Facebook. That is up from less than 20% in the same month a year ago.

The mountain Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (NYSE:NWS) division MySpace has to climb is getting steeper and steeper. Murdoch replaced most of the senior management at MySpace several months ago, but the move may have been too late. Visits to the social network dropped to 30% of all internet visits to the category from 67% in September 2008. Read More »

Posted on: October 10, 2009 – 8:46 am in Internet, ,

Murdoch Wants Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) To Pay

magazinRupert Murdoch wants Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) to pay for the use of content from his News Corp (NYSE:NWS) and all of his major competition. He told an audience at  the World Media Summit in China that “The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content.” If he is successful in his crusade, search engines and online publications like Huffington Post are in for a rough time.

Tom Curley, the head of The Associate Press, echoed Murdoch’s sentiments while speaking at the same gathering. “Crowd-sourcing Web services such as Wikipedia, YouTube and Facebook, have become preferred customer destinations for breaking news,” he said. It seems that all of new media is becoming a target or at least a whipping horse for the problems of old media. Read More »

Posted on: October 9, 2009 – 5:16 am in Media, Old Media, ,

Media Digest (10/9/2009) Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg

newspaperReuters:   Chinese investors are holding a large amount of gold.

Reuters:   Bernanke sees tighter policies as the economy improves.

Reuters:   The Congressional Oversight Panel says that the US plan to help homeowners with mortgages is not enough.

Reuters:   The FDIC questioned a review of Citigroup (NYSE:C) management. Read More »

Posted on: October 9, 2009 – 3:54 am in Press Digest, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,