Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) posts better-than-expected earnings and says it will fire 27,000 people. (Reuters)

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) loses an important ruling in an intellectual property suit against Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). (Reuters)

Shareholders sue Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) because of trouble with its IPO. (Reuters)

Facebook may move to the NYSE (NYSE: NYX). (Reuters)

Some large investors receive warnings from analysts that projections of Facebook’s earnings have come down. (WSJ)

Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) increases drilling on the Utica Shale in Ohio. (WSJ)

Sony (NYSE: SNE) will sell part of its LCD business to Sharp. (WSJ)

The head of sales at Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) departs. (WSJ)

Yields on German bonds fall to all-time lows as capital moves to safety. (WSJ)

General Electric (NYSE: GE) says its industrial profit margin will rise in 2013. (WSJ)

Oil falls below $90 for the first time since October. (WSJ)

Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A) will begin to drill in far north areas of Alaska. (NYT)

Martha Stewart will once again become chairperson of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO). (NYT)

A deal for financial coordination among EU nations will be put off until a June meeting. (FT)

Shale gas helps the U.S. lower emissions. (FT)

Large companies turn over CEOs less than in the downturn, according to Booz & Company. (FT)

BMW will triple its output in China. (Bloomberg)

Detroit turns off street lights to save money. (Bloomberg)

Douglas A.McIntyre

Was this primarily the fault of Nasdaq and a failure to check its infrastructure? First evidence shows “yes”. This has already–in only a day–undermined its image as the preferred platform for IPOs . The image has not been helped much by the drop in the values of Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN), Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA), and LinkedIn (NASDAQ: LNKD)

The net effect is that NYSE (NYSE: NYX),which lost the Facebook launch. The exchange will have a powerful case that the balance will list on NYSE.

Update: The Wall Street Journal writes that “Robert Greifeld, chief executive of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., on Sunday acknowledged design problems with Nasdaq’s technology after the exchange operator was widely seen as bungling the landmark listing of shares of Facebook Inc.on Friday.”

Douglas A. McIntyre

The firm noted, “BATS reported one of the best U.S. equities months in its history, with 11.5% market share in April, up from 10.6% one year ago and 10.9% in March. The BATS BYX Exchange earned a new monthly market share record with 2.8% U.S. equities market share, and BATS Options reported 3.1% U.S. equity options market share, up from 2.4% in March.  Seven new exchange traded funds were launched on the BATS Exchange in April, bringing the total number of ETFs now listed on BATS Exchange to 16.”

The NYSE Euronext, Inc. (NYSE: NYX) and Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. (NASDAQ: NDAQ) may have to be alone as far as the publicly traded exchanges that trade U.S. equities.  BATS may keep its relevance in share volumes, but its chances of coming public have dwindled severely.

By the way, our inquiries never were answered over how many programmers and IT-workers were fired after that botched IPO.

JON C. OGG

NYSE Euronext, Inc. (NYSE: NYX) is on Monday and the following earnings reports are due on Tuesday: Arch Coal Inc. (NYSE: ACI); Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM); Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM); Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK); Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI); Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO).

Wednesday’s top earnings reports on deck are as follows:  American Water Works Co. (NYSE: AWK); Annaly Capital Management Inc. (NYSE: NLY); Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA); First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR); Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN); Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE: HIG); MasterCard Inc. (NYSE: MA); Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC); Visa Inc. (NYSE: V); and Whole Foods Market Inc. (NASDAQ: WFM).

We will provide previews for the larger report due on Thursday as the reports get closer.  As a reminder, some of the dates and estimates may change and some of them may have already changed.  Consensus estimates are from Thomson Reuters and we have provided color on each if applicable.

NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX) reports on Monday.  The consensus estimates are $0.48 EPS and $611.1 million in revenues.  Shares are around $27.00, and the consensus analyst price target is $32.30.  Now that the German merger (the German takeover of America’s top exchange) is off the table, investors are focusing on the values here.

TUESDAY, May 1

Arch Coal Inc. (NYSE: ACI) is due Tuesday morning and its shares have been battered along with the entire coal sector.  Estimates are $0.16 EPS and $1.12 billion in revenues.  Shares are around $9.50, and the consensus analyst price target is $32.30.

Archer Daniels Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) is due Tuesday morning and estimates are $0.59 EPS and $21.4 billion in revenues.  Shares are around $31.00, and the consensus analyst price target is almost $34.00.

Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM) reports after the close on Tuesday and it has been riding the Apple wave.  The consensus estimates are $0.55 EPS and $1.8 billion in revenues.  Shares are around $36.30 and the consensus analyst price target is $42.40.

This is the first dividend paid out by NASDAQ to its common shareholders in the company’s history.  If you annualize the $0.13 as static per quarter, the yield comes to 2% for shareholders based upon the $25.33 price.  The rival NYSE Euronext, Inc. (NYSE: NYX) has a much higher dividend yield of about 4.5% and it has paid out a dividend since June of 2007.

Today’s dividend news is long overdue.  We have listed this exchange as a dividend sinner before and Raymond James noted the call for a dividend as recently as February.  If you look at the CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CME) it has been public far less time than NASDAQ and it has been paying a dividend since back in 2003.  CME Group even went as far as declaring a special dividend earlier this year on top of its regular common dividend.

CBOE Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBOE) has been public for less than two years and it has been paying a dividend since late in 2010.  The leader in options trading has a dividend yield of about 1.8% and that dividend is likely to be raised in the next quarter or two.

IntercontinentalExchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE) is now the last of the public U.S. securities exchanges which does not have a dividend yield. Today’s dividend news by NASDAQ is long overdue.

JON C. OGG

Most investors consider the NYSE as the home of old-world public corporations. The perception is true. The large companies traded on the exchange are dominated by banks, big oil companies, older telecom companies, big pharma, the country’s largest retailers, car manufacturers and the ancient conglomerate General Electric (NYSE: GE). Almost all of these firms or their predecessors are decades old. Few have any rapid sales growth prospects. A Facebook listing would be entirely out of place.

Some of the giants listed on Nasdaq are no longer growth stocks, but recently were. These include Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) in particular. But also listed on Nasdaq are Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) — each a primary engine of its sector of the tech world. Most of these companies were formed in the 1980s or later. Many still are run by their founders.

Facebook will, by most estimates, be worth $100 billion when it goes public. That will allow it to challenge Cisco, Amazon and Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) for market cap. It would be impossible for Facebook to be in that kind of honored tech environment if it decided to list on the NYSE.

Facebook’s Nasdaq listing has been a forgone conclusion since it first considered an initial public offering.

Douglas A. McIntyre

The move may seem like a coup for NASDAQ OMX Group Inc. (NASDAQ: NDAQ) and a loss for NYSE Euronext, Inc. (NYSE: NYX).  Maybe it matters about the listing fees and the pride, but Facebook was not going be the end all be all for either exchange.  There are quite literally thousands and thousands of companies listed between these two exchanges.  Today is more about bragging rights than anything.

It is not as if Facebook was going to consider taking a BATS listing as the primary exchange after that SNAFU of an IPO.

JON C. OGG

CEO pay jumps for last year as stock options rise. (Reuters)

Avon (NYSE: AVP) turns down a $10 billion offer from Coty. (Reuters)

Strong U.S. economic data push Brent crude above $125. (Reuters)

Christian Brothers Investment Services, a News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) shareholder, wants an independent chairman. (Reuters)

Fund Third Point presses its proxy war against Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO). (Reuters)

The Securities and Exchange Commission probes a Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN) restatement of financials prior to last year’s IPO. (WSJ)

Avon becomes a target for takeover by several companies. (WSJ)

Express Scripts (NASDAQ: ESRX) and Medco (NYSE: MHS) get government approval for their merger. (WSJ)

People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan says the global recession has not ended. (WSJ)

Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN) rejects a new offer from Roche. (WSJ)

Vehicle sales rise 78% in Japan in March, compared to in the month of last year’s earthquake. (WSJ)

U.S. consumer demand helps the fortunes of U.S. factories. (WSJ)

China eases a ban on Twitter-like messages. (WSJ)

Poor manufacturing and employment data show a deepening eurozone recession. (WSJ)

Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) will buy Wyse Technology, a cloud tools company. (WSJ)

NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX) cuts a cost reduction plan after a failed merger with Deutsche Borse. (WSJ)

Some large investors may buy homes by the thousands. (NYT)

Several Germany towns would suffer greatly if Opel closes plants. (NYT)

Total (NYSE: TOT) says natural gas leaks in the North Sea cost it $2.5 million a day. (NYT)

The SEC wants boards of banks to be more accountable for risk. (FT)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Guidewire Software, Inc. (NYSE: GWRE) came public in January of this year and is leading the gainers with a $13 IPO price and shares are now almost at $30 after seeing s $38 high print.  Brightcove, Inc. (NASDAQ: BCOV) provides cloud-based solutions for publishing and distributing professional digital media and its shares are still up over 100% from its $11.00 IPO price.  Even Demandware, Inc. (NYSE: DWRE) is up almost 90% from its $16.00 for its software-as-a-service e-commerce solutions.

Groupon, Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) may have taken out some sizzle from several issues today, but the numbers speak for themselves and we had been very cautious on the Groupon offering based upon valuation and some metrics inside the offering.  The second quarter IPO numbers are likely to be very skewed due to the coming Facebook IPO, but here are some stats from the first quarter alone to show just how much this market has grown in the U.S.:

• 44 IPOs raised $5.8 billion in proceeds, up 33% from the 33 pricings in the first quarter of 2011.
• The trend towards smaller IPOs seems to he helping the demand and the results as the average IPO size was down by 67% to $131 million from $395 million in the first quarter of 2011.
• The VIX measuring overall market volatility fell by 40% from the second half of 2011; lows seen were in March and had not been seen since June 2007.
• Technology had 13 and tech rules in IPOs for investors, while industrial and financial services each had 9 IPOs.
• Some 36 of the 44 IPOs were backed by financial sponsors.

What is interesting is that all of the hot IPO activity appears to be in the United States.  It seems ironic that one of the world’s most mature markets is outpacing the emerging and largely developed markets.  Still, we all read the international headlines and that is weighing on overseas opportunities for such offerings.

Two IPOs we will be watching this week are the $350 million offering from Retail Properties of America (ticker will be RPAI) as the third largest shopping center REIT in America, followed by a $130 million or so offering from Enerkem (ticker will be NRKM) which converts municipal waste into cellulosic ethanol in North America.

Private equity backers have now even filed to bring Michael’s Stores public in a $500 million IPO again. Stay tuned, Facebook will make the second quarter likely look massive compared to other quarters.

24/7 Wall St. would like to propose one issue with the SEC and also with the NYSE Euronext, Inc. (NYSE: NYX) and NASDAQ OMX Group Inc. (NASDAQ: NDAQ): Would it be too much to ask for NYSE to go back to Three-letter and under and making NASDAQ-listed shares have Four-letter tickers again? 

JON C. OGG

The IPO ranks on our own Top 17 IPOs to Watch in 2012.  It is odd, but this one may be difficult for Joe Public to play in as the quote systems of most investors only take NASDAQ, NYSE, and the old AMEX quotes today.

The offering is to be for 6.3 million shares with an expected price range of $16.00 to $18.00 per share.  The exchange is the third largest exchange now with 10.9% market share in the U.S. for February share volume versus a market share of 10.7% a year ago.  Its options trading called BATS Options is shown to have a 2.8% market share compared to 1.7% a year ago with average daily matched volume of 483,306 contracts.

On a valuation basis, BATS is valued at a premium more like CBOE than the lower multiple of earnings like NASDAQ and NYSE.

The underwriting group is rather large.  Lead underwriters are Citi, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse; additional underwriters are Deutsche Bank Securities, Wedbush Securities, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Raymond James, Sandler O`Neill & Partners, Rosenblatt Securities, and Nomura.

Here is the Barron’s article called “Bullish on BATS” to read as well.

JON C. OGG