The U.S. dollar index is trading up 0.43% today, now at 83.1490. The GSCI commodity index is up 0.3% at 634.91. WTI crude oil closed down 0.4%, at $96.04 a barrel, and closed the week 0.5% higher. Brent crude trades down 0.7% at $103.79 a barrel. Natural gas is down 1.8% today at about $3.91 per million BTUs. Gold settled down 2.2% today at $1,436.60, and tallied a loss for the week of nearly 2%.

The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA up about 36 points to 15,118.49 (0.24%), the NASDAQ rose more than 27 points (0.80%) to 3,436.58, and the S&P 500 rose 0.43% or about 7 points to 1,633.70.

There were a several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including:

• Dendreon Corp. (NASDAQ: DNDN) cut to ‘sell’ at Citigroup;
• L Brands Inc. (NYSE: LTD) cut to ‘neutral’ at Lazard (formerly Limited Brands Inc.);
• Workday Inc. (NYSE: WDAY) started as ‘outperform’ at Oppenheimer;
• American Water Works Co. Inc. (NYSE: AWK) raised to ‘buy’ at Citigroup; and
• Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) raised to ‘hold’ at SocGen.

Earnings reports since markets closed last night resulted in some price moves today, including these as of the last half hour of trading:

• magicJack Vocaltec Ltd. (NASDAQ: CALL) is down 12.4% at $16.86;
• Net 1 UEPS Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: UEPS) is up 0.4% at $7.82;
• Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) is up 4.6% at $14.55;
• Priceline.com Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN) is up 4% at $766.98 after posting a new 52-week high of $769.67 earlier today (more coverage here);
• TheStreet Inc. (NASDAQ: TST) is down 0.2% at $1.90; and
• Hecla Mining Co. (NYSE: HL) is down 2.1% at $3.23.

Before markets open Monday morning we are scheduled to hear notable earnings from only Silver Wheaton Corp. (NYSE: SLW). Another mining firm that trades in London, Lonmin PLC, reports earnings Monday morning. Lonmin, a platinum miner, could face some of the same difficulties we noted in our story today about the platinum sector.

Some standouts among heavily traded stocks today include:

Molycorp Inc. (NYSE: MCP) is up 31%% at $7.32. The rare earths miner reported solid results after markets closed last night. More coverage here.

Warner Chilcott plc (NASDAQ: WCRX) is up 24.1% at $18.62. The generic drugs maker is said to be in merger discussions with Actavis Inc. (NYSE: ACT).

Affymax Inc. (NASDAQ: AFFY) is down 25.4% at $1.35. The drug maker said in its 10-K filing today that the February recall of its Omontys drug “has severely harmed our business, financial condition and prospects as a going concern.”

Stay tuned for Monday. We have noted the following events on the schedule (all times Eastern):

• 8:30 a.m. – Retail sales
• 10:00 a.m. – Business inventories
• 11:30 a.m. – 3- and 6-month bill auctions

Have a great weekend!

The U.S. dollar index is trading up 1.01% today, now at 82.710. The GSCI commodity index is up 0.4% at 632.85. WTI crude oil closed down 0.2%, at $96.39 a barrel. Brent crude trades up 0.1% at $104.41 a barrel. Natural gas is up 0.2% today at about $3.99 per million BTUs, after a larger-than-expected inventory build (more coverage here). Gold settled down 0.4% today at $1,468.60.

The unofficial closing bells put the DJIA down more than 22 points to 15,082.62 (-0.15%), the NASDAQ fell about 4 points (-0.12%) to 3,409.17, and the S&P 500 fell -0.37% or about 6 points to 1,626.67.

There were a several analyst upgrades and downgrades today, including:

• Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ: CLNE) cut to ‘underperform’ at Raymond James;
• American Water Works Co. Inc. (NYSE: AWK) raised to ‘outperform’ at Wells Fargo;
• Fluor Corp. (NYSE: FLR) started as ‘buy’ with a price target of $84 at Deutsche Bank;
• Sina Corp. (NASDAQ: SINA) raised to ‘overweight’ at HSBC; and
• Tumi Holdings Inc. (NYSE: TUMI) cut to ‘neutral’ at Citigroup.

Earnings reports since markets closed last night resulted in some price moves today, including these as of the last half hour of trading:

• Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) is up 11.9% at $6.26 (more coverage here);
• Continental Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLR) is down 0.8% at $84.24;
• Monster Beverage Corp. (NASDAQ: MNST) is down 7.1% at $52.95 (more coverage here);
• Pacific Ethanol Inc. (NASDAQ: PEIX) is down 6.7% at $0.29;
• Rackspace Hosting Inc. (NYSE: RAX) is down 24.5% at $39.42;
• Transocean Ltd. (NYSE: RIG) is down 0.5% at $54.98;
• Agrium Inc. (NYSE: AGU) is up 0.8% at $95.00;
• Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC) is up 1.6% at $15.72;
• Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp. (NYSE: CDE) is down 5.3% at $14.41; and
• Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ: DISH) is down 2.2% at $38.76 (more coverage here).

Before markets open tomorrow morning we are scheduled to hear earnings reports from magicJack Vocaltec Ltd. (NASDAQ: CALL), Molycorp Inc. (NYSE: MCP), Net 1 UEPS Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: UEPS), Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA), priceline.com Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN), TheStreet Inc. (NASDAQ: TST), and Hecla Mining Co. (NYSE: HL).

Some standouts among heavily traded stocks today include:

Affymax Inc. (NASDAQ: AFFY) is up 25.7% at $1.81. The biopharmaceutical firm continues to rise on no news. Be careful though, forward P/E is negative, even after two days of gains in the neighborhood of 20% each.

Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) is up 32.1% at $73.67 after posting a new all-time high of $75.77 earlier today. The all-electric car maker reported a profit for the first quarter, and the bulls cannot be stopped.

Windstream Corp. (NASDAQ: WIN) is down 4% at $8.18. The communications and technology solutions company posted unappealing results and the stock’s massive dividend could be a casualty. More coverage here.

Stay tuned for Friday. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Kansas City Fed President Esther George are giving speeches. We have also noted the following event on the schedule (all times Eastern):

• 2:00 p.m. – Treasury Budget

In the fourth quarter of last year, Facebook made $64 million on revenue of $1.585 billion. That is a poor margin for any successful company. LinkedIn made $11.5 million on revenue of $303.6 million. At the end of last year, LinkedIn had 200 million members to Facebook’s one billion. Obviously, the yield per member at the two companies greatly favors LinkedIn. That is a very good reason for Facebook to want to buy the smaller firm.

The math of a buyout makes a deal difficult, if not impossible. LinkedIn has a market capitalization of more than $16 billion. Its share price has moved up relentlessly, and at $150 has almost doubled from its 52-week low. LinkedIn investors would expect a huge premium, which means that total cost of a buyout by Facebook would be $25 billion, if not more. A small number of shareholders, led by chairman Reid Hoffman and CEO Jeffrey Weiner, control LinkedIn’s shares. That means the only leverage for Facebook would come through two or three people.

Facebook, which many of its proponents argued was worth $100 billion, now has a market cap of $68 billion. Facebook could not borrow $25 billion to buy LinkedIn. The world’s largest social network has nearly $10 billion of cash on hand. But, even with LinkedIn’s apparently strong future, it does not generate enough money to make a buyout reasonable at $25 billion. Facebook could offer 35% of its stock to buy LinkedIn. Even though CEO and founder Jeff Zuckerberg controls Facebook shares, many investors would stage a violent protest in the face of what would be tremendous dilution.

Facebook cannot buy LinkedIn, so the speculation is useless.

BI’s growth can no longer be described as simply a product of salacious stories about Wall St. wives or hedge fund mistresses. The site often scoops its competition on important stories. And the number of stories it runs now approaches 300 a day. The site also provides business and financial coverage 24 hours a day. With an editorial staff that must number more than 60, BI can cover as much ground as all but the sites owned by news organizations and Web portals.

BI has not entirely given up the sort of story that helped propel its growth. Among those are single, anonymous source stories –”Judging by This Angry Email, Marissa Mayer Hasn’t Yet Wowed ALL Yahoo Employees” — and pieces about underdressed women — “AD OF THE DAY: ‘Gymtimidation’ From Hot Girls In The Locker Room.”

In another sign that China not only dodged the worst of the recession, but that its impressive growth has accelerated as many other major nations continue to suffer economically, the world’s biggest country by population reported that exports increased 14.1% in December. Its trade surplus rose to $31.6 billion as well. According to Bloomberg:

[T]he U.S. replaced the EU last year as China’s largest export market, Zheng Yuesheng, head of customs statistics, said at a press briefing today. Sales to the bloc fell 6.2 percent in 2012. The two markets together accounted for one-third of China’s exports in 2012, customs data showed.

December exports may have been boosted by the impact of a strike at California ports that ended Dec. 4, according to Lu. Rushed shipments and even faked exports to secure tax refunds may also have contributed to the stronger growth, according to Alistair Thornton, a Beijing-based economist at IHS Inc.

China’s Ministry of Commerce, which oversees trade policies, said in a statement last month that it will seek to stabilize the scale of exports and improve support for trade growth in 2013.

BusinessInsider on the Rise

Business website newcomer BusinessInsider sent another shudder through the sector as its December audience reached 8.8 million unique visitors, according to research firm comScore. That puts it well ahead of the audience of troubled TheStreet.com (NASDAQ: TST), which posted a figure of 6.8 million, and the online division of TV network CNBC, which had 6.6 million unique visitors for the month. BI’s audience is drawing uncomfortably close to that of news and trading terminal company Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TR), which had 10.1 million unique visitors in December.

BI’s growth can no longer be described as simply a product of salacious stories about Wall St. wives or hedge fund mistresses. The site often scoops its competition on important stories. And the number of stories it runs now approaches 300 a day. The site also provides business and financial coverage 24 hours a day. With an editorial staff that must number more than 60, BI can cover as much ground as all but the sites owned by news organizations and Web portals. BI has not entirely given up the sort of story that helped propel its growth. Among those are single, anonymous source stories –”Judging by This Angry Email, Marissa Mayer Hasn’t Yet Wowed ALL Yahoo Employees” — and pieces about underdressed women — “AD OF THE DAY: ‘Gymtimidation’ From Hot Girls In The Locker Room.”

Samsung’s Next Big Thing

Samsung may have displayed “the next big thing” in screens at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES):

Samsung today introduced new flexible OLED screens, showcasing a variety of possible products and uses.
In an address at International CES, Brian Berkeley, senior vice president of display, bent and wiggled a small, thin plastic screen. He showed a prototype device with a screen wrapping around the side and a message being delivered to the long side, instead of the top of the device.A video also introduced a possible future product that opened and closed like a book, with screens across both the inside and outside. Another product in the video showed a screen rolling out of a thin storage stick. “This new form factor will really begin to change how people interact with their devices, opening up new lifestyle possibilities … and allow our partners to create a whole new ecosystem of devices,” Berkeley said in a news release.

TheStreet.com and three former executives settled a Securities and Exchange Commission probe into accounting fraud at the company yesterday.

The SEC said the fraud occurred from 2008 to 2009 while slapstick CNBC stock picker Jim Cramer served as chairman of the financial website.

The SEC’s lawsuit claims the accounting fraud was aimed at making Cramer’s online darling at the time appear more successful.

In settling the troublesome probe, TheStreet.com didn’t admit or deny any guilt.

Cramer was not named in the suit.

The SEC said three former executives — ex-CFO Eric Ashman and former co-presidents Gregg Alwine and David Barnett — concocted fake sales contracts using crude cut-and-paste forged documents that were shuffled back and forth among several unidentified counterparties to give an appearance of growth and profits.

“Alwine and Barnett used crooked tactics, Ashman ignored basic accounting rules, and TheStreet failed to put controls in place to spot the wrongdoing,” said Andrew Calamari, director of the SEC’s New York office.

Douglas A. McIntyre

The business climate in Germany reversed a bit last month after several months of decline. The news comes as a surprise as the balance of the continent slips into recession. According to Ifo:

The Ifo Business Climate Index for German industry and trade rose again. While companies as-sessed their current business situation as somewhat less favourable than last month, they were considerably less pessimistic about future business developments. As the year draws to a close, German companies are more confident about the future.

In manufacturing the business climate continued to brighten. Companies assessed their current business situation slightly less favourably than last month, but they are far more optimistic about the future than previously. Business expectations showed their sharpest increase since August 2009. Export expectations also continued to improve.

The business climate indicator weakened at both levels of trade. In both wholesaling and retailing survey participants were less satisfied with their current business situation and somewhat more sceptical about future developments.

In construction the business climate index continued to rise in December. While companies were more cautious in their assessments of the current business situation, they were far more optimistic about the next six months.

SEC and TheStreet.com

Securities and Exchange Commission problems with TheStreet Inc. (NASDAQ: TST) were worse than previously reported — much worse. According to the New York Post:

TheStreet.com and three former executives settled a Securities and Exchange Commission probe into accounting fraud at the company yesterday.

The SEC said the fraud occurred from 2008 to 2009 while slapstick CNBC stock picker Jim Cramer served as chairman of the financial website.

The SEC’s lawsuit claims the accounting fraud was aimed at making Cramer’s online darling at the time appear more successful.

In settling the troublesome probe, TheStreet.com didn’t admit or deny any guilt.

Cramer was not named in the suit.

The SEC said three former executives — ex-CFO Eric Ashman and former co-presidents Gregg Alwine and David Barnett — concocted fake sales contracts using crude cut-and-paste forged documents that were shuffled back and forth among several unidentified counterparties to give an appearance of growth and profits.

“Alwine and Barnett used crooked tactics, Ashman ignored basic accounting rules, and TheStreet failed to put controls in place to spot the wrongdoing,” said Andrew Calamari, director of the SEC’s New York office.

Martha Stewart CEO to Resign

The train wreck that is Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. (NYSE: MSO) continued as the firm probably will dump its new chief executive. The New York Post reports:

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia CEO Lisa Gersh is expected to announce her resignation, possibly as early as this week, just five months after she was elevated to the top job.

The struggling company is said to be weighing a new strategy in an attempt to transform itself into one more focused on merchandising across a range of products.

For months, there also has been talk of tension between Gersh, an experienced media executive, and the company’s namesake founder and chief creative officer.

Stewart was said to crave broad television exposure and was upset in January when the Hallmark Channel ended her daily talk show.

Douglas A. McIntyre

At the top of the business news today was the wild speculation by a J.P. Morgan analyst that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) could sell enough iPhone 5 models to raise U.S. gross domestic product by 0.5%. The math done to support the opinion is fuzzy, but the story is too good to be true. An American economy, teetering near recession because of, among other things, the fiscal cliff (another subject covered daily) could be partially propped up by the retail activity of the world’s most valuable public corporation.

Also near or at the top of headlines of major business media are stories, barely distinguishable from one another, about whether the new European Central Bank initiative to buy the paper of Europe’s financially weakest nations will work to help salvage the economic prospects of the region. Across the business press, writers give essentially the same reasons it may work or not. Some nations do not want to agree to the terms that would trigger the ECB bond-buying activity. The ECB plan is essentially a bit too good to be true.

The most important M&A activity was covered by almost all of the business press: the BP PLC (NYSE: BP) sale of some of its assets. And Glencore has made its “final” offer for miner Xstrata — $36 billion.

No day can go by without some more negative news from the new Web 2.0 companies that had IPOs in the past two years. The most recent is that the chief marketing officer of Zynga Inc. (NASDAQ: ZNGA) left. Each of major business press pointed out that this is part of an ongoing exodus of talent from these companies that, as the most media point out, has done more and more to press the stocks of these firms to near 52-week lows.

Beyond the current news the business press offers two things: reporting on issues that journalists uncover because of days of investigation or new angles on existing stories. The Wall Street Journal does that well because of its army of writers and editors. So do Bloomberg, Reuters and CNNMoney. Whether these “exclusive” stories are enough to get and retain readers is a mystery, at least to outside observers of these media. Today, the Wall Street Journal looked at how much cellular carriers might or might not make on the Apple iPhone 5. The New York Times reports that low interest rates help governments that are in the midst of raising money. But it hurts investors who want modestly high-yielding investments that are safe. Almost everyone with a college education already knows about that about fixed-income instruments. Bloomberg has a story, prominently displayed at its website, about the new head of Opel and General Motors Co.’s (NYSE: GM) commitment to its embattled Opel unit. GM has made that same commitment over and over for years. CNNMoney has an article about how the pay of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.(NYSE: GS) management will drop these people out of the top 1% and into the 99%. Some reporter had to look at quarterly earnings and proxies to figure that out.

The question of why people pick one business medium over another then swings around to issues of opinion or commentary. Do people read the New York Times business section because of Wall St. expert Andrew Ross Sorkin — the Zelig-like man who can appear on CNBC and in the Times building at the same time. Do people go to and stay at TheStreet because of Jim Cramer, who also spends a great deal of time in front of cameras at CNBC. Do readers go to and return to Business Insider because they want to read what editor-in-chief Henry Blodget has to say? Blodget also appears to be in two places at the same time — in his office at Business Insider and on the set of Yahoo! Inc.’s (NASDAQ: YHOO) financial TV.

A great deal of the research on the media deals with whether major news outlets are credible. Pew issues data on this once a year. That research covers the “major” media such as CNN, Fox News and USA Today. The business press may have a different problem. Much of the content coverage the business press reports and writes about may be credible to the reader. But is it different enough from medium to medium? Probably not, based on a look at headlines that are often common across these media. That leaves a long-term problem that editorial stars like Andrew Ross Sorkin and Henry Blodget cannot solve. Neither can “scoops” probably. There is just too much overlap among the business press that covers the same things. The business media business, in other words, is too crowded.

Douglas A. McIntyre

CNNMoney has the distinction among large financial sites of being three sites and not one. Its own reporters and editors provide a portion of content, as do the editors of Fortune and Money. These two magazines do not have their own sites, but are part of the CNNMoney umbrella. Each of the three properties is a part of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX). Fortune and Money are part of the publishing division. None of the other large business and financial sites measured by Comscore have a similar make-up. Most others are the financial divisions of portals, like AOL (NYSE: AOL), or standalone properties with one content source, like Forbes or TheStreet Inc. (NASDAQ: TST).

CNNMoney’s success almost certainly draws from its arrangement as a three-legged stool. It can relay on the traditional business reporting from Fortune, and its company lists that include the Fortune 500. It can rely on Money for personal finance. Both Money and Fortune have relatively large editorial staffs because of their print products. These staffs and their production allow CNNMoney to have a lean staff of its own. And the CNNMoney audience and the advertising its draws helps to offset the financial trouble of the print versions of Money and Fortune. The relationships build a clever and effective balancing act.

CNNMoney may end up being the best model for future success in the financial website industry. CNBC and Yahoo! already have begun to move toward that set-up. News service sites that have their own huge staffs — Reuters and Bloomberg (which did buy BusinessWeek for almost nothing) — may never to do this. Their trading terminal bases financially support their news organizations.

Still left without partners are Forbes, which has traditionally competed with Fortune, TheStreet and IBTimes. None of these three is based on the alliances that other business sites have forged over recent years that create more efficiency in news gathering, infrastructure and sales.

The online finance website business is crowded enough as it is. Independence has become a disadvantage. A look at the benefits of the CNNMoney, Fortune and Money alliance is a proof of that.

Douglas A. McIntyre

As The Street has made little progress over the past five years, it has been flanked by new age media companies. Seeking Alpha and Business Insider are nearly as large at The Street in terms of audience. Seeking Alpha is a roll up of blogs, much like the Huffington Post was early in its history. Business Insider is a riot of content, ranging from well-researched and incisive articles to stories illustrated by nearly naked women and ones based rumors that are sometimes not sourced as they ought to be. There is a lesson in the success of both. Neither was built on traditional journalism standards. They did not mimic The Street, nor MarketWatch, Barron’s or Fortune.

The Street has held to the belief that a newsletter service constructed on an old industry model and an advertising business that is part of a troubled sector of the Internet are still permanent ways to grow and make money. Recent events in its industry prove otherwise. So do the financial losses at The Street. Seeking Alpha and Business Insider were born from risky innovation. A lot of other content sites tried to rush The Street and fell short. Even those failures had some lessons, and the two sites that have grown rapidly certainly do. But, despite this, The Street has barely changed in a decade, and that has begun to be its undoing.

Douglas A. McIntyre
(one of the editors of 24/7 Wall St., and a member of the board of The Street from 2000 to 2005)