Current Market

Yahoo: No One Is Buying WSJ’s Miller Buyout Theory — Who, exactly, is going around convincing reporters to print complicated Yahoo (YHOO) acquisitions schemes? First, over the weekend, someone floated a convoluted scheme in the Times of London which included Microsoft getting a two-year option to buy Yahoo Search for $20 billion. That one was quickly blown apart. Then yesterday, the Wall Street Journal floated a story which said that former AOL exec Jonathan Miller was trying to raise up to $30 billion to buy Yahoo. That one, too, has been heaped with scorn. In fact, some of the skeptical response comes from noneother than AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher, who of... [Tags: acquisitions, allthingsd, aol exec, current market, elevation partners]

Ex-AOL Boss Looking to Raise Cash for Yahoo Bid — Former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller is seeking as much as $30 billion from investors to buy all or part of Yahoo, reports The Wall Street Journal, boosting shares of Yahoo with the news of Miller's possible bid for the Web search engine. But raising so much money in the current market could be tough, with banks unwilling to lend. The former AOL chief executive reportedly wants to raise funds to buy Yahoo for $20 to $22 a share for the entire company. - NEW YORK (Reuters) Former AOL Chief Executive Jonathan Miller is seeking as much as $30 billion from... [Tags: aol, banks, boss, ceo, chief executive]

Yahoo: Cowen Has Serious Doubts On Miller-Led Bid; Raising $30 Billion Would be “Extremely Difficult” — Cowen’s Jim Friedland this afternoon has weighed in on the WSJ report that former AOL exec Jonathan Miller is trying to raise cash for a bid for Yahoo, and finds the proposition to be something of a long shot. In a brief research note, he raises two key issues: Capital: He says it would be “extremely difficult” to raise the $28 billion to $31 billion that would be needed to close a deal at the $20-$22 a share price level asserted in the story. Price: He says the valuation at $21 would be 9x EV/EBITDA and 29x forward earnings, levels... [Tags: aol exec, cowen, current market, d note, doubts]

Time Warner (TWX) Finds Sure-Fire Way To Get Stock Price Up — Reuters: Time Warner is asking its shareholders to vote for a reverse stock split, in a bid to boost its languishing market price and improve the shares' liquidity, according to a regulatory filing on Monday. The media company, which owns cable news network CNN and movie studio Warner Bros among its media properties, is proposing the split after it separates from its Time Warner Cable Inc unit early in 2009. A special meeting of stockholders will be held on Jan. 16 at its New York headquarters. It said in a proxy filing that stockholders will be asked to vote on... [Tags: board time, cable inc, cable news network, cnn, current market]

Solarfun Swoons; Collins Stewart Cuts Ests Ahead Of Earnings Tomorrow; Sees Possible Cash Crunch Ahead — Collins Stewart solar analyst Daniel Ries once again is cutting estimates for a solar company ahead of earnings. On November 19, Collins cut numbers for Suntech (STP) ahead of earnings, rightly anticipating a big drop in guidance. On November 14, he made a similar move on Canadian Solar (CSIQ); it was another prescient call, preceding terrible Q4 guidance a week later. Today, he zeros in on Solarfun (SOLF), which reports results tomorrow. Ries this morning cut his Q3 EPS estimate to 15 cents, from 23 cents. For Q4, he now sees a loss of 4 cents, down from a profit... [Tags: 100 million, balance sheet, bank debt, cash balance, cash crunch]

Dan Solin: Stupid Investor Tricks — Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying investors are stupid. I'm saying they follow the advice of people who pay no attention to the data. As a consequence, they engage in "stupid investor tricks." Here are some examples: 1. Relying on pundits--not data--to "explain" the significance of current volatility. Neither is predictive, but at least the data is accurate. Historically, volatility has meant poor returns. But over the past 82 years, periods of negative returns (six months or longer) have been followed by periods of positive returns, on average. 2. Using volatility as an opportunity to pick stocks or time... [Tags: amp, annualized return, asset class, bond index, collective wisdom]

Where do all those used computers go? — Demand for repurposed secondary PCs is strong worldwide, but less than half of the systems intended for resale actually end up on someone's desk. The current market for these systems is fragmented, diverse, and somehow "losing" over half its inventory.Read More...... [Tags: current market, desk]

Microsoft meets its match in Google: Chrome to go retail — Whatever we may think about the causes of the current market meltdown, free markets do tend to heal themselves over time. Hence, it was only a matter of time before someone would come along and give Microsoft a run for its money in its core businesses, Windows and Office. What ...... [Tags: core businesses, current market, free markets, google, match]

Facebook Thrown Out of Tree After Caught Kissing With Twitter — At Web 2.0 Summit a couple weeks ago, John Battelle asked Mark Zuckerberg about a potential acquisition of Twitter. Zuckerberg essentially avoided the question and Caroline McCarthy, suggested such a notion was ludicrous. This morning, Kara Swisher revealed that acquisitions discussions were actually taking place but eventually ended in failure. The reason, according to Kara, was that Facebook offered a $500 million stock exchange at Microsoft’s $15 billion valuation. Twitter executives and investors suggested that such a valuation was not accurate in the current market environment. Public rumors suggesting a current stock valuation of $4 - $5 billion have supported... [Tags: abstracted version, acquisition, acquisitions, caroline mccarthy, conversations]

Waiting for Barack, Godot, Salvation — We did it again this weekend. We bailed out the top and not the bottom.  I truly don't understand this. (Caveat: I studied poetry and novels in college).Walk me through it, if you will. The consumer is responsible for 70% of the US economy. The consumer has been scared spitless by what's happening all around him in the last six months -- by the election, by the bailout, by the media, by the inability to get loans, by the layoffs around him.So what does he do?  He does what my "friend" does: he screeches to a halt on his spending.... [Tags: 401k, bailout, caveat, ceos, current market]

Sun Microsystems: Now Trading at Cash [Voices] — By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s For Sun Microsystems (JAVA), it has come down to this: The stock is now trading for the net value of the cash and investments on its balance sheet. As of September 30, the company had $2.63 billion in short-term cash and investments. Add in $490 million in long-term investments, and back out $694 million in long-term debt, and you get net cash of $2.486 billion. JAVA shares today have dropped another 34 cents, or 9.2 percent, to $3.38. It’s current market cap: $2.49 billion. Read the rest of this post... [Tags: balance sheet, barron, blogger, columnist, current market]

RIMM Added To Goldman “Convicton Buy” List — Goldman Sachs this morning added Research In Motion (RIMM) to the firm’s Conviction Buy list, replacing Cisco Systems (CSCO), which still remains Buy rated. The company also removed Riverbed (RVBD) from its Conviction Sell list, while maintaining its Sell rating. “For RIMM, we want to take advantage of the stock’s very compelling valuation and upcoming catalysts, including to Storm launch and fiscal Q3 (November) earnings,” writes analyst Simona Jankowski. She notes that RIMM shares are down 62% over the last 3 months, compared with 51% for the average stock she covers and 32% for the S&P 500, on concerns of... [Tags: catalysts, cisco, cisco systems, consensus estimate, conviction]

Blinkx wants Miva again, but for less — Blinkx, a British video search provider that already tried to acquire online advertising firm, Miva earlier, announced Wednesday that it is placing another bid to acquire the company. But this time around, Blinkx's offer is just $0.55 per share for Miva -- less than half of its original offer of $1.20 per share. "Blinkx believes the proposal is highly attractive for Miva shareholders, particularly in light of issues in the Miva business and current market conditions," a release from Blinkx read. "Blinkx's proposal represents a 108 percent premium above the closing price of Miva common stock of $0.2643 on November... [Tags: acquisition, advertising firm, blinkx, common stock, company executives]

blinkx Offers to Acquire Miva Again; This Time for Less Than Half Original Offer — Video search provider blinkx has publicly announced its proposal to (once again) acquire online advertising company Miva today. Back in August, blinkx offered $1.20 for each Miva share for the company but the deal never went through. Today's proposed acquisition comes in at $0.55 per share, less than half of the August offer. blinkx noted this morning, "blinkx believes the proposal is highly attractive for MIVA shareholders, particularly in light of issues in the MIVA business and current market conditions. blinkx's proposal represents a 108% premium above the closing price of MIVA common stock of $0.2643 on November 18,... [Tags: acquisition, advertising company, blinkx, business cards, cn]

Sun Microsystems: Now Trading At Cash — For Sun Microsystems (JAVA), it has come down to this: the stock is now trading for the net value of the cash and investments on its balance sheet. As of September 30, the company had $2.63 billion in short-term cash and investments. Add in $490 million in long-term investments, and back out $694 million in long-term debt, and you get net cash of $2.486 billion. JAVA shares today have dropped another 34 cents, or 9.2%, to $3.38. It’s current market cap: $2.49 billion. Since announcing the headcount reduction plan, the stock is down 17%. Ergo, you in theory could buy... [Tags: balance sheet, current market, entire company, headcount reduction, jobs]

Blinkx Reboots Bid For Ad Net MIVA, New All-Cash Offer — Blinkx isn't taking no for an answer. Despite dropping its pursuit of pay-per-click ad network MIVA last month after being rebuffed, it's now restarted the reverse-takeover bid after recording strong earnings last week. At $0.55 per share ($19 million), the new bid is far less than the $1.20 ($41 million) first offered back in August, but is still 108 percent up on MIVA's Tuesday close of $0.26 and comes in all-cash. MIVA's share price has tanked by 85 percent this year and the outfit last week raised a $10 million credit facility after seeing Q3 losses widen from $3.3 million... [Tags: 10 million, 5 million, blinkx, businessweek, cash position]

KLA-Tencor Cutting Workforce By 15% — KLA-Tencor (KLAC) this afternoon announced that it will cut its workforce by 15% by June 30 in response to “current market conditions.” The company has about 6,000 employees, suggesting there will be about 900 layoffs at the semiconductor equipment maker. The KLA job cuts follow similar moves by other equipment companies, including cuts of 12% at Applied Materials and 8% at Cymer. KLAC said it expects an initial cash charge of $15 million to $20 million in severance costs in fiscal 2009. The company said it expects to incur additional restructuring charges, severance costs and other related expenses in connection... [Tags: applied materials, current market, fiscal year, initial cash, job cuts]

Jerry finally steps aside at Yahoo — Why did it take so long? That’s the only question that remains unanswered when it comes to Jerry Yang and his erstwhile leadership of the company he co-founded, at least as far as I’m concerned. It didn’t really make any sense for him to become CEO in the first place — no matter what his defenders have said about him — and he hasn’t shown any real aptitude for either leadership or vision during his time in the executive suite. About all he has done (aided by a board that gives new meaning to the term lacklustre) is to deep-six... [Tags: admiration, all sorts, aol, aptitude, billions of dollars]

SEC Charges “Maverick” Mark Cuban With Insider Trading - No Way — Update: Mark Cuban responds to the charge. Again I think this is BullShit with a capital BS. Federal regulators have charged Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban with insider trading for allegedly using confidential information on a stock sale to avoid more than $750,000 in losses. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Cuban on Monday in federal court in Dallas. The agency says that in June 2004, Cuban was invited to get in on the coming stock offering by Mamma.com Inc. after he agreed to keep the information private. The SEC says Cuban knew the shares would... [Tags: bullshit, civil lawsuit, confidential information, current market, dallas mavericks]

James Hoggan: 10 Tips for Communicating in Tough Times — How do you manage bad news when you know that corporate credibility is in the dumpster? This has been a challenge for a while, but as long as it was only Enron and Worldcom -- a couple of bad boys in the boardroom -- you still might have hoped for an open-minded public hearing. No longer. Multi-millionaire Wall Street CEOs stood before Congress -- and before the American people -- just weeks before their businesses imploded and swore that their madhouse mortgage adventures were working out just fine. Now, whether we assume they were incompetent or dishonest, we still know... [Tags: bad boys, bad day, bad news story, band aid, boardroom]