Netflix (NFLX) was cited by the SEC for violating fair disclosure rules as a result of Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings, posting on his Facebook (FB) account in July that Netflix had surpassed 1 billion hours of monthly viewing. According to a Netflix filing referring to the SEC's so-called "Wells Notice", Netflix may be the target for a cease and desist proceeding or a civil injunction. The SEC's action may also result in Netflix having to pay some type of financial penalty.

What the SEC alleges is that Netflix violated rules regarding the release of material information that should be made public to all potential investors at the same time and not just to some by posting in FB the record number of hours streamed by it. Apparently, material information should have been released to the public through a publication or through a SEC filing.

In

In 2011, after its merger with Wyeth, Pfizer (PFE) became the world's largest pharmaceutical company. Although the phrase has a certain ring of power to it, it is best described as a struggling-to-save-face company at this point. The merger failed to provide any impressionable edge to Pfizer and did nothing to prevent the 60% loss of its market value from the previous decade. The leaders of the organization may gloat about being part of a colossal takeover and the fact that their cases are taught at Harvard as an example. However, investors know that Pfizer has been scraping to cover up the double digit drop in its market share. Nevertheless, in spite of disappointment in sales, its recent moves seem to be headed to making amends.

The last decade saw the company jump the merger bandwagon and take over three major pharmaceutical contributors: Wyeth in 2011, Pharmacia in

The so-called patent-cliff is a two edged sword. Mainly, it's a cliff for big pharmaceutical companies that make branded products to fall off whenever the patents on their branded drugs expire. That's when generic drug makers like Watson (WPI) swoop in with generic products that undercut the brand names with lower prices. This was especially true in 2012 when no less than $35billion worth of brand name drugs had their patents expire. 2013, on the other hand, has an outlook of less half the amount in 2012, at $17 billion. Moreover, this trend is calculated to last for some two years, going well into 2014. So now the patent-cliff, or more accurately the absence of one, threatens big generic pharmaceutical companies such as Watson with greatly diminished revenues from copycat generics.

Watson has anticipated this potential decrease in its revenues and put in motion different strategies

A poor take off doesn't always end in a poor landing.

Pacira (PCRX), a leading pharmaceutical company, didn't exactly experience the take-off it expected with the launch of Exparel, a medicine designed to help surgeons in minor surgical operations. Although the company is experiencing pessimistic cash flows due to slow sales throughout, Pacira is determined and expects a good breakthrough in the market for Exparel in the next quarter. It might be too early to say this, but the medicine's potential to be huge has been a longstanding rumor with analysts.

Market analysts believe that the performance of Pacira at NASDAQ is noticeable. Pacira was inducted in NASDAQ in 2011; and soon after its induction, the company launched its 6,000,000 shares at face value of $7.00. Historically, the stock hit the 52-week low at $7.22 and 52-week high at $19.31. The stock price change in this

The future of United Airlines (UAL) continues to ride on how soon it successfully manages the giant merger that made it the largest airline in North America, when it reschedules with Continental Airlines in 2010.

Clearly, UAL has not managed to integrate the two airline companies as fast as it hoped and expected. UAL's CEO, Jeffery A. Smisek, admitted as much after one of three costly computer failures in November 2012, meant delays for more than 250 UAL flights worldwide.

Apparently, one of the key elements of any airline's success or failure, its IT systems, is very hard to merge with another airline's. Different technologies in IT systems and different ways of doing things bedevil a smooth transition to a seamless and glitch-free IT system that will deliver as expected. Already in March, and again in August of 2012, UAL reservation system failures meant delays, stranded passengers and

Groupon (GRPN) closed at an all-time low of $2.76 on Friday November 9th trading after disappointing 3Q 2012 results. In opening trade on Monday November 12th the share price hovered around that price, even sliding a little bit more. Market expectations of 3Q revenue of $591 million were disappointing as Groupon's revenues came in lower at $568 million, below Groupon's own forecasted range of $580 to $620 million range. This translated into losses of $3 million for the quarter and breaking even on a per-share basis, with a 29% decrease in Groupon's share value on Friday from an opening price of over $3 the same day. The net loss, reversing positive operating income, was due to stock compensation and expenses related to acquisitions of more than $25 million. Groupon's revenue forecast for 4Q 2012 was not very encouraging either, with a range of $625

Sprint (S) is coming back after the near death experience of acquiring Nextel Communications in 2005 at a cost of $36 billion, $30 billion of which it had to write off. Or, at least, the owner and CEO of SoftBank (SFTBF.PK), Masayoshi Son, thinks so.

SoftBank, a Japanese telecoms company, challenged Japan's two dominant telecoms companies when it bought Vodafone's Japan subsidiary in a risky move that is paying off; Softbank is on course to become the second largest company in the industry, after NTT DoCoMo, if its acquisition of a smaller rival goes through.

SoftBank decided that the greatest opportunity for growth lies not so much in its own home market but rather in the biggest and most lucrative telecoms market of all, the United States. Interestingly, its gambit parallels what it tried to do, successfully so far, in its home market, that is, challenge the

Groupon (GRPN) has continued its quick fall to the bottom this year as it has now lost over $20 on its share price and sits below the $3 mark. For many, this outcome has been long expected, as Groupon's fundamentals leave much to be desired. For the company to return to relevance it is pinning its hopes on becoming the "operating system of local commerce", although personally, I'm weary about its ability to make this move. Expect Groupon to find its equilibrium in a substantially smaller market capitalization with lower profitability.

First among the poor fundamentals is Groupon's bloated staff. Currently, it employs almost 11,500 employees. To be fair, the number of employees itself is a poor metric of success or failure, but the fact that Groupon's business relies on salespeople to push daily deals with little in the way of automation, signals that the company has little in

As the Eastern seaboard begins the slow and costly process of rebuilding from the ravages of Superstorm Sandy, it seems appropriate to examine a prominent property and casualty insurer to see if the company is up to the task. The task is considerable, as estimates of the damage range from $7 billion to as high as $20 billion. We will also examine Sandy's near-term impact on earnings and the longer-term outlook for investors, as well as compare it to a close competitor.

We begin with The Allstate Corporation (ALL), which had its Q3 2012 earnings call on Nov. 1. CEO Thomas J. Wilson devoted a significant block of time to the subject of the storm. As he explained, Allstate's work over the last five years has let the company more prepared for a large-scale storm like Sandy. Wilson praised his company's pre-planning and risk-management handling. The

The sequels of the mortgage implosion and the subsequent financial meltdown continue to plague Bank of America (BAC). Bank of America is being sued by federal prosecutors in New York for having made abusive and fraudulent mortgage loans and then having sold them off to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government backed mortgage housing institutions, causing taxpayers massive losses when these went bad during the 2008-09 recession. BAC is being sued for at least $1 billion, with the risk that the penalty may treble.

BAC's problems in this regard, of course, started when it bought Countrywide Financial in June of 2008. Countrywide's dubious lending practices, continued under BAC, apparently were brazen in name as well as in deed, being referred to infamously but rather appropriately at the bank as the "High-Speed-Swim -Lane", HSSL, or "hustle" for short.

In the third quarter, the BAC was hit by litigation charges

In what was a startling announcement, Walt Disney Corporation (DIS) will be acquiring Lucasfilm, the media powerhouse formerly owned by original founder and visionary George Lucas. The venerable Star Wars franchise will now be found amongst Disney's ever-expanding collection of intellectual property, joining Pixar, Marvel and other properties Disney has acquired. Robert Iger, the CEO of Disney, has stated that its purchase of Lucasfilm has been valued at $4.05 billion.

This isn't the only shocker for Star Wars fans and veterans. Disney has announced that it will release a canonical continuation of the Star Wars saga, with the first new film to be released sometime in 2015 with at least two more to follow soon after. The new film trilogy will be officially known as Episode VII, VIII, and IX, taking on the similar naming conventions for the previous two trilogies.

Exact details on

With the continuation of this current recession, investors have been rethinking their portfolios and investing in companies that remain, in the midst of the financial downturn, relatively stable and profitable. Although Pfizer (PFE) - the multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in New York City and currently the world's largest research-based pharmaceutical company - has experienced some blows this past year (in particular, the loss of Lipitor's patent protection), it still remains firmly recession-proof. For the 41st consecutive year, the pharmaceutical has raised its dividend, with an increased yield of about 4.6 percent. In the past decade, Pfizer has expanded through mergers, including those with Warner-Lambert (2000), Phamarcia Biotech (2003) and Wyeth (2009).

The company, co-started by cousins Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhart, was founded in 1849 as a manufacturer of fine chemicals. Nearly a century later, the company discovered oxytetracycline, an important antibiotic

Third quarter financial reports for 2012 are out. To some analysts' surprise, AT&T (T) did slightly better than expected. As the largest telecommunications company based in the U.S., it recently beat financial analysts' predictions on profit margins, although this was without any help from the lower than expected supply of Apple's iPhone 5 in the market. In fact, the much talked about low inventory of this newest rendition of the iPhone this past year negatively affected the number of new customers who signed onto AT&T - only about 151,000 new subscribers were added during this period, which is merely a fraction of what Wall Street expected - but still, AT&T experienced an unexpected record cash flow. As of mid-October, 2012, AT&T sales increased by 63 cents a share, three cents up from what was initially predicted by analysts. This is despite a

Make no mistake: Comcast (CMCSA) isn't doing poorly. However, it appears to have only one way to go and that is down. There are many pressures creeping into Comcast's market that will almost certainly introduce a new kind of competition that Comcast does not seem poised to deal with. Mainly, the disruption of television services by Google ( GOOG), among others, has the potential to decrease Comcast's revenues. Lower revenues will hit Comcast hard as it will drag down its profit margins, which have historically been pretty large.

First, Comcast is in a solid position currently as the industry leader in selling a la carte movies and videos to television viewers. To be precise, it currently sells 23% of on demand videos which is a large amount and far ahead of its competition. However, Comcast is among a relatively small number of providers, a number that seems

There have recently been some major changes with Amazon (AMZN), and these do seem to be causes for concern. Wal-Mart (WMT) has decided to stop selling Amazon's Kindle, which will logically have a negative effect on Kindle sales. In addition, the state of California is yet another state that has begun collecting sales tax from Amazon and other online retailers, reducing the price advantage for online retailers. Amazon is attempting to use this as a chance to gain a new edge. It is building new distribution centers and pushing for better shipping times, hoping to eventually allow for same-day shipping. Clearly, Amazon is changing, but will it be enough? I think Amazon is trying to make the best of a bad situation, but it is still a bad situation. Even though it will continue to play a major role in the retail industry, I

Starbucks Corporation (SBUX), long the king of in-store coffee, is making a move to become the king of in-home coffee as well. The Seattle-based company announced recently it would begin selling a single-serve brewer online, with in-store sales coming soon after. Known as the "Verismo," the brewer will cost $199 and is expected to present a challenge for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR), which specializes in similar products. The move has the potential to be a significant moneymaker for Starbucks, and I expect the brewers to sell quite well. The company will also be rolling out later this month support for Apple's (AAPL) new Passbook system, which will allow users to pay for Starbucks with their iPhones. While the company has been doing an e-payment method for some time, this new update on the heels of the latest version

Wal-Mart (WMT) hit another impasse trying to put a retail store in Brooklyn recently. That headline has been read before, and it will be read again when Wal-Mart starts another campaign for a location in the country's largest city. But that's not a real reason to worry about Wal-Mart or lose any faith in the retail giant's growth strategy. Why? Because even if it isn't able to get into New York, it's thriving in other large American cities and taking market share away from competitors there. With progress in LA, Chicago, Miami-Dade and other cities, Wal-Mart is showing that its domestic growth prospects are alive and well.

The company is up over 24% this year and analysts have Wal-Mart price targets at a mean of $77, with some as high as $86. If its city potential remains solid, that growth combined with some very open opportunities in the

Social game-maker Zynga, Inc. (ZNGA) has faced more than its share of issue since going public last December. The stock peaked at over $14 in March but has fallen precipitously since then. The latest news out of Zynga is the recent release of Farmville 2, the follow-up to its Facebook (FB)-based, mind-numbing cow clicking game. While some believe a new Farmville is just what the doctor ordered to fix Zynga's troubles, I highly doubt it will make much of a difference. Stay far, far away from Zynga; it's just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

First of all, as someone that has grown up in the midst of the technology boom, I have a feeling that what happened with Zynga is a bit similar to what happened with Facebook. Investors/businessmen saw how popular it was becoming with people and jumped to the conclusion

Most people now seem to accept the importance of fuel economy and alternative energies, but with the poor sales of plug-in electrics, why should auto manufacturers focus much on this area? Global warming makes these things important, but these are still businesses, so profit is the ultimate concern. New U.S. government regulations could make this more important, but these regulations should still be subject to change. General Motors (GM) has a successful plug-in electric, so it could make profit off increased interest in this part of the industry. However, with the upcoming election, the disagreement over the new regulations, and the fact that these developments are looking far into the future, I think it is all too uncertain for anyone to invest in GM based on these recent news items.

GM's Chevrolet Volt did actually jump in sales during the month of August, marking its best month ever. It

The global economic crisis has had quite an effect on the bottom lines of nearly every industry, and automakers have not been immune. The recession forced "The Big Three" American automakers to make drastic cuts, including General Motors (GM) and Chrysler being bailed out by the government. Now, European automakers are being forced to make similar cuts in hopes of salvaging their companies' futures. So clearly, no automaker has a privileged position going forward. But if you're looking for an automaker in position to succeed when the economy turns around, look no further than Ford (F). Thanks to recent moves within the Chinese market, as well as some other factors, Ford could be on its way back up.

It's no secret that the Chinese market is a huge opportunity for profits. As such, many U.S. automakers have made concerted efforts to market their