Hans

Keyword Ad Prices Falling, But Why? (GOOG)

My opinion is that we may be going through another internet bubble. The previous one was also based on advertising dollars tied to eyeballs, which never translated to sales. It took a few years for advertisers to get enough feedback to verify that. Now ads are tied to click-throughs, but that also doesn't translate to sales well. There will be a pullback in ad rates, and then a likely shift to an Amazon type model where ad rates are based on confirmed sales.

The main information advertisers are getting out of the current system is what a complete waste their money has been.

How Many Customers Will Leave Brown After Its Acquisition By E*Trade? (ET)

wish I could spell.

How Many Customers Will Leave Brown After Its Acquisition By E*Trade? (ET)

Of the 2 big online brokerage consolidators (Ameritrade and E*TRade) AMTD has been focussed and E*Trade has sort of cornered themselves into needing high end clients for top heavy services (currently without enough clients). As teh BArron's article alludes to, that may not work out so well. More details here, where I originally made this argument.

Netflix Beating Blockbuster and Movie Gallery? (NFLX, BBI, MOVI)

I had the same thought, but with a slightly different angle. Given the divergence between the two, there might be a nice short term arbitrage play of shorting NFLX and going long BBI.