Motorola Mobility has started laying off 1,200 workers in the U.S., China and India, or over 10% of its staff, as the Google (GOOG) unit continues its efforts to return to profitability. "Our costs are too high, we're operating in markets where we're not competitive and we're losing money," Motorola said in a company email. The cuts add to 4,000 redundancies that the firm announced last summer. [View news story]
I didn't see Europe included in that list. Is this because laws as of late don't formally allow layoffs in Europe?
Also, "China" yea there's a pile of "dead wood" if I ever heard the term! (Intense sarcasm here, China is not where you find the largest inefficiencies for costs at a first glance.)
Google (GOOG) continues to build out a same-day delivery service called 'Google Shopping Express" to compete with Amazon Prime (AMZN), according to TechCrunch. The price of the service will reportedly be $10 to $15 less than Amazon Prime's $79 annual fee and will include same-day delivery from brick-and-mortar retail chains. [View news story]
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) reverses yesterday's post-close plunge, with Cantor Fitzgerald calling the FDA probe reaction way overdone and upping the shares to Buy. Janney has spoken to those in the know who say the FDA investigation is not about safety issues on the da Vinci robots. Bair's Ben Andrews calls the probe routine post-market surveillance and says the stock should be bought aggressively under $550. Shares +7.3% premarket to $547. [View news story]
Good to see sanity return. The problem is that high volatility is not healthy for the stock.
"I think we're seeing fear fatigue," says money manager Darell Krasnoff. Clients of his out of stocks for some time are calling and asking to get back in. It's the same story at Fidelity and Schwab (SCHW), both seeing marked increases in trading activity. The Vix (VXX)? It declines even on days when the markets sell off. [View news story]
Talk about the mind games!
No fear? We're at the top! Full Bear! Wait! I just said "bear" that means we're at the bottom! Full Bull!
How about this: Everybody is calling an "inflection" point so the contrarian view would be it's neither a top or bottom. It's just somewhere in between.
Notoriously poor market-timers, the central banks purchased 534.6 tons of gold in 2012, according to the World Gold Council. It's the largest amount the banks - last seen unloading their gold at less than $500/oz. - have bought since 1964. [View news story]
G20: No Currency Wars! No deliberate debasement of currency!
Central Banks: Hmmm... Mind if we buy large piles of gold?
Boston Scientific (BSX -0.5%) slips into the red today, despite saying it's received CE Mark approval for the Promus Premier Everolimus-Eluting Platinum Chromium Coronary Stent System, and is initiating its European market launch. The system is designed to provide physicians improved drug eluting stent performance for treating patients with coronary artery disease. [View news story]
Maybe the market doesn't like the name "Promus Premier Everolimus-Eluting Platinum Chromium Coronary Stent System". It doesn't seem to roll off the tongue.
David Einhorn's preferred stock proposal is "creative," Tim Cook states at a Goldman conference. But he calls Einhorn's opposition to Prop. 2 a "silly sideshow," and insists the measure is meant to empower shareholders. He claims Apple's (AAPL -1.2%) management/board are in "very active discussions" about returning additional cash, but remains tight-lipped about details. Apple is spiking lower after temporarily doing the opposite. (live blog) (webcast) (previous) [View news story]
Yea, but the term "silly sideshow" seems equivalent to having Jobs call someone a "Bozo".
I take it that Cook just called Einhorn a "Bozo" in a very diplomatic way.
More on Einhorn and Apple (AAPL): The company needs to use the same level of creativity with its balance sheet as it does to produce products, writes Einhorn. Every $50B of perpetual preferred stock distributed would unlock about $32/share of value, he says, and Apple has the capacity to distribute several hundred billion. "Greenlight is alarmed that Apple is attempting to eliminate preferred stock from its corporate charter." Shares +0.7% premarket. [View news story]
Regardless of the statement's merit, the hedge fund bots are going to notice "Einhorn" and "Apple" in the same article. I guess we're going to see how stable their trigger fingers are at these funds.
Facebook (FB) roundup: 1) 61% of respondents to a U.S. Pew survey said they had taken a break of at least several weeks from Facebook at some point. 28% said the site is less important to them vs. a year ago, and 12% said it's more important. U.S. Facebook users are much more lucrative than international users. 2) Instagram user photo streams are finally available on PCs. 3) A Wired article looks at how Facebook's control of user data and APIs across mobile platforms could strengthen its monetization efforts, and diminish the value of Apple and Google's platforms. [View news story]
Could FB avoidance be the new "abstinence" for Lent?
Yes, I think Ashraf has been able to generate enough page views with this article. (Talk about falling for the bait. Apple folks, hook, line and sinker.)
Fitch warns that the "age bomb" in developed countries, including the U.S., will exacerbate indebtedness and could hurt credit ratings unless governments enact labor and pension reforms. European countries are particularly at risk, although "recent reforms in Portugal, Italy and Greece have effectively neutralized the long-term impact of aging on public finances." (Fitch report) [View news story]
So 'bomb' is our new scare word for 2013? Meh, this is going to give the FBI algorithms fits as it scans communications. 'gate', 'cliff', 'bomb' what-ever.
The "Great Rotation" is getting legs as $11.3B has gone into global stock mutual funds in the last 2 weeks - the largest 2-week inflow since April 2000 (how'd that one work out?). The theory - open for discussion - is mutual fund flows reflect "Mom and Pop" activity, while ETF flows - money left in the last week - are more dominated by the institutional and trading set. [View news story]
Maybe the latest increase in fees by ETF with accompanying decrease in fees for mutual funds is finding a balance? Or as people learn about ETFs, they learn that most of these funds can be shorted and have derivative products. Not necessarily bad, but people may feel that their money should not be placed into a churning froth of activity and told that things are safe.
NFC is currently more useful in the EU and Asia Pacific regions where mass transit is more prevalent. Phones replace the NFC cards in wallets which saves on infrastructure costs. No one pays for their tickets on a daily basis with the credit card. The hidden functionality is that the "card style" payment works even when the phone is off or battery drained.
Apparently, there are several "modes" of operation with NFC where the phone can emulate a payment card, be a reader of a payment card or just connect to another NFC device in a peer to peer mode.
Even stuff like company door access keys to be embedded into the work phone soon.
Motorola Mobility has started laying off 1,200 workers in the U.S., China and India, or over 10% of its staff, as the Google (GOOG) unit continues its efforts to return to profitability. "Our costs are too high, we're operating in markets where we're not competitive and we're losing money," Motorola said in a company email. The cuts add to 4,000 redundancies that the firm announced last summer. [View news story]
Also, "China" yea there's a pile of "dead wood" if I ever heard the term!
(Intense sarcasm here, China is not where you find the largest inefficiencies for costs at a first glance.)
Google (GOOG) continues to build out a same-day delivery service called 'Google Shopping Express" to compete with Amazon Prime (AMZN), according to TechCrunch. The price of the service will reportedly be $10 to $15 less than Amazon Prime's $79 annual fee and will include same-day delivery from brick-and-mortar retail chains. [View news story]
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) reverses yesterday's post-close plunge, with Cantor Fitzgerald calling the FDA probe reaction way overdone and upping the shares to Buy. Janney has spoken to those in the know who say the FDA investigation is not about safety issues on the da Vinci robots. Bair's Ben Andrews calls the probe routine post-market surveillance and says the stock should be bought aggressively under $550. Shares +7.3% premarket to $547. [View news story]
The problem is that high volatility is not healthy for the stock.
"I think we're seeing fear fatigue," says money manager Darell Krasnoff. Clients of his out of stocks for some time are calling and asking to get back in. It's the same story at Fidelity and Schwab (SCHW), both seeing marked increases in trading activity. The Vix (VXX)? It declines even on days when the markets sell off. [View news story]
No fear? We're at the top! Full Bear!
Wait! I just said "bear" that means we're at
the bottom! Full Bull!
How about this:
Everybody is calling an "inflection" point so the contrarian
view would be it's neither a top or bottom.
It's just somewhere in between.
Notoriously poor market-timers, the central banks purchased 534.6 tons of gold in 2012, according to the World Gold Council. It's the largest amount the banks - last seen unloading their gold at less than $500/oz. - have bought since 1964. [View news story]
Central Banks: Hmmm... Mind if we buy large piles of gold?
G20: That would be just fine. (Wink) (Wink)
Boston Scientific (BSX -0.5%) slips into the red today, despite saying it's received CE Mark approval for the Promus Premier Everolimus-Eluting Platinum Chromium Coronary Stent System, and is initiating its European market launch. The system is designed to provide physicians improved drug eluting stent performance for treating patients with coronary artery disease. [View news story]
It doesn't seem to roll off the tongue.
David Einhorn's preferred stock proposal is "creative," Tim Cook states at a Goldman conference. But he calls Einhorn's opposition to Prop. 2 a "silly sideshow," and insists the measure is meant to empower shareholders. He claims Apple's (AAPL -1.2%) management/board are in "very active discussions" about returning additional cash, but remains tight-lipped about details. Apple is spiking lower after temporarily doing the opposite. (live blog) (webcast) (previous) [View news story]
I take it that Cook just called Einhorn a "Bozo" in a very diplomatic way.
More on Einhorn and Apple (AAPL): The company needs to use the same level of creativity with its balance sheet as it does to produce products, writes Einhorn. Every $50B of perpetual preferred stock distributed would unlock about $32/share of value, he says, and Apple has the capacity to distribute several hundred billion. "Greenlight is alarmed that Apple is attempting to eliminate preferred stock from its corporate charter." Shares +0.7% premarket. [View news story]
the hedge fund bots are going to notice "Einhorn" and "Apple"
in the same article. I guess we're going to see how
stable their trigger fingers are at these funds.
Facebook (FB) roundup: 1) 61% of respondents to a U.S. Pew survey said they had taken a break of at least several weeks from Facebook at some point. 28% said the site is less important to them vs. a year ago, and 12% said it's more important. U.S. Facebook users are much more lucrative than international users. 2) Instagram user photo streams are finally available on PCs. 3) A Wired article looks at how Facebook's control of user data and APIs across mobile platforms could strengthen its monetization efforts, and diminish the value of Apple and Google's platforms. [View news story]
What Is Wrong With Microsoft? [View article]
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters 3.0 [View article]
Check out the promotional video of the RFID enabled Vue system.
http://bit.ly/XHWhlE
Apple's Growth Story Is Over [View article]
I think Ashraf has been able to generate enough page views with this article. (Talk about falling for the bait. Apple folks, hook, line and sinker.)
Fitch warns that the "age bomb" in developed countries, including the U.S., will exacerbate indebtedness and could hurt credit ratings unless governments enact labor and pension reforms. European countries are particularly at risk, although "recent reforms in Portugal, Italy and Greece have effectively neutralized the long-term impact of aging on public finances." (Fitch report) [View news story]
Meh, this is going to give the FBI algorithms fits as it scans communications.
'gate', 'cliff', 'bomb' what-ever.
The "Great Rotation" is getting legs as $11.3B has gone into global stock mutual funds in the last 2 weeks - the largest 2-week inflow since April 2000 (how'd that one work out?). The theory - open for discussion - is mutual fund flows reflect "Mom and Pop" activity, while ETF flows - money left in the last week - are more dominated by the institutional and trading set. [View news story]
Or as people learn about ETFs, they learn that most of these funds can be shorted and have derivative products. Not necessarily bad, but people may feel that their money should not be placed into a churning froth of activity and told that things are safe.
Are Visa's Days Numbered? [View article]
http://bit.ly/SbfoHZ
Apparently, there are several "modes" of operation with NFC where the phone can emulate a payment card, be a reader of a payment card or just connect to another NFC device in a peer to peer mode.
Even stuff like company door access keys to be embedded into the work phone soon.