Jerry, Please Don't Buy AOL For $8 Billion (1)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
Silicon Alley Insider (514)
12 hours, 25 minutes
ago
permalink
The latest report on the Yahoo-AOL deal is that Yahoo will buy AOL's ad network and content businesses for about $8 billion. We suggested yesterday that this price was "expensive but not ridiculous"--provided that Yahoo drastically cuts costs in the integration. We stand by that assessment. And now, we're going to provide some M&A advice to Yahoo: Don't do it. "Expensive but not ridiculous" is not a good reason to do a deal when you ...
The Bomb That Is Blowing Up In GE's Hold (GE) (1)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
ClusterStock (30)
17 hours, 33 minutes
ago
permalink
Triple-A rated GE has long been considered as safe an investment as you can get--as safe as, say, houses. But last week's emergency financing, which destroyed tens of billions of dollars of GE shareholder value, caused many observers to revise their opinion of the company's risk profile. And language in GE's most recent 8K should cause everyone to break out in a cold sweat. As of June 30, GE had about $100 billion in short-term ...
Cramer: PANIC NOW AND SELL EVERYTHING!!! (1)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
ClusterStock (30)
1 day, 11 hours
ago
permalink
Jim Cramer has apparently revisited his late-July "market bottom" call. On the Today Show this morning, the superguru told investors to sell everything (video below). One of our hedge-fund friends describes this as the "Munchian scream moment." 'I thought about this all weekend,' Cramer told Curry. 'I do not want to say these things on TV...Whatever money you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market right now, ...
eBay Firing 1000 (Finally), Needs To Fire More (2)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
Silicon Alley Insider (514)
1 day, 16 hours
ago
permalink
eBay (EBAY) is finally acknowledging its new reality and cutting its global workforce by 10% (1000 employees plus temps and open job reqs). The company got fat during its salad days, and now that buyers and sellers are fleeing to Amazon, Google, et al, these cuts are long overdue. Unless the company can rapidly begin to reaccelerate gross merchandise sales, moreover, more cuts should follow. On the positive side, eBay is now trading at an ...
LIVE NOTES From Value Investing Congress (1)
share
digg
Wall Street Starts Cutting Google Estimates (2)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
Silicon Alley Insider (514)
2 days, 4 hours
ago
permalink
As we said last week, one of the near-term headwinds for Google's stock is the likelihood that Wall Street will be cutting estimates for the company for a while. We have heard that Google's internal revenue-growth target for 2009 is about 15%, and the Street is still expecting 20%. Also, the global economy is deteriorating rapidly. The vast majority of Google's growth is coming from international markets, and we find it almost inconceivable that Google ...
Kleiner Perkins' Secret Plan To Make Billions Saving World (2)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
Silicon Alley Insider (514)
2 days, 17 hours
ago
permalink
A massive article in the NYT by Jon Gertner details Kleiner's greentech strategy. Electric cars, thin-film solar panels, jet-turbine windmills, and KP profits of $1 billion a year. Alas, most of the stuff is so cool, they can't tell you about it. [M]ost of the Kleiner's green-tech investments are not publicly discussed. By my count, the firm has acknowledged 15 of its 40 investments. The rest are in what V.C.'s call 'stealth' mode, hidden from ...
Why We Published That Steve Jobs Heart Attack Report (15)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
Silicon Alley Insider (514)
3 days, 12 hours
ago
permalink
Around 9:15AM yesterday, we learned that the lead story on CNN's citizen-journalism site iReport said that Steve Jobs had been rushed to the hospital after a heart attack. By the time we found it, the story had more than 100 Diggs and 50 comments and was all over Twitter. We didn't know whether the story was true, and we had no immediate way to confirm or debunk it. We viewed it as significant, however, both ...
-
Patrick Thornton said:
This post should really be called, "We published Steve Jobs Heart Attack Report to Get Page Views." This is all about page views, nothing more. SAI is acting like a bunch of pieces of shit over this.
Apple Stock Hammered (AAPL)...Why? (1)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
Silicon Alley Insider (514)
3 days, 18 hours
ago
permalink
Apple stock dipped early in the day on a false "citizen journalist" report that Steve Jobs had had a heart attack. After Apple denied the report, the stock bounced right back. In the last hour of trading, however, Apple's stock has tanked again, and at one point was down more than 4%, to $95 and change. Most other tech stocks, including RIMM, remained up at that point. The stock recovered slightly at the end of ...
McCain's Collapse Resumes (1)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
Silicon Alley Insider (514)
4 days, 7 hours
ago
permalink
Sarah Palin briefly arrested the collapse of John McCain's odds of winning the presidency with her performance in the debate last night: By this morning, McCain's odds on Intrade had upticked from 33% to 33.8%. Alas, the Palin effect quickly wore off, and by the end of the day, McCain's odds had plummeted to a new post-convention low: 30%. McCain has now lost 18 points in the past 18 days. Chart below from Intrade. It ...
Apple's Steve Jobs Rushed To ER After Heart Attack, Says CNN Citizen Journalist (11)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
Silicon Alley Insider (514)
4 days, 16 hours
ago
permalink
"Citizen journalism" apparently just failed its first significant test. A CNN iReport poster reported this morning that Steve Jobs had been rushed to the ER after a severe heart attack. Fortunately, it appears the story was false. We contacted an Apple spokeswoman, who categorically denies this. CNN kept the report up until at least 10:15 AM, about 20 minutes after we published Apple's denial. The story has since been removed. CNN's iReport, Original Story Steve ...
Palin Slows McCain's Stock Collapse (2)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
Silicon Alley Insider (514)
4 days, 16 hours
ago
permalink
Before the Biden-Palin debate, Intrade had McCain's odds of winning the presidency at 33%. After the debate, the odds ticked up slightly, to 33.8%. A WSJ poll has Biden winning the debate handily, so McCain's numbers apparently discounted a Palin bomb. See Also: McCain's Stock Collapses (Pre-Debate)
Microsoft Smart Not To Buy Yahoo...But Now's The Time To Do The Better Deal (2)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
Silicon Alley Insider (514)
5 days, 7 hours
ago
permalink
Now that Yahoo's stock has crashed through $16, clobbered shareholders are clinging to the thin hope that Microsoft's Steve Ballmer will make another play for the company. This time around, moreover, they'd be thrilled with a bid of $20. But Steve's not going to buy Yahoo no matter how low the stock goes, Kara Swisher says. And he's smart not to do so. Why? Because, as we said shortly after Steve made his original $31 ...
History Of Bailouts: What Kinds Work...And Why Ours Won't (6)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
Silicon Alley Insider (514)
5 days, 16 hours
ago
permalink
From Clusterstock: Do banking-system bailouts work? Yes. But some work better than others. They're also mind-bogglingly expensive. Unfortunately our current Plan shares some attributes with the bailouts that didn't work well...and it's price tag is likely being vastly understated.
Warren Buffett: We Have "Terrible, Terrible Problems" (3)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
ClusterStock (30)
5 days, 23 hours
ago
permalink
The most charming man alive phones CNBC from a jet to explain why he just bought $3 billion of GE, urge Congress to pass the bailout, and explain that a situation he just described as an "economic Pearl Harbor" has already gotten worse. A few key points: Warren reiterates support for the bailout, but also reiterates--half a dozen times--that it is only a good deal for the taxpayer if the government buys the trash assets ...
Soros: Bailout Should Buy Equity, Not Crap Assets (And If It Does, I'm There) (1)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
ClusterStock (30)
6 days, 3 hours
ago
permalink
George Soros joins the great howling majority saying that the Paulson plan is weak. What's more, he says, the conditions that Congress and the Senate have tacked onto the plan just make it less likely to work, because the banks will be less likely to subject themselves to it (he's right). What Hank Paulson should do instead with his $700 billion, Soros says, is buy bank equity, not crap assets. (This is what most other ...
Next Question: Will President Obama Change The Paulson Plan? (2)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
ClusterStock (30)
6 days, 10 hours
ago
permalink
We heard from a kind reader who takes the logical step and asks "What's next?": As you point out, EVERY thoughtful observer agrees the Paulson plan is misguided. This, and McCain's poll numbers, suggest the conversation should now shift to the following issues:1) Will the Paulson plan buy enough market confidence to get us to January 20 without need for a new plan? 2) What should the Obama administration do about the Paulson plan on ...
What The Hell Happened to Google (GOOG)?* (1)
share
digg
by
Henry Blodget (154)
on
Silicon Alley Insider (514)
1 week
ago
permalink
UPDATE: We still don't know what happened--something about "erroneous orders routed to the exchange"--but NASDAQ has now cancelled all Google trades from 3:57 ET to 4:02 ET. And some traders aren't happy about it.. EARLIER: Market up 485 points (5%) and Google (GOOG) up strong most of the day. Then, five minutes before the close, according to both Yahoo and Google Finance, it spiked briefly...and then tanked. It closed down $40 (10%). And now, unless ...
Bizarre Google Stock Moves: Traders React (1)
share
digg
Hank Paulson Just Elected Barack Obama President (1)
share
digg
value investing - Google Blog Search (6) permalink
Value Investing Congress with Whitney Tilson, Bill Ackman, et al. First presentation on the mortgage crisis (you can download here). Bottom line:. We are in the early stages of bursting of great mortgage bubble. Still to come: ...Shared by Peter (25)Contribute comment
