“CHICAGO (Reuters) – CME Group Inc has received two subpoenas from authorities investigating the collapse of futures broker MF Global, Holdings Ltd, the futures exchange operator said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday.
The requests for information and witnesses come from a grand jury in Chicago and from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s enforcement division, CME Group said in its annual financial filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission…”
Comments »“(Reuters) – Yahoo has demanded licensing fees from Facebook for use of its technology, the companies said on Monday, potentially engulfing social media in the patent battles and lawsuits raging across much of the tech sector.
Yahoo has asserted claims on patents that include the technical mechanisms in the Facebook’s ads, privacy controls, news feed and messaging service, according to a source briefed on the matter.
Representatives from the two companies met on Monday and the talks involved 10 to 20 of Yahoo’s patents, said the source, who was not aware of what specific dollar demands Yahoo may have made for licenses.
Yahoo did not elaborate in an emailed statement on details of its discussions with Facebook, but indicated it would not flinch at taking the social networking giant to court over its patents.
Yahoo said other companies have already licensed some of the technologies at issue, and that it would act unilaterally if Facebook refused to pay for a patent license.
“Yahoo has a responsibility to its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to protect its intellectual property,” the company said…”
Comments »Amyris Inc. (AMRS) : The biotechnology company reported a bigger fourth-quarter loss than analysts estimated in a Bloomberg survey.
AutoZone Inc. (AZO) rose 5.7 percent to $387. The auto- parts retailer reported second-quarter earnings excluding some items of $4.15 a share, beating the average analyst estimate of $4.04.
Chart Industries Inc. (GTLS) fell 4.5 percent to $62.45. The maker of equipment used to produce and store industrial gases said fourth-quarter earnings excluding some items were 51 cents a share, missing the average analyst estimate of 62 cents.
EResearchTechnology Inc. (ERT) (ERT US): The maker of gear to test heart abnormalities said profit in the fourth quarter was 14 cents a share, excluding some items, beating the average analyst estimate of 10 cents.
Human Genome Sciences Inc. (HGSI) : The drugmaker posted fourth-quarter revenue of $45.5 million, topping the average analyst estimate of $42.3 million.
Linn Energy LLC (LINE) : The natural gas exploration and production company agreed to buy Hugoton Basin properties in Kansas from BP Plc for $1.2 billion, to enter the largest U.S. conventional natural gas field.
Micron Technology Inc. (MU) rose 1.6 percent to $8.70. The largest U.S. maker of memory semiconductors is expected to emerge as the top winner from the bankruptcy of Elpida Memory Inc., whose filing yesterday sidelines the last Japanese maker of computer memory chips and gives rivals the chance to scoop up factories on the cheap.
Pacific Ethanol Inc. (PEIX) : The alternative fuel producer reported a fourth-quarter loss of 3 cents a share.
Priceline.com Inc. (PCLN) rose 7.5 percent to $636. The biggest U.S. online travel agency by market value reported fourth-quarter profit and sales that exceeded analysts’ estimates after expanding into more countries and taking business from rivals.
Southwestern Energy Co. (SWN) fell 4.1 percent to $33.89. The natural gas producer cut its 2012 production estimate and reported fourth-quarter earnings of 45 cents a share, missing the average analyst estimate of 47 cents.
Sykes Enterprises Inc. (SYKE) : The operator of call centers forecast full-year earnings of $1.20 a share at most, below the average analyst estimate of $1.46.
Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) (YHOO US) rose 1.3 percent to $15.05. The U.S. web portal asked Facebook Inc. to license technologies covered by its intellectual property and threatened to take legal action if the companies don’t reach an agreement.
Zagg Inc. (ZAGG) : The distributor of electronics accessories reported fourth-quarter earnings of 27 cents a share, excluding some items, beating the average analyst estimate of 25 cents.
Comments »Gapping up
ERT +12.4%, TAT +12.2%, CTIC +10.6%, ZAGG +8.5%, PCLN +6.5%, HGSI +2.6%, WFT +2.5%, JAZZ +2.5%, ING +1.7%, RIO +1.7%, BBL +1%, DIS +0.9%,
PG +0.4%, YHOO +1.3, CTIC +10.6%, JASO +10.2%, BDSI +8.1%, TAT +19.7%, ALIM +47.2% , STM +5.9%, AIXG +4.7%, MU +2.1%, ROYL +1.7%,
STO +1.5%, DO +1.5%, EOG +0.9%, AUY +1.8%, SLV +1.4%, BBL +1.1%, GLD +0.7%, ING +1.7%, BAC +0.9%, HBC +0.8%, C +0.8%, KITD +5.4%, AZO +5.2%,
HOV +4.7%
Gapping down
PEIX -23.6%, DUF -7.2%, BIOF -7.1%, ARCI -5.6%, FRC -5%, SWN -4.9%, SINA -3.9%, OKS -3.6%, SYKE -2.5%, MAA -2%, LUFK -1.5%, SOHU -1.3%, ENOC -9.9%,
MAA -2% , CCL -1.2% , OKS -3.6%, TC -11.6%, APOL -8.1%, ARCI -5.6%
Comments »“PSA Peugeot Citroen (UG) may announce as soon as this week plans to sell a stake of about 7 percent in the French carmaker to General Motors Co. (GM) as part of a development alliance, people familiar with the matter said.
The deal would involve a standstill agreement by which GM would not take a greater holding in the Paris-based carmaker without permission, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. Peugeot may offer additional shares through a rights issue as part of the transaction, the people said.
A GM-Peugeot alliance may include developing engines and building vehicles together in the region, a person familiar said last week. GM, the world’s largest carmaker, is looking for ways to turn around its unprofitable Opel brand, while Peugeot is seeking to stem a growing debt load. Peugeot and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) began cooperating on engines for the German carmaker’s Mini brand in 2002, expanding the partnership with a 100 million-euro hybrid joint venture last year….”
Comments »“At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Visa announced a new over-the-air provisioning service for smartphones for use with Visa’s payWave mobile payments system. The service will make it easier for operators, banks and even transit operators to link Visa payment accounts to consumers’ smartphones, the company says.
Although perhaps not as exciting as news of a mobile wallet “app” in consumers’ eyes, what Visa is revealing is a key part to the underlying infrastructure that can make NFC-based mobile payments a reality.
By allowing phone to be “switched on” for mobile payments through an over-the-air activation process, the process will become more seamless for users and service providers alike. However, because the system is NFC-based, it’s limited only to supported handset which include an NFC chip. This is nowhere near the majority of smartphones today, and does not include the Apple iPhone. In addition, while there appears to be growing consumer demand for mobile payments, it’s not clear whether consumers will take to NFC in large numbers. (Only analysts’ predictions on that front.)
The new provisioning system was developed in hand with Oberthur Technologies, and allows for Visa’s payWave mobile payments technology as well as other payment applications to be deployed over the air to consumers’ NFC-equipped phones. NFC, or near field communication, is the short-range wireless communications technology that forms the backbone of several mobile payments initiatives, including the carrier-led Isis, as well as Google Wallet….”
Comments »“We’ve already caught wind of the Lenovo K800 and Orange’s newly-announced Santa Clara but Intel CEO Paul Otellini isn’t content to leave their push into mobile at that.
Otellini has just announced that Intel has entered into partnerships with a handful of companies in hopes of solidifying their place in the smartphone market. Among those new partners are relative unknowns like Lava International, to major players like ZTE and Visa.
Lava’s first Intel-powered smartphone offering is dubbed the Xolo X900 (pictured left), which Intel seems to hope will give the company a stronger presence in the Indian market.
It’s a huge growth opportunity for Intel — Otellini noted that India’s smartphone market has recently tripled, and according to Lava International co-founder Vishal Sehgal, there’s a significant difference between India’s smartphone and feature phone customers. Otellini and Sehgal presumably hope to wow those Indian smartphone shoppers with a bit of horsepower, as the X900 sports a 1.6GHz Medfield chipset and a graphics processor running at over 400MHz.
ZTE will help Intel push into China with their own Medfield device, though Executive VP He Shiyou didn’t offer up any specifics beside a vague 2H 2012 release window. With these two new additions, Intel now has four smartphone manufacturers taking significant interest in their mobile platform, a far cry from their stance last year….”
Comments »Comments »LONDON/NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – The trial to decide who should pay for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been delayed by a week, to allow BP Plc to try to cut a deal with tens of thousands of businesses and individuals affected by the disaster.
Less than 24 hours before the case was set to start in a New Orleans federal court, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier pushed back the date to March 5 from February 27.
The delay allows further talks between BP and the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee (PSC), which represents condominium owners, fishermen, hoteliers, restaurateurs and others who say their livelihoods were damaged by the April 20, 2010, explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and subsequent oil spill.
Eleven people were killed, and 4.9 million barrels of oil spewed from the mile-deep Macondo oil well, in by far the worst offshore U.S. oil spill.
“BP and the PSC are working to reach agreement to fairly compensate people and businesses affected by the Deepwater Horizon accident and oil spill,” BP said in a statement.
The London-based oil company said there was no assurance that the talks would lead to a settlement.
Comments »(Reuters) – Warren Buffett resisted pressure on Monday to identify his successor as chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway, saying the person who has been chosen does not even know it himself.
In his annual investor letter on Saturday, Buffett said Berkshire’s board had identified someone who will replace him as CEO when the 81-year-old investor eventually leaves the post.
But he did not identify that person in the letter, and in a CNBC interview on Monday, he rejected suggestions that he should. The public does not know who will be the next CEO of other major corporations, he said, and there is a disadvantage to having a “crown prince” in place.
“Well, we have four stocks that we have $45 billion invested in: American Express, Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo and IBM. Every one of those four companies … has changed management since we bought our shares. I didn’t have the faintest idea who the successor of management would be in any of those four, but we’ve put billions and billions of billions of dollars in there,” Buffett said in an interview from the printing plant of the Omaha World-Herald, the hometown newspaper he bought late last year.
Buffett would say very little about the successor, other than that he is someone the board has had in mind for years and that the person does not know. He also said the heir apparent was likely to come from the ranks of dozens of chief executive officers at Berkshire operating companies.
One person not on the list, though, is David Sokol. Once one of Buffett’s top lieutenants, and often assumed to be his heir apparent, Sokol left Berkshire last year amid a scandal over his stock trading while at the company.
The Sokol matter largely dropped from public attention in recent months, but Buffett said Monday that he assumed there is an ongoing investigation, as Berkshire has already paid more than $1.4 million in legal bills for Sokol.
Buffett added that securities regulators had not contacted him about the matter since last summer.
CBL & Associates Properties Inc. (CBL) : The real estate investment trust that owns shopping centers boosted its quarterly dividend by 1 cent to 22 cents a share.
Darling International (DAR) : The meat- and bone-meal processor may gain as much as 25 percent after its acquisition of Griffin Industries for $872 million boosts sales and profit, Barron’s reported in its “The Trader” column.
FairPoint Communications Inc. (FRP) (FRP US): Standard & Poor’s revised its outlook on the Charlotte, North Carolina-based communications-services provider to negative from stable, saying its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization margin is low compared with peers. The negative outlook means S&P may cut the company’s B credit rating.
Hitachi (HIT) : The U.S.-traded shares of the Japanese electronics maker are poised to rise as it sells less profitable assets and boosts earnings on telecommunications, rail systems and power grids, Barron’s reported.
Territorial Bancorp (TBNK) and ViewPoint Financial Group (VPFG) : These regional banks may advance as their simple business models and low risk attract takeover bids, Barron’s reported in its “The Trader” column, citing Mark Zahorik of Keeley Asset Management in Chicago.
United Stationers Inc. (USTR) : The board of the Deerfield, Illinois-based distributor of business products approved the repurchase of an additional $100 million of its shares.
Comments »Gapping up
TBET +129.2%, PCS +8.7%, RIG +3.1%, LOW +3.1%, BP +2.4%, BPAX +27.2% , CHTP +8.0%, CQP +7.2%, DNDN +2%, BP +2.4%
Gapping down
HBC -3.9%, RBS -3.2%, IBN -3.2%, LYG -2.7%, ING -2.0%, CS -2.0%, DB -1.8%, UBS -1.5%, NVS -4.4%, AZN -1.4%, SNY -0.9%, CBRX -17.8%, CRM -0.4%,
FBC -9.3%, NOK -5.2%, AIXG -3.4%, ERIC -1.9%, BRCM -1.8%, NFLX -2.7%
Comments »
Sears shares aren’t showing signs of fading anytime soon.
Sears shares have followed up yesterday’s 19% surge with another 6% advance as investors keep buying into Eddie Lampert’s plan to rebuild the brand.
Today’s surge means shares of Sears have more than doubled since the beginning of 2012. It’s been a staggering reversal of fortunes for a company that is mired in a deep transformation effort. Short covering has played a role as has Mr. Lampert’s increased stake in the company.
But few expected this kind of sharp return, especially after Sears was one of the S&P 500′s worst performers last year.
Shares are up 6% at $65.41. The stock is up 106% in 2012, the top performer in the S&P 500. Netflix is the only other stock within the index that has had at least a 50% run-up this year.
The sharp rally still hasn’t prompted Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter to change his stance on Sears.
“We believe the equity valuation is well out of line with comparable retailers,” he says, while reiterating an underperform rating and $20 price target.
Read the rest here.
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