Don’t start giving in to panic as the market works its way lower. Sure some once impressive financial institutions are going the way of dinosaurs. Perhaps your 401(k) looks like it might lose weight faster than you can. Whether you’re managing your own account or entrusting your nest egg to a professional mutual fund manager, the market and your investments have seldom felt more bleak. Whatever you do, don’t panic.
Don’t make a run to your bank and demand to close out your savings and checking accounts. …

Facebook insiders have been selling their stock. Top level insiders such as directors from venture funds invested in Facebook, key executives and even Mark Zuckerberg himself have been quietly trying to unload some shares in private sales. These private transactions are not uncommon as startup entrepreneurs and their backers are often in search of some liquidity. What makes these particular transactions interesting are the implied values being negotiated.
When Microsoft (MSFT) bought a small stake in the wildly popular social network, the price paid implied an overall value of $15 billion. …

Technology industry heavyweights are banding together to form a new group called the Allied Security Trust. Members include Google (GOOG), Cisco Systems (CSCO) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). This alliance will buy up patents in the marketplace to preempt “patent trolls” from acquiring these patents in order to extract royalties from Allied Security Trust members.
Patents are notoriously difficult to value but it is clear that patents are becoming a viable asset class in themselves. Taking the cue from many other asset classes, could there be a way to “securitize” a portfolio of …

Earlier this month, Macquarie Group Limited (ASX:MQG), announced record profits on higher fees earned from deal making and strong equities trading. Macquarie is the leading investment bank in Australia and has intrigued me for quite some time because of its strength in the infrastructure industry. The megatrend of globalization means that infrastructure will play an increasingly important part of a global investment portfolio. Macquarie has carved itself a valuable niche as the leading investment bank for infrastructure assets and is consistently found all over the world making direct investments or …

The stock market’s rebound has been so fast and furious that it might make folks forget that we just experienced a nasty credit crisis and market downturn. Have sinking home values not registered with the national psyche? Surf around on Zillow.com and witness the vast amounts of wealth disappearing over the last few months as homeowners see their most significant asset crumbling on a shaky credit foundation. Of course, institutional money managers are the ones buying furiously and fueling this market rebound. It is entirely plausible that, unlike the average …

The market takes a breather after several weeks of blistering recovery from last winter’s doldrums. Commodities all around saw amazing advances. Crude oil rose 8.3% last week and has more than doubled over the last year. I remember taking my first car, a Honda (HMC) Civic, out for the first time and pumping gas for about $1.18 per gallon. This was also in the notoriously gas-expensive San Francisco Bay Area. Base commodities and gold continue to follow oil’s lead in going the opposite direction of the U.S. dollar. Will the …

The technology sector gets a big surprise with Microsoft (MSFT) announcing that it will cease to pursue the acquisition of Yahoo! (YHOO). Most analysts and market pundits expected Jerry Yang & Company would ultimately accept a deal, albeit at a higher price than Microsoft’s initial offer. Expect Yahoo! stock to take a precipitous plunge at the market open and the announcement of class action lawsuits from its larger shareholders. While this saga of two tech giants unwinds, plenty of news in the rest of the tech sector deserves attention.
The Nasdaq …

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about my pessimism regarding the technology sector. The market had seemed to interpret the surprisingly good results reported by Big Blue (IBM), Google (GOOG), and even Yahoo! (YHOO) as reasons for unleashing optimism and a bargain hunting shopping spree for stocks of publicly traded technology companies. Maybe the recessionary environment and the woes faced by banks and the American consumer would not negatively impact corporate budgets for technology. My skepticism rests on the ability of secondary technology companies to weather the economic slowdown. In …

“@kevinrose how do I get you to follow me back???” – anonymous self-proclaimed “social app guru”
This is Part 2 of a series that explores the science of Social Media Measurement. Let me preface this post by saying that this is a lighthearted post trying to come up with a simple measurement regarding a hugely successful social web service.
Previously, I explored the measurement of popularity, novelty, and attention on the very popular crowdsourcing news aggregation site Digg. My post was based on an arcane academic study involving the half-life of popularly …

I wrote about my short thesis on Netflix (NFLX) just about ten days ago. The company just the other day reported growing earnings but disappointed with a weak outlook. The stock fell a whopping 24% as investors ran for the exits. The market responded negatively to the increase R&D costs for developing streaming technology that would allow the company to deliver long-form digital video content over the Internet. These recent expenses have slowed down profit growth and promise to weigh on foreseeable future earnings.
My short thesis …