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http://www.investorguide.com/article/11473/nokia-nok-bounces-back-on-strong-windows-phone-8-lumia-sales/

Most taxes go to pay the salaries of government employees, who are certainly not poor.

The #1 use of your taxes is war and it's consequences, or here, or the interactive chart.

The value of a share of stock is derived from it being a share, albeit a small one in practice, of ownership in a business. The price of that share, in the long run, will reflect the proportional value of the benefits that would ordinarily accrue to the owner of that business. It is very easy to see why shares in a viable business, however small individually, are NOT worthless. Suppose, for example that the "worthless" shares of a viable and profitable business were selling for $0.01 per share. Don't you think that someone would come along and buy up all of the shares at that price? Even if the buyer's only intent was to liquidate the company and pocket the resulting profits he would still be interested in buying the outstanding shares at that price because if he acquired control of the company, perhaps by becoming the 51% owner, then he could force that kind of liquidation. This is why the long term share price in the marketplace tends to reflect the true present value of the underlying business. A share of something is worth something; It is not worthless. Now in the short run people can and do play psychological games in the marketplace which is why the moment to moment price of a stock is essentially random. However one must not confuse the result of individual games (i.e. I buy and you sell; game finished) with the iterated version which is played continuously for years, decades and even centuries. The individual stock investor does best by doing his homework, looking at the qualities of the business that cannot be feed into a short term computer trading algorithm, and then investing for the long run. This practice has very little to do with gambling.

Gamble all you want, but try to avoid spreading the lie.

This one gets thrown around a lot here on Slashdot, where the investing (particularly stock market investing) == gambling meme is often taken for granted. However, this analogy, like most, is a rather crude approximation of what is actually happening when one invests. If you are interested in a more in-depth treatment of this subject, there is an excellent essay on investorguide.com which covers this very topic, investing vs gambling.

The value of a share of stock is derived from it being a share, albeit a small one in practice, of ownership in a business. The price of that share, in the long run, will reflect the proportional value of the benefits that would ordinarily accrue to the owner of that business. It is very easy to see why shares in a viable business, however small individually, are NOT worthless. Suppose, for example that the "worthless" shares of a viable and profitable business were selling for $0.01 per share. Don't you think that someone would come along and buy up all of the shares at that price? Even if the buyer's only intent was to liquidate the company and pocket the resulting profits he would still be interested in buying the outstanding shares at that price because if he acquired control of the company, perhaps by becoming the 51% owner, then he could force that kind of liquidation. This is why the long term share price in the marketplace tends to reflect the true present value of the underlying business. A share of something is worth something; It is not worthless. Now in the short run people can and do play psychological games in the marketplace which is why the moment to moment price of a stock is essentially random. However one must not confuse the result of individual games (i.e. I buy and you sell; game finished) with the iterated version which is played continuously for years, decades and even centuries. The individual stock investor does best by doing his homework, looking at the qualities of the business that cannot be feed into a short term computer trading algorithm, and then investing for the long run. This practice has very little to do with gambling.

Gamble all you want, but try to avoid spreading the lie.

This one gets thrown around a lot here on Slashdot, where the investing (particularly stock market investing) == gambling meme is often taken for granted. However, this analogy, like most, is a rather crude approximation of what is actually happening when one invests. If you are interested in a more in-depth treatment of this subject, there is an excellent essay on investorguide.com which covers this very topic, investing vs gambling.

Probably goes to the share holders, not that it's their property but, whatever:
http://www.investorguide.com/stock-charts.cgi?ticker=SNE

While it is possible to approach investing in the same way that one approaches gambling the idea that Investing == Gambling is one of the most persistent and damaging ideas to enjoy wide currency among the non-investor classes of society. The definitions taken from the following article are instructive:

Investing is any activity in which money is put at risk for the purpose of making a profit, and which is characterized by some or most of the following (in approximately descending order of importance): sufficient research has been conducted; the odds are favorable; the behavior is risk-averse; a systematic approach is being taken; emotions such as greed and fear play no role; the activity is ongoing and done as part of a long-term plan; the activity is not motivated solely by entertainment or compulsion; ownership of something tangible is involved; a net positive economic effect results.

Gambling is any activity in which money is put at risk for the purpose of making a profit, and which is characterized by some or most of the following (in approximately descending order of importance): little or no research has been conducted; the odds are unfavorable; the behavior is risk-seeking; an unsystematic approach is being taken; emotions such as greed and fear play a role; the activity is a discrete event or series of discrete events not done as part of a long-term plan; the activity is significantly motivated by entertainment or compulsion; ownership of something tangible is not involved; no net economic effect results.

Second, the Federal Reserve System acts as the government's bank. The tax system processes incoming and outgoing payments through a Federal Reserve checking account. The Federal Reserve also buys and sells government securities. The Fed even issues the U.S. currency, although the actual production of the currency is handled elsewhere.

Have you looked at Sony's stock prices over the last decade? Whether or not it is the cause of the changes, the price spikes around the launch of the PS1 and PS3 and also has significant drops around the release of the XBox. I'm not an analyst, but it seems like Sony's stock is highly dependent upon what happens in the game industry.

Either the US tax system is more screwed than I imagined, or he left it too long between exercising his options and selling the shares. The whole point of options is to exercise and then sell almost immediately, minimizing the chance that the stock will tank in the intervening period between those two actions. This article gives more info on the two basic types of stock options, apparently from a US point-of-view. It strikes me that either he was badly advised regarding handling the one year lock-in period (which is common practice for insiders - normally, you'd only exercise after the lock-in period) or he ignored the advice which was given.