Slashdot Mirror

Where are you getting your stats? I would be interested to know.

Misc news articales on the subject.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dark-pool-trading-reaches-record-levels-in-europe-2013-08-12

Saying it's hit 10% in Europe

This article... says its hit 14% in the US now.

"In February, dark pools matched an average of 908 million shares per day, accounting for roughly 14 percent of all U.S. stock trading volume, according to data from Tabb."

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-22/credit-suisse-making-dark-pools-even-darker

There was a time, believe it or not, when profitable companies would generally not layoff people because the company was, uh, profitable. If a company did layoff people the stock market usually took it as an indication that something was wrong (which it generally was).

Ah yes, I can remember those times as if they were a few hours ago - maybe because they were: Cisco to cut 4,000 jobs; stock falls 10%

I didn't say all taxation, only this specific "tax". It's not a real tax as nowhere in the legislation does it say it's a tax and more importantly, the guy who championed it has specifically, and repeatedly, said it's not a tax. Only the activist, Republican, Justice of the Supreme Court said it's a tax.

Taxes are a necessary evil. Without taxes roads wouldn't get built, harbors dredged, air traffic wouldn't be controlled, etc.

However, there is a clear cut difference between taxes which support necessary infrastructure and a "tax" which is specifically designed to prop up one segment of the population at the expense of others. To use the administration's own words about ACA:

Also in the Thursday briefing, senior administration officials indicated that more than one-third of those who sign up for health-care exchanges, or 2.6 million to 2.7 million, will need to be âoeyoung and healthyâ in order for the plan to work. Putting those in their late 20s and early 30s â" the so-called âoeinvinciblesâ â" onto insurance rolls will help pay for sicker patients, who may not have qualified for health insurance in years past.

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/health-exchange/2013/06/07/obama-set-to-kick-off-enrollment-blitz-amid-jitters-over-health-plan/?reflink=Livefyre#lf_comment=78742971

Only if you drop-ship it to an Amazon Warehouse first.
The same goes for Amazon Prime.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-elephant-in-amazons-mail-room-2012-11-28

So what's the heaviest item Amazon will ship for free? The company declined to say, but the makers of a 1,509-pound safe (shipping weight: 1,672 pounds) claim the prize for biggest bang for one's 79 bucks.

"We charge customers around $700 to ship this safe, but when they buy it through Amazon they get it shipped for free," says Pasquale Murena, marketing manager for Cannon Safe. "As a result, we get orders through Amazon every day." In fact, Amazon will pick up the tab for shipping the safe even for non-Prime members, if they are willing to wait a few extra days for delivery. Like many items priced over $25, it qualifies for "Super Saver Shipping," which usually take five to eight days to arrive.

What investors do know is this: [Amazon] reported $636 million in shipping losses in the quarter ended Sept. 30 ($2.8 billion in the past year) -- that represents 4.6% of its sales. Amazon reported a net $274 million loss that quarter, but "they would have earned a hefty profit were it not for the costs of free shipping," says Gillis. In fact, free shipping reduces Amazon's profit margin on any one item to about 1%, compared with the 5% retailers earn typically, he says.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/cases/china-shi-tao
"
Shi Tao was sentenced in April 2005 to 10 years’ imprisonment and two years’ subsequent deprivation of his political rights. According to the court verdict, part of the evidence for the case was account holder information supplied by Yahoo!. Spokespersons for Yahoo! claimed the company was simply following local laws.
"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/28/yahoo_seeks_dismissal_human_rights_lawsuit/
"
Yahoo! has asked a US court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of "aiding and abetting" acts of torture and other human rights abuses against Chinese dissidents. The company handed over information about its users to the Chinese government, which led to the arrests of the dissidents.
"

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/yahoo-helps-china-jail-dissidents-says-rights-group
"
Human Rights in China, a New York-based group, said Thursday that Wang Xiaoning was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Sept 2003 for "incitement to subvert state power" after Yahoo provided authorities with his email address.
"

and call me a tinfoil hatter all you want, but I do think this and the Snowden-crash issues are related-
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3929983&cid=44170993

Fanboism aside, you realize Samsung's stock price is 2-4 times that of APL? http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/ssnlf

Thank you for proving my point so eloquently.

As many posters have pointed out, this definitely seems to be the logical conclusion of bitcoins being recognized as having real economic value. I wonder how far off bitcoin futures are from being listed on a major exchange, especially considering the CFTC is interested and has taken notice

I hate to respond to my own comment and I know this is blatently trollish, but incase you're wondering, Marketwatch reports that Facebook recently partnered with Acxiom "to enable marketers to incorporate off-Facebook purchasing data in order to deliver more relevant ads to users".

Can you please explain the $1.25 -> $25 calculation. Do you have a source for this information?

It's just arithmetic, but perhaps I can explain how to do the calculation. In 1964 a quarter was 90% silver. It weighed 6.25 grams, so 5.625 grams of pure silver. data source.

Five quarters ($1.25) was therefore 28.125 grams of silver. A troy ounce is 31.1 grams, so minimum wage was almost exactly 0.9oz of silver.

The 52-week range of silver has been between $21.12 and $35.30 - currencies are fluctuating wildly with the current financial crisis, but even within that chaos, an equivalent wage would be between $19.00 and $31.78 for the past year. $25.39 is the middle of that range. We also know that the market price is manipulated (like LIBOR and other benchmark rates) since paper funds can't fill their physical orders, so one can consider that price to be depressed to some degree (how much is unknown because it's not a real market).

So, how many of the current financial problems (cost of education, cost of health care, cost of gas, cost of food, etc.) would really be problems if the wages had held steady? The obvious explanation is that those prices are all rising together with monetary inflation and it's just wages that are falling relative to it, causing the economic suffering.

If you follow the 20th Century wage chart, from the beginning to 1971, when the US went off the real-money system, wages rose (in terms of real money) right in step with productivity improvements. Since 1971, productivity has continued to increase steadily, but wages have been flat (the difference goes to the financial sector, on net). If the slope of that chart is extended out to present day, it intersects at about $29/hr, fairly consistent with the real-money methodology. $29 has been the price of 0.9oz of silver in the past year, so with the caveat that prices bounce around from day to day and week to week, on an smoothed basis it's right in the zone of where we should be, or a bit lower.

People aren't taught in school that the Federal Reserve is a private corporation owned by its member banks, with its board and president composed of representatives of the biggest multinational banks. Even though its charge is to protect the value of the US Dollar, the USD has lost 98% of its value over the past century (this year marked 100 years of Federal Reserve control of the currency). However, if anybody suggests that the Fed's policies, which have fabulously enriched the financial sector, led to this currency failure for any reason other than pure chance or bad luck, then they are labelled a 'conspiracy nut'. To avoid being called names, pure faith in their virtue is required and any skepticism must be jettisoned.

Which brings us back to bitcoin...

22% in 5 years is not significant growth for any company.

For comparison, Apple grew from 32.5B to 156B in that timeframe.

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/aapl/financials

Or 380% over 5 years.

Their revenues have not gone up significantly in the last 5 years.

        2008 - 60.42B
        2009 - 57.55B
        2010 - 62.48B
        2011 - 69.94B
                2012 - 73.7B

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/msft/financials

Yes, thanks for responding, and by the way, you're an idiot and you represent everything currently wrong with the American business education system.

The oil companies don't depend on financing they pay some of the larger dividends found in the large cap space.

Yes, like this I suppose ( http://www.marketwatch.com/story/exxon-sinopec-aramco-complete-4-bln-financing-for-china-jv ). Yes, some oil companies pay dividends - today. Should their stock price tank, tomorrow (assuming you can think that far ahead), those dividends will halt with an almost audible screech. Their "capital," much of which is tied to their stock value, will no longer be available as collateral to finance exploration and they will have to start dipping into cash. This will work. For a while.

Access to credit is not something big oil thinks about as a 'risk'. In the past, they didn't. If they don't now, they're going to be out of business with some rapidity.

Which is not to say they don't use it in these days of near zero sometimes negative real rates; but they don't *need* it and they don't worry about it.
The people not worrying about it are nitwit "analysts" at a financial firms who have neither useful feedback nor consequences for failure. Executives at oil companies, and owners of small to medium sized exploration companies are worrying about it a great deal.

Which was their second lowest profit in the last 5 years.

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/msft/financials

You do realize that the iPhone makes more money than all of MS right? Quarter ending 12-31-2012: MSFT $21.42B Quarter ending 12-29-2012: Apple iPhone: $30.06B

Gold isn't even at historic highs, for that it would have to be 1:1 with DOW, and it's nowhere near

That's not really a reasonable comparison. First, the Dow is a bit arbitrary -- it follows only a specific group of 30 companies that are supposed to represent the US economy. Here are a couple of articles at different times about what would have happened if Apple had been added:
when apple was up: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/perfi/stocks/story/2012-02-15/apple-stock-dow-jones-industrial-average/53109426/1
when apple went down: http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/03/05/apples-not-in-the-dow-thank-goodness/

Basically, that would completely change the value of the Dow and we would all be panicking right now, as the down dropped with Apple stock. On the other hand, around the election, people would have been crowing about the stock market hitting all-time highs.

So apart from comparing an historically trackable value, like gold, to an arbitrary measurement like the Dow, they also track different things. You're comparing gold's value to something which is trying to track the overall US economy. And the US economy is MUCH bigger than it was at the turn of the last century. Gold shouldn't mirror the US economy. If it did, THAT would be a definite bubble.

Yet the Supreme Court happily lower the punitive damages in the Exxon Valdez case. From http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-supreme-court-orders-reduction-in-exxon-valdez-award

Jammie Thomas didn't face any punitive damages. Bear in mind that that's a legal term. You may believe that the award was punishing, but that's not the definition of "punitive damages". In her case, the award was 100% compensatory damages, and 0% punitive damages.

Justice David Souter, in the court's majority opinion, said the punitive damages award should be brought into line with $287 million in compensatory damages awarded

So spilling millions of dollars of crude oil into the ocean in a grossly negligent act, destroying the local environment and wrecking people's livelihoods is not a big, but file sharing? There's a threat to the Republic!

Yes, so the government shouldn't be selling licenses to the rating agencies and shouldn't be forcing mutual funds, especially pension funds to only buy debt that is rated by the agencies that the government licenses.

US government treasury bonds are rated as high as they are by the agencies that are licensed by the government, and the moment one of these agencies decides to downgrade US Treasuries because US Tresuries are actually junk, it is sued and prohibited from rating US Treasuries. Of-course that one agency actually gets paid by the buyers of the bond, not by the sellers.

Here is a good take on this issue in the first 10 minutes of the show.

No it's not. Once you pay for the camera it's yours. There are companies out there specialized in modifying cameras -- changing focusing screens, removing anti-alias filters, converting to infra-red photography, converting to astro-photography, etc.

Really?

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-10-12/finance/34240922_1_copyright-iphone-consumer-groups
Did you miss this whole storm?

That simply is NOT TRUE.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-fairer-look-at-taxes-and-wealth-2012-10-12

Yes the rich got even richer faster; but for the most part the middle class gained as well and the quality of living went up quite a great deal for the poor. The fact is liberals keep moving the goal posts.

Thats awesome, now can you provide evidence for the assertion that comcast is showing record profits?

Looking at the 2011 data, looks like comcasts gross income was down 33% over 2010. They had a pretax income (after expenses) of $8.25B, paid $3.05B in taxes out of that, and then also paid $1.00B in minority interest expenses, for a net profit of $4.16B.

Thats on $55.84B in total revenue, so in actual fact their profit margin is apparently only 7.45%. Now they may have set records in the past with such a low profit margin, but they didn't do so in 2011, and that doesnt change the fact that 7.45% is a low profit margin for any business.

This is based off Comcast Corp (CMCSA) numbers.

So, like most of us, you don't know. Fair enough, but please don't confuse your lack of background knowledge and your failure to do any background research for being able to tell whether or not the allegations are "nonsensical".

A few second's Googling would have given you this link: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/google-responds-to-eu-antitrust-concerns-2012-07-02 which explains the term "diverting users". The ZDnet article the slashdot article links to is simply unclear about the matter, I agree with you there. The terms seems to mean: redirecting users looking for a specific topic to Google's own "vertical" search engines, thereby throttling traffic to competing vertical search engines. That in itself could be an issue for a search engine provider, especially if it doesn't clearly mark such results as 'advertising our own services'.

In addition not even the article refers to "monopoly", which Google hasn't; instead it refers to "dominant market position", which it definitely has.

At the latest since the mainstream media coverage of SCO versus IBM and SCO versus NOVELL, people ought to know that what an article claims isn't always a reliable indicator of what the ones being quoted actually said.

So: why not either go to the actual text of the Financial Times interview and base your "it looks like" opinion on that?

So it looks like it's a little early in the day to bandy words like "blatant cash grab" about, yes?

I know, to a certain extent this is already being done, but I'm thinking that Intel (in this example) should be going directly to Chuck Lorre, J. J. Abrams, Tim Kring, et al, and say "how would you like to survive the inevitable downfall of network television? And make a lot of money?"

This is the kind of thinking I was expecting to see from someone in the internet delivery of audio-video entertainment business -- hire a known director or producer to create new content for delivery.

However, just hiring a known entertainment name to create content for your business is not enough. You also need to fund the expenses that studios have -- soundstages, cameras, sets, costumes, catering, etc. -- while producing the content. Unless you want new science fiction stories filmed through a laptop camera and recorded with headset microphones for YouTube, that is.

Remember also, that most companies want results now, not three or six months later from now. It takes time to find a storyline that catches traction with viewers; Intel would rather distribute content that has mind-share, not spend time developing it.

Also, known content creators want to get paid. A lot. While they would be more likely to deliver a program that is popular in a shorter timeframe, their cost may not make it profitable short-term.

Netflix is looking to license independent content; Amazon is pursuing a similar strategy. It would take longer to build up a brand for quality independent content, but far more productive. If it were successful enough, you might even license it to the cable companies.

Or they just rented the stupid thing.

The military one usually have a pilot.

A little, tiny pilot? How does that work?

Back to reality. They could have just leased one on their own. Much easier....

Leasing is becoming a fast-growing business in the drone marketplace, with foreign governments essentially renting the aircraft, ground support and operators through fixed contracts. That relieves foreign governments of costly capital commitments and keeps cutting-edge military technology out of their hands.

Fact: Microsoft is selling exponentially more licenses with Windows 8 than it did with Windows 7.

Huh? Microsoft themselves has already admitted that Windows 8 sales are at nearly the EXACT same pace as Windows 7 sales.

Okay... How about actual web usage: http://www.zdnet.com/statcounter-windows-8-license-sales-not-yet-translating-into-usage-7000008148/

Even though Microsoft sold as many licenses of Windows 8 as they did of Windows 7, Windows 7 saw much higher actual usage after one month on the market compared to Windows 8 after one month on the market. Windows 7 made up 4.93% of internet users 1 month after launch compared to Windows 8's 1.31% 1 month after launch. That paints a pretty bleak picture of actual Windows 8 usage. Even Windows Vista managed to get nearly 2% of web browser share after the first month.

So lets assume that both statistics are correct. Microsoft sold 40 million licenses of Windows 8, the same as Windows 7 for the same time period AND Windows 8's web usage 1 month after launch is only 27% of Windows 7's web usage 1 month after launch. Let's add in a few more facts, like NewEgg saying that windows 8 sales are slow and that sales of Windows devices are down 21% from last year since the launch of Windows 8. Based on these facts, we can extrapolate a story.

The story I extrapolated is this: Microsoft sold 40 million licenses of Windows 8 in several ways: 1) end users taking advantage of the cheap $40 upgrade option that has never been offered before, 2) the volume license sales of Windows that are now Windows 8 licenses that are almost ALL being downgraded to Windows 7 because Microsoft no longer sells Windows 7 licenses, and 3) a whole TON of licenses to OEMs so they could get the initial supply of Windows 8 devices in to sales channels for launch.

So lets go over these sales paths:

1) The end user upgrades are legitimate sales of Windows 8. However, I would expect these numbers to be much higher than the initial Windows 7 upgrade sales simply because of the huge discount that didn't exist for the Windows 7 launch. The $40 upgrade price is either a 60% or 80% discount depending on whether you would buy the home or professional edition. I would expect to see a small rush of people buying to take advantage of the lower price...even over the normal PC enthusiast sales of people who must have the latest-and-greatest. The $40 upgrade option would also explain why direct to consumer upgrades of Windows 8 are selling at a faster pace than Windows 7 did. When you give a very hefty discount to pretty much everyone, people are going to jump on the deal.

2) volume license sales: Business need Windows licenses and you can only buy Windows 8 now. So even though the business is installing Windows 7 with those Windows 8 licenses, they are still being counted as a "Windows 8 sale". These are licenses Microsoft would've sold whether Windows 8 was released or not. Also, i'd be curious to know whether Microsoft is including any previous Windows 7 licenses with Software Assurance as a "Windows 8 sale" as well.

3) OEM sales: This is where I bet Microsoft sold the bulk of their Windows 8 licenses. OEMs had to buy their initial set of licenses to cover their initial stock of Windows 8 devices being shipped to sales channels. World wide PC sales for 2012 are expected to be around 350 million units...or about 30 million PCs per month. I would also expect the sales numbers t

This refers to after hours trading on the 29th.

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-11-29/markets/35430351_1_zynga-shares-zynga-com-facebook

The individuals DO have a choice. They can ignore/resign from the union and go to work. There are laws preventing the unions from stopping them. But given that about 90% of the union voted for a strike, that does not mean much. And yes, the pay decrease wasn't drastic on it's own. But it comes after the decreases they agreed to during the last bankruptcy and the raises they'd given up in the past in exchange for pensions - which would now also be gone.

And yes, the CEO agreed to a salary of 1$ for a few months (after creditors went berserk over the raises) - but that did not stop the company from asking the court to approve bonuses for executives, at the same time the unions were being forced to accept lower pay. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bankruptcy-week-aheadhostess-to-start-liquidation-2012-11-16/

And again, the unions were not kicking the company while it was down, they were the ones being kicked. They were not demanding raises or bonuses or better working conditions. The company was demanding they accept less then what they'd previously agreed to during the first bankruptcy. They weren't even negotiating - they went to the court with their 'cost cutting plan'. What the union did was dodge the kick and the management broke it's foot. And if you think that that is greed, then how do you describe the decision to now ask the court to approve bonuses now that the company is in liquidation? As for the union being un-trusting, the only thing I can say is good for them. Why trust someone that has already betrayed you? And negotiations involve two parties talking, not one party dictating.

Just more expensive FUD produced by modelers. Wholesale prices have fallen by 30% in the last year and Brazilian coffee growers expect a record coffee crop this year. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/coffee-prices-fall-but-not-at-starbucks-2012-11-08

I was partly being sarcastic.

I wondered about that...

Unluckily the modern publisher does really think that just because you paid for it and it is digital doesn't mean that ownership changed and they're well on their way to getting it into law. See the discussion up the page on the VAT tax status of physical book vs electronic. Electronic is taxed as a service.

Yea, I find it particularly mind boggling how media in one format is protected*, but the same media in another is treated like a completely different animal.

* They're working on "fixing" that, too

The simplest solution is to rule that, absent any contractual obligations, the patent holder's rights are exhausted after first sale of self-reproducing physical objects. For anything beyond this, the rules of contract law would apply.

The very doctrine of first sale is itself now under fire and at risk in another upcoming SCOTUS case.

This is one of two cases before the Supreme Court this fall that present challenges to the "first sale" doctrine (and several related legal concepts). The other is a case involving the sale of textbooks (I believe that this was discussed on slashdot back in the spring).

First off the idea that income inequity increasing is the lie. In take home dollars it might but in total compensation (at least from the cost side) the delta between what the CEO gets and what you get is actually shrinking.

Take it from someone who has made it her career to understand these things:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-keep-the-young-unemployed-2012-08-01

Second I don't think necessity or adversity lead to the sort of "invention" that elevates society as a whole. "Or Die" type motivation does not enhance our understanding of physics or increase our ability to produce as a society at large. What it mostly does is enable one individual to come up with some third rate hack of solution that gets them by but has other undesirable side effects for them or worse to be born by others.

This is not exactly supply and demand issue, this is a shrinking economy and inflation issue. The shrinking economy causes people to use less gasoline and inflation causes nominal prices to rise (while real prices are actually falling due to the deflation, so if you measure oil in gold, then you'll see that the prices are falling, not rising).

As the productivity in USA and Europe shrinks, more of the product is distributed to the productive nations, which are able to buy more of that product, but this causes supply irregularities in the countries with less supply.

The situation is similar to what happens in the meat market due to inflation and other factors (like drought). As the supply of feed is reduced due to higher input costs because of inflation and as less supply is produced due to other factors like drought, the farmers start getting rid of their animals, they slaughter more and the prices can fall temporarily. However once that glut of meat is consumed, the overall supply of the animals is reduced and the prices for meat products will jump up.

I believe you are observing the same phenomena right now with oil prices and it's due to higher nominal cost of oil drilling and refining due to inflation as well as lower purchasing power by the population due to the inflation and due to the shrinking economy.

As a side note, the funny jobs numbers that came out (unemployment down to 7.8%) are indeed quite educating to the political situation in USA. 10,000 jobs were added in government and 16,000 jobs were lost in manufacturing sector in September (22,000 manufacturing jobs lost in August). However a 'household survey' shows that 873,000 jobs were created in September, this is the highest number of jobs added in one months since 1983. 66% of these jobs are part time, so the U6 number is unchanged (just under 15%) in September (number of underemployed people as well of those who are unemployed). Don't forget that every revision that comes out the next month revises the job growth numbers down and elections are in November. Don't forget that Obama's white house pressured the military (and other) contractors not to send out pink slips to their employees, who will be fired in 2 months and who must be notified 60 days prior, the white house promised all those contractors to take care of the penalties that they will incur due to this malpractice, this is clearly a violation and manipulation aimed at winning the elections, which is likely highly illegal.

A week ago GDP numbers came out, not that anybody should actually take those numbers at face value, they are absolutely misreported, but even as they are, they were revised down for the second quarter from 1.7 to 1.3%, and this is after using a completely fake deflator of 1.6%. How is it possible that the economy that is "growing" (officially) by 1.6% is adding all these jobs to take the unemployment down to 7.8%? The truth of course is that the economy is shrinking and if the real inflation number is used, then it becomes immediately obvious. Even if the inflation number is only 3%, then the economy is shrinking, because the pre-deflator GDP is 2.9%. The inflation is a few times bigger than that though, so adding jobs in a shrinking economy sound very fishy.

---

Think about this: the official deflator for the GDP is 1.6%. Here is a chart of CPI. That's the reported number. The revised GDP is 1.3% Which is down from 1.7% earlier, before the revision. The U6 unemployment number is 15%.

Well, crude futures dipped the past week due to the economy, so it wouldn't be accurate to conclude that pump price increase is indicative of an "improving economy". Remember there's a lag of a month or so between the two, and if you look at this year's historical data, you'd see that crude was trading at its lowest in June, which translated to July having the lowest pump price this year. Likewise, we saw the trading price increase in August followed by a jump up to $100 in September, which is likely why we're seeing the pump price go up this month.

6-month charts here
http://gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/future/crude%20oil%20-%20electronic

So this is why the stock was up 20% pre-market:
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/rimm

(No it's not.)

Is another man's fight.

I question the equivalence here. "Big green"? Big oil made 137 billion dollars in profits in 2011 and owns more politicians than you can shake a stick at. How many billions of dollars does "big green" make in a year and how many senators do they control?

Are you serious? They make not be the same size now, but the writing is on the wall, and they're already a force to be reckoned with. Here's one link (211 billion in new investment in 2010): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global-RE-Investment-VC-Eng.png

Compare that to the drop in oil and gas investment in the same basic time period (down to 375 billion total): http://articles.marketwatch.com/2009-05-26/industries/30731975_1_iea-oil-and-gas-oil-sands

I would say that 211 billion vs 375 billion is in the same ballpark from an industry size standpoint. We're not talking "david and goliath" anymore. 211 billion is plenty of clout to throw around, especially when your market is growing when your competitor is shrinking, when your product is becoming cheaper when your competitor's product is becoming more expensive. Within a decade, "Big Green" will be the next "Big Oil". And they'll still be sitting on their mountain of tax subsidies and breaks too, same as oil is from many decades ago.

When the stock didn't bounce as I thought/hoped it would, I realized I was wrong and got out

The bounce is the problem with the IPO market - if the stock was priced correctly, there should be no bounce (and no crash either). If the stock bounces, it means the company left money on the table that should be in their pockets. If the stock crashes, then it means that investors lost money that never should have gone to the company.

An IPO auction would be more fair, that way everyone who wants to buy shares can get some if they are willing to pay the auction price. With prorata distribution they may not get as many as they wanted (and they may try to game the system by asking for more than they wanted), but you don't need to have special ties with the company to get IPO shares at the opening price.

Interesting they are implementing exactly that.

Marketwatch sees a completely different phenomenon :

Since the $1.05 billion verdict Friday — which found that Samsung infringed on six Apple AAPL -1.04% patents — customers of Samsung have been dumping their Android products on at least one major resale site. Gazelle.com reports a 50% increase in Samsung smartphones over the past three days, which has led to a 10% drop in prices for those devices"

And that's extrapolating wildly outside the data that they have, drawing conclusions they have no real base for, as they have no idea what their sellers bought instead. Couldn't it possibly be newer, potentially under risk of being banned, Samsung gear?

Marketwatch sees a completely different phenomenon :

"While many experts predict Apple Inc.’s court victory over Samsung could shake up the wireless industry over the long term, it’s already having an impact on one key area: the resale market.

Since the $1.05 billion verdict Friday — which found that Samsung infringed on six Apple AAPL -1.04% patents — customers of Samsung have been dumping their Android products on at least one major resale site. Gazelle.com reports a 50% increase in Samsung smartphones over the past three days, which has led to a 10% drop in prices for those devices"

It's pennies for both of these companies. Samsung had an operating profit of $14 Billion USD according to this last year.

Apple made a bit more, about $34 Billion USD.

This is pennies and all Samsung has to do is raise the price a bit on it's A5 processors and Screens used in those apple products to make up the difference. You'll
also see some licensing agreements come out of this because even though Apple won, the Jury didn't think they deserved $2.5 Billion.

So, you and I will pay an extra $10 bucks per phone because almost all Tablet/Cellphone manufacturer out there uses Samsung products, but the same can't be said about those same manufacturers buying Apple stuff. That regrettably is all that this hoopla means.

There was a verdict in Korea today that slanted heavily toward Samsung given the relative strengths of the patents.

This is not even close to over, and has no end in sight as far as I can tell.

Didn't the U.S. buy Canada to silence Jon Stewart?

No, but we are in the process of buying up the US.
See:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/got-milk-canadian-shoppers-get-it-at-us-costco-2012-08-16?link=home_carousel
and if you google "Canadians buy real estate in US" you will find a bunch of stories.

I got it from an article named Nokia prepared to sell patents if price right: CFO. That refers to the first quarter 2012 report. I found this line in the Nokia q1 2012 interim report: "We estimate that our current annual IPR royalty income run-rate is approximately EUR 0.5 billion."

As a follow up to the above, there is the issue of the expiration of the lock up period.

Millions of shares of Facebook may flood the market, driving down the price even further.

Better tight that seatbelt Mark. There might be significant turbulence ahead.

That link led me to this Dvorak gem, too: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-should-pull-the-plug-on-the-iphone

Tuberculosis isn't the only disease making a comeback this year. Pertussis is also coming back.

Across the United States, 8,159 provisional pertussis cases have been reported to the CDC as of May 5, 2012, representing an 87 percent increase compared to the same time period in 2011. Pertussis cases reached epidemic levels in Washington state this year, and cases are trending high in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.

From MarketWatch.

So fear not. If you've been coughing for weeks, it may only be whooping cough, which does little or no damage to your lungs, instead of tuberculosis, which can do major damage to your lungs.

Also, if you're coughing, do your best to get into a meeting with your CEO/CTO/CFO/VP/etc. Really, any major corporate officer will do. Biological warfare is a fine answer to class warfare.

See here for how our austerity has hurt employment:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/american-austerity/

And here's Obama's spending compared to the last several presidents:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obama-spending-binge-never-happened-2012-05-22

I think where we can agree is that giveaways to too-big-to-fail banks wasn't and isn't the best use of our limited resources.