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  • The 4 Best Stock Research Websites in 2023

    The 4 Best Stock Research Websites in 2023

    Are you looking for the best stock research websites? With so many options, it can take time to figure out where to start. 

    But not to worry! We’ve put together the best four stock research websites to help you make informed decisions in the stock market. This blog post will cover the features, pros and cons, and other important factors that make these sites stand out from the rest. 

    So if you’re ready to start investing in the stock market, read on to learn more about the four best stock research websites in 2023.

    1. Morningstar

    Morningstar is a powerful online stock research tool, providing investors with reliable data and analysis on stocks and bonds worldwide. It offers a wide range of features, including portfolio tracking, stock quotes, price alerts, financial news, analyst reports, and portfolio analysis. 

    Investors can also use Morningstar’s ETF screener, allowing users to search for stocks and ETFs based on pre-defined criteria quickly. In addition, Morningstar’s research center provides in-depth research reports, including technical analysis and investment ratings, and a library of educational resources.

    Pricing: 

    The premium plan costs $35/monthly

    Pros

    • Comprehensive research coverage, with analyst ratings and reports
    • In-depth stock screening tools
    • Portfolio tracking and analysis tools 
    • Wide range of features and resources
    • Easy-to-use interface

    CONs

    • Subscription fees can be expensive
    • User experience can be improved in certain areas

    2. Yahoo Finance

    Yahoo Finance is one of the most popular stock research websites that offer a wide range of features to help investors make informed decisions about their investments. Yahoo Finance allows users to access real-time market data, charts, and analysis. It also provides investors with an interactive portfolio tracker and helpful research tools. 

    Yahoo Finance is an ideal platform for those new to investing, as it offers a great overview of the stock market and helps to understand how it works. Additionally, the website provides a variety of articles that contain up-to-date news and advice on stocks, funds, and other investment strategies. 

    Pricing:

    The Lite plan costs $250/yearly, while the essential plan costs $350/yearly.

    PROs

    • Offers real-time market data, charts, and analysis
    • Variety of articles with up-to-date news and advice
    • Interactive portfolio tracker 
    • Analyst forecasts

    CONs

    • Ads can be intrusive
    • The user interface is sometimes clunky

    3. Seeking Alpha Premium 

    Investment information and research from a variety of sources is crowdsourced on Seeking Alpha. Those who pay for a Premium subscription can instantly access distinct perspectives about their preferred stocks from well-informed investors. Most of the material on the website is free. 

    However, after viewing several articles, users will see a paywall. To have unlimited access to all content, stock screening tools and assessment systems, you must subscribe to either Seeking Alpha Premium or Seeking Alpha PRO.

    As a premium subscriber to Seeking Alpha Premium, you will not only gain access to content that is not accessible by the public, but these articles will also offer data and understanding regarding potential investments, giving you an advantage in stock trading. 

    Besides the restricted content, premium members can take advantage of other useful components like Author Ratings, Author Performance, Stock Quant Ratings and Dividend Grades.

    Pricing: 

    For an annual fee of $239, Seeking Alpha allows users to save time and potentially increase their returns.

    PROs

    • Portfolio Alerts & Monitoring
    • Proprietary Stock Screener
    • Factor Grading
    • Articles and Article Sidebar

    CONs

    • Charts could be more modern and immediately produce a PDF upon request.

    4. The Motley Fool

    The Motley Fool is a stock research website that provides financial news, analysis and advice to individual investors. It was founded in 1993 by brothers David and Tom Gardner. The website offers various services, including stock market research, analysis, portfolio management, education, and investment advice.

    The Motley Fool’s services are tailored to provide comprehensive insights into the stock market. Its premium subscription includes exclusive stock picks, in-depth market analysis, daily stock watchlists, educational materials, and other resources. The website also offers investment newsletters with weekly or monthly updates on market conditions and trends.

    Pricing:

    Its Epic Bundle cost $499/yearly, while the Stock Advisor goes for $199/yearly.

    PROs

    • Comprehensive coverage of the stock market 
    • Access to exclusive stock picks 
    • In-depth market analysis 
    • Weekly or monthly updates on market conditions and trends 
    • Educational materials 
    • Portfolio management tools

    CONs

    • Premium membership is expensive 
    • Some of the stock picks can be too aggressive for some investors 

    The Key Takeaway 

    When researching stocks for your portfolio, it’s essential to use reliable and trustworthy sources of information. Many stock research websites are available, but the ones we’ve reviewed come highly vetted.

    Morningstar is a trusted source for stock analysis and provides up-to-date market data and reports. Yahoo Finance is also an excellent source for real-time market data, including stock news and detailed financial metrics. 

    Seeking Alpha Premium offers deep dives into individual stocks and portfolios, giving investors access to professional research. Lastly, The Motley Fool provides a wide variety of services, from personal advice to analysis from leading financial experts. 

    With the right tools and guidance, you’ll be able to make sound investments for your portfolio.

  • PayPal Rumored to Be Exploring a Stock-Trading Platform

    PayPal Rumored to Be Exploring a Stock-Trading Platform

    PayPal is rumored to be looking at the possibility of creating a stock-trading platform in a bid to challenge rivals.

    PayPal is already one of the leading payment services companies, and has recently entered the cryptocurrency market. According to CNBC, the company is now looking at creating a stock-trading platform.

    Such a move would help PayPal better compete with Robinhood and similar platforms, ones that already offer both stock and crypto trading options.

    According to CNBC’s sources, PayPal may purchase or partner with an existing trading company. Either way, sources warned the company’s product will likely not be market-ready this year.

    PayPal’s stock jumped 3% on the news, while Robinhood lost 3%.

  • Short Selling Is Vice Described As Virtue, Says Elon Musk

    Short Selling Is Vice Described As Virtue, Says Elon Musk

    “There’s a perniciously false effective markets argument made for shorting,” says Tesla CEO Elon Musk. “It is vice disguised as virtue. Short selling is frankly used against the public. We don’t have shorting in private companies. The vast majority of companies, over 90 percent are private, and you cannot short them. Yet somehow, private companies get things done.”

    Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, explains in an interesting interview with Sandy Munro, why short selling is an attack on the people and is actually vice but described by its greedy advocates as virtue:

    Short Selling Is An Attack On The People

    There are very few areas in life where you can sell things that you don’t own. Short selling, where you can sell shares that you don’t own, when I said it was vestigial I meant it came from an era when stocks were traded by people traveling on horseback to exchange stock certificates. In order to have the transaction speed not take weeks, somebody would say well the stock certificate is coming on that horse. I don’t have the stock certificate right now but I promise you that I’m getting the stock certificate and the rider is going to be here in New York from Chicago in three days and then I’ll be able to give you the stock certificate.

    That’s where this whole silly thing arose. But then the problem is like the way short selling is used today is it’s frankly used against the public. Most people aren’t aware that short selling even exists. Then the ones that are aware very few of them know actually how to use it. It’s basically like .01 percent of stockholders know how to use short positions to get ahead. I think it is effectively an attack on the public.

    It Is Vice Disguised As Virtue

    Tesla was under a massive attack by the short and distort, where they take a short position and then they do everything possible to trash the company six ways to Sunday, and they were successful. This has now happened to Tesla twice. It happened in 2013, and it happened in 2017 through 2019. The intensity of the attack was crazy. I was like man, it would cause you to lose faith in humanity, the extent of the greed of this that went on.

    We don’t have shorting in private companies. The vast majority of companies, over 90 percent are private, and you cannot short them. Yet somehow, private companies get things done. There’s a perniciously false effective markets argument made for shorting. It is vice disguised as virtue.

  • Short-Seller Losses Top $70 Billion In the War on Wall Street

    Short-Seller Losses Top $70 Billion In the War on Wall Street

    Short-sellers have lost a staggering $70 billion in the War on Wall Street between institutional investors and day traders on Reddit.

    Day traders on Reddit began driving up the price of stocks traditional Wall Street investors had recommended shorting, most notably GameStop, which saw its price go up some 1,000%. AMC, Bed Bath and Beyond, Blackberry and others also saw stock jumps as a result of the day traders.

    None of the companies in question saw their stock rise as a result of any fundamental change or improvement in their business. Instead, the phenomenon seemed to be a continuation of the Wall Street protests following the ‘08 crash, with everyman investors teaming up to stick it to Wall Street. Even Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Sr. highlighted how the whole situation was showcasing the power of community.

    That community effort is taking a tangible toll on Wall Street, with Reuters reporting that investors have lost some $70.87 billion as a result of their short positions on US companies. GameStop makes up a sizable portion of those loses, coming in at $1.03 billion, Bed Bath & Beyond, meanwhile, accounts for $600 million.

    It remains to be seen where this saga will end but, now that everyman traders have had a taste of the power they can wield, it’s hard to imagine stock trading will ever be the same.

  • Robinhood Rethinks UK Expansion Plans

    Robinhood Rethinks UK Expansion Plans

    Robinhood has informed individuals it is calling off its plans to expand to the UK market.

    Robinhood has gained widespread popularity as an app that makes it easy to trade stocks. At the same time, it has experienced its fair share of growing pains and controversy.

    The service has experienced multiple outages, some of which cost the company goodwill from its users. In some cases, individuals were unable to make trades on some of the busiest days of the market. Even worse, a 20 year-old student apparently committed suicide after seeing a negative balance of $730,000.

    Amid these issues, not to mention the problems the pandemic has caused, CNN is reporting that Robinhood has sent out an email informing individuals on a waitlist that it is putting its plans on hold.

    “The world has changed a lot over the past several months and we’re adapting with it,” read the email.. “On a company level, we’ve come to recognize that our efforts are currently best spent on strengthening our core business in the US and making further investments in our foundational systems.”

    Robinhood’s problems illustrate the challenges companies face trying to change the status quo in well-established industries, especially in the financial sector.

  • Impeachment—What It Means For the Stock Market

    Impeachment—What It Means For the Stock Market

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday announced a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump. To no one’s surprise, the stock market took a nosedive in the aftermath of the announcement, leading business owners and shareholders alike to wonder how this will impact their bottom line.

    Jim Cramer discussed the topic on Mad Money, making a point of highlighting how the markets survived the last time this happened.

    “We have something else to worry about. We have partisan acrimony per share.”

    Mr. Cramer went on to highlight that—in the wake of revelations that President Trump may have tried to pressure Ukraine into investigating a political rival—Democrats seemed determine to impeach Trump, sending articles of impeachment to the Senate.

    “Before you freak out, for those of you who don’t remember civic classes, let me explain. Even if the House impeaches Trump, you can’t remove a sitting president without a two-thirds majority in the Senate. So until the Democrats can convince at least 20 Republican senators to turn on their guy, impeachment remains a sideshow.

    “Still, I get why people sold today. It made a lot of sense. We haven’t seen this level of partisan acrimony in the United States since the Civil War. And when things in Washington turn hostile, that can and always will hurt the stock market.”

    Despite the potential for stocks to take a beating, Cramer sees a silver lining. Ultimately, with the Senate under Republican control, the likelihood of impeachment leading to anything is virtually nil.

    “The Senate will most likely acquit. How much will that matter to the stock market? You know what? We’ve seen this movie before. When the Republican House of Representatives impeached President Clinton, everyone knew he’d be acquitted in the Senate. So how did the Clinton impeachment impact the market?”

    Cramer goes on to highlight how much the stock market dropped when impeachment proceedings were announced against Clinton, with the Nasdaq and tech stocks bearing the brunt. However, as Cramer points out, the market quickly recovered with tech leading way and showing some of the biggest gains.

    “If you let the impeachment story shake you out of the market, well, guess what happened? You missed one of the greatest moves of all time….Every pullback during that period—every one—was a buying opportunity….If this turns out like 1998 all over again, then you may want to buy at the moment of maximum rancor.”

    The message is clear: While stocks may take a short term hit, over the long term, impeachment may represent a significant economic opportunity.

  • NFLX Stock Drops With US Subscriber Growth As Result Of Chip Card Roll-Out

    NFLX Stock Drops With US Subscriber Growth As Result Of Chip Card Roll-Out

    Netflix (NFLX) stock is taking a hit following the company’s latest earnings report, which was released on Wednesday. The report revealed that subscriber growth is slowing in the U.S.

    It was only a matter of time before domestic growth slowed as seemingly everyone and their mother already subscribes to Netflix and competition in online streaming services continues to grow with rivals like Amazon and Hulu upping their respective games and others like HBO and Showtime offering standalone services that don’t require cable subscriptions.

    Netflix also has also been losing some major movie titles, which could turn some subscribers off. The company recently let a deal with Epix expire as Hulu swooped in with a mult-year agreement. The deal includes numerous popular movie titles of the blockbuster variety.

    On top of that, the company recently announced a price increase for new subscribers. It’s only a dollar difference, but an increase nonetheless.

    While these are all things that could conceivably affect Netflix’s growth, it’s actually the roll-out of chip cards (EMV) that Netflix says is really responsible. According to the company, there were just a lot of people who didn’t get their credit card info updated in time to continue service, so it was discontinued, leading to the company dropping a bunch of subscribers (many of which are likely only temporarily unsubscribed).

    By that measure, it will be interesting if Netflix sees a significant growth uptick on the next report as people rectify that situation.

    Here’s the full Netflix Q3 2015 Earnings Interview:

    Most analysts don’t seem to be to worried for the company. For example (via Yahoo Finance):

    Youssef Squali of Cantor Fitzgerald commented in a note that Netflix’s third-quarter print was “solid” and the “underlying strength of the model” remains “intact” with the company on pace to end the year with over 74 million subscribers worldwide.

    Squali added that the “slight increase” in U.S. churn is “likely temporary” and a “hiccup.” The analyst pointed out that the company still expects total 2015 net adds to be around six million despite its penetration rate running at 40 percent already.

    Here’s a look at Netflix’s actual numbers:

    Optimized-Screen Shot 2015-10-15 at 1.43.53 PM

    Earlier this week, Netflix released its latest ISP Speed Rankings, which saw Verizon FiOS reclaim its top spot in the U.S. over Cox.

    Image via Netflix Investor Relations

  • Fake Twitter Buyout Article Fools Everyone, Sends Stock Soaring

    Fake Twitter Buyout Article Fools Everyone, Sends Stock Soaring

    Hoax articles – fooling everyone from your racist uncle on Facebook to top Wall Street investors.

    An article suggesting that Twitter had received a $31 billion offer sent the company’s stock prices soaring earlier this afternoon.

    The article, called Twitter Attracts Suitors, is hosted on bloomberg.market and made to look exactly like a Bloomberg Business article.

    “Twitter is working closely with bankers after receiving an offer to be bought out for $31 billion, people with knowledge of the situation said,” is reads. “While a deal is expected to to be reached, bankers may rebuff any suitor or work out an eventual sale, the people said asking not to be named as the information is private. In the past, Google has been named most likely to buy the micro-blogging site, but the people said there was also strong interest from an un-named foreign buyer.”

    Google’s named has been floated as a possible Twitter suitor for quite some time. But the only problem with all of this is that it’s a complete fake.

    Bloomberg confirmed the article is not one of their stories.

    As for Twitter stock – see that big spike? That’s the work of the article.

    Screen Shot 2015-07-14 at 1.29.51 PM

    The .market domain was registered a few days ago.

  • Stock Market Crash Said To Be Inevitable. So Why Have Baby Boomers Poured Everything Into It?

    Stock Market Crash Said To Be Inevitable. So Why Have Baby Boomers Poured Everything Into It?

    There is an ongoing debate as to what the current state of the stock market means.

    For some, what we’re witnessing is a natural aspect of the market, known as a “correction”.

    The correction part of the cycle is said to occur years after the market enjoys a bullish period. When the stocks have peaked, they may drop down more than ten percent.

    Investors want people to know that this is all to be expected with a healthy market.

    It’s also been pointed out that despite the stock market’s current downward trend, its lost roughly seven and a half percent. For all the panic, it hasn’t hit “correction” levels.

    Well, suppose the stock market does hit those levels and continue to drop. Plummet even.

    Another group of market watchers would not be surprised.

    After all, the stock market crash can occur at any time. Forget the uncomfortable and traumatic nature of the recent recession; we’re talking full-blown Great Depression.

    Speaking of which, this weekend apparently marks the anniversary of that grim turning point in American history.

    Returning to the present, it’s important to address the fact that the stock market crash isn’t just likely to occur within our lifetimes, but there is research to suggest it is inevitable.

    A joint New York University/Boston University study revealed that there will be as many two single day sessions with losses greater than 20 percent in our lifetimes.

    With such a heavy loss due to happen, how has it happened that an entire generation has set itself up for total devastation?

    According to reports, baby boomers outpace all other age groups as to how much of their savings are tied up in the volatile stock markets.

    Of all stock investors who are age 60 to 65, 30 percent have put everything into the stock market. Fifty-two percent of this age group are said to have the majority of their wealth tied up in markets.

    Overall, it seems that if things go bad, it’s this group of Americans that will be hit hardest. And as it is a group prepping for retirement, that will be beyond devastating.

    What can these persons do to shield themselves?

    Professor Xavier Gabaix, who was behind the ground-breaking study previously mentioned, strongly suggests that individuals carefully construct their stock portfolios so that a big hit will not be a fatal blow to their life savings.

    Are you prepared to survive a stock market crash?

  • Penny Stocks: Will They Make Or Break You?

    Penny Stocks: Will They Make Or Break You?

    Are you familiar with the phrase, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is?”

    If not, allow me to introduce you to the perilous penny stock.

    The penny stock is a popular choice among con artists looking to take advantage of naive investors.

    Like every get-rich-quick scheme in existence, penny stock cons usually involves a group of individuals being sold a dream of minimal effort and investment making them virtual millionaires overnight.

    Instead of getting the millions they were promised, the hapless persons often find themselves broke and wondering what went wrong.

    Just ask 65-year-old Paul Allen.

    The Boston, Mass. native and retiree took a chance on Vapor Hub International after a bunch of inbox spam informed him that this was something he just had to get in on.

    After putting 80 percent of his investment into Vapor Hub International, he quickly lost it all.

    Penny stocks often take the form of “pump and dump” schemes, where investors are encouraged to flood stocks with millions, only to see shares plummet as con artists collect the money and run.

    This is what many consider to be behind a mysterious company known as Cynk Technology.

    How else can you explain a business with only one employee and no revenue to speak of obtaining a market value of six billion dollars?

    The shady company started off trading at just six cents before its value inexplicably ballooned to $22 per share.

    Sensing something was amiss, the Securities and Exchange Commission suspending trading of Cynk’s stock on July 11th.

    It’s no surprise that when the suspension was lifted a couple of weeks later, the value of the stock plummeted by 96 percent.

    Law enforcement officials are moving to do something about penny stock con artists before victims like Allen get taken advantage of.

    It was recently reported that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office moved to prosecute three individuals who were attempting to use penny stocks to make millions through fraudulent means.

    Stock promoters Anthony Thompson, Eric Van Nguyen and Jay Fung hoped to achieve this by sending out various press releases and emails promoting certain companies. These companies happened to be owned by the trio and this information was not shared with potential investors.

    According to a statement by District Attorney Cy Vance, “These individuals, as alleged in the indictment, are charged with using their positions as stock promoters and company insiders to inflate their own profits through fraud and deceit.”

    Vance also said that the DA office would “not allow this kind of manipulation to occur” in American markets.

    Even if these individuals are busted, there are plenty more scammers waiting to take their place.

    As such, it’s up to you to educate yourself about making sensible investments and avoid the poverty trap typically associated with penny stocks.

  • Yelp Discloses Lobbying Efforts, CEO Sells 15,000 Shares

    A couple of interesting pieces of Yelp news have surfaced in that the company is lobbying for patent reform and copyright laws, and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman has sold nearly 15,000 shares of the company.

    As first reported by The Hill, the company hired former House staffer Laurent Crenshaw as its first lobbyist a couple months ago. He is a former aide to House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa.

    Crenshaw was quoted as saying at the time, “I’m extremely excited to be joining this fast-growing company and plan to continue working on issues I care about and love including Internet freedom, intellectual property, technology and telecommunications, along with a host of others.”

    This week, The Hill reported on the company’s first lobbying campaigns on the aforementioned issues, pointing to Yelp’s official lobbying disclosure form, where it says Crenshaw was lobbying on the Innovation Act, and is lobbying on the 998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act. He will also lobby on the “anti-SLAPP” bill,” which would prevent strategic lawsuits against public participation.

    Stoppelman’s stock sale was revealed in an SEC filing (via Ticker Report). He sold 14,705 shares of common stock on December 30th at $64.83 per share, and got $953,322 from the sale.

    Image: Jeremy Stoppelman (Twitter)

  • Twitter Stock Makes Co-Founder Jack Dorsey a Billionaire

    Everyone knew that there was a lot of money to be made when Twitter went public, but what Twitter opened at on the New York Stock Exchange far exceeded the company’s expectations.

    So what does this mean for Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and others? Cha-ching! Thanks to Twitter, Dorsey has now been elevated to billionaire status.

    Dorsey, a St. Louis, Missouri native, was expected to make some big bucks after it was speculated that Twitter would start trading at $26 on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Instead, Twitter (TWTR) opened at $45.10. Twitter was worth around $18 million before going public. The current trading price makes the company worth right at $32 billion and makes its stockholders a whole lot richer than originally anticipated.

    Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is now a billionaire thanks to his Twitter stock alone. If Dorsey were to dump his 23,411,350 shares right now at $45.81 per share, he would make around $1.07 billion. It has been estimated that around 70 million shares will be sold in the IPO. Check out Dorsey’s tweet below after the Twitter IPO ship set sail–he certainly has a few darn good reasons for his enthusiasm!

    Dorsey is also the CEO and founder of Square, a company that accepts mobile credit card payments. Technically, Dorsey was already worth a billion before today if you count what his Square stock would have sold for on the secondary market. But, that’s a lot less exciting than “Man Becomes a Billionaire In One Day!”

    Considering how quickly Square is growing, there is some speculation that Dorsey will make that company public in 2014, which could very well make him a billionaire a second time over.

    [Images via Google and Twitter]

  • Twitter Opens At $45.10, Up 73.5%

    Twitter got off to a pretty big start as a public company, opening up at $45.10 (73.5% higher than its set price of $26). That price values Twitter just shy of $32 billion.

    Also, Patrick Stewart helped ring the opening bell.

    As of the time of this writing, TWTR is trading at $45.85.

    Twtitter Stock

    So yeah, a pretty good start for a company not expected to be profitable until 2015.

    Image: Google

  • Twitter IPO: Grey Market Investors Expect Twitter Shares To Be $43.60 At The End Of Day One

    Twitter is expected to announce its final price per share for its IPO this evening, with trading beginning on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.

    The company already bumped up its price range in an amendment to its SEC filing this week, going from between $17 and $20 to between $23 and $25.

    As it did ahead of the Facebook IPO, IG set up a grey market when Twitter filed its S-1. This allows its clients to take a view on what the market cap of Twitter will be after the first official day of trading, but actually trade it with IG.

    “This gives a good indication where investors think Twitter should be valued and provides IGs analysts with unique insights ahead of the IPO,” a spokesperson tells WebProNews.

    “The current mid-price of $23.75 billion on IGs Twitter grey market indicates investors expect to see a share price of $43.60 at the end of day one,” the spokesperson says. “This is down sharply from nearly three weeks ago, when the expected market cap hit $33 billion, equal to more than $60 a share. The grey market has since leveled off which usually indicates investors believe it has reached a fair value. The same ran true for the UK Royal Mail grey market which indicated investors thought the stock was heavily undervalued.”

    IG technical analyst Brenda Kelly says, “This is the largest Silicon Valley IPO since Facebook and underwriters of the floatation will be keen to make this more of a success in comparison. The good news is that extensive hype in advance of the Facebook IPO – blamed to an extent for its less-than-impressive debut on the stock market – has been avoided. The decision to list on the NYSE was also clearly inspired by the disastrous delay in Facebook trading, due to a glitch in the NASDAQ computer. Twitter has announced a range of $23 and $25 for its stock price, which would value the company at $17.4bn.”

    “It must be remembered that Facebook was, and is, a much bigger company — it had 900 million users when it went public, and has more than a billion today — and its size was one of its big selling points,” she says. “Also unlike Facebook, Twitter has yet to turn a profit. The company reported a net loss of $79.4 million on revenue of only $316.9 million in 2012. Given its active user base the company does have great profit-making potential, but monetising this potential is a different story – something that early investors in Facebook learned the hard way.”

    “An unsuccessful IPO is something that underwriters of the flotation will be keen to avoid,” adds Kelly. “The extensive hype in advance of the Facebook IPO – blamed to an extent for its less-than-impressive debut on the stock market – has been avoided. The decision to list on the NYSE was also clearly inspired by the disastrous delay in Facebook trading, due to a glitch in the NASDAQ computer.”

    Twitter is selling 70,000,000 shares.

    Image: Twitter (SEC)

  • Twitter Bumps Up IPO Price Range

    Twitter has made yet another revision to its IPO filing with the SEC, this time raising the price. Now, the company is looking to price shares at between $23 and $25. That’s up from between $17 and $20.

    The company says in the filing:

    Prior to this offering, there has been no public market for the common stock. It is currently estimated that the initial public offering price per share will be between $23.00 and $25.00. Our common stock has been approved for listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “TWTR”.

    We are an “emerging growth company” as defined under the federal securities laws and, as such, may elect to comply with certain reduced public company reporting requirements for future filings.

    Twitter is selling 70,000,000 shares. With the new price range, we’re talking about somewhere around $1.7 billion, giving Twitter a $13 billion market cap.

    Twitter is expected to launch the IPO on November 7th.

    [via Forbes]

    Image: Twitter (SEC)

  • Pinterest Valued Over $2 Billion

    Pinterest Valued Over $2 Billion

    Pinterest is now on the business map, and is now estimated to be a $2.5 Billion company. Pinterest, the newest hit in social media scrapbooking site , is used by web surfers to share and discover images. It has sold $200 million worth of new stocks to new and existing investors for less than 10 percent of the company.

    Constantly expanding, Pinterest had 28 million unique monthly visitors last month, compared to last march with 17 million monthly unique visitors. It generates more than 1.7 billion monthly pageviews.

    This is a smart investment. Pinterest could be the next Facebook according to investors because its particular platform. Its goal is to drive web traffic and does so more than most other social mediums combined. Revenue isn’t generating from Pinterest, yet. Tim Kendall was hired by Pinterest in March. Kendall is known for Facebook’s monetization strategy. Creating a revenue, or the potential to, translates into Pinterest to being worth much more than anticipated. The possibilities for revenue is there and could explode if Pinterest finds a way to make money from the links posted and shared by users.

    Image via Pinterest

  • Arian Foster Is Now On the Market and For Sale

    Fantasy sports is a huge business. It allows the Everyday Joe a chance to draft a team, trade players, add free agents to their roster and root for touchdowns and homeruns from guys you would otherwise not care about. And now, not only can that same Everyday Joe pretend to play professional coach and general manager but as of today they can also actually own stock in a megastar football player.

    According to ESPN.com, Fantex Brokerage Services will give the general public a chance for investors to buy and sell shares in Houston Texans running back Arian Foster.

    This is how it works. Let’s say Foster picks up his game, goes on a tear the rest of the season and scores 15 touchdowns. His stock price could potentially (and most likely) go up because more companies will offer Foster endorsement deals. Fantex has paid Foster $10 million. In return for that $10 million, Foster essentially has given up 20% of any possible future income that he earns. This income includes everything: the $20.7 million left on his current contract, a new contract that he may sign in the future, all endorsements and any other business wheelings and dealings that he may become involved in.

    Fantex hopes that in the near future, other athletes will offer the public the same opportunity as the All-Pro running back. The CEO of Fantex, Buck French, had this to say about the relationship between the market and an athlete’s brand, “Fantex is bringing sports and business together in a way never previously thought possible. By building a marketplace that allows customers to buy shares in a tracking stock linked to the value and performance of an athlete’s brand, Fantex is enabling a new level of brand advocacy through ownership.”

    In an interview with Tania Ganguli of ESPN.com, Foster said, “I think branding is an important part of every athlete, of every human being.” Foster also stated that he wants to endorse companies that produce a positive impact, like his pairing with Health Warrior who make a healthy protein bar called Chia Bar. “I feel like things like childhood obesity is something that can be prevented. If you look at things that athletes endorse, it’s all junk food. We have a part in bettering our circumstances.”

    Interested? If you’re at least 18 years old, you can buy Foster stock today, although you should note a couple things. Foremost, Foster isn’t having a great season and neither is his team the Texans. Foster has only scored one touchdown so far and he’s been dealing with a deluge of nagging injuries. The Texans are currently 2 – 4. However, Foster is good looking, young and has an easy-to-like personality which makes him an endorsement sweetheart.

    Still not convinced, check out the video Fantex produced to help sell Foster. Just click the “watch on Vimeo” bar.

    Tell us what you think in the space below. Is this the future? Will other all-star professional athletes offer the public the opportunity to buy and sell shares on their earnings? Or, will athletes shy away from the thought of being “owned” by the public?

    Image via Facebook

  • Facebook Stock Tops $50 for the First Time

    Facebook’s stock price hit an important milestone Thursday, crossing the $50 barrier for the first time. That’s more than $12 higher than the IPO price and over $32 more than the stock’s price at its lowest point back in August of 2012.

    It’s not just an important milestone, but an impressive one considering where Facebook’s stock price was just a year ago. It’s been a long battle back for the company, whose initial public offering was met with enthusiasm back in May of 2012. But that enthusiasm quickly turned to concern, as investors worried about Facebook’s perceived inability to monetize – especially in the fast-growing mobile space.

    In the stock chart above, you’ll see a distinctive point in which Facebook’s stock price jumped. That spike correlates with Facebook posting strong Q2 earnings. Revenue from advertising shot up from 61% in Q2 2012 to 88%. More importantly, mobile ad revenue accounted for 41% of Facebook’s ad total ad revenue for the quarter – up 11% year-over year.

    Facebook reported total revenue of $1.81 billion.

    Investors bullish on Facebook’s potential cite these figures, as well as reported future ad units as reasons to trust in Zuck and crew. As you know, Facebook is on the precipice of rolling out a large video ad network which could see advertisers pay up to $2.5 million per day to run short video ads on users’ newsfeeds.

    Of course, it will all depend on the new numbers. Facebook reports Q3 earnings next month.

    Image via Facebook investor relations

  • Safeway Inc. Swallows the Poison Pill

    Safeway Inc. Swallows the Poison Pill

    When the market closed on Tuesday, Safeway Inc. (NYSE: SWY) shares increased 10.5% ending the day at $30.99. Safeway Inc. is an American based supermarket chain that is currently the second largest grocer franchise only to The Kroger Company (NYSE: KR). Based on the 2010 fiscal year Safeway managed to pull in a whopping $41 billion in estimated sales and as of December 2011 was responsible for 1,678 storefronts throughout the United States, as well as parts of Canada and Mexico. Based on revenue Safeway is currently the 11th largest retailer in the United States. However, this staggering spike in the stock was not the result of the typical market fluctuations.

    The successful hedge fund, Jana Partners LLC, has apparently had interests in the supermarket giant, and on Tuesday they made it public when they acquired a 6.2% position among the company stockholders. Jana Partners and their investors goal for this purchase (as is typically their goal in large investments of this caliber), is to become one of the primary stockholders in order to have a higher weighted vote on the Safeway Inc. Corporate Board of Directors. Jana has developed plans to influence various corporate changes that they feel will help return a higher capital to it’s investors.

    In response to the moves made by Jana’s investors, Safeway has chose to adopt what is sometimes jokingly referred to as the ‘poison pill’ plan in order to maintain their operation and long-term goals without influence from the successful hedge fund. The technical investment term for the ‘poison pill‘ is known as the ‘Shareholders Rights Plan’. The ‘Shareholders Rights Plan’ is a corporate strategy that is designed to offset ‘hostile takeovers’, where private investors or group investors buy a large percentage of company shares in order to make managerial decisions. With Safeway’s announcement, shareholders of the company (excluding Janna) will be encouraged to buy more shares at a discount in order to dilute Jana’s ownership and the stock pool.

    Jana Partners LLC and their investors, like many hedge fund companies, are no stranger to what is currently happening with Safeway. Jana was founded in 2001 by Barry Rosenstein and currently has over $6 billion in assets under managing alone. Companies like Jana have became profitable, advising their investors to buy shares in public equity markets through activist strategy plans implement by the company. Jana utilized this strategy to influence changes they are intending to propose, such as ridding storefronts in less profitable regions and selling the company’s entire share in the recently made public Blackhawk Inc. (which was developed by Safeway).

    Safeway Store

    As of May the CEO of Safeway has been Robert Edwards and within his short tenure he was responsible for selling the company’s operations in Canada for $5.7 billion (far more than had been projected). With this proposal, Edwards hopes to maintain company ownership of both their venues in regions Jana has deemed nonprofitable (parts of Chicago, Arizona, and Southern California) and their majority stake in Blackhawk (73%)(NYSE: HAWK).

    Under Safeway’s current corporate management the company continues to have success, staying on par (within +/-2% single share value) of their primary competitors (Kroger, Supervalu, and Roundy’s). Along with the recent surge in share prices the company finished the day with a market capitalization of 7.5 billion.

    Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: Safeway Storefront, Inside Safeway

  • Microsoft Stock Surging on Ballmer Retirement News

    Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced this morning that he will be stepping down from his position within the next 12 months. The executive has been a part of Microsoft for over 33 years, joining the company as its first business manager and only its 30th employee. Ballmer praised his executive team in a statement this morning, saying that “now is the right time” for him to step aside.

    He isn’t the only one that thinks so.

    Investors pounced on this news as the NASDAQ opened this morning. Microsoft shares opened trading at 35.16, up over 9% from Thursday’s closing price of 32.39. Though the initial surge was inevitably moderated, Microsoft share price is still up over 1.50 and appears that it will trade at around 34 for the remainder of the day, up over 5% from yesterday’s close.

    Microsoft stock had been rising since April on news of solid quarterly earnings and a change in the company’s CFO. The stock reached a high of 36.27 in mid-July. The rising trend was suddenly halted when Microsoft revealed its fourth quarter report. Despite revenues of nearly $20 billion, the company revealed that its highly-touted Surface RT tablets were a failure, and that $900 million worth of the devices were sitting around, unsold. Microsoft is now trying to get rid of the tablets while promoting the use of the Bing search engine in schools.

    (Image courtesy Martin Olsson via Wikimedia Commons)

  • Facebook Stock Rallies, Nearly Hits Its IPO Price

    For the first time since the IPO, Facebook stock approached $38 a share today.

    It didn’t actually hit that significant number (that’s what the stock started out at back in May) – but it came close. Really close. Its high for the day was $37.96 – an increase of nearly 7% from its opening.

    For Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of Facebook family, this must feel pretty good. After debuting strong in May 2012 – hitting $45 shortly after the IPO, Facebook’s stock began to fall, and fall hard. At its low point in August of 2012, the stock price dipped below $18 – less than half of the original price. The most cited reason for Facebook’s problems was a distrust from investors – mainly Facebook’s inability to monetize mobile. Sure, users continued to grow – but for the Street, it was all about those advertising successes (and lack thereof).

    This recent uptick in Facebook’s stock began last week, when the company posted strong Q2 earnings with a revenue of $1.81 billion. Revenue from advertising shot up from 61% in Q2 2012 to 88%. More importantly, mobile ad revenue accounted for 41% of Facebook’s ad total ad revenue for the quarter – up 11% year-over year.

    That seemed to be the impetus, and Facebook’s stock began to climb.

    Here’s what Facebook’s stock has looked like over the past month or so. I guess you can call it a comeback.

    Also, Facebook announced today that they are starting a new mobile game publishing program – one that will generate even more revenue. And according to reports, those long-rumored video ads are soon coming to your news feed at $2.5 million a pop.