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MOST NOTEWORTHY: Royal Dutch Shell, Citigroup, American Financial and Cognos were today's noteworthy downgrades:
Credit Suisse downgraded shares of Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A) to Neutral from Outperform based on valuation as analyst estimates now look about right, removing a potential catalyst.
Banc of America downgraded shares of Citigroup (NYSE: C) to Neutral from Buy and lowered their target to $39 from $45 given the eroding confidence in the company's earnings and book value.
American Financial (NYSE: AFR) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS and to Market Perform from Outperform at Friedman Billings following its acquisition by Gramercy Capital Corp (NYSE: GKK).
CIBC downgraded Cognos (NASDAQ: COGN) to Sector Performer from Outperformer based on takeover valuation premium and FX headwinds.
OTHER DOWNGRADES:
Goldman removed Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) from its Conviction Buy List.
Morgan Stanley downgraded the hardlines and softlines retail sectors to Cautious from In Line; the firm also downgraded Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ: BBBY) to Equal Weight from Overweight and Nordstrom (NYSE: JWN) to Underweight from Equal Weight.
Citigroup (NYSE: C) was downgraded at Bank of America to Neutral from Buy. Also, CIBC analyst Meredith Whitney -- whose downgrade of Citi last week triggered a sharp drop in the stock and the retirement of CEO Charles Prince -- told the Daily Telegraph newspaper the only way forward is to carve the bank up and sell it off, because it lacks the capital to manage it.
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) yesterday unveiled its mobile-phone strategy. It wants to break into the wireless market with a plan to create open standards for mobile phones. The search giant is teaming with several companies like Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S), Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) and Motorola (NYSE: MOT) to develop a strategy that could make devices cheaper and give consumers more control over their phones' capabilities. Speculation that Google could announce a competing phone to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone didn't materialize, although the company didn't say if a there is such a plan for a Gphone. GOOG shares were 1.5% higher in premarket trading.
This is becoming very Google-esque -- a major partnership announcement! Google watchers (and shareholders) can appreciate that Google does not want to be in the hardware business, at least not right now. The company is in the partnering business. It has made the very wise decision to create as many partnerships as it can, attractive to both parties given that partners will make money by working with Google, without a new cost. Its selling point to Internet users: we are the nice guys and we bring you so many features that make your life easier and fun (sounds like Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL)). How can someone resist that?
Google hopes to create not 'a' new platform for cell phones, but 'the' new platform for cell phones. In doing so the company will be expanding the Google universe.
Being from L.A., I've had to deal with earthquakes and fire (no, it's not always sunshine here). And, of course, I saw the devastation of the recent fires.
But what about some of the businesses that need to rebuild? Could they have prepared for the fires?
Well, I recently interviewed Jon Toigo, a disaster recovery expert at Toigo Partners International. Over the past 20 years, he has put together nearly 100 disaster recovery plans. His clients include Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ). Also, Toigo has a partnership with Office Depot to help businesses deal with disaster preparedness.
"The bottom line in disaster preparedness is to protect your most irreplaceable assets – your people and your data," said Toigo.
We're probably in a bear market now, Doug McIntyre says in the latest edition of StockWatch: Between the Bells. The editor of financial news site 24/7 Wall St. and prolific BloggingStocks contributor cites two factors that demand investors' attention: the rising, record price of oil -- underscoring the falling value of the dollar -- and an increase in homeowners defaulting on their mortgages in the coming year.
If you have watched stocks gyrate over the last year, you don't need us to tell you the market has been volatile. If you'd prefer less of a roller coaster ride try these ten stocks. They include Accenture, Aflac, Delphi, Freeport-McMoRan, IBM, Microsoft, National Oilwell, Oshkosh Truck, PepsiCo and Transocean.
Low pay, no benefits put these workers in a tough spot. Among the worst are restaurant hosts, ushers, lifeguards, dishwashers, waiters, travel guides and believe it or not models.
As with a mess in your kitchen, a mess in your finances won't go away unless you clean it up. But it doesn't necessarily require a lot of elbow grease to make things right. Here are solutions to five common financial indiscretions, but the advice works just as well for most other money mishaps.
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) set up its OpenSocial technology so that developers could build applications for a number of social networks without having to tailor their software for each of them -- one common standard for a large number of sites to accelerate programming.
Google has its own social network site Orkut, but it has not made much progress against larger rivals Facebook and News Corp's (NYSE: NWS) MySpace. But the search company's new effort is aimed at preventing developers from spending all of their efforts targeting the two largest networks. That program got a big lift yesterday when the largest website in the category, MySpace, adopted OpenSocial.
"OpenSocial is going to be the de facto standard for developers right out of the gates," said MySpace chief executive and cofounder Chris DeWolfe during a press conference, according toThe Wall Street Journal.
Google may have lost out to Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) in its bid to own a piece of Facebook, but that may matter less now. As The New York Timespoints out: "OpenSocial is designed to allow third-party companies and developers to create one set of programs that works across the Web's most popular social networks. Facebook, in contrast, asks developers to tailor their programs for the network in its own proprietary format. The Google group is counting that developers will eschew that extra effort and want to avoid any lock-in with one social network."
Facebook has now been painted into a corner, and Microsoft's investment may not look quite so good just a week after it was announced.
Once again, Google has shown why it is so attractive to Wall Street. It will beat you if you don't join it.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
Over the past couple weeks, there have been some mega private fundings of dot-coms. Of course, there was Microsoft's $240 million investment in Facebook. And now, we have another blockbuster: Francisco Partners has invested $100 million in Specific Media, a top online advertising network that reaches over 130 million unique users.
With Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) buyout of DoubleClick and Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) deal for aQuantive, it's hard not to be excited about Specific Media's space. "I think there will be more consolidation," said Tim Vanderhook, CEO and co-founder of Specific Media, in a BloggingStocks.com interview. "So with the $100 million, we can also be a consolidator."
For example, he sees lots of opportunities in Europe. Specific Media is also looking at advertising types beyond banners. So does this mean moving into video? Perhaps. Although, Vanderhook is somewhat tempered. "It's still a small market and there are issues to work out," he said. "I think there could be a shake-out in the sector. So, we could see a lot of assets for sale."
Visit DealProfiles.com to check out more information on recent VC deals.
Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) has seen some strong stock price gains recently, closing yesterday up over $36. The world's largest software company saw another outstanding quarter last week, and similar to Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), the company just keeps on bypassing naysayers and reporting excellent quarters one after another. If the PC is dead and the operating system is becoming extinct, apparently nobody is telling Redmond.
On the back of great quarterly results, Microsoft's shares have shot up to a six-year high, and it was the largest gainer on Halloween day among the Dow industrials. The $36.67 price from yesterday's trading day was the highest since June 2001, with nearly 100 million shares traded. For a 30-year-old software company seen as un-innovative and boring (well, when compared to Google), Halloween day was a recent milestone in Microsoft's history.
Even last Thursday, almost 290 million shares were traded after Microsoft's Q3 results came back so strong. A Sanford Bernstein analyst said that he expected the company "to continue to exceed expectations" for a while, which added to the flurry of trading as Microsoft's strong results and guidance caused visions of sugar plums to dance in the heads of many investors. Share buybacks, the incredible launch of Halo 3 and the Windows Vista distribution cycle were all cited as factors for strong future performance indicators. Who knew Microsoft would ever be considered a winner of "long-term performance" back in 2005 by analysts?
Every three years the Federal Reserve Board conducts a national survey that tracks the financial health of American households. Believe it or not if you and yours are bringing in $40,000 a year, you're doing better than half the households in America. Which of the six level of the income parking ramp and net worth parking ramp do you fall into?
Breakaway Brands: TJ Maxx More Buzzworthy Than iPod & BlackBerrry?
Landor Associates' annual Breakaway Brands ranking is a comprehensive survey that measures consumer sizzle over a three-year period. These are the brands with most momentum in America. The brand that topped this year's list isn't iPod which ranks second or BlackBerry which ranks third, but TJ Maxx who expanded clientele with higher-end jewelry offerings. Other brands with buzz include Stonyfield Farm, Samsung, Costco, Propel, Barnes & Noble and two old giants that have generated new buzz recenty, GE & Microsoft.
In a move I thought I'd never see, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) looks to be reversing course a little and trying to get a version of its Windows Vista computer operating system as an option on the $100 "One Laptop Per Child" project spearheaded by MIT to place computers into the hands of as many kids in distressed and poor nations as possible.
The project itself is highly admirable, as its goal is to connect kids to a world that expands their horizons and hopefully leads some countries from destitute status to growing, civil communities that are empowered by the knowledge that lives on the internet every day, as well as connecting citizens to one another and students with much-needed tools.
In the past, Microsoft has shunned the project, probably since it was slated to use a generic Linux operating system that provides no revenue to anyone -- not exactly a business Microsoft wants to be in. However, it also takes future customers away from Microsoft's revenue prospects in developing countries where PCs may pave the way for computer industry growth in the future. Talk about a dilemma.
"The big news among recent earnings reports has been the bang up quarter from Microsoft. To a great extent, this was a wake up call for Wall Street and more evidence that the strength I have been expecting in the PC sector during the second half is real.
"However, rather than giving Intel a meaningful boost, the optimism Wall Street provided the number one semiconductor producer in the world was token at best; instead, the focus was on MSFT's quarter, which in fact did show the highest calendar Q3 growth the company has seen since 1999.
"While I don't want to take anything away from MSFT or distract readers from what I see as a strong second half for PC's, I do want to share one of the reasons why MSFT's results were so strong: in the 10-K. MSFT tells us that the company recognizes 100% of its Vista revenue upon shipment versus reserving a portion of revenue as it did for all prior operating systems sales to be taken over time.
After all the ink spilled last week over Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)'s investment in social-phenomFacebook (see Peter Cohan's interesting piece on Facebook's valuation), search giant Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is countering today with an interesting announcement: It is creating a distribution network for social networking tools.
You ask: A what?
Part of what makes Facebook's social networking environment interesting is that it's become a platform for software development. Like Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM)'s developer network, Facebook provides a platform, complete with tools, that allows third-party applications to be deployed within the Facebook milieu. Applications like iLike (with over 6 million registered users, 300,000 news users per day and a management team that rivals the U.S. Olympic basketball team) allow software developers to reach and interact (and eventually make some bling) with Facebook users within the Facebook environment.
Google also has third-party tools, deftly describes as "widgets." Like Facebook, Google provides a platform for third-party developers to build applications that reside within users' personalized homepages (iGoogle pages in Google parlance) and -- just announced recently -- on those publisher sites that work with Google's cash cow advertising platform, AdSense.
In just a few years, Riverbed Technology (NASDAQ: RVBD) has built a strong technology offering, which helps move large files -- such as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) PowerPoints, SAP (NYSE: SAP) data files and so on -- across networks at high speeds. In fact, last week I had a chance to meet the CEO, Jerry Kennelly, who was quite upbeat even though Riverbed's stock price was down about 28% to $34.61.
Although, based on the fiscal Q3 results, things seem fine. Revenues spiked 158% to $63.3 million and net income was $2.8 million, or $0.04 per share, which compares to a net loss of $3.1 million, or $0.16 per share in the same period a year ago. About $9.7 million of Q3's expenses came from stock option compensation.
Riverbed has continued its innovation. Back in August, the company launched its Steelhead Mobile product, which improves the performance of file downloads for laptops. Riverbed claims that about 41% of workers in the US are mobile, such as in remote offices, hotel rooms, coffee shops and so on.
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MOST NOTEWORTHY: Royal Dutch Shell, Citigroup, American Financial and Cognos were today's noteworthy downgrades:
In the world of 
Being from L.A., I've had to deal with earthquakes and fire (no, it's not always sunshine here). And, of course, I saw the devastation of the recent fires.
Over the past couple weeks, there have been some mega private fundings of dot-coms. Of course, there was Microsoft's $240 million 
and 
.
In a move I thought I'd never see, 
After all the ink spilled last week over 
Part of what makes Facebook's social networking environment interesting is that it's become a platform for software development. Like 
In just a few years, 
Lead, toys, and irony: Amazon.com pulls Fisher Price toy medical kit
Greenspan talks a big game, but don't forget he led us into this mess
Oil soars to new highs, is $100 oil around the corner?
