Black Friday, the beginning of the traditional Christmas shopping season, will kick off far earlier than usual this year, thanks to Circuit City. In the aftermath of a particularly nasty second-quarter loss and a 95 percent decline in share price, the long-suffering electronics retailer said today it is shuttering 155 of its stores across 12 U.S. markets and sacking 17 percent of its domestic workforce.
The economic crisis has been as much a boon for Yahoo as a bane. Earlier this week, we noted that Yahoo’s share of the search market had increased slightly, thanks to investors obsessively checking Yahoo Finance and its Stock Message Boards. It seems that morbid interest in the stock market’s decline is driving up Yahoo video streams as well.
What a lousy day to report earnings. The Dow fell 231.77 points, or 2.5 percent, to finish at 9,033.66, and Nasdaq dropped 73.35 points, or 4.1 percent, to finish at 1,696.68, in a market that beat most tech issues into bloody submission. Not the sort of jovial earnings report atmosphere you hope for when you’re a company whose share price has lost half its value since the beginning of the year. But lo and behold! When Apple reported quarterly results today, they were good … very good.
“We’re thrilled to report our best quarter ever.” Apple CEO Steve Jobs has uttered those words, or a variation on them, after most of the company’s earnings reports in recent memory. Will he speak them once again Tuesday, when Apple offers the outside world a peak at its financials? Or has the worsening economic crisis and the continued deterioration of consumer confidence stricken them from “Quarterly Earnings Statement” template in Apple PR for the time being?
With Yahoo’s stock trading at a 52-week low of $11.37, how could Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer fail to comment on the discrepancy between the company’s current share price and the spurned $33-a-share bid Microsoft made for Yahoo earlier this year? Speaking at the Gartner ITXpo in Orlando, Fla., this morning, Ballmer said that a Microsoft (MSFT) acquisition of Yahoo or its search business would still “make sense economically” for shareholders at both companies. That remark spiked Yahoo’s shares as much as 17 percent, though Microsoft quickly claimed it has no interest in acquiring the company.
Looks like Google’s share price is finally getting that “good old-fashioned correction” that’s been predicted for so long. Another day of widespread losses for technology stocks dragged the company’s once high-flying share price below $350 for the first time in two-and-a-half years. Google shares hit a low of $345.37 Tuesday.
Is Google making us stupid? The answer to that question, recently posed by Nick Carr in The Atlantic, is a resounding yes. At least in the case of Sun Sentinel publisher Tribune. How else to explain the company’s claim that Google is largely to blame for the six-year-old news story that gutted the United Airlines share price this week?
After enjoying a few brief months of hostile-bid-inspired investor enthusiasm, Yahoo’s share price has resumed the steady decline it’s been charting for some time now.Yahoo closed at $18.75 today. Not only is that the stock’s lowest level in five years, it’s well below the $19.18 it was worth on Jan. 31, the day before Microsoft announced its $31-per-share offer for the company.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best use of the Beeker “meee” ever.
While the technology behind the Telephone is new, the design is reassuringly old-fashioned, reminiscent of a phrenologist’s horn or ear-candle in form. We found the experience far more comfortable than the one we had with the Telegraph.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
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