Filed under: Deals, Google (GOOG), Next big thing, Small business

Founded in 2002 - during the dark times of the Internet - Friendster became one of the pioneers of the social networking space. The company quickly got traction and even attracted the interest of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). But, of course, MySpace and Facebook had ultimately beat out Friendster.

Yet, the plucky website hasn’t given up. In fact, the company has announced a $20 million round of venture capital. The investors include heavyweights like IDG Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures and Founders Fund. In all, Friendster has raised $50 million.

Actually, Friendster is ranked as the 9th most trafficked site in the world, with a heavy penetration in Asia where it is the #1 social networking platform. There are about 75 million registered users.

Interestingly enough, Friendster has a broad portfolio of patents, which perhaps can be used as leverage when combating its rivals. What’s more, the company has done quite well in terms of adding features and providing a good user experience.

To help keep things on the right track, Friendster has hired Richard Kimber as its CEO. He was formerly a regional managing director of South Asia for Google. Apparently, he’ll be spending much of his time in Asia, trying to put together partnerships.

While social networking seems to be maturing in the U.S., there still are great opportunities in foreign markets. Furthermore, with $20 million more in the bank, Friendster can broaden its footprint and perhaps be a hot property for an acquisition.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

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Filed under: Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Small business

Some people are startup junkies. No doubt, they want to snag a job in a company that becomes the next Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) or Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

So, where can they go? Well, there’s a new spot: Startuply.

In fact, the service is free, a good thing for cash-strapped startups.

Basically, a company puts together a profile — so far, there are 176. But it goes beyond the typical fare. For example, there’s information on such things as the work environment , funding, names of investors, revenues and so on.

Besides a sophisticated search engine, Startuply has Web 2.0 features like RSS, widgets, Google maps and social bookmarks.

Startuply is still nascent - there are 690 job postings — but it should be a good resource for the startup crowd.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

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Filed under: Bad news, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), General Electric (GE), Coca-Cola (KO)

So, the past few days have been cool ones for the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index. The market saw a nice uptrend. Click here and set the Dow to the one-month timeframe; that graph says it all. It looks like things may be okay from now on, right? Well, don’t bet on it. CNBC.com reminds us about the dreaded bear-market rally. And I completely agree with the thesis: we are most likely headed back down once this market happiness runs its course.

It would simply be too easy for investors to have seen the bottom. No way, not with all the problems going on in terms of inflation and financial disasters. Oh yeah, oil has retreated, that’s true, but I don’t think the energy monster is in permanent hibernation. Not by a long shot. The problem with the past few days is that it plays with investors’ emotions. It’s played with mine, certainly. I haven’t bought a stock in a while, and I really want to buy something. Maybe add to my General Electric (NYSE: GE) trade, my Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) holding. I love the dip in Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and really want to get serious about grabbing shares in Mr. Softy. My 401(k) has a lot of money waiting to be put to work. I want to transfer some of those monies into one or two of the quality mutual-fund offerings at my disposal. I can’t stand having money tied up in stable-value instruments.

I just can’t make a move yet. I feel that lower prices will be upon us sooner rather than later. Already, many are talking about buying opportunities for oil futures, and I fear those who hold such opinion will turn out to be correct. When oil rises again, stocks will most likely fall, and this summer fun will be just another memory of a day at the beach. I’m not saying there aren’t buys out there. Again, Microsoft is looking attractive. Value investing, however, isn’t. It’s not the style of the day. And when value investing isn’t the style of the day, your only hope is to become a deep-value investor and pray that patience is eventually rewarded.

Am I being pessimistic? I’m being realistic. The economy is still unstable. Even the great Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) isn’t immune. So, while I can’t say I won’t nibble here and there on some stocks next week, I can say what was I feeling most strongly as I saw the Dow climb: maybe it’s time to buy the DXD (AMEX: DXD) ETF to short the index. It would be risky to do this, of course, but my main point is that I still feel bearish on the Dow even with the recent rise.

Disclosure: I own Coke and GE; positions can change at any time.

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Filed under: Google (GOOG), Presidential elections

The Oracle of Omaha is shining a light on the presidential campaign of Barack Obama.

According to media reports, Warren Buffett is participating with Obama in a meeting about the economy along with Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) Chairman Eric Schmidt, former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and former Labor Secretary Bob Reich, according to CNBC. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) co-chairman, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker also will be at the meeting of the wisemen tomorrow. Buffett will be participating via telephone hook-up.

There is plenty to talk about given the current state of the economy and the housing market which the International Monetary Fund says shows no signs of recovery. Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, is clearly signaling not to expect much from the meeting.

“I expect some further fine-tuning of short-term policies based on what’s happened over the last several months,” Obama said in an interview with Bloomberg News.

What that means is not clear. It should surprise no one that Buffett is backing Obama. The investor has been critical of President Bush’s economic policies including the repeal of the estate tax which he said would be a “terrible mistake.” But that doesn’t mean he agrees with all of Obama’s policies either.

As CNBC notes, Buffett supported Hillary Clinton while she was running for president and disagrees with Obama’s call to tax the windfall profits of oil companies and his decision to forgo public financing of his campaign. I guess the Omaha investor considers Obama to be a significant improvement over Republican John McCain.

Interesting how the greatest investor in history who Republicans tout as a champion of capitalism is as big of a Democrat as Barbra Streisand.

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Filed under: Before the bell, Earnings reports, Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Deals, Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), Pfizer (PFE), PepsiCo (PEP), Amazon.com (AMZN), McDonald’s (MCD), AT and T (T), Anheuser-Busch Cos (BUD), Boeing Co (BA), ConocoPhillips (COP), Costco Wholesale (COST), Washington Mutual (WM)

Stock futures were higher this morning, indicating stocks could have a positive start to the session as oil prices continued to decline, sinking below $127 a barrel. Weekly inventories numbers reported later today could have an impact on oil prices. Then there is continued optimism in the financial sector, which caused the rally Tuesday. Also, a bill aimed at helping the housing market will reach the House floor. But once again earnings will likely have investors’ attention with Costco already giving a profit warning.

Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) shares are plunging over 8% in premarket trading after the wholesale retailer warned its August-ending quarter’s profit would miss analyst estimates. This is most surprising as Costco had been one of the retailer that seemed to have benefited from consumers trying to save and buy lower-cost items. But Costco blamed the lower profit on rising energy costs, saying it will earn less than $1 per share.

Boeing Co NYSE: BA) has just announced results, saying quarterly profit fell due to a charge. The plane maker reported Q2 EPS of $1.16, with $0.22 charge, versus the consensus of $1.23. Revenues came in at $17 billion, versus the consensus of $17.24 billion. Boeing also reaffirmed 2008, 2009 forecast.

PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) reported higher quarterly profit on Wednesday, as net income rose to $1.7 billion, or $1.05 per share. Excluding items, earnigns per share were $1.03. Net revenue rose 14% to $10.95 billion. The company benefited from strong international demand and the weak U.S. dollar. The company raised its revenue outlook.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) shares are up more than 3% in premarket after the pharmaceutical said second-quarter profits more than doubled. The company earned $2.78 billion, or 41 cents per share. Excluding special items, Pfizer earned 55 cents per share, beating estimates by a penny. Revenue rose 9% to $12.13 billion, of which 7% was due to the dollar. U.S. sales fell 2%.

Another busy day for earnings includes results from McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD), AT&T (NYSE: T) and ConocoPhilips (NYSE: COP), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Anheuser-Busch Cos (NYSE: BUD) among many others.

In non-earnings news, TechCrunch reports that Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is in final negotiations to acquire Digg for “Around $200 Million.”

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Filed under: After the bell, Google (GOOG), Juniper Networks (JNPR), Crocs Inc (CROX), DJIA, Delta Air Lines (DAL)

If you were looking for another hard day of profit taking on a summer Friday, the markets escaped the hangman. A barely positive durable goods of big ticket items was enough to send the pessimists to the showers and gave the bulls a little more ammo. Throw in an oil ticker showing a drop of more than $2.00 to almost $123.00 per barrel and that’s all that was needed. Look at bond yields and you’ll see we gave back almost all of yesterday’s move.

Here are today’s unofficial closing bell levels:
DJIA 11368.33 (+19.05)
S&P500 1257.65 (+5.11)
NASDAQ 2310.53 (+30.42)
10YR T-NOTE 4.111% (+0.095%)
TOP ANALYST UPGRADES
TOP ANALYST DOWNGRADES
Select Short Sales Data

Arch Coal (NYSE: ACI) tripled earnings posted EPS of $0.78 vs. $0.64 estimates. The stock was up more than 3% in pre-open but was up almost 9% at $55.45 in the final minutes of the day.

Crocs Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX) led the garbage stocks after a very ugly earnings warning last night. It now sees sales for all of 2008 modestly lower than 2007 and is now only targeting a break-even result for 2008. Retailers were noted as keeping inventory re-orders at low levels, which is hard to blame them considering the ugly shoe fad has already started its workdown. Shares were down 44% at $4.99 after shares had already sold of more than 80% from 52-week highs.
Delta Air Lines Inc. (NYSE: DAL) posted sharp gains after Merrill Lynch raised the legacy carrier to a BUY rating. This held up despite an S&P downgrade in airlines and shares were up over 6% at $7.22 in today’s final minutes.

Juniper Networks (NASDAQ: JNPR) raised guidance on strong demand for its networking equipment and Wall Street seems to be more than happy with Microsoft’s recently ex-Online head coming over to run the entire company as CEO. We even saw Citigroup and FBR raise their ratings to lead the stock to being up 19% at $26.89 by the final minutes of the day.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) had a great day compared to the market after its rating was raised to Buy from Hold at Soleil Securities. Shares were up 3.4% at $491.95 in today’s final minutes.

Wynn Resorts Ltd. (NASDAQ: WYNN) beat earnings at $1.11 EPS vs. $0.93 estimates, but the high-end casino player had a mixed revenue number with a weak Vegas and strong Macau. Shares had been up 35% since earlier in July, so traders sold the news slightly from yesterday’s highs and shares were down 1.6% at $90.11 in today’s final minutes.

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Filed under: Before the bell, Earnings reports, Deals, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Apple Inc (AAPL), Time Warner (TWX), Market matters, American Express (AXP), Bank of America (BAC), Merck and Co (MRK), Genentech Inc (DNA), Hasbro Inc (HAS)

Stock futures were higher this morning after Bank of America joined recent financials and topped Wall Street estimates. Also pushing futures higher is a deal in the pharma sector with Roche bidding nearly $44 billion for the rest of Genentech. However, both Merck and Schering-Plough said they’ll postpone reporting their financial results after the close; Apple will also be reporting results then. Finally, oil prices came off a six-week low and are trading back above $130 a barrel due to escalating Middle East tensions. Higher oil prices could dampen the mood on the Street.

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), the biggest U.S. consumer bank and home lender, said profit fell 41% to $3.41 billion, or 72 cents a share, much better than analysts estimates of 21 cents according to Bloomberg. The bank curtailed loan losses, adding $2.2 billion to loan loss reserves. The bank has completed the purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp. on July 1. With these results, BAC joins other big banks that have recently reported better-than-expected results. BAC shares are up 8.6% in premarket trading.

Roche Holding on Monday said it was offering $43.7 billion to take over the remaining 44.1% shares of Genentech Inc. (NYSE: DNA) for $89 per share, 8.8% above DNA’s closing price Friday. DNA shares are up nearly 18% in premarket trading to $96.50.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) said Monday morning it settled its fight for control of the board with billionaire investor Carl Icahn. The board will expand to 11 members to include Icahn and the remaining two seats will be filled by the board upon the recommendation of its nominating and governance committee. In addition, Icahn, who owns about 5% on Yahoo common shares, agreed to withdraw his nominees for consideration at the annual meeting and to support the board’s nominees. YHOO shares are declining 2% in premarket trading.

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Filed under: Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Inc (AAPL), Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI), Citigroup Inc. (C)

Today might have been one of the more boring options expiration dates. If you pretend that technology stocks weren’t a part of the market, today was rather stable considering the major bounces we have seen. Oil stayed under $129.00 per barrel, which didn’t give the bears much meat to chew on. We had essentially no government economic data today. Here are today’s unofficial closing levels:

• DJIA 11,496.24 (+49.58)
• S&P500 1260.65 (+0.33)
• NASDAQ 2282.78 (-29.52)
• 10YR T-Note 4.081% (+0.043%)
• 52-WEEK LOWS
• Top Analyst Upgrades
• Top Analyst Downgrades

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is set report earnings after the close of trading. Read a FULL EARNINGS PREVIEW. Shares of Apple were down over 3% at $166.10 in today’s final minutes of trading.

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) was a pleasant surprise for the markets. Imagine losing $2.5 Billion and that still being “less bad” than almost everyone was calling for. Shares were up 9% at $19.60 in today’s final minutes of trading.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) shares were down a tad under 10% at $480.14 after the company’s earnings report yesterday was deemed a miss and after the company warned that the current ad spending market is under pressure from macro-trends.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) also saw its share of weakness with shares down 6.5% in the final trading minutes at $25.73 as its earnings were also deemed light. Most operations look like they are holding up but the company warned about its online business being under pressure.

Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) saw shares up a sharp 8% to $2.27 by the final minutes today as the last FCC commissioner has reportedly outlined terms to approve the 18 month old satellite radio merger.

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Filed under: Google (GOOG), Presidential elections

The Oracle of Omaha is shining a light on the presidential campaign of Barack Obama.

According to media reports, Warren Buffett is participating with Obama in a meeting about the economy along with Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) Chairman Eric Schmidt, former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and former Labor Secretary Bob Reich, according to CNBC. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) co-chairman, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker also will be at the meeting of the wisemen tomorrow. Buffett will be participating via telephone hook-up.

There is plenty to talk about given the current state of the economy and the housing market which the International Monetary Fund says shows no signs of recovery. Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, is clearly signaling not to expect much from the meeting.

“I expect some further fine-tuning of short-term policies based on what’s happened over the last several months,” Obama said in an interview with Bloomberg News.

What that means is not clear. It should surprise no one that Buffett is backing Obama. The investor has been critical of President Bush’s economic policies including the repeal of the estate tax which he said would be a “terrible mistake.” But that doesn’t mean he agrees with all of Obama’s policies either.

As CNBC notes, Buffett supported Hillary Clinton while she was running for president and disagrees with Obama’s call to tax the windfall profits of oil companies and his decision to forgo public financing of his campaign. I guess the Omaha investor considers Obama to be a significant improvement over Republican John McCain.

Interesting how the greatest investor in history who Republicans tout as a champion of capitalism is as big of a Democrat as Barbra Streisand.

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Filed under: Earnings reports, Google (GOOG), Apple Inc (AAPL)

Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) reported stellar, above-expectations quarterly results yesterday after market close. One would have thought that this company, in the midst of U.S. economic uncertainty, would have reported a mediocre quarter at best, but that wasn’t the case. Apple outpaced expectations by $0.11 per share, shipped more Mac computers than during any quarter in its history, and saw a 38% revenue jump from the year-ago quarter.

As a nice reward for such a stellar quarter, the market took Apple out behind the woodshed and gave it a sound whipping. The reason? Apple’s murky guidance for the fourth quarter. This from a company that almost always shoots low with guidance only to blow the numbers away. Add that to ongoing concern over the health of CEO Steve Jobs and you have a 10% drop in AAPL shares before the market opened this morning.

Is Apple the victim of outsized expectations? You bet. Just like Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) the other day — which also reported a fantastic quarter but saw its shares pummeled right after results were announced — Apple may be losing the ability to impress. In reality, both companies are doing excellent business in the face of gas and energy price spikes in addition to a six-month string of job losses in the U.S. Yet, the market slapped huge losses on both stocks based on what could be considered shaky speculation for future growth prospects.

On the other hand, Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) saw stock gains after reporting a better-than-expected $2.5 billion dollar quarterly loss last week. Talk about twisted.

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