2012 November
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Is Zynga (Nasdaq: ZNGA) Doomed Without Facebook?
Zynga Inc. (Nasdaq: ZNGA), creator of FarmVille and other popular social games, has lost its special relationship with Facebook.
Zynga and Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) have had a symbiotic relationship since 2010 by which Zynga was the only provider of social game software that was allowed to promote its games to Facebook's one billion users. In return, Zynga used Facebook's credit system to process payments even on its own Zynga.com games platform.
The close relationship between the two companies had made Zynga the single largest contributor to Facebook revenues outside of advertising. For its part, Zynga is thought to have received about 80% of its revenue from Facebook users.
"We have streamlined our terms with Zynga so that Zynga.com's use of Facebook Platform is governed by the same policies as the rest of the ecosystem," Facebook said in a statement. "We will continue to work with Zynga, just as we do with developers of all sizes."
The popularity of Zynga's games has declined in recent years as users are spending more time playing games on mobile devices. Zynga has had to revise down guidance twice so far this year and that has been reflected in the company's share price, which has fallen by 74% since its IPO in December 2011.
The revised agreement between Zynga and Facebook allows Zynga to market its games more widely.
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The Best Stocks to Buy According to Top Hedge Funds
Knowing the best stocks to buy, and when to buy them, can be a daunting task.
But looking at the moves of the largest hedge funds enables investors to gain insight into what the big boys are doing.
FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE: FDS), a financial research firm that provides analysis of the markets' biggest players, recently released its quarterly report on the stock positions held by the 50 largest hedge funds.
While the top held stock, Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL), had its exposure in the overall funds reduced by 1.8 million shares, the list of most added stocks might surprise you.
Best Stocks to Buy: Where Hedge Funds are Investing
In the third quarter, overall the top 50 hedge funds increased their exposure to stocks by 3%.
Here's a rundown of the top ten stocks that the top hedge funds were buying last quarter, listed in order by the amount of market value added to the funds.
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Don't Bet on a RIM Stock Rally (Nasdaq: RIMM)
Research in Motion Ltd. (Nasdaq: RIMM), maker of the BlackBerry phone, traded sharply higher yesterday (Thursday) after Goldman Sachs analyst Simona Jankowski upgraded RIMM to a "Buy" with a price target of $16. RIM gained 4% Thursday to close at $11.54.
Although there are a growing number of bulls among analysts on the Street, there is still a large and vocal group of bears who think that RIM is done for.
Research in Motion is planning to launch its BlackBerry 10 smartphone on Jan. 30, 2013. The company is pinning its hopes of survival on the BlackBerry 10 taking a small piece of the smartphone market away from giants Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG), which split the smartphone market between their iOS and Android operating systems, respectively.
Goldman Sachs' Jankowski says that the BlackBerry 10 (BB10 in the terse to the point of being unintelligible analyst-speak) doesn't even have to be a success for RIMM shares to perform well.
"We now assess a 30 percent chance of success for BB10 given positive early reviews, broad-based carrier support, attractive features, and interest by carriers and consumers in broadening the field beyond Android/iOS," Jankowski wrote.
Other analysts are even more bullish.
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Economist Richard Duncan: Civilization May Not Survive 'Death Spiral'
Richard Duncan, formerly of the World Bank and chief economist at Blackhorse Asset Mgmt., says America's $16 trillion federal debt has escalated into a "death spiral, "as he told CNBC.
And it could result in a depression so severe that he doesn't "think our civilization could survive it."
And Duncan is not alone in warning that the U.S. economy may go into a "death spiral."
Since the recession, noted economists including Laurence Kotlikoff, a former member of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, have come to similar conclusions.
Kotlikoff estimates the true fiscal gap is $211 trillion when unfunded entitlements like Social Security and Medicare are included.
However, while the debt crisis numbers are well known to most Americans, the economy hasn't suffered a major correction for almost 4 years.
So the questions remain: Is the threat of collapse for real? And if so, when?
A team of scientists, economists, and geopolitical analysts believes they have proof that the threat is indeed real – and the danger imminent.
One member of this team, Chris Martenson, a pathologist and former VP of a Fortune 300 company, explains their findings:
"We found an identical pattern in our debt, total credit market, and money supply that guarantees they're going to fail. This pattern is nearly the same as in any pyramid scheme, one that escalates exponentially fast before it collapses. Governments around the globe are chiefly responsible.
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Ingredion Incorporated – Value
Ingredion Incorporated (INGR) touched a new 52-week high of $65.62 on November 27 and has a year-to-date return of about 30%. This maker of starch and sweetener ingredients reported a solid third quarter late last month, including a raised EPS outlook for the full year. In addition to all this, an attractive price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio [...]
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2013 Bond Market Forecast: Is the Bond Bubble Finally About to Burst?
The Federal Reserve's multi-year prescription of targeting super-low interest rates on federal funds, along with various quantitative easing programs, has pushed yields down on all fixed-income instruments to the benefit of issuers and the detriment of investors.
There is little doubt that the Fed's articulated and executed policies have resulted in a bond-bubble with both short and long-term consequences for investors and the economy.
At some point the bond-bubble will burst. But there is no certainty on when that will happen or what ultimately will cause rates to rise.
What investors need to understand is that while yields and bond prices in 2013 could remain flat relative to closing third quarter 2012 measures, yields are unlikely to fall further and prices are unlikely to rally in 2013, with the possible exception of short-term U.S. treasuries.
However, there is the possibility of what I'm calling a "skyfall."
For fixed-income investors this means there is a chance the bond bubble may finally burst.
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Why Ben Bernanke Could Learn a Thing or Two From Mark Carney
Now that President Barack Obama has been reelected, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's easy money policies may well be with us for the next four years.
And even if Obama replaces Bernanke when his term ends in January 2014, he's likely to choose another soft-money acolyte like Fed Vice-chairman Janet Yellen to lead the Fed.
For believers in sound money like me, that's something of a gloomy prospect.
As for the rest of the world, the prospects for higher interest rates don't look too good, either.
However, on Monday I did catch a glimmer of light when it was announced the Bank of England's new Governor is going to be Mark Carney, the former head of the Bank of Canada.
Now I'll be the first to admit that, at first glance, Carney doesn't look too promising.
He did, after all, spend 13 years at Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS). And we all know the track record of Goldman Sachs has been nothing short of appalling.
The bank itself made a bundle by shorting the housing market on the way down and persuaded its alumnus Hank Paulson to bail out its dodgy AIG credit default swaps with $13 billion of taxpayer money.
However, the truth is Carney has been out of Goldman since 2004, and his track record at the Bank of Canada has been very good indeed.
To Carney's credit, he didn't cut interest rates as far as the Fed and has actually raised them part of the way back. What's more, Carney only did $20 billion of "quantitative easing" bond purchases in 2009, at the height of the crisis, and has since sold the extra bonds back to the market.
In the aftermath, Canada's economy has notably outperformed the U.S. economy over the last five years, and continues to do so even though house prices there are currently looking wobbly.
Ben Bernanke could learn a thing or two here.
