Author: Tim Frederick

The  jolt SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY)’s stock received in early trading yesterday has shorted out in short order, with the stock dropping over $5.00 at one point in early trading today from its Wednesday high, before closing at $61.96, down 1.71% for the day. The Street, which rates SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY) a sell, questioned how the stock would react today after it made huge gains in early trading yesterday following their fourth debt offering of the year. The $500 million debt offering , in convertible senior notes, will have an annual interest rate of 1.625%, and will expire in 2019. SolarCity…

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)’s planned $48.5 billion purchase of DIRECTV (NASDAQ:DTV) has been nearly unanimously approved by shareholders of the latter company. Investors representing approximately 77% of the satellite provider’s shares took part in the vote according to Bloomberg, with 99% of them voting in favor of the sale to AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T). The AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) proposal, which gives DIRECTV (NASDAQ:DTV) shareholders $95 per share in cash and stock ($28.50 and $66.50 respectively), offering a premium of about 10% over their Thursday close of $86.39. Including DIRECTV (NASDAQ:DTV)’s net debt, the total value of the deal climbs to $67.1 billion.…

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) is dominating the chipmaking sector and dominating the stock market now as a result, boasting the biggest boost on the DOW this year of 31.9%. As Bloomberg reported in  a detailed story today, the company has made major gains since coming under the direction of CEO Brian Krzanich 16 months ago, which includes a focus on heading off competition and recognizing future threats or challenges. One of the largest such threats would be a major data server like Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s making the move to another system, which Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) has anticipated and worked to counter…

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s Kindle Unlimited subscription book service has made the journey across the Atlantic to the U.K, where it’s being met with concern from authors and publishers over its implications for their earnings. The Guardian reported on the Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX)-style service’s launch today. The service charges £7.99 a month, and allows users unlimited (as the name implies) access to all of the books available through the service, which includes major titles like Harry Potter and Hunger Games. In all, more than 650,000 books and 2,000 audio books will available for user’s to read (or listen) their way through.…

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has suffered a counter-attack from Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in what is shaping up to be a very public war of words over privacy. Speaking over the developments on CNBC today, Daily Mail North America CEO Jon Steinberg agreed with the comments made by Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) CEO Eric Schmidt, and said that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook was out of line. “Well what makes sense to me is that Tim Cook, who just had a major breach of information on iCloud, and has iAd which has not been that successful, and had it been successful they…

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)’s desperate attempt to channel some of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s current mojo into its own social media platform could end up having a disastrous impact on the service opined Jon Evans of TechCrunch on Saturday. Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)’s CFO reportedly stated rather matter-of-factly that a Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)-esque, algorithm-based system would eventually find its way to our Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) feeds, determining for us which tweets were more relevant than others and displaying them at the top, as opposed to using the reverse chronological order that has always been the hallmark of the service (and one of its…

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T)’s planned $48.5 billion proposal to acquire DIRECTV (NASDAQ:DTV) is now on the radar of the attorneys general of several states, including New York, Florida, and California. Fox Business News’ Liz MacDonald reported on the government’s involvement today on Fox Business. “What’s happening here is that the AG’s (attorney generals) and the Department of Justice are scrutinizing whether prices will go up for customers. AT&T’s TV streaming services are in about a quarter of U.S homes . They’re also worried of course about content delivery and whether broadband speeds would slow down because of the merger. These are…

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) coverage was initiated by Suntrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Bob Peck on Wednesday, with the streaming video service given a neutral rating and a price target of $525. While the price target has quite a bit of room to the upside, about 8% based on Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX)’s current value, Peck expressed hesitancy concerning the stock on CNBC yesterday, citing the baked-in expectations that the stock has, and some of the other fears that surround the cost of its future operations. “It reminds us a little bit of our initiation of Yelp. When we initiated $100, we thought…

Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI) may have sold as many as 5 million copies of their newly released shooter Destiny yesterday according to Wedbush Securities Analyst Michael Pachter, one of the leading gaming analysts. Speaking to Bloomberg yesterday, Pachter divulged that 10 million copies of the highly anticipated game have been shipped to retail, and that probably half of them were sold on day one, despite the lack of reviews available for the title. “You may notice that there are no reviews out yet on Destiny, and the reason for that, I actually spoke to the editor-in-chief of Game Informer last…

Zillow Inc (NASDAQ:Z)’s CEO Spencer Rascoff on Monday unleashed a series of tweets about the nature of IPO offerings in what is colloquially called a “twitterstorm”. The 25-tweet barrage, which included direct references to several companies, may have made the board members of other companies break out in a cold sweat, but according to Rascoff, that’s simply representative of the culture that surrounds Zillow Inc (NASDAQ:Z). He spoke with CNBC today about his use of Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) and IPO’s. “This is the way Zillow was run and this is what Zillow is all about. Zillow was about information transparency.…

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) had a lot to live up to today at their large event unveiling several new products, including one completely new product category, and according to CNBC’s Josh Lipton, who attended the event, they did just that during an event that “felt like a rock show” at times. He recounted the experience on CNBC today. “You saw this kind of rush to get inside, you walked into this auditorium, at least a couple thousand people, tremendous amount of energy, of enthusiasm, it felt like a rock show at certain points especially when Tim Cook took the stage, he…

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) may be in the process of mounting an under-the-radar challenge to YouTube in video. While much has been made of Amazon’s recent purchase of Twitch and the challenge it may signal to YouTube coming from the online retail giant, as Re/Code reported today, a more imminent and worrisome challenge is being launched by Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB). The initial growth in video views on Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) was a result of the social media giant’s switch to autoplaying videos last fall. From there they slowly ramped up video playback for those users who seemed to be engaged in…