Summary Box: Stocks rise as factor orders surge (AP)
August 31, 2011
QUIET END: Stocks edged higher Wednesday on a report that factory orders surged in July. The Dow Jones industrial average turned higher for the year.
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QUIET END: Stocks edged higher Wednesday on a report that factory orders surged in July. The Dow Jones industrial average turned higher for the year. The Dow’s four-day winning streak ended a tumultuous August that had the most 400-point swings in the history of the index.
VOLATILE AUGUST: The Dow, Standard & Poor’s 500 index and Nasdaq composite index each had their worst August since 2001.
THE INDEXES: The Dow rose 53.58 points, or 0.5 percent, to 11,613.53. The S&P 500 rose 5.97, or 0.5 percent, to 1,218.89. The Nasdaq rose 3.35, or 0.1 percent, to 2,579.46.
Canadian suit expands Sino-Forest allegations (Reuters)
August 31, 2011
TORONTO (Reuters) – Sino-Forest is facing accusations in a proposed class-action suit that go beyond fraud allegations that have triggered investigations, its CEO’s resignation and its removal from Toronto’s main stock index. Two Canadian law firms, Koskie Minsky LLP and Siskinds LLP, said on Wednesday they served a statement of claim against Sino-Forest, once the biggest forestry company on the Toronto Stock Exchange
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TORONTO (Reuters) – Sino-Forest is facing accusations in a proposed class-action suit that go beyond fraud allegations that have triggered investigations, its CEO’s resignation and its removal from Toronto’s main stock index.
Two Canadian law firms, Koskie Minsky LLP and Siskinds LLP, said on Wednesday they served a statement of claim against Sino-Forest, once the biggest forestry company on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
The claim, outlined in an 85-page document, is part of C$7 billion proposed class-action suit filed in June against the Chinese forestry company that is suspected of fraud.
Kirk Baert, a partner at Koskie Minsky LLP, said in an interview the fresh allegations stem from investigations carried out over the last six weeks.
The suit targets many of Sino’s senior officers and directors — including its disgraced former chief executive — as well as its auditor Ernst & Young LLP and the financial institutions that underwrote its 2007 and 2009 prospectus offerings.
“This action raises serious questions about how Sino-Forest conducted its business and affairs, and the manner in which it raised capital from public markets,” said Dimitri Lascaris, partner at Siskinds, in a statement.
The Sino-Forest saga is the most prominent of a series of accounting scandals that have tainted the image of Chinese companies listed in North America, prompting trading halts, delistings, lawsuits and regulatory probes in Canada and the United States.
STOCK OPTIONS, AUDITING
Sino-Forest has come under mounting pressure since short-seller Carson Block accused it of fraudulently exaggerating the size of its forestry assets. It set up an independent committee to investigate and expects the results of that probe by year-end.
Like Block’s report, the claim alleges misrepresentations in Sino-Forest’s public disclosures about its tree plantation operations in China.
The document alleges that Sino and three directors and officers, including former Chief Executive Allen Chan, were responsible for the backdating or mispricing stock options, possibly enabling them to enrich themselves unfairly.
Ernst & Young also comes under fire. The documents say Sino rewarded the firm in ways that may have compromised its independence.
“Sino’s practice of appointing E&Y personnel to its board – and paying them handsomely … undermined the audit committee’s oversight of E&Y,” said the document.
The plaintiffs are trustees of the Labourers’ Pension Fund of Central and Eastern Canada and the trustees of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 793 Pension Plan for Operating Engineers in Ontario.
Financial institutions named in the lawsuit include Credit Suisse Securities (Canada) , TD Securities, Dundee Securities Corp, RBC Dominion Securities, Scotia Capital, CIBC World Markets, Merrill Lynch Canada, Canaccord Financial and Maison Placements Canada.
A spokesman for Sino-Forest was not available to comment.
S&P ACTION
Sino-Forest stock has tumbled about 75 percent since Block made his allegations, and Standard & Poor’s said on Tuesday that the company no longer qualifies as a constituent of the S&P/TSX Composite Index, Canada’s benchmark stock index. S&P will drop Sino-Forest from its indexes on September 16.
Last week, the Ontario Securities Commission – Canada’s main securities regulator – halted trading in the stock for 15 days, saying that it appeared that the company and some of its executives had misrepresented revenues and kept bogus accounts.
Sino-Forest said on Sunday that Chan had stepped down and that it had placed three senior employees on administrative leave because of information uncovered in an internal review.
(Editing by Frank McGurty)
Canadian suit expands Sino-Forest allegations (Reuters)
August 31, 2011
TORONTO (Reuters) – Sino-Forest is facing accusations in a proposed class-action suit that go beyond fraud allegations that have triggered investigations, its CEO’s resignation and its removal from Toronto’s main stock index. Two Canadian law firms, Koskie Minsky LLP and Siskinds LLP, said on Wednesday they served a statement of claim against Sino-Forest, once the biggest forestry company on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
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TORONTO (Reuters) – Sino-Forest is facing accusations in a proposed class-action suit that go beyond fraud allegations that have triggered investigations, its CEO’s resignation and its removal from Toronto’s main stock index.
Two Canadian law firms, Koskie Minsky LLP and Siskinds LLP, said on Wednesday they served a statement of claim against Sino-Forest, once the biggest forestry company on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
The claim, outlined in an 85-page document, is part of C$7 billion proposed class-action suit filed in June against the Chinese forestry company that is suspected of fraud.
Kirk Baert, a partner at Koskie Minsky LLP, said in an interview the fresh allegations stem from investigations carried out over the last six weeks.
The suit targets many of Sino’s senior officers and directors — including its disgraced former chief executive — as well as its auditor Ernst & Young LLP and the financial institutions that underwrote its 2007 and 2009 prospectus offerings.
“This action raises serious questions about how Sino-Forest conducted its business and affairs, and the manner in which it raised capital from public markets,” said Dimitri Lascaris, partner at Siskinds, in a statement.
The Sino-Forest saga is the most prominent of a series of accounting scandals that have tainted the image of Chinese companies listed in North America, prompting trading halts, delistings, lawsuits and regulatory probes in Canada and the United States.
STOCK OPTIONS, AUDITING
Sino-Forest has come under mounting pressure since short-seller Carson Block accused it of fraudulently exaggerating the size of its forestry assets. It set up an independent committee to investigate and expects the results of that probe by year-end.
Like Block’s report, the claim alleges misrepresentations in Sino-Forest’s public disclosures about its tree plantation operations in China.
The document alleges that Sino and three directors and officers, including former Chief Executive Allen Chan, were responsible for the backdating or mispricing stock options, possibly enabling them to enrich themselves unfairly.
Ernst & Young also comes under fire. The documents say Sino rewarded the firm in ways that may have compromised its independence.
“Sino’s practice of appointing E&Y personnel to its board – and paying them handsomely … undermined the audit committee’s oversight of E&Y,” said the document.
The plaintiffs are trustees of the Labourers’ Pension Fund of Central and Eastern Canada and the trustees of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 793 Pension Plan for Operating Engineers in Ontario.
Financial institutions named in the lawsuit include Credit Suisse Securities (Canada) , TD Securities, Dundee Securities Corp, RBC Dominion Securities, Scotia Capital, CIBC World Markets, Merrill Lynch Canada, Canaccord Financial and Maison Placements Canada.
A spokesman for Sino-Forest was not available to comment.
S&P ACTION
Sino-Forest stock has tumbled about 75 percent since Block made his allegations, and Standard & Poor’s said on Tuesday that the company no longer qualifies as a constituent of the S&P/TSX Composite Index, Canada’s benchmark stock index. S&P will drop Sino-Forest from its indexes on September 16.
Last week, the Ontario Securities Commission – Canada’s main securities regulator – halted trading in the stock for 15 days, saying that it appeared that the company and some of its executives had misrepresented revenues and kept bogus accounts.
Sino-Forest said on Sunday that Chan had stepped down and that it had placed three senior employees on administrative leave because of information uncovered in an internal review.
(Editing by Frank McGurty)
Just Show Me: How to delete a friend on Facebook (Yahoo! News)
August 31, 2011
Welcome to Just Show Me on Tecca TV, where we show you tips and tricks for getting the most out of the gadgets in your life. In today’s episode we’ll show you how to remove a friend on Facebook
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Welcome to Just Show Me on Tecca TV, where we show you tips and tricks for getting the most out of the gadgets in your life. In today’s episode we’ll show you how to remove a friend on Facebook.
If you’re no longer friends with someone, or just want to clean out your list of Facebook acquaintances, then you can easily remove your Facebook relationship with them. All it takes it a few clicks and you’ll no longer be virtual friends. But if you’re just looking to increase your privacy on Facebook, check out our guide to Facebook privacy — there might be better options than deleting a friend.
As usual, if you have any requests for something you’d like Just Show Me to cover, we want to know about them! Please be sure to let us know in the comments what you want to know.
More from Tecca:
Redbox’s golden opportunity: higher Netflix prices (AP)
August 31, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO – Netflix is giving Redbox a golden opportunity to gain some ground. Beginning Thursday, Netflix, the largest U.S. video subscription service, will hit its nearly 25 million U.S subscribers with rate increases of as much as 60 percent
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SAN FRANCISCO – Netflix is giving Redbox a golden opportunity to gain some ground.
Beginning Thursday, Netflix, the largest U.S. video subscription service, will hit its nearly 25 million U.S subscribers with rate increases of as much as 60 percent. The sticker shock is expected to make Redbox, which rents DVDs for $1 per day through kiosks, even more enticing to movie lovers.
“We are very cognizant of the value of the dollar,” said Gary Cohen, Redbox’s senior vice president of marketing and consumer experience. “Redbox is all about simplicity, convenience and value.”
Netflix Inc.’s higher prices will drive business to video rental chain Blockbuster and other home entertainment rivals too, but none are better positioned to take advantage of the disruption than Redbox, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter.
That’s because millions of people are expected to keep paying for a Netflix service that streams video over high-speed Internet connections, but will look for other places to rent DVDs at a low price. Most people won’t have to go far before coming across a Redbox kiosk; two-thirds of the U.S. population now lives within a five-minute drive of one of the company’s red vending machines, which are largely stationed in Wal-Marts, drug stores, supermarkets and convenience stores.
Netflix, which is based in Los Gatos, has given its subscribers little reason to stray until now. Its service emerged as a household staple during the past few years while bundling rented DVDs through the mail with unlimited Internet video streaming for little as $10 per month. Keeping both of those options will cost $16 per month under Netflix’s new pricing system. Netflix predicts about 10 million customers will avoid the higher prices by limiting their subscriptions to an $8-per-month streaming plan that doesn’t include the latest theatrical releases available on DVD and pay-per-view.
Pachter believes somewhere between 2 million to 3 million customers will simply close their Netflix accounts and abandon the service entirely to protest the higher prices.
Without providing specifics, a Netflix forecast issued in late July acknowledged its higher prices will result in an unusually high cancellation rate. During the past year, Netflix averaged 2.8 million cancellations per quarter. That compared with an average of 5.2 million new subscribers every three months during the same period. Netflix isn’t certain it will attract enough new customers to offset the cancellations in the three months ending in September.
If the projections pan out, a large audience of DVD renters will be up for grabs during the next few months.
The Netflix backlash is expected to be a boon for Redbox mainly because its in-store kiosks have become almost as ubiquitous as the red envelopes that Netflix uses to deliver DVDs.
In the past two years, Redbox owner Coinstar Inc. has more than doubled the number of DVD rental kiosks to 33,300. Compare that to Blockbuster, which is down to 1,500 stores in the U.S. after a bankruptcy filing last year led to its $234 million sale to Dish Network Corp. earlier this year.
Redbox also offers something Netflix doesn’t: video game rentals for $2 per day. It also plans to begin selling an Internet streaming service before the end of the year, but hasn’t provided many details about it yet.
Higher prices may be looming at Redbox too. In June, the company began testing DVD rentals at prices ranging from $1.10 to $1.20 in six markets: Kansas City, Mo.; Phoenix; Charlotte, N.C.; Portland, Ore.; Pittsburgh; and Austin, Texas. Redbox, which is based in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., says it doesn’t plan to raise its prices permanently.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings viewed Redbox as his company’s biggest competitive threat two years ago, but he no longer sees it that way. Hastings now says he is more worried about the Internet streaming options that supplement to pay-TV services, such as those offered by Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Inc.’s HBO.
Neither of those rivals, though, will fill the DVD rental void if more households decide to stop getting their discs from Netflix. Hastings expects Netflix to be delivering DVDs to about 15 million subscribers at the end of September, including about 3 million customers who drop their Internet streaming plans and rent discs exclusively.
Fears of a mass customer defection have contributed to nearly 20 percent drop in Netflix’s stock price since the company announced its higher prices in July. Curiously, Constair’s shares have fallen by about 18 percent during the same period, even though analysts such as Pachter and Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andy Hargreaves are urging investors to buy the company’s shares to take advantage of the anticipated influx of Netflix customers. (Coinstar got 85 percent, or $726 million, of its revenue from Redbox during the first half of this year.) The sharp drop in Coinstar’s market value is being driven by investors who believe DVD rentals are a dying business, Hargreaves said.
Redbox isn’t predicting how many Netflix subscribers it might be able to attract.
Since Netflix announced its price increase, Redbox’s promotional efforts have been limited to discounts offered through cell phones and free movie vouchers distributed through Facebook, where Redbox is more popular than Netflix these days. Redbox’s Facebook page has nearly 3.6 million “likes” compared with 1.8 for Netflix’s Facebook page, which has attracted more than 81,000 mostly outraged comments about the higher prices.
Unlike Netflix, Redbox isn’t a big advertiser. Redbox’s marketing expenses during the first half of this year totaled $10 million compared with $199 million at Netflix. Redbox “probably should be doing more marketing than they have been,” Hargreaves said.
Blockbuster has been more aggressive in its courtship of Netflix customers. Just two days after the higher prices, Blockbuster started offering Netflix free trials and discount offers.
Cohen is confident Redbox will prove irresistible to bargain hunters looking for a little home entertainment.
“Our business is easy to understand and it’s easy to try, especially if customers are disgruntled with something else,” he said.
Anti-corporatists to ‘occupy Wall Street’ for ‘Tahrir moment’
August 31, 2011
Promising a “Tahrir moment,” anti-corporate activists plan to invade and occupy Wall Street in protest against the “financial Gomorrah of America” on September 17. The inital call to action came from the Canadian anti-consumerist publication AdBusters . Since then other groups have given their endorsements and are rallying members via social media to join in the protest
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Promising a “Tahrir moment,” anti-corporate activists plan to invade and occupy Wall Street in protest against the “financial Gomorrah of America” on September 17.
The inital call to action came from the Canadian anti-consumerist publication AdBusters. Since then other groups have given their endorsements and are rallying members via social media to join in the protest.
“On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months,” AdBusters proclaimed. “Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices.”
In an eerie video released Tuesday by the hacker group “Anonymous,” one of the effort’s endorsers, the organization warns Wall Street to prepare for them.
“The abuse and corruption of corporations, banks, and governments ends here,” a voice in the video says. “Join us, we are ‘Anonymous,’ we are legion. We do not forgive, we do not forget. Wall Street, expect us.”
Watch:
The protesters claim corporate influence has corrupted the country, and that their occupation of Wall Street and smaller demonstrations in other financial centers on Sept. 17 will get the message out. (RELATED: Obama requests joint session of Congress to introduce jobs plan on same day as GOP debate)
“[O]ur representatives are bought by hard and soft dollars and we’ve created a system essentially, within our institutions, where disloyal, incompetent, and wasteful special interests can basically usurp and have our nation’s civil and military power,” Alexa O’Brien, founder of US Day of Rage, one of the organizing groups, told The Daily Caller.
According to another coordinating group, Occupy Wall Street, the plan is to use the Arab Spring as a model for change.
“When our leaders can no longer be trusted, it becomes the duty of the people to fight for social justice,” Occupy Wall Street explains on its website. “The Arab Spring tactic has proven itself effective in forcing governments to bow to the will of the people. We believe this tactic can also work in America.”
Leaders of Occupy Wall Street demand that Obama set up a presidential commission to end to corporate influence in Washington, and will stay in the streets, “20,000-strong, week after week against every police and National Guard effort to expel us from Wall Street,” until they reach that end.
Businessmen expecting the protesters to clear out by Monday morning may be disappointed: The group is planning to bring their own shelter, and sustenance to last them weeks.
O’Brian explained that participants are encouraged to bring a tent for shelter and as a symbol.
“Basically, if you read the original call, it calls for people to be down there as long as possible, and also the symbol of a tent is really powerful, it isn’t tearing something down, it’s really building something — a kind of community,” she said.
Bill Csapo, one of the self-described citizen organizers of Occupy Wall Street and a former labor union organizer, told TheDC that thousands of people are likely to descend on Wall Street.
“If you counted up the members of people on each site who have committed to comming, I’d say easily several thousand,” he noted, adding that social media has allowed them to organize what in the past would have taken years to create.
Read more stories from The Daily Caller
Anti-corporatists to ‘occupy Wall Street’ for ‘Tahrir moment’
Ron Paul threatens to object to Obama’s job speech request
Rep. West threatens in letter to leave the Congressional Black Caucus over tea party bashing
Bad news for anyone who ever wanted to hear the words ‘Mayor Alec Baldwin’ uttered non-sarcastically
Labor Secretary: U.S. to ‘protect’ illegal workers
Openwave alleges Apple, RIM infringed patents (Reuters)
August 31, 2011
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Reuters – Software maker Openwave Systems filed a complaint against Apple and Research In Motion on Wednesday, alleging infringement of five of its patents relating to mobile Internet technology.
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[unable to retrieve full-text content]Reuters – Software maker Openwave Systems filed a complaint against Apple and Research In Motion on Wednesday, alleging infringement of five of its patents relating to mobile Internet technology.
Android App Tablet Review: Evernote (Appolicious)
August 31, 2011
With Evernote, there is no need to use notebooks, napkins or the palm of your hand to document your next great idea.
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With Evernote, there is no need to use notebooks, napkins or the palm of your hand to document your next great idea.
Evernote safely stores written notes, to-do lists and even that catchy song you’ve been meaning to download. The free app keeps track of whatever text, images and sounds you input into it. Evernote is also great for clipping web pages and scanning business cards and receipts.
Once your notes are entered into the app, they can be accessed from multiple devices with a free Evernote.com account. So you can furiously type away notes on your Android tablet, and read them later on your PC or smartphone.
Power users seeking additional storage and services can tap into a “Premium” account for $5 per month or $45 per year.
Yet another thing to take note of with this must-have application.
Large Cap Restaurant Status, MCD, CMG, SBUX, YUM, DRI Reports pink-sheets.us
August 31, 2011
Shares of McDonald’s Corporation (MCD) got hit in today’s trading session, moving downwards by 0.56% to $90.27. Shares of McDonald’s Corporation have traded as high as $91.22 per share and as low as $72.14 in the last year
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Large Cap Restaurant Status, MCD, CMG, SBUX, YUM, DRI Reports pink-sheets.us
Services Stocks Providing a Disservice, ZLC, LGF, CLUB, PIR, MIND Reports Pink-sheets.info
August 31, 2011
Shares of Zale Corporation (ZLC) fell off a cliff in today’s trading.
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Services Stocks Providing a Disservice, ZLC, LGF, CLUB, PIR, MIND Reports Pink-sheets.info
