Microblogging service Twitter is in advanced talks with Google Inc and Microsoft Corp about licensing its data feed to the companies’ search engines, a Web blog associated with the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
Twitter’s discussions with Microsoft and Google are being conducted separately and would allow each company to incorporate the 140-character messages, or “tweets,” that Twitter is known for into their Internet search results.
The ability to cull through the flood of tweets as they are posted, known as real time search, is gaining popularity as an important new way to search the Internet for up-to-the-minute information on the latest news events and happenings.
The AllThingsDigital blog quoted unidentified sources as saying the companies are discussing several types of deals. Details could include Twitter receiving a payment of several million dollars and various types of revenue-sharing agreements to allow Twitter to benefit from the ad revenue that Microsoft and Google generate from search results cash advances pay day loan.
Twitter has emerged as one of the fastest-growing Internet social media services. But the company has yet to generate any significant revenue from its free service. Twitter has cited advertising and premium features as two potential money-making plans.
Last month, Twitter received $100 million in new funding from investors including T.Rowe Price and Insight Venture Partners, based on a $1 billion valuation for Twitter, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Representatives from Twitter were not immediately available for comment. Google and Microsoft declined to comment.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
Rupert Murdoch, head of media giant News Corp, met LG Electronics Inc executives in the South Korean capital on Wednesday, and was due to discuss news and movie content with Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, according to sources and local media.
News Corp may be on the lookout for opportunities in the fast-changing South Korean media sector, where deregulation will open the door for major newspapers to expand into broadcasting, media reports have said.
LG Electronics confirmed that Murdoch, whose media empire includes The Wall Street Journal and Fox television, met executives including CEO Nam Yong to discuss “business matters.”
“We have no specific plans,” Nam told Reuters when asked what the talks had been about.
Murdoch was due later to meet Lee Jae-yong, son of former Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-hee, and Choi Gee-sung, head of digital media at Samsung, said an industry source, who asked not to be named.
Yonhap News earlier reported Murdoch and Samsung officials were expected to discuss selling news and movie content in South Korea through Samsung’s broadband TVs.
Murdoch was previously in Japan for talks with several corporate and political leaders, including Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, according to a source familiar with the matter but who was not authorized to talk to the media.
Murdoch said in August he was unhappy with Amazon.com’s control of relationships with newspaper subscribers for its Kindle electronic reader, and might seek a better deal with rival e-reader maker Sony Corp.
A spokesman for Samsung declined to confirm any plans related to News Corp. Sony officials would not confirm whether company executives met the media mogul.
A Dow Jones spokesman declined to provide details of Murdoch’s Asian schedule, but said “Mr. Murdoch is stopping in South Korea for a very brief, private visit en route to Beijing.”
Murdoch will also visit the Panmunjom truce village in the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) on Thursday, a military official in Seoul said.
He is due to leave South Korea late on Thursday and head to China, where he will attend a media summit in Beijing later this week.
(Additional reporting by Kim Yeon-hee, Lee Chang-ho and Jon Herskovitz in SEOUL, editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Ian Geoghegan)
Firms ranging from airlines to agribusiness would be exempt from new rules on compulsory clearing of derivatives transactions under a bill in Congress aimed at tightening oversight of the financial system.
The draft bill from Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, was being circulated among lawmakers on Monday amid concern that an effort to regulate the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market could hurt nonfinancial firms that use it.
The $450-trillion OTC derivatives market, used to hedge against risk and speculate on prices, is widely blamed for amplifying the 2008-2009 financial crisis and authorities worldwide are debating approaches to regulating it.
Nonfinancial firms ranging from rural electric cooperatives to airlines have voiced concerns about capital and liquidity constraints they might face if they too had to front collateral to meet margin requirements involved in centralized clearing.
Frank’s bill exempts derivative swaps from new rules requiring centralized clearing, meant to bring more visibility to the market, if “one of the counterparties to the swap is not a swap dealer or major market participant.” Exempted transactions would have to be reported to authorities, under the bill.
In late August, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Gary Gensler, whose agency will play a key role in policing OTC derivatives, proposed more OTC derivatives face mandatory clearing, including non-financial firms or so-called end users.
Frank said last week his committee will deal in mid-October with OTC derivatives legislation. He predicted the panel would move a bill to the House floor by the end of the month. His committee will hold a public hearing on Wednesday on reform of the OTC derivatives market. Witnesses will include Gensler.
The Senate has not yet taken up the issue, on which debate is likely to continue for several months.
In addition to exempting some end users from compulsory clearing, the Frank bill would empower regulators to ban swaps deemed “abusive” or bad for market stability and participants.
AGGREGATE DATA TARGETED
Further, it would require the CFTC to make public aggregate data on swap trading volumes and positions. It would authorize the CFTC to set position limits on commodity contracts, and on swap contracts “that perform or affect a significant price discovery function,” said a bill summary obtained by Reuters.
In deciding if a swap has a price-discovery function, the CFTC would have to look at price linkage, arbitrage and other factors, while the agency could exempt any swap or transaction from position limit requirements, the summary said.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), another key regulator, could set limits on the size of positions in any security-based swap, with similar latitude on exemptions.
The SEC would also have to publicize “aggregate data on security-based swap trading volumes and positions.”
The Frank draft begins to narrow the terms of a months-old debate about how to categorize portions of the sprawling OTC derivatives market and what to do with each category.
One steady bit of good economic news: Inflation remains near zero. So who would want to pay extra these days to add a dose of inflation protection in their portfolio?
Plenty of people. It turns out sales are hot for Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, a common hedge against rising prices known by their acronym TIPS.
New money from investors and market gains have boosted total assets in mutual funds investing in TIPS nearly 36 percent so far this year, according to Morningstar Inc.
It’s part of a broader shift by many investors who have been scared away by stocks, despite the market’s hefty rebound from its March low. They’ve been piling into the greater safety of bonds, and TIPS — while not without risk — are about as safe as you can get.
The value of the underlying investment in TIPS rises with inflation, providing an additional layer of protection beyond what Treasury bonds offer.
Hardly anyone expects inflation to re-emerge as a big threat anytime soon, so TIPS aren’t necessarily the best short-term investment. But historically low interest rates and the federal government’s growing deficit are expected to drive prices higher, especially once the economy truly gets back on its feet and spending rebounds.
Here are some common questions and answers about TIPS:
How do TIPS work?
Introduced by the government in 1997, TIPS are a type of Treasury bond — investments that are super-safe, provided you believe the government will continue to make good on its credit obligations.
TIPS adjust their yield based on changes in the Consumer Price Index. The principal in TIPS adjusts every six months. The so-called "coupon" rises when inflation grows, and decreases in the less-likely instance of deflation. When the bond matures, you’re paid the adjusted principal or the original principal, whichever is greater. TIPS are sold in maturities of five, 10 and 20 years.
Investors in "nominal" Treasury bonds get a fixed rate of return if they hold the bonds until they mature. For example, 10-year Treasury notes are now yielding about 3.32 percent per year.
On the other hand, 10-year TIPS are yielding 1.55 percent, which doesn’t seem so good, until you consider what havoc inflation might wreak online payday loans. The difference — or "break-even rate" — between those two numbers is 1.77 percentage points. That suggests investors are expecting inflation will average 1.77 percent per year over the next 10 years. So if inflation exceeds that amount and erodes Treasuries’ current 3.32 percent yield, TIPS investors will be glad they paid for the protection.
Inflation had historically averaged 2 to 3 percent until falling to near zero when the market tanked last fall and deflation fears set in.
How have TIPS’ values held up lately?
Inflation and interest rate expectations are constantly changing, which is reflected in the prices traders are willing to pay for TIPS. Lately, TIPS have generally been seen as a good deal. Mutual funds investing in TIPS have returned an average of 8.63 percent so far this year, according to Morningstar. That puts TIPS in the middle of the performance pack among fixed-income fund categories.
How can I buy TIPS?
TIPS are available for purchase from the Treasury at http://www.treasurydirect.gov to avoid brokerage fees. If you’re not sure you can keep the bond until maturity and are nervous about managing your investment over time, you can buy into a mutual fund that focuses on TIPS, or an exchange-traded fund. Like TIPS mutual funds, TIPS ETFs hold baskets of TIPS with varying maturities but can be traded like a stock.
TIPS appear to carry little risk. Is that the case?
Any bond is subject to risk from rising interest rates, and TIPS are no exception. If the Fed boosts interest rates faster than inflation grows, or before inflation sets in, TIPS’ values will erode.
They also can be hit in a falling market, as happened last fall. Many institutional investors had to come up with cash to meet clients’ orders to pull out their money, forcing them to sell their most liquid investments. TIPS often fit the bill, and massive TIPs sales reduced prices. But as seen this year, they’ve bounced back.
Alan Webber, former St. Louisan, co-founder of Fast Company business magazine and author of "Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Yourself," was back in St. Louis last month to speak to the St. Louis group of Southern Illinois University business school alumni.
Webber writes that "Rules of Thumb" originated as notes on 3×5 cards when a business leader said something insightful, those ah-ha moments that you remember and get you thinking.
In the spirit of the book, the answers in this week’s Five Questions are abbreviated so they could be on 3×5 cards (well, maybe spilling over onto both sides).
As a native St. Louisan back in the city, what do you think of how St. Louis has changed and what lies ahead?
When I was working in the mayor’s office in Portland, we believed that downtown is the heart of the city, and neighborhoods have to have a stake in downtown’s success. The mayor went to Seattle and talked with the Nordstrom folks and sketched out where a store might be built in downtown. That store was an iconic project, and it got the backing of the community.
St. Louis needs an iconic project that the community will buy into and support.
In "Rules of Thumb" I use the metaphor of Zoysia grass. The growth spreads out from one plug that takes root and grows. A great example is Delmar Boulevard and what Joe Edwards has done and what has sprung up from what was one restaurant, Blueberry Hill.
How do you make innovation a part of workplace culture?
Creative ideas often come from other places. In Fast Company we had a piece that interviewed a NASCAR pit crew leader on team building, and another focused on a Native American chief on the importance of tribe because a company’s employees are a tribe.
What’s your take on how newspapers might be able to survive and maybe even thrive again?
Storytelling is important. There are so many ways you can connect with readers so that they feel that it’s time well spent. A newspaper should deliver not what’s nice to know, but what one needs to know no teletrack payday loans.
Rule 15 in the book is all about innovation. It suggests that there are four keys to innovation: Chance, connections, conversations and community. Newspapers have a huge opportunity to harness the energy and imagination of their readers.
A newspaper is no longer a one-way communication. It’s a conversation.
It’s an exciting time. Newspapers aren’t ever going to go back to their glory days. They have to reinvent themselves. And someone somewhere is going to go find something that works and show everyone else the way.
In your book, you write that when interviewing business leaders you often got the most revealing answers when you asked "What keeps you up at night?" and "What gets you up in the morning?" So what keeps you up at night?
The state of education in America worries me. In Santa Fe, where I live, 50 percent of students drop out before graduating. In Los Angeles, the number is even higher. The superintendent there said recently, "I don’t know why we keep trying the status quo because it’s obviously not working."
We need to find a way to engage the community to find something that begins to solve this massive urban problem. Otherwise, people vote with their feet — people choose to raise their kids where there are good schools, and that means cities are losing jobs. The smartest cities are talent magnets.
What would be your 53rd Rule of Thumb?
In the book, I left the 53rd Rule of Thumb blank so readers could write in their own. But I learned a lesson recently while hiking in the Grand Canyon. It’s a core rule of hiking. At the bottom of the canyon is the Phantom Ranch, and as you hike up to the rim of the canyon it’s important that you don’t look up. In business and life, when you are faced with a challenge, take things one step at a time. Focus on what’s in front of you. And you’ll get where you’re going one step at a time.
Initial public offerings will rebound only in 2010, despite a pick-up in activity that some investors say signal a resurgence, the National Venture Capital Association said on Thursday.
For those encouraged by such signs as the $340.4 million raised by battery maker A123 Systems Inc in its recent IPO, the trade association’s message in its quarterly report is that total IPOs “fell far short of historical norms.”
Three venture-backed IPOs worth a total $572 million were launched in the third quarter, down from the second quarter’s five deals worth $720 million.
“The fact that the many in the media are classifying three IPOs as a resurgence is evidence of how low our expectations have become,” NVCA President Mark Heesen said in a statement.
Still, that was more than the one deal worth $187 million in the third quarter last year.
The figures, based on an exit poll conducted by the association and Thomson Reuters, also showed acquisitions down from last quarter.
The third quarter had 62 acquisitions with a total disclosed value of $1.2 billion, less than half the second quarter’s 64 deals worth $2.5 billion. The 2008 third quarter had 88 deals worth $3 billion.
The dip in acquisitions “is not the direction we hoped to see. While the psychology of the market is trending positive, our original forecast of a true recovery not beginning until 2010 still unfortunately holds true,” Heesen said in a statement.
Dow Jones VentureSource put out its own numbers on third quarter deals on Thursday. Its findings were similar to the NVCA, but using a different methodology found that venture-backed liquidity was $2.7 billion in the third quarter, down 49 percent from the $5.32 billion of one year ago.
The director of global research for Dow Jones also took a more optimistic view than Heesen. Jessica Canning said she saw “signs of a significant thaw.”
“The trickle of venture-backed IPOs over the past two quarters appears to be growing into a steady stream, which is a welcome sign of recovery for investors,” she said.
The National Venture Capital association showed that so far in 2009, IPOs and acquisitions total up to $5.7 billion. By the same time last year, there had been $12.3 billion in deals, nearly all in acquisitions.
The report said the A123 Systems offering was the largest since March 2007, a year in which there were 86 venture-backed IPOs. That was a peak year since the dot-com bust of 2001.
The other two third-quarter IPOs were LogMeIn Inc, a provider of remote access applications, which raised $106.7 million in the communications and media sector, and Cumberland Pharmaceuticals Inc, a specialty pharmaceutical company in Nashville, Tennessee, which raised $85 million.
As for prospective IPOs, Heesen said that many companies with plans had failed to take an important step — registering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
(Reporting by David Lawsky; Editing by Richard Chang)
A U.S. congressional panel is expanding its probe of credit rating agencies to look at why securities regulators ignored warnings from former Moody’s Corp executives about the company’s weak compliance department and ratings process.
Rep. Edolphus Towns, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, criticized the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to investigate allegations Moody’s managers were eager to curry favor with customers by assigning favorable ratings to their products.
“I am concerned by the SEC’s inaction after receiving Mr. McCleskey’s letter containing serious allegations of wrongdoing at Moody’s,” Towns said, referring to Scott McCleskey, who was dismissed as Moody’s senior vice president of compliance in 2008. McCleskey sent the SEC a letter in March 2009 detailing his concerns.
“Mr. McCleskey’s allegations indicate troubling behavior that requires oversight by the SEC,” Towns said.
Top executives from the largest credit agencies — Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s — were to testify later on Wednesday at a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing. The panel is considering legislation that would curtail rating companies’ practices and expose them to greater liability.
The rating firms “played a starring role in the collapse of the financial system last year,” because they failed to capture the true risk of securities linked to poorly written mortgages, Towns said.
Moody’s has born the brunt of criticism recently. Its stock has lost roughly one-fourth of its value in the past two weeks and shares were down 6 percent to $19.55 in late morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
McCleskey testified at the hearing, flanked by another former Moody’s executive, Eric Kolchinsky, and by Moody’s current chief credit officer, Richard Cantor. The three men sat at the same table and Cantor stared straight ahead as his former colleagues described their concerns to the lawmakers.
McCleskey said Moody’s ignored his warnings that the company failed to properly monitor municipal bond ratings. The company also spurned his suggestion to erect a firewall between the compliance department and its revenue-generating units, he said.
Kolchinsky, a recently suspended managing director at Moody’s, told lawmakers that Moody’s compliance group was understaffed and lacked independence. Kolchinsky alleged that the firm knowingly issued misleading ratings on complex securities and that analysts were “bullied” by managers who overrode their decisions to protect revenue.
“Kolchinsky tried to tell the SEC about his concerns but his calls were not returned,” according to a memo prepared by Republican members of the committee and obtained by Reuters.
Cantor told lawmakers that Moody’s recently hired an independent law firm to review Kolchinsky’s allegations.
ANOTHER BLACK MARK FOR SEC?
Allegations that the SEC ignored the whistleblowers’ concerns could be another black mark against the regulator, which is still reeling from its failure to uncover Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion investment scam.
An SEC spokesman has said the agency has established an examination program for credit rating agencies that includes reviews of disclosures, policies, and procedures regarding municipal securities ratings.
Powered by WordPress -- XHTML 1.0