Bringing intellectual property protectionism to a new level of absurdity, someone has applied to trademark 'Occupy Wall Street.'
From The Smoking Gun: Citing the potential of “Occupy Wall Street” to become a “global brand,” a Long Island couple has filed to trademark the name of the amorphous organization responsible for the protests and encampments in lower Manhattan and other U.S. cities, The Smoking Gun has learned. In a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) application, Robert and Diane Maresca are seeking to trademark the phrase “Occupy Wall St.” so that they can place it on a wide variety of goods, including bumper stickers, shirts, beach bags, footwear, umbrellas, and hobo bags.
From The Smoking Gun: Citing the potential of “Occupy Wall Street” to become a “global brand,” a Long Island couple has filed to trademark the name of the amorphous organization responsible for the protests and encampments in lower Manhattan and other U.S. cities, The Smoking Gun has learned. In a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) application, Robert and Diane Maresca are seeking to trademark the phrase “Occupy Wall St.” so that they can place it on a wide variety of goods, including bumper stickers, shirts, beach bags, footwear, umbrellas, and hobo bags.
MF Global Holdings Inc ( NYSE : MF ) loose as much as 47% in tuesday's trading session as company announced a second quarter loss.
MF Global (NYSE: MF) opened at $3.31. Over the last 52 weeks the stock has ranged from a low of $3.48 to a high of $9.28. The stock dove after the company reported a loss for its second quarter. Option players also flocked to the stock and volume was 24.63 times normal with 22,879 contracts changing hands. More than 71% of Tuesday's volume was in puts. Technical indicators for the stock are and S&P does not currently have a STARS rating for MF. If you are looking for a hedged play on MF the stock seems like it could be a candidate for a December out-of-the-money bear-call credit spread above the 3 range
Amazon Inc ( NASDAQ: AMZN ) was down more than 4 % in regular trading session on Tuesday and loose as much as 15 % in after hours trade. Traders and Investors are betting that company's profit is deteriorating as company announced 73 % less profit in Q3 and issued a guidance below analysts' expectations. Stock was hit hard and close after hour session at $198.89, more than 12 % down after market close.
More bearish bets have been made on this online e commerce company and might see more down side as sentiment might worsen about this particular stock.
Below is the news release:
The earnings decline was far worse than Wall Street had expected from the e-commerce giant. That — along with a weak profitability forecast for the fourth quarter — sparked a sell-off in after-hours trading that pinched about 12% from the company’s stock, which had already slipped more than 4% in the regular session to close at $227.15.
Colin Sebastian of Robert W. Baird said the fact that Amazon’s missed Wall Street’s earnings target is not new, but noted that revenue results also came in slightly below analysts’ forecasts — a change from previous quarters.
“The lack of upside in revenue combined with guidance that looks pretty conservative is going to pressure the stock for the time being,” Sebastian said in an interview.
For the period ended Sept. 30, Amazon AMZN -12.44% reported net income of $63 million, or 14 cents a share, compared to net income of $231 million, or 51 cents a share, for the same period the previous year.
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Revenue jumped 44% to $10.88 billion.
Analysts were expecting earnings of 24 cents a share on revenue of $10.95 billion for the quarter, according to consensus forecasts from FactSet Research.
The company reported operating income of $79 million for the quarter, a drop of 70% from last year’s third quarter and well below Wall Street’s forecast of $149.7 million. That put operating margin for the period at a relatively anemic 0.7%. Operating expenses jumped by 48% for the quarter.
Amazon added about 8,100 workers during the quarter, which Sebastian noted as a significant growth in the company’s headcount, which now numbers 51,300 workers.
“This fast pace of growth is costing Amazon a lot of money,” Sebastian said. “No one is going to really challenge Amazon, but the pace of their growth may be in question. In this environment, at this multiple, that’s not good enough.”
The company said Tuesday that it is adding a total of 17 fulfillment centers this year, up two from its previously disclosed plan. Fulfillment expenses soared by 65% in the third quarter, with a 74% gain in expenses related to technology and content.
For the fourth-quarter, Amazon projected a revenue range of $16.45 billion to $18.65 billion, compared to Wall Street’s forecast of $18.15 billion.
“We don’t view these results as thesis-changing,” Citi analyst Mark Mahaney wrote in an email, noting that Amazon s spending “seems clearly elective/discretionary/offensive against very large market opportunities.”
But he added that “we are surprised that the Q4 revenue guide isn’t more robust.”
The profitability line for the fourth quarter is expected to come in between an operating loss of $200 million and operating earnings of $250 million, implying a targeted operating margin range of 1.3% at the top end of the forecast. Analysts had been expecting an operating margin of 2.7% for the period.
Amazon is planning to launch its new Kindle Fire tablet in the middle of the fourth quarter. Analysts generally expect the device to boost sales, but its low price tag of $199 has some concerned that it may pressure margins even more during the crucial holiday period.
Scott Devitt of Morgan Stanley says he currently expects Amazon to sell about 2.8 million units of the tablet in the fourth-quarter. “Short of material disruption of the business model in the seasonally strongest quarter of the year, we believe the guidance is light provided the sales impact of the Kindle Fire,” he wrote in a report Tuesday afternoon. ( Source: MarketWatch )
The next time you get your phone bill, check the total amount due. If it’s a little higher than usual, you may have fallen prey to an identity theft scam known as “cramming,” in which unauthorized fees are charged to a customer’s land line or cell phone account. The crammer gets away with it because the fees are usually too small to notice.
Those small charges can add up: Cramming costs Americans as much as $2 million a year, according to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
Crammers ply their trade through third-party billing. Carriers, including AT&T and Verizon Communications, allow users to charge third-party services to their phone bills, and they receive more than $1 billion a year to do so by third-party providers.
Scammers steal a telephone customer’s personal information, and then tell the carrier that they’ve provided a billable service to the victim. After giving the carrier the victim’s information, the charge is authorized. While the service may be nonexistent, the fraudulent charges are very real.
It’s not just individuals who need to be wary. Businesses are also popular targets for crammers, because their monthly bills are so complicated and the average office is too hectic an environment for every bill to receive close scrutiny.
“With today’s economy, where employees are often doing the job of two or more people, bills are not audited as closely as they may have been in the past,” according to Michael Bremmer, CEO of Telecomquotes.com. He notes that crammers often add fraudulent charges to a single business under multiple names and in varying amounts, thereby obscuring their identities and making it harder for auditors to detect.
Businesses and individuals alike can take actions to protect themselves from cramming. Susan Grant, director of consumer protection for the watchdog group Consumer Federation of America, recommends avoiding free trial offers, whose buy-now-pay-later structure is not always disclosed.
“The way that these offers are structured is that after the trial period is over, the charges begin,” she says. Grant also recommends that consumers simply take the time to closely examine their bills every month in order to detect third-party charges that they don’t recognize.
Of course, the most effective way to guard against cramming is to make sure it doesn’t happen in the first place. Customers can instruct their carriers to block all third-party charges on both cell phone and land line accounts, but even those who have found unauthorized charges on their bills can still take action.
“Contact both the third party company — as they provide their customer-service number on the invoice — and the local phone company which allowed the charges to be applied,” says Steve Reifel, president of business consulting firm Cost Containment Solutions. “Issue a formal complaint with the carrier, as they will remove from the invoice and block that company from issuing any further charges.”
Telephone customers who want to go further than their own carriers can also contact their elected representatives and tell them to pass legislation to end the practice of third-party billing. Contact information for all 540 members of the 112th Congress can be found at the "Contact Elected Officials" page of the USA.gov website.
News Highlights - Week of 10 - 14 October 2011
Last week the Philippines accepted a total of US$1.3 billion in a buyback of EUR- and US$-denominated bonds. In line with the buyback exercise, the government raised US$50 million through the reopening of its bonds maturing on 23 October 2034 with a coupon of 6.375%. The Bureau of the Treasury also launched its second retail treasury bond offering of the year. On the corporate front, Banco De Oro Unibank Inc. issued PHP6.5 billion worth of unsecured subordinated notes that qualify as Tier 2 capital. Finally, in response to the weakening global economy the Philippine government unveiled a PHP72.1 billion fiscal stimulus package to boost the country's growth through the first half of 2012.
*In the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Ministry of Railways sold CNY10 billion worth of 5-year bonds and CNY10 billion worth of 20-year bonds. These bonds qualify for the 50% reduction in the tax on interest income as recently announced by the National Development Reform Council. The Export-Import Bank of Korea issued KRW170 billion worth of 1-year zero-coupon bonds and Shinhan Bank issued KRW100 billion of 2-year bonds. In Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur Kepong sold MYR300 million worth of 5-year Islamic bonds, while TRIplc issued MYR240 million worth of medium-term notes in several tranches that were guaranteed by Danajamin Nasional.
*Bank Indonesia's Board of Governors cut the benchmark rate by 25 basis points to 6.50% in its meeting on 11 October. The Bank of Korea's Monetary Policy Committee decided to maintain its 7-day repurchase rate at 3.25% in its meeting on 13 October. The Monetary Authority of Singapore announced that it will continue with a policy of modest and gradual appreciation of the Singapore dollar, but will reduce the slope of the policy band to the prevailing level of the nominal effective exchange rate.
*Inflation in the PRC fell in September to 6.1% year-on-year (y-o-y) from 6.2% in August. Growth in the PRC's producer price index also eased to 6.5% y-o-y from 7.3% in August.
*Singapore's economy expanded 5.9% y-o-y in 3Q11, according to advance estimates released last week by the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Meanwhile, Malaysia's industrial production index rose 3.0% y-o-y in August following a revised 0.5% y-o-y decline in July. Also, manufacturing sales posted 10.8% y-o-y growth in August compared with revised 9.5% growth in July.
*The PRC posted a trade surplus of US$14.5 billion in September, the smallest since May, due to weakening demand from developed economies. Export growth fell to 17.1% y-o-y in September from 24.5% in August. In the Philippines, exports fell 15.1% y-o-y to US$4.1 billion in August, the steepest decline since September 2009.
*The M3 money supply in the Philippines grew 9.4% y-o-y to PHP4.3 trillion in August. Liquidity was fueled by the expansion of net foreign assets at a pace of 21.7% y-o-y on sustained inflows from overseas Filipino remittances and portfolio and direct investments.
*Government bond yields fell for all tenors in Indonesia and for most tenors in the PRC, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam. The yield spread between the 2-year and 10-year maturities narrowed for most emerging East Asian markets while it widened for Hong Kong, China; Malaysia, and Thailand.
The U.S. State Department on Thursday said it could not confirm that former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has been captured and wounded in both legs.
Muammer Gaddafi "We've seen the media reports but can't confirm them," State Department spokeswoman Beth Gosselin told Reuters. Reuters reported that the deposed Libyan leader had been captured and wounded in both legs, citing National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid. "He's captured. He's wounded in both legs... He's been taken away by ambulance," the senior NTC military official told Reuters by telephone.
Gaddafi was captured and wounded near his hometown of Sirte at dawn on Thursday as he tried to flee in a convoy which NATO warplanes attacked, Majid said. The senior NTC military official told Reuters by telephone that the head of Gaddafi's armed forces Abu Bakr Younus Jabr had been killed during the capture of the Libyan ex-leader.
Muammer Gaddafi "We've seen the media reports but can't confirm them," State Department spokeswoman Beth Gosselin told Reuters. Reuters reported that the deposed Libyan leader had been captured and wounded in both legs, citing National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid. "He's captured. He's wounded in both legs... He's been taken away by ambulance," the senior NTC military official told Reuters by telephone.
Gaddafi was captured and wounded near his hometown of Sirte at dawn on Thursday as he tried to flee in a convoy which NATO warplanes attacked, Majid said. The senior NTC military official told Reuters by telephone that the head of Gaddafi's armed forces Abu Bakr Younus Jabr had been killed during the capture of the Libyan ex-leader.
Debt Champions
In the past (Q4) quarter, AAPL increased its cash, short and long-term investments from $76.2 billion to $81.6 billion (which, however, skeptics will point out was only half the cash growth rate from Q2 to Q3). In 2011 alone, the company that Steve Jobs built generated $22 billion in total cash. Ironically, that is precisely how much the company's market cap is lower by in the after hours session. If AAPL is unsure what to do with all that cash, which would make it the world's biggest hedge fund, it could hire all the stock experts on Twitter, and become the best funded trading operation in the world, which would naturally be buying its own stock all day long (and, if it were to hire a few JPM/BofA/MS traders, buy CDS on itself). Alas, for the CDS plan to work, it would need to issue some debt: the company is still completely debt free.
