World Markets Simplified

( Source: Biospace )

( Source: fast company )

3) Enstar Group ( NASDAQ: ESGR) coverage initiated with outperform by FBR Capital.

4) USA Tech ( NASDAQ: USAT) coverage initiated with outperform by Northland Securities.

Zales Corporation

(AP) Diamond retailer Zale Corp. said its net loss shrank in its most recent quarter and posted a double-digit revenue gain despite increasing costs for gold, silver and diamonds.

Zale's revenue tumbled during the recession, hurt by tight credit and high unemployment. It has closed hundreds of stores over the past few years and shuffled top management. The company said in February that its Christmas holiday quarter had marked a turning point because a key sales measure turned positive, rising 7.9 percent.

That statistic excludes revenue growth in stores that have opened or closed in the past year. In the February-April quarter, revenue in sales open at least a year accelerated, climbing 15.2 percent compared to a decrease of 2.2 percent during the same months a year ago.

The improvement helped push up overall revenue 14.5 percent in the three months that ended on April 30, to $411.8 million from $359.8 million last year. That topped analyst expectations of $392 million.

"We continue to make progress in our multi-year initiatives to return the company to profitability," SCEO Theo Killion said in a statement.

Zale posted a net loss for the three months that ended on April 30 of $9 million, or 28 cents per share, compared to $12.1 million, or 38 cents per share, in its fiscal third quarter last year. Analysts had expected a far deeper loss of 58 cents per share.

The company managed to shrink its loss despite rising prices for the diamonds, gold and silver used in its jewelry, which weighed on gross margins. Zale started raising some prices last month and plans to increase prices across North America during the May-July quarter.

The jewelry chain is based in Dallas and has about 1,845 stores and kiosks in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. It operates Zales stores as well as its Gordon's Jewelers, Peoples Jewellers, Mappins Jewellers and Piercing Pagoda chains.

( Source: Associate Press )

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. (NYSE: MSO) today announced that Patsy Pollack is head of the Company's Merchandising business. In her new expanded role as Senior Executive Vice President, Patsy will be responsible for all merchandising initiatives and will report directly to Lisa Gersh, MSLO's new President and Chief Operating Officer. Robin Marino is stepping down as the Company's President and CEO of Merchandising to pursue a new opportunity.

"I want to thank Robin for the formative role she has played in the important transformation of our Merchandising business," said Executive Chairman and Principal Executive Officer Charles Koppelman. "MSLO has a dynamic portfolio of retail partnerships and product categories designed and created by an accomplished Merchandising team. I have the utmost confidence that our business will continue to expand and thrive under Patsy's leadership."

An accomplished retail executive with vast experience in the lifestyle designer category, Ms. Pollack joined MSLO in August 2008. She has been responsible for overseeing the Martha Stewart Living line of home-improvement products at The Home Depot and the Martha Stewart Collection exclusively at Macy's. Before joining MSLO, she served as Chief Executive Officer of Donna Karan Home and, prior to that, she was President of Calvin Klein Home for which she directed the launch in 1995.

Ms. Pollack stated, "Over the past several years, our Merchandising portfolio has grown and evolved and today enjoys tremendous potential. Leading this dedicated team is an exciting opportunity, and I'm looking forward to continuing to drive results for MSLO and for our terrific group of merchandising partners."

The Internet search and advertising leader will work with MasterCard Inc, the world's second-largest credit and debit card processing network, to launch the system, the source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.

Google has teamed with MasterCard and Citigroup Inc to develop the system, the Wall Street Journal reported in March.

It has now signed up retail partners Macy's Inc, American Eagle Outfitters Inc and Subway, though it is unclear if the project will be launched nationwide or just in New York initially, the Journal cited sources as saying Tuesday.

Google invited reporters to attend a "partner event" on Thursday in New York to demonstrate what it called its "latest innovations." It plans to unveil a mobile payments system that will run on the Android operating system and be available on phones from Sprint Nextel Corp, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

A source familiar with the matter confirmed Google would launch the program. Citigroup did not respond to requests for comment. Google, Sprint and MasterCard declined comment.

About a decade after they were dreamed up by engineers and marketers, mobile wallets are still far from commonplace in the United States, stymied by industry infighting, consumer tastes and regulatory hurdles.

That has not stopped banks, phone makers and technology companies -- fearful of being left behind -- from trumpeting the concept.

Shoppers abroad, especially in Asia, can already wave cellphones at the check-out counter to pay for everything from groceries to gasoline.

Now, a growing number of mobile operators, banks, technology companies and card processing networks like Visa Inc and MasterCard are vying to gain a foothold in the still-small but high-potential U.S. mobile payments market.

Three of the top U.S. mobile carriers -- AT&T Inc, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA -- are also looking for bank and network partners to launch their Isis mobile payments venture. The companies recently scaled back initial plans to build a new payment processing network that would have competed with dominant industry players Visa and MasterCard.

Since last year, Visa has tested pay-by-phone technology with several large U.S. banks, including Bank of America Corp and Wells Fargo & Co.

"There's room for more than one competitor," said Google Ventures Managing Partner Bill Maris, speaking about the industry in general.

Such services would appeal to consumers if they can help them save money or shorten their time in line at the supermarket check-out, he added.

"The experience of buying things will be better, faster, cheaper," he said.

Details are sketchy, but the Journal reported Google was unlikely to get a cut of transactions, focusing instead on benefiting by helping retailers target ads and discount offers to Android users close to stores.

Currently, credit card companies charge merchants transaction fees. Other players, such as wireless operators AT&T and phone makers from Research In Motion to Apple Inc, are likely to demand a cut of sales.

This puts U.S. retailers in the uncomfortable position of possibly surrendering more margins.

( Source: Reuters )

After the successful listing of LinedIn ( NYSE: LNKD ) and other tech companies in last weeks, now Zynga ( maker of Farmville and Mafia Wars games for Facebook ) might file for a multi billion dollar IPO as early as this week as per news.

The social gaming phenomenon behind a series of popular games on Facebook has enlisted Goldman Sachs to be among its lead bankers, the blog cited unidentified sources as saying, hot on the heels of LinkedIn's explosive debut.

The privately held four-year-old firm backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers and Andreesen Horowitz could file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week or next week at the latest, the blog said.

Zynga could price itself higher than the $10 billion it was valued at in its latest round of funding, after LinkedIn's stock more than doubled on its first trading day, underscoring rabid demand for Internet IPOs, the blog said.

LinkedIn was the first prominent U.S. social networking company to test just how hungry investors were for social media companies such as Facebook, Groupon and Twitter, which are expected to go public in coming months.

Zynga—named after founder Mark Pincus' bulldog, Zinga—has expanded rapidly through small acquisitions at the rate of about one a month in the past year, as it seeks to dominate the casual gaming market and expand internationally.

It claims to host more than 50 million active users a day and over 215 million users a month, ranking it the largest and most active social gaming network on the Internet.

And its market is exploding: research firm eMarketer estimates that overall revenue from social games could hit $1.09 billion this year from $856 million in 2010.

Zynga's other investors include LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Digital Sky Technologies.

( Source: Reuters )

Derma Sciences Inc

Derma Sciences, Inc. announced that in the follow-up portion of its Phase 2 clinical trial in patients with diabetic foot ulcers, the percentage of patients treated with the therapeutic (0.03%) dose of DSC127 with complete healing at 24 weeks following trial enrollment was 73% in the intent-to-treat (ITT) population and 85% in the per-protocol population (PP), a difference of 27 and 33 percentage points, respectively, compared with patients treated with placebo/standard of care (placebo). DSC127 is a patented, topically applied angiotensin analog that targets receptors that are up-regulated upon injury to tissue. Healing was defined as 100% epithelialized with no drainage. The Company previously announced that the 0.03% dose of DSC127 exceeded the trial’s goal of an improvement of 15 percentage points in complete healing of wounds at 12 weeks for both the ITT (21 percentage point increase) and PP (27 percentage point increase) populations, compared with placebo.
With today’s announcement, the improvement at 24 weeks between patients treated with DSC127 0.03% and patients treated with placebo is even more pronounced. There were no drug-related adverse safety events during the entire 24-week study period. The double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-center Phase 2 clinical trial randomized 80 patients to receive one of two dose strengths of DSC127 (0.03% or 0.01%) or vehicle placebo control.

( Source: Reuters )