This Is How ‘Instant Articles’ Affect Facebook Stock

The social media company seems to be affected negatively from the criticism being received by major publishers on Instant Articles, as stock price falls

Facebook Inc might not be working on strategies as great as it believes them to be, as news suggests that the social media giant is beginning to face some issues in the ‘Instant Article’ feature that was launching a couple of month back. According to a recent report, it was seen that the social media company’s model to make money out of the new feature was not being approved by the publishers, who claimed that the regulations set by the company on the site were becoming a problem for them to generate money from ads in a proper manner.

Instant Articles is a relatively new feature that Facebook management thought of to give users a space where they can get firsthand information of events taking place around them, without going to a second source. For that matter, the giant needed publishers to put their original content on the website and according to reports, the social networking platform received confirmation from 20 publishers, including some big names in the publishing industry. However, recently The Washington Post and The New York Times have informed the market about how it has been having serious issues regarding generation of revenue following the laws that have been set by the giant, which is becoming an unavoidable problem for the company.

According to the publishers, Facebook business has made guidelines which are rather strict about which kind of ads can be displayed on the site and that has cut down on the variety which would otherwise had opened the flow of revenue in a much wider way. The rules which have become an impeding problem for the advertisers is related to how big the ad can be on the article and if it has a mediocre quality or not, as the feature is not ready to accept anything par the set standards.

The social media giant helps the publishers to make a great amount of revenue from the articles that they publish and are allowed to receive 100% revenue on the ads that are sold by themselves alone, while the company gets 30% of the share if it is the one selling those ads.

All of these issues have affected Facebook stock price in a negative manner, as it experiences a dip of around 3.77% in the last trading session, making the share value to reach $103.95. Analysts in th market, however, have turned out to be bullish about the networking company’s plan to take the whole instant publishing idea forward the way it is doing and has rated it positively for the future.

 

Alibaba Halts International Expansion Plans To Reconsider Priorities

Due to the problems faced in China by the leading e-commerce giant, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, the company has decided to put a halt to its expansion spree for the time being. For now, the Chinese e-commerce giant has planned to stop business in India, the world’s second most populated country.

Currently, India has a population of over 1.2 billion citizen with a growth in yearly population by 1.24%. It had initially struck a deal with Micromax, one of the South Asian country’s major smartphone groups but not it has put a stop to it while it plans on delaying other such investment deals in the country as well. The sole reason for stopping business in the South Asian country is the heightened volatility in the global market.

Due to the slowing economy of the e-commerce giant’s home market, it has stopped its expansion plans for India, which were according to the executive chairman, very close to his heart; even so that he had planned India to be the organization’s growth center for the past year. Along with the slowing economy, the lawsuit against the company for selling fake merchandise has also compromised on its reputation.

The deal that Alibaba Company signed with Micromax was based on acquisition of 20% stake of the Indian smartphone company, which was worth over $3 billion. Micromax, being the largest smartphone provider in the Indian market by sales, still has not backed out from the deal, but neither has Alibaba. Until further discussion, it has been halted for now. This deal is also believed to be quite enticing for other major players in the market.

On November 12, 2015, Alibaba’s stock declined by 0.05% and the shares of the company were being traded at a share price of $79.81 at the last trading session. The highest point was witnessed at was $82.49 while the lowest was $78.21. Throughout the session, the share price fluctuated between these numbers, despite of the fact that the company performed exceptionally well on Singles’ Day. Year to date performance of the company’s stock has declined by 20% and the lowest share price was witnessed amidst the slow global economy in September at $57.20.

Considering the slowdown, the e-commerce giant should just focus on its hometown market for now and try to maintain its reputation in that market rather than expanding elsewhere while moving towards further declining market shares. It has also previously discussed its plans of launching in the American market as well, but keeping in mind the economy, that time does not seem to be in the near future.

Exxon Mobil Corporation Going Strong Despite Plunging Crude Oil Price

Despite the fact, the crude oil prices have been plunging and have plunged as much as 50%, Exxon is making an effort to maintain its standard.

The reducing crude oil prices in the oil and gas industry has led to energy giants getting into mergers and acquisitions. Presently, according to Bloomberg reports, Exxon Mobile Corporation and Chevron Corporation along with a number of other leaders in the oil market have a budget of $500 billion in cash and equity to either acquire or merge with their rivals.

Both the market leaders Exxon and Chevron have set certain amounts aside for these potential mergers and acquisitions; $320 billion in reserves have been set aside by Exxon while $65 billion in stock has been set aside by Chevron. Because of these plunges in the crude oil prices, major oil companies such as Baker Hughes, Halliburton Company, Schlumberger Limited and a number of other have already entered into either partnerships or acquisitions, as these companies are aiming at improving their balance sheet, productions as well as maintaining operational efficiency.

However, both Exxon and Chevron, the two energy giants have $385 billion in reserves total and are positioned in a way that their deals will likely take on their rival gas and oil companies. The world’s top most oil and gas company being Exxon is expected to make an acquisition offer in either the coming month or year. The reason for this surety is that it company had reported better than expected results for the previous quarter of the current fiscal year and exceeded the expectations of stock analysts by as much as 89 cents. Despite of the fact that Exxon’s stock in the time span of 52 week declined by almost 15.5%, the energy giant is determined to keep its head up and maintain its spot as one of the world’s leading Energy Company.

The company plans to maintain its spot of being the world leader through this time when the crude oil prices are low as unlike other companies Exxon did not cut its workforce in order to reduce cost neither did it cut its production target. Despite of the deteriorating crude oil prices, the company increased its production target by 3.9 million barrels in the most recent quarter of the fiscal year. The production target in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year was 3.89 million barrels of oil per day.

On a separate note, Exxon’s interest either acquiring or merging with Apache Corporation has increased since the rebuff of the offer by Anadarko Petroleum happened. So there’s a good chance that Exxon might be interest in that company. Apart from that, in the past twenty years the company has managed to sign two major deals which were worth $88 billion and $35 billion. Furthermore, the energy giant wanted to increase its presence in the Permian Basin region so it went ahead and signed five deals there as well.

 

What Investors Need To Know About Alphabet

The software giant seems to be in a good position on the index and that is mainly powered by the number of sales it has been making of its Android operating system

Alphabet Inc witnessed a very volatile October as its stock value increased by a massive 15.5% in the one month alone, which made the analysts talk about how much potential the new parent company of Google actually has. This increase in stock value was derived from the third quarter earnings report that was presented by the giant a few weeks back. All the equity firms believed that this improvement only elevated the position of the company even more on the stock and helped it to make its market hold even more prominent. For the full year, the growth turned out to be at a rise of 40%, which again brought some great outlooks by the equity analysts towards the tech giant’s stock.

As per some reports related to Alphabet’s subsidiary Google, it was seen that the giant is also looking towards bringing about some massive changes in the way Android has always worked. Recently a rumor was also seen circulating the market which stated that the search engine could possibly be thinking about cutting off Chrome OS and converting it in a way that would see its conversion with its much better and more popular operating system, reportedly the Android.

Reports suggest the tech giant has been thinking of the perfect strategies to speed up all the ways through which it can maximize its revenue generation in the best possible manner. Google business software developers have also been working for the past two fiscal 12-month periods to hike up a strategy which will see the combination of both the OS so that new software can be launched which has all the positives coming from both. Chrome OS and Chromebooks have been experiencing high sales for a long time now, being the most popular with students and small businesses.

However, analysts have come to the conclusion that this might not go on for too long and that the laptops have reached their higher level of success and do not have the capacity to grow further as far as sales are concerned. Back in 2014, the tech giant managed to score a sales figure of 72% of the Chromebooks which was by far the highest it ever reached since the beginning.

On the other hand, the success on the index that is being experienced by the Android developers is due to massive hold that the giant holds in the smart phone market as stats show that around 80% mobile phones which were bought by the customers in the previous quarter were powered by the operating system built by the tech giant.

 

Alibaba Broke Singles’ Day Record

Alibaba breaks its own record on Singles’ Day

Alibaba Group Holding is the master in the online retailing industry. The company is known for owning and operating various online marketplaces which generates major chunk of the revenues for the company. As the holiday season is approaching, most online retailers are pumped to do heavy business during the time but the Chinese tech giant does not focus more on the holiday festivals such as Black Friday or Thanksgiving but it puts emphasis on its own holiday festival, Singles’ Day.

Singles’ Day falls on November 11 every year which is usually dedicated to all the singles living in China. And every year, the company breaks its own record, for fun, and makes huge sales in one day. Hence now Singles’ Day is known as the biggest online shopping event of the year. Once again, the company has broken its own record on this day where by the close of trade, Alibaba Group recorded sales worth at a massive $14.3 billion (91.2 billion Yuan; £9.4 billion). The sales were increased by 60 percent if compared from last year’s Singles’ Day.

Furthermore, if this day is compared to the biggest online shopping event in the United States which is Cyber Monday, it recorded sales worth at $1.35 billion. As BBC reports, “Singles Day has grown tremendously since Alibaba began promoting it as a shopping day in 2009, and now includes many retailers such as rivals JD.com that stage sales promotions.” The company stated that more than 40,000 sellers and nearly 30,000 brands from 25 countries will be available for purchase on its various online marketplaces this year onwards.

The Chief Executive of the company, Daniel Zhang, stated that on this day the world can easily witness the power of Chinese consumption on Singles’ Day. He also made a promise to the online shoppers that it will give a new surprise every hour throughout the day and this was specifically made for the mobile users of its apps.

An analyst at market research firm Euromonitor International, Fangting Sun stated “[It’s] not only due to the wide choices and competitive prices, but also the heavy marketing campaigns especially the successful gala evening which invited lots of famous entertainment stars.”

She further added that the tech sector of China is now a huge market with almost one billion smart connected devices.

Alibaba stock was down 1.99% to $79.81 at market close on Wednesday November 11.

Can Tesla Really Manage Record Sales in Fourth Quarter

The auto making giant is expected to make record sales of around 17,000-19,000 cars by the end of the Q4

Tesla Motors seems to be working on the top most lines in the auto industry, which have been confirmed further in the guidance report that was given by him to the shareholders and investors in the meeting held to announce the earnings for the quarter, which were welcomed by the market very warmly. Not only were the earnings very strong, they also showed that the giant has been meeting all its targets very comfortably in the market, which was actually deemed as an impossible task by the majority of the analysts who were analyzing the future of the giant.

Furthermore, the reason why the investor sentiment has been improved by a massive difference is because the automotive giant has been working very hard in a lot of different ways to revamp production of its new car and to increase the sales of Model S and Model X as well, which will add to the massive figure of sales which the giant is predicting to make in the next quarter.

According to the press release which was followed by the earnings call, the smart car makers informed the market that the number of electric vehicles they are expecting to sell by the end of the Q4 is to come around 17,000 to 19,000. Now these figures are not being believed by many of the analysts in the stock market as analysts believe that the slow production of Model X and the number of problems that have been faced by the auto company are a little bit too much to handle and might take their toll by slowing down the progress of sales in the future. However, there still are some analysts who are seen to be thinking differently.

According to the records available, it will be seen that Tesla has always made the correct guidance for all of its quarters, keeping in consideration the past ten fiscal periods which met all the sales figures just how the company though it would. Keeping this in mind, analysts are of the opinion that if the hybrid car makers are giving out such huge figures to consider, then there is sure something big to look forward to.

On the other hand, if the auto giant turns out to hit the sales predictions, then it is very likely that it will end up meeting its incredibly massive full year guidance figure of 50,000-55,000 electric cars to be sold by the end of 2015. For Tesla stock to keep its production pace in a better shape, analysts are also talking about how the giant needs to speed up Model X manufacturing so that all the estimations and guidance presented to the investors and shareholders can be met by the giant without much hassle.

 

Coca Cola Company Stock Update

The beverage company’s stock has declined in the past seven day, in the last trading session as well as in a month’s time, investors would be smart to be cautious while trading

During the recent session, Coca Cola Company’s stock traded at a loss with a decline of 0.55%. The last trade at the trading session was called off at $42.1.

Heightened volatility was witnessed on Friday during the trading session due to which the stock of the multinational corporation kept fluctuating. The trade began with a share price of $41.97; the shares were seen hit a low of $41.61 during the day. On the other hand, the shares went to a high of $42.215. Throughout the day, the share price was seen fluctuate between these two numbers. Presently, the market capitalization of Coca Cola is $182,483 million. The shares being traded in the trading session were 11,926,701 shares; further the shares in outstanding are 4,348,985,000 shares.

In the short term, the price target of the shares estimated by the analysts is $46. 11 analysts currently are agreeing with this consensus; the higher estimate made by the experts of the target price in the short run is $49 and the lower estimate made by the stock analysts of the target price in the short run is $41 with an additional standard deviation of $2.76. Furthermore, the highest share price that was witnessed in a time span of 52-weeks was $45 and the lowest share price that was observed in a time interval of 52-weeks was $36.56.

Analysts who have commented and shared their recommendations on the stock of the beverage company include JP Morgan. JP Morgan, a financial services firm that has covered the shares of Coca Cola and has maintained its views on the stock with a rating of Neutral, according to a report issued by the company on October 20, 2015. The financial services company has raised its target price from $46 per share to $48 per share..

The earnings per share reported by the beverage company are 1.56 along with a price to earnings ratio of 26.63. Insider Buying and Selling Activities have been witnessed in the company as well which were reported by the firm to the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the disclosed information, the Executive Vice President of the multinational company, Finan Irial has sold as many as 280,000 shares. These shares have been sold a share price of $42.2 per share on November 2, 2015. The total transaction was worth $11,816,000 and was revealed by the company on a form 4 filing.

On separate news, in the last seven days the stock has lost 0.92% and has declined by 0.14% in the past 4 weeks. In comparison to the S&P 500, the shares have been at a loss of 1.86% while the shares of the beverage company have underperformed the index by as much as 4.15%. Investors should keep an eye on the shares for future reference and trade with further caution.

McDonald’s Receive A Bullish Rating From Deutsche Bank

The fast food giant is expected to grow in a much positive way in the near future which is why it has been upgraded by Deutsche analysts

McDonald’s Corporation has been having a great time on the stock index lately. Analysts believe that the management of the company has been carrying out the turnaround plan in the most effective manner, minus some loopholes here and there. The food company is scheduled to keep its investors day on November 10, which is going to update the concerned individuals in the company about where it is now headed and how it has been performing so far in the year. Shareholders of the giant are reportedly looking forward to know different plans and initiatives that the fast good makers will be taking to bring about a positive change to the share price in the future as well.

McDonald’s shareholders have been enjoying a stronger quarter of the company after a really long time and now the hopes and expectations have begun to form a momentum that is majorly supported by the turnaround plan, which was started by Steve Easterbrook on a few months back. This growth of the fast food giant is being considered as a new era for the company to obtain sustainability in improved ways, something that was clearly not being handled correctly in the past.

At the Investor Day event that will be held by McDonald’s management, the expectations of the shareholders revolve around getting an update about how it is going to handle refranchising in the upcoming quarter and fiscal year and how things will turn out to be for the investors to look forward to. On the other hand, the shareholders will also be looking at facts and figures for the giant to present to them in regard to the earnings and revenue it is expecting to attain in the coming fiscal period and how it will turn out.

However, equity firms like Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse have turned out to be rather bullish about where McDonald’s business seems to be headed towards and believe that the shares of the company deserve a plain ‘buy’ rating. Analysts at Deutsche are also of the opinion that a bearish outlook for the food giant does not make much sense as now it is carrying out a much better business than it was previously doing. The price target has also been set at $130 according to the same analysts. As far as Credit Suisse analysts are concerned, the price target presented to the company has come out to be around $118, which shows their positive sentiments towards the stock.

Visa, Inc. Agreed to Acquire Visa Europe For $23.4 billion

The company has finally come to a decision to acquire its long lost counterpart.

The two companies, Visa, Inc. and Visa Europe that split in up in 2007 are now again coming together. On Monday, Visa, Inc. announced that it will be officially acquiring Visa Europe for $23.4 billion or 21.2 euros. Now these two companies will be a single global company.

The split happened back in 2007 when Visa, Inc. decided to go public. The company whose headquarter is in Foster City, California, in 2007 is a combination of Visa USA, Visa Canada and Visa International. But at the time, Visa Europe become an independent company that was owned by banks and other payment providers. This acquisition has again reunited the two counterparts together.

Nicolas Huss, the Chief Executive Officer of Visa Europe said in a statement that by bringing the two companies back together and under one umbrella, they can accelerate, improve and strengthen their financial strength and operations and increase and fast-track the ‘next generation of payments throughout Europe.’

According to reports, the firm will be able to save up to $200 million in annual costs by going forward with this acquisition. 18 billion transactions are being carried out annually with over 500 million Visa credit cards in which the total amounts to $1.7 trillion, in Europe. Visa, Inc.’s Chief executive officer, Charles W. Scharf commented on this acquisition saying that they are very excited with this unification of Visa into a single global company as this acquisition is beneficial for financial institutions, card holders, vendors and other partners along with its workers and management.

The chief executive officer of Visa, Inc. had made a trip to London to make this announcement and further said that this merger will serve as a tremendous opportunity to electronify payments.

After this announcement, Visa, Inc. shares fell by about 3% to 75.22 per share while prior to Monday’s trading session Visa’s stock went up by 18% this year. Visa is expected to raise as much as $16 billion in debt as per the deal that has been signed between the two companies. This acquisition comes as a benefit for both the company but on the side lines there is another financial institution that will benefit from this deal, MasterCard Inc. MasterCard, Inc. is Visa, Inc.’s rival; after the acquisition the financial institutions will raise the pay for network transactions, and hence the company as well as the rival will benefit.

According to the reports by Visa for the fourth quarter of the current fiscal year, the quarter profit rose to $1.51 billion which was a 41% increase from $1.07 billion. Along with this, an announcement regarding a new $5 billion share repurchase program as well. The shares fell by 2.7% to $75.47 on November 2, 2015. On the other hand, the revenue for the fourth quarter rose by 11% to about $3.57 billion which exactly the amount that was estimated by the analysts.

Tesla Cant Keep Pace After Losses

Tesla needs to meet delivery targets and pace up to sustain

Tesla Motors Inc. has been dealing with a lot of criticism where many analysts are ridiculing the company for terming the EVs top acceleration as the prime that makes the company “ludicrous” -Nothing more than that. As per the various observers, the delivery target of the company for the entire year was ranging between 50,000 and 55,000 cars but now that does not really seem to happen.

When the preliminary figures were revealed for the third trimestral, it showed the entire results. The electric car giant had delivered 33,157 vehicles in the fiscal year of 2015. The company at this point has to cover an additional 16,843 to 21,843 which seems merely impossible considering the problems they are dealing with regarding the Model X sport utility car.

However, the car deliveries for the company are not really a long term issue which si quite ironic. What really matters to them that they will eventually generate money and hopefully in a massive quantity so that they can comply to their market which is one and a half times more than Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV that have only s1% unit sales as per consensus.

During the third quarter in the FY15 is expected to repeat a similar pattern in the reporting period where they have gone back as far as the previous year. The expectations were so low that analysts cannot really estimate if they will be able to clear or not. Every trimestral was considered to be money making a year back but so afr they have not managed to get the same distinction. According to Wall Street Journal, “Analysts think Tesla will report a loss of 79 cents a share for the period, under generally accepted accounting principles, compared with a loss of 52 cents in the same period a year earlier.”

So now the investors have come to a point where they are actually tired of keeping an optimistic approach. Analysts and investors now wish to keep the technical accomplishments made by Tesla aside and actually see the harsh economic reality.

The Consumer Reports did a negative assessment of reliability recently where the target price of Tesla stock was lowered. So now it is high time that the company changes its course and actually thinks about what it can do to redeem itself once again and give appositive ray of hope to investors and analysts that are keeping a watch on the company.