There's trouble on the line at VeriFone Holdings, the mega point-of-sale electronic payment device maker. An internal review of its company financials found that the company understated its earnings for 2007. It might be too late for the company's stock price, which dropped precipitously on the... (Read More)

The roller coaster ride for tech stocks grew even wilder today, but in a good, adrenaline-rush kind of way. The news is mostly all good, with Banc of America Securities issuing a report that boosted semiconductor companies, stating that "a modest inventory build-up has eased". That's all... (Read More)

Surprising news from the Yahoo camp late this afternoon, with Yahoo announcing that it will begin a limited test of Google Inc.'s AdSense for Search service, which will deliver relevant Google ads alongside Yahoo’s own search results. According to a statement from Yahoo, the test will apply only... (Read More)

With the semiconductor market on the ropes, Intel is doing all it can to stay relevant - financially and globally. To that end, today's news that Intel has "doubled down" on China by rolling out its second venture fund in the burgeoning Far East Tiger. The fund, to be called the Intel Capital... (Read More)

Today's trading was flat, with most of the tech news coming from the Yahoo & Microsoft camps. Microsoft seems to be getting all Tony Soprano-like on the Yahoo board, issuing a pointed letter that emphasized an April 26 deadline for accepting its $44.6 billion takeover bid for the mega-web... (Read More)

While the market mulls over today disappointing jobs number - U.S. businesses shed 80,000 jobs in March, about 30,000 more than analysts had anticipated – I’m still looking for signs of a hangover in one my favorite technology sectors, biotech. So far, the stock market seems to be hanging in... (Read More)

The markets are down this morning, off about 45 points at 10:30 AM EST, thanks to an upward spike in jobless claims ahead of tomorrow's much-anticipated March unemployment numbers. The stock market seems to have priced in a lousy-jobs number, it just depends on how lousy it is. Analysts estimate... (Read More)

It’s been a lousy first quarter for tech stocks but the outlook for the second quarter of 2008 looks brighter and shinier. So say the investment gurus at Tech Ticker – specifically former Wall Street tech analyst Henry Blodget and Barons West Coast editor Eric Savitz. Savitz says there are... (Read More)

The bloodbath in biotech stocks I predicted this morning grew only too real for two of the world's largest biopharm companies, Merck & Co. and Schering-Plough. I went back and forth on earlier posts on who made the drug and who didn't, but the skinny is this: Vytorin is actually a hybrid drug... (Read More)

It's kind of a quiet Monday morning on Wall Street, with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen's proposal to further regulate and consolidate the U.S.'s financial markets (by bringing heavier Federal Reserve oversight over bank lending, hedge fund risk assessment, stricter controls over the stocks... (Read More)

Correction: In my post this morning, I noted that the anti-cholesterol drug Vytorin was manufactured by Merck & Co. It was not. The manufacturer is Schering-Plough, Inc. In late morning trading on Monday, the two biotech giants took a beating after the news that Vytorin failed a key clinical... (Read More)

In case you hadn’t heard, and you probably have, Blu-ray has come out on top over HD-DVD in the new age video consumer marketplace. I thought that the higher prices for Blu-ray DVD players would work against it, but the superior technology and the always important “look-and-feel” quotient... (Read More)

I wrote about Motorola last year, when the consumer technology provider was struggling to keep up with tougher Asian market competitors like Samsung and Nokia. The Associated Press reports that shares of Motorola, which has a market value of about $22 billion, have fallen more than 60 percent... (Read More)

I was talking to my brother again this Easter weekend – the one who traded equity options on Wall Street for 20 years. He’s consulting now, but still has some good opinions on the markets – especially the stock market over the past two or three bruising months – and the stock market going... (Read More)

Kind of a quiet week in the technology corner of the stock market. That's not so bad, as people can exhale and figure out if the latest Federal Reserve move to cut the Fed Funds rate by .75 points signals the bottom (finally) of the bearish stock market. if so, then buyers will move back into the... (Read More)

Information Week is out with a new story ranking the top Internet search firms (by number of searches) for the month of February, 2008. The results may indicate why Microsoft wants a piece of Yahoo so badly, even though Bill Gates & Co. seem unwilling to up their share-per-price bid for... (Read More)

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the U.S. stock market is in sick bay and likely won’t be up and around until the second half of 2008, and possibly until 2009. While some areas, like gold and sector plays are good choices in a bad economy, it’s also a safe bet that if one country’s... (Read More)

Forbes.com has a great piece on former microprocessing kingpin Intel, which held its annual meeting today (being Wednesday). The lowdown on the thoroughly reported story is that Intel may be building things up higher (or better) than they actually are. At the meeting, Intel employees were busy... (Read More)

I was so wrapped up in the AOL hoopla yesterday that I forgot to mention how well technology stocks are doing so far this week. Sure, today's trading session wasn't exactly stellar: Microsoft, Apple, AOL and others all lost ground - but only by a little. Monday and Tuesday were much friendlier to... (Read More)

More turmoil at AOL today, as the technology giant fired the head of its Platform A ad-network business yesterday. Blodget, reporting on the ever-valuable Tech Ticker portal on Yahoo.com’s finance site, says that Curt Viebranz, was canned, but there was little love for AOL's senior... (Read More)

Ughhh . . . The markets continue to resemble a guy who swallowed too many red hot chili peppers, only with no Tums or ice water in sight. The problem this week is last Friday's jobs report. Down 63,000 jobs and with the outlook unsteady for new hirings, economists buzzed about a new high in... (Read More)

Ugh. The tech meltdown turn toward the telecom sector this week, fixing its dark gaze on companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint Nextel, among others. On Thursday, shares of telecommunications companies fell badly from the ongoing fallout amid credit concerns. The carnage was grim and deep. U.S.... (Read More)

Your elected representatives have done it again. As if bogus bailouts, super-sized spending, and valuable time spent wondering if Roger Clemens should be banned from baseball over steroids or used as a float in the next Macy's Day parade weren't enough, Congress has planted the seeds of higher... (Read More)

I caught a technology sector analyst from Invesco on Yahoo's Tech Ticker this morning who had some interesting things to say about the dysfunctional relationship between the technology stock sector and the subcrime . . . err . . . subprime credit debacle. It seems that the credit & lending... (Read More)

Businesses are snapping their wallets shut, at least when it comes to software spending - usually a good leading indicator of economic growth. One key benchmark, the ChangeWave corporate software spending survey, has seen a shift into negative territory for the first time in years. In its... (Read More)