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Seeking approval for its big NBC merger, cable giant's pledge to add minority voices is soundly dismissed at hearing.

By TheWrap Jun 7, 2010 8:33PM

It's not enough.


That was a message emphatically delivered Monday by several members of Congress and numerous minority producers and diversity-minded media-business watchdog groups to Comcast and NBC Universal, at a House Judiciary Committee hearing conducted in downtown Los Angeles.


The four-hour hearing, the first and probably only one to be held in Los Angeles over the proposed Comcast purchase of NBCU, was convened at the California Science Center, at the behest of U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who represents the area.


Its purpose: to explore the issue of ethnic and cultural diversity in the broadcast and cable media -- and more specifically, how one of the biggest mergers in media history will improve or worsen that situation.

 
Tags: media

Outspoken mogul lobbies for vertical integration at Produced By conference

By TheWrap Jun 7, 2010 5:50PM

It's time to bring back vertical integration in the movie business, said outspoken entertainment, sports and Internet mogul Mark Cuban at the Producers Guild of America's Produced By conference on Saturday. He said movie studios ought to buy theater chains and explore releasing certain movies to video-on-demand even before those films hit the big screen.


During a wide-ranging conversation moderated by Los Angeles Times reporter Dawn Chmielewski, Cuban said his ownership of both Magnolia Pictures and the Landmark Theaters chain allowed him more flexibility on the release patterns of films like Steven Soderbergh's "Bubble," Neil Jordan's new "Ondine" and Alex Gibney's Oscar-nominated documentary "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room."

 

History in the making for DCTH's PHP treatment.

By Wall Street Media on MSN Money Jun 7, 2010 4:58PM

Written by Douglas Estadt

 

Eric Whitman, MD, of http://drericwhitman.wordpress.com/, is a board certified surgical oncologist specializing in the care of patients with melanoma, joins us today for an exclusive interview regarding the DTCH presentation at The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting.

  • Survival rate tripled for cancer patients treated with PHP (Percutaneous Hepatic Perfusion) - 398 days vs. 124 with best alternative care
 

The magic formula: Ad "pods" within episodes, plus specific demographic data

By TheWrap Jun 7, 2010 4:34PM
Find deals online © Don Mason / Blend Images / Getty ImagesBased on how rapidly The CW network sold out its primetime upfront ad inventory during a five-hour run last week, the young-female-skewing broadcast network may have found the Holy Grail for monetizing streamed TV shows.

While The CW may only take in 15% to 20% as much in primetime television ad dollars this year when compared with the Big Four, the speed at which media agencies gobbled up its "convergence packages" Thursday night clearly shows that a nerve was struck.

The result is a potential blueprint for the entire television industry.

 

Europe needs Germany to step up and spend more, but the country has proposed spending cuts and tax increases.

By Jim J. Jubak Jun 7, 2010 4:09PM

Jim JubakIn gauging the dimensions of a crisis, you have to make certain assumptions. 


One thing I've assumed about the current euro debt crisis is that no politician there would do something unusually stupid. Venial. Short-sighted. Duplicitous. Sure. But not something so really stupid that it would raise damage from the crisis by an order of magnitude.


Well, I'm seeing exactly that level of “really stupid” starting to gather momentum. And the source is Chancellor Angela Merkel's government in Germany.

 
Tags: Jim Jubak

Chief executive Steve Jobs pushes videoconferencing into the mainstream with new feature.

By Kim Peterson Jun 7, 2010 3:52PM
Apple iPhone 4. Credit: (© Paul Sakuma/AP)Companies like Skype and Cisco (CSCO) have been working on video calling for years. But now, with a little attention from Apple (AAPL), this technology is going to become hot.

Apple calls it FaceTime, and unveiled the feature Monday as part of its new iPhone announcement. The new iPhone 4 will have a front-facing camera, which is perfect for videoconferencing. Hold the phone in front of your face, instead of at your ear, for a video call.

Video calling isn't a big deal in the corporate world, but it's practically unheard of for mainstream mobile users. Even Apple won't change that immediately -- FaceTime will only run on Wi-fi at first -- but the company is working with carriers to get on 3G networks. 

A well-known banking analyst lowers his price target for the nation's largest bank.

By Kim Peterson Jun 7, 2010 2:48PM
Secrets to better banking © Nick Koudis / Photodisc Red / Getty Images Not all is well at Bank of America (BAC), the nation's largest bank.

Richard Bove, a well-known banking analyst, has lowered his price target for the stock, staying it faces "serious challenges" from multiple sources, according to The New York Times.

And it was a pretty steep drop. Bove's target price is now $22.80, down from his earlier target of $27.50. The stock is trading at about $15. 

Safeway, Supervalu and others help organize opposition to new Walmart locations to preserve market share.

By InvestorPlace Jun 7, 2010 12:47PM

walmart logoWhen Walmart (WMT) identifies a new location for one of the chain's supercenters, that often generates some degree of local opposition. Some of that, it turns out, is coming from outside agitators.

 

The Wall Street Journal reports that competing chains such as Safeway (SWY), Supervalu (SVU)  and others retain a consulting firm to lead the charge against a new Wal-Mart store. That means that some of those "concerned citizens" writing letters to the editor may actually be sticking up for corporate interests and not the community’s welfare.

 

Sprint's new Evo is packed with features, making it a serious rival to the iPhone and BlackBerry.

By TheStreet Staff Jun 7, 2010 12:44PM

TheStreet.comBy Jonathan Blum, TheStreet

 

There's a new small-business mobile beast loose in the land: the Sprint (S) Evo.

 

Finally, after, I kid you not, almost a year of speculation, pre-announcements, announcements and other marketing drivel, Sprint's premier 4G superphone, the HTC Evo, is on sale. And while far from perfect -- much more on clunk factor, grim battery life and cost -- the Google (GOOG) Android-powered Evo offers a legitimate, small-business option between the Apple (AAPL) iPhone and the full line of Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry devices.

 

Without question, the Evo’s bright screen, blazing multi-tasking performance and support for critical business tools compete at the highest levels in the mobile-business-device market.

 

Time to trim out losing positions and accumulate some cash for a sunny day

By Jim Van Meerten Jun 7, 2010 12:23PM

I have no crystal ball to tell me what the market will do. I do have a system or discipline that I use. I'm long when the market is rising and the economy is expanding.  I'm short when the economy is contracting and the market is tanking. When the market and the economy are in trending in different directions -- as they are now -- I trim poorly performing positions and accumulate cash till things straighten themselves out.

 

Time to trim a little deadwood from my Wall Street Survivor portfolio for the following reasons:
 

Sunday night has become 'panic night' as nervous investors give in to their emotions.

By Jim Cramer Jun 7, 2010 9:23AM

Jim CramerBy Jim Cramer, TheStreet

 

What happens to traders on Sunday night that drives them to such levels of despair? How can they send oil down to $69 and the Nasdaq ($COMPX) futures down 22 ticks? What gives? How can they be so, well, wrong?

 

Now it is easy to say "they will be right," but the fact is that the Sunday night futures are some bizarre anti-tell, the sum of all fears, the sense that doom is here and that we will crash Monday. That's why you sell down that hard, because you think we will crash.

 

It's age-old and ingrained. A really horrible Friday will ineluctably yield a much worse Monday. So just get ready for it and blast out everything, regardless of the available news – which included reports of European bankers actually talking about how to save things, and a decrease in the disastrous Gulf spill.

 

Boston Consulting Group did a study on investing in African businesses -- Here's a list of how you can add them to your portfolio

By Jim Van Meerten Jun 5, 2010 3:23PM
On of the hottest reports quoted on the Internet last week was the report called The African Challengers: Global Competitors Emerge for the Overlooked Continent by the Boston Consulting Group.

Why would you want to invest in Africa? Here are some points they make about Africa:
  • With just 4% of global GDP they have 20% of the world's land and 15% of it's population
  • Between 2000 and 2008 Africa's GDP grew 5.3% annually but the global GDP only grew 4% for the same time frame
  • In 2009 Africa's GDP grew 2% -- US dropped 4%, EU dropped 2.8%, Latin America dropped 1.5%
  • These companies do business not only in their own country but in the rest of Africa and around the world as well
  • The companies mentioned in their survey far outstripped the rest of the world in increased sales and earnings growth
 

Lot's of bad news all around. The market was in free fall. Just how bad was it?

By Jim Van Meerten Jun 5, 2010 11:47AM
Each weekend I forget about all the contradicting talking heads and headlines and look back at my 3 yardsticks of the market to let the numbers not the opinions and prejudices of others tell me what really happened. I use 3 yardsticks for 2 reasons. First, each measures the market in a similar but different way. I want to know the percentage and direction of the market's movement. I want to know how much of the market was involved in that movement. And lastly are we at new tops or new bottoms or just solidly in the middle of a reversal? The second reason I use 3 is in my awe of the wisdom of the Supreme Court. 3 is an odd number so you never have a tie. All my data can be duplicated from Barchart if you'd like to run the numbers yourself during the week.

Value Line Index -- I like this Index better than the S&P 500 or the much narrower Dow 30 because it contains 1700 stocks so it gives me a better feel of the overall market and not just the large caps -- This week the Index is down
  • For the week the Index lost 3.58%
 

The markets have been shaken recently, but some top strategists are still finding attractive investments.

By John Reese Jun 4, 2010 7:22PM

The European debt crisis, a very disappointing jobs report, and a continuing environmental crisis off America's shores -- uncertainty has made its way back into the stock market in a big way over the past few weeks. But while that uncertainty has led to a wide array of opinions on where the market and economy are headed, many of the investment gurus I keep an eye on agree on at least one thing: If you know where to look, there are opportunities to make money.

Take Chuck Akre, who produced an exceptional 12.6% per-year return for the FBR Focus Fund from 1996-2009 before moving on to manage his own fund. Akre tells Fortune magazine that he likes convertible preferred shares of Hartford Financial Services Group, which must be converted into common stock in 2013. While hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis, Hartford is now in good shape, Akre says. “It’s an interesting, low-risk, decent turnaround play in a market with a lot of uncertainty,” he told Fortune, as part of a "25 Stock Picks from 25 Great Investors" feature that also included top stock-pickers Bruce Berkowitz, Tom Forester, and David Herro.

 

Another top fund manager who's seeing opportunities is Eric Schoenstein, co-manager of the Jensen Portfolio, which has beaten 95% of its peers over the past 10 years. He recently told MarketWatch that despite the major recent volatility, his fund remains fully invested in stocks. And he says companies in a number of different sectors are offering attractive “margins of safety”.

 

 

The pharmaceutical company is preparing for an earlier-than-expected launch of a new generic contraceptive.

By Jim J. Jubak Jun 4, 2010 4:37PM

Jim JubakIt’s a busy month for drug announcements at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (TEVA), with news on Copaxone, Azilect, and Gianvi -- and it’s only June 4.


Of these, Gianvi is the biggie -- at least for now.


The drug is a generic version of Bayer’s (BAYRY) oral contraceptive Yaz. Sales of Yaz came to $780 million in 2009. The contraceptive has been especially popular among younger women, since taking it produces less water retention than some other contraceptives and works to reduce acne.

 

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[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks entered the weekend on a mixed note as the S&P 500 shed 0.1% while the Dow ended with a gain of 0.1%.

The major averages began the day on a lower note as nine of ten sectors saw losses of more than 0.5%.

The consumer staples sector was the lone exception as the group spent the entire day in positive territory thanks to the relative strength of Dow component Procter & Gamble (PG 81.89, +3.19). The second-largest staple stock advanced ... More


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