Tag Archives: technology

Valeant Now Reporting Q4 Earnings On March 15 After Delay; Stock Up

Specialty-drug giant Valeant Pharmaceuticals International ( VRX ) was up sharply Monday after it set a new date to report its Q4 and full-year 2015 earnings. Valeant said it would report the results on March 15, just over two weeks after the originally scheduled date of Feb. 29. Late on Feb. 28, Valeant had delayed the report due to the return of CEO J. Michael Pearson , who had been on leave for two months being treated for severe pneumonia. While his return initially heartened the Street, the fact that Valeant also withdrew its 2016 guidance, along with the leaked revelation that Valeant was the subject of a previously undisclosed SEC investigation, pushed the stock down 18% on Feb. 29. And even with Monday’s rise it still hasn’t recovered much. Several investment banks downgraded or cut the target price on Valeant stock after the Feb. 28 announcement, and Deutsche Bank suspended coverage entirely. Valeant also said it will update its 2016 guidance on its earnings conference call on March 15, as well as report past results, though the numbers will still be preliminary. The company has sought an extension from the SEC on its official 10-K annual report as it awaits the outcome of an ad hoc committee’s review of its finances, launched late last year after a scandal broke surrounding Valeant’s relationship with now-defunct specialty pharmacy Philidor. The committee already said last month that $58 million in Philidor-related revenue was improperly recognized in 2014, and its review continues. Valeant stock had been trading near a three-year low since last week, but in afternoon trading in the stock market today , shares were up 8%, near 66.

Can Facebook Live Video Beat Competition From Twitter, Snapchat?

With Twitter ( TWTR ) striving to boost its Periscope live-video streaming service, Facebook ( FB ) must prepare for plenty of competition in the live video streaming segment, wrote Monness Crespi Hardt analyst James Cakmak in an industry note on Monday. One trailblazer has already tossed in the towel, the investment bank said. While live video first grabbed mainstream attention with the meteoric rise of privately held trailblazer Meerkat during the South By Southwest music festival in Texas last year, “Meerkat is now officially pivoting away from live and into social — or, said another way, giving up on live due to competition,” wrote Cakmak. While not a brand new phenomenon, video streamed live remains a “niche” service, said Cakmak. “We expect to see significantly more attention from companies and investors placed on this category as the utility becomes more apparent to mid- and late-stage adopters,” he said. Another indicator of growing attention to the profit potential of live video includes Facebook’s recent rollout of its Facebook Live video streaming service to devices running on  Alphabet ( GOOGL )-owned Google Android and throughout more international markets, Cakmak said. Twitter is also working to better integrate content from its Periscope service into the Twitter news feed, he said. “Given the company’s new identity around (live video), we expect marketing dollars to be put toward this in contrast with Facebook’s largely organic effort,” according to Cakmak. Meanwhile, Meerkat’s strategy change makes it “increasingly clear that between Facebook-owned Snapchat’s utilization and more resources being allocated to Facebook Live and Periscope, we expect attention in this category to only escalate from here,” he said. The recent $175 million funding round of privately held Snapchat, which has 8 billion daily views, will also open up “floodgates” in driving live content and consumption, Cakmak said. Total spending on digital video ads in the U.S. alone is projected to jump by two-thirds to $12.8 billion in 2018 from $7.7 billion this year, according to research group eMarketer. Twitter stock was up a fraction in afternoon trading in the stock market today , near 19. It brushed an all-time low of 13.91 last month. Facebook stock and Alphabet stock were each down more than 1% in afternoon trading. Image provided by Shutterstock .

Apple E-Book Price-Fixing Judgment To Stick; Supreme Court Bows Out

Apple ‘s ( AAPL ) hope of clearing its name in the e-book pricing-fixing antitrust case was dashed Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear its appeal. The high court’s action means Apple must pay $450 million to e-book purchasers as part of the company’s July 2014 agreement to settle damages in the antitrust case brought by the attorneys general of 33 states and territories. E-book buyers will be reimbursed for the higher prices Apple’s conduct caused them to pay through automatic credits at their e-book retailers. They will be able to apply the credits to future purchases, the Justice Department said in a press release . With the $166 million previously paid by the five conspiring publishers to settle claims against them, Apple’s payment will bring to $566 million the amount repaid to e-book purchasers overcharged as a result of Apple’s and the publishers’ illegal conspiracy. “Apple’s liability for knowingly conspiring with book publishers to raise the prices of e-books is settled once and for all,” Bill Baer, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, said in a statement. “And consumers will be made whole.” The Justice Department filed its civil antitrust lawsuit against Apple and five e-book publishers on April 11, 2012. The department reached settlements before trial with the publishers: Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Holtzbrinck Publishers, Penguin Group and Simon & Schuster. The Justice Department proceeded to trial against Apple before U.S. District Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York on June 3, 2013. Judge Cote ruled the next month that Apple was liable for orchestrating a price-fixing conspiracy with the publishers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed Judge Cote’s decision on June 30, 2015. Apple negotiated a pricing scheme with publishers ahead of the launch of the iPad tablet and Apple’s e-book store. The companies were attempting to break the monopoly in e-books held by Amazon.com ( AMZN ) through its Kindle e-reader business. Publishers were upset that Amazon was offering e-books of best-sellers for $9.99. The collusion among Apple and the publishers caused the price of e-books to increase 30% to 50% to $12.99 or $14.99 from Amazon’s $9.99 price, the plaintiffs argued. “Apple was caught red-handed orchestrating this scheme to inflate the prices of e-books, and we believe this case is a true testament to the tangible benefits the law can bring consumers,” Steve Berman, an attorney with Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, said in a statement Monday . The law firm represented a legal class of e-book purchasers and litigated the case with federal and state government lawyers. Image provided by Shutterstock .