Smartphones Increasingly Critical For Carriers

AT&T (NYSE:T), the second-largest carrier in the U.S., is facing problems with its plans to acquire T-Mobile, the fourth-largest carrier. Meanwhile, Verizon (NYSE:VZ), the largest carrier in the country announced its plans to buy spectrum from Cox Communications for $315 million. >>>

Fusion-io Well Positioned In A Data-Hungry World

According to an IDC report, increasing deployment of virtualized data centers has resulted in enterprises shifting their focus from improving capital efficiency to improving operational efficiency. These organizations’ IT departments are looking for solutions that help to improve data capacity efficiency, and they are moving away from the traditional rotating magnetic media such as hard disk drives (HDDs) to solid state drives (SSDs) that use NAND flash memory and advanced controller technology to create a faster storage device. The recent quarter results, this SSD market was dominated by the recently listed Fusion-io.

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Lashou Makes Me Queasy

It is not just technology companies in the U.S. that have been toying with the idea of going public this year. Several international technology companies are also evaluating the possibility of listing themselves on the U.S. stock exchanges. The Bloomberg IPO Index may have reported a decline of 26% this year, compared with a 5% decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, but the recent index by Renaissance Capital shows that the performances of international stocks are improving. The FTSE Renaissance Global IPO Index reported growth of 15.2% during October.

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Bankrate Flourishing Since IPO

The Bloomberg IPO Index, a measure of the performance of stocks during their first publicly traded year, declined 26% this year, compared with a 5% decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. According to Renaissance Capital, 41 tech companies went public this year. However, their stocks’ performances have been underwhelming. Tech stocks lost 18% of their value during the year, making them the worst-performing sector in the economy. However, there are still a few new age Internet stocks that have managed to beat market skepticism. One such stock belongs to financial content aggregator Bankrate. Bankrate publishes information on mortgages rates, credit cards, banks, and other financial data relevant for personal finance planning.

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How Long Will Samsung Reign?

Samsung recently became the leading vendor of smartphones with a market share of 20%, up from 8.8% last year, according to a third-quarter market research report by IDC. It surpassed Apple, which has a 14.5% market share, down from 17% last year. Let’s take a closer look.

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Blue Nile Vs. The Nouveau Riche

Diamond prices have been on the rise during the year. In the first half of 2011, prices rose 40% owing to high demand in the Chinese and Indian markets. Since then, prices have fallen by up to 20% in a six-week period through September. However, the December 2011 Diamond Prices Index of 232.7 was still nearly 9% higher than previous year’s 213.7. The increasing prices are hurting online jeweler, Blue Nile. (Nasdaq:NILE)

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Angie’s List – An Ambiguous Investment

Thus far in 2011, many new age Internet companies have filed their respective S-1s hoping to cash in on the Internet stock valuation hype. For those that have already listed, such as LinkedIn, Groupon, and Pandora, their performance on the stock market has left a lot to be desired. The Bloomberg IPO Index, a measure of the performance of stocks during their first publicly traded year, fell 26% this year, compared with a 5% decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

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Nokia’s New Strategy Launches

Early this year, Nokia (NYSE:NOK) announced plans to adopt the Microsoft Windows phone operating system as their primary smartphone strategy and move away from their proprietary Symbian operating system. Nokia recently released the Lumia range of phones, their first phones based on the Windows operating system, and are apparently off to a running start in the U.K. market. Nokia has pinned its hopes on this new strategy to strengthen their increasingly tenuous hold on the smartphone market. Let’s take a closer look.

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