Online resources for doing research

If you’re considering a company as a possible investment, you’ll need to determine how healthy and promising it is. Here are some online resources that can help. (Two good offline resources are “The Little Book That Still Beats the Market” by Joel Greenblatt and “The Little Book of Value Investing” by Christopher H. Browne — both Wiley, $20.)
•The company’s own website. Look for links labeled “About Us,” “Corporate Information,” “Investor Relations,” etc., and try to read through at least the most recent annual report. Even a “Career Opportunities” section can give you insights into how heavily it’s hiring and what kinds of people it needs. Search engines such as Google.com can help you find a company’s website.
•Online company data providers, such as finance.yahoo.com and caps.fool.com. Financial statements that companies must file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are available through such sites and also at sec.gov/edgar.shtml.
•Analyst research reports. Most major online brokerages (such as E-Trade, TD Ameritrade, Schwab, Fidelity, etc.) offer customers access to a range of Wall Street reports on loads of stocks. Learn more about choosing the best brokerage at broker.fool.com.
•Industry information. Research an industry at websites such as these: virtualpet.com/industry /rdindex2.htm, bls.gov/iag, and valuationresources.com/IndustryReport.htm. Simple Google searches can help, too.
•Historical P/E ratios and other measures. Look these up at sites such as morningstar.com.
Historical numbers can be very handy. If a company you’re examining has a P/E of 22, for example, and you see that over the past five years its P/E has usually been around 30, then you might be looking at an attractive price right now. (Do more digging, though, to make sure the company isn’t facing some current tough challenges.)
•Articles in current issues and archives of financial periodicals such as The Wall Street Journal and Fortune. You can read many online for free, and your local newspaper’s business section can be informative, too.

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Regions Financial and Huntington Bancshares Look to Continue Strong Recovery

NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwire -01/23/12)- Regional Banks in the U.S. have performed strongly of late. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal regional banks benefitted from an improved lending climate in the fourth quarter as the national economy continues to gain strength. The Paragon Report examines investing opportunities in the Regional Banking Sector and provides equity research on Regions Financial Corporation (NYSE: RF – News) and Huntington Bancshares Inc. (NASDAQ: HBAN – News). Access to the full company reports can be found at:
www.paragonreport.com/RF
www.paragonreport.com/HBAN
Second Curve Capital LLC’s Thomas Brown explains that it is “much more easy” for smaller regional banks to control their business. Brown told Bloomberg that one of the key positives for banks in 2012, big and small, will be significant increases in common-stock dividends. The Federal Reserve explained that it will approve dividend increases and other capital distributions for banks that demonstrate sufficient financial strength to operate under stressed markets.
The Paragon Report provides investors with an excellent first step in their due diligence by providing daily trading ideas, and consolidating the public information available on them. For more investment research on the regional banking sector register with us free at www.paragonreport.com and get exclusive access to our numerous stock reports and industry newsletters.
Last week, Huntington Bancshares Inc. said its fourth-quarter profit rose as the bank increased lending to businesses and set aside less money for problem loans. For the full year 2011, Huntington posted a profit attributable to common shareholders of $511.8 million, or 59 cents per share, compared with $140.3 million, or 19 cents per share, the year before. The company’s board also declared a quarterly cash dividend of 4 cents per share. The dividend will be paid on April 2 to shareholders of record as of March 19.
For 2012, Huntington Bancshares expects to see “modest improvement” in net interest income from its fourth-quarter level, according to its earnings statement.
The Paragon Report has not been compensated by any of the above-mentioned publicly traded companies. Paragon Report is compensated by other third party organizations for advertising services. We act as an independent research portal and are aware that all investment entails inherent risks. Please view the full disclaimer at http://www.paragonreport.com/disclaimer
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Investment bankers eye Facebook IPO job

The Irish Times – Saturday, December 31, 2011
INVESTMENT BANKERS are warming up for the race to land what promises to be one of next year’s most lucrative initial public offering (IPO) advisory jobs – Facebook.
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that bankers and venture capitalists had named long-time rivals Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as frontrunners.
“Facebook’s stock sale could be as big as $10 billion [€7.72 billion], valuing the company at $100 billion or more,” the Wall Street Journal said in a technology blog.
“Fees for IPOs of that size have averaged 2.2 per cent, according to Dealogic, which tracks new issues. That would mean a possible total pay-off of as much as $220 million, though the company could negotiate lower fees because the Facebook deal is such a trophy.”
Data compiled by Bloomberg shows that the value of internet flotations could reach $11 billion next year, which would only be second to the $18.5 billion raised at the height of a tech bubble in 1999.
Fourteen such companies are considering flotations next year. While surging sales growth may lure investors to Facebook, the biggest social-networking site, heightened stock volatility and Europe’s sovereign debt crisis could temper the pace of global IPOs after a 38 per cent decline in 2011.
Even internet companies may cut valuations for their offerings after Zynga, the largest developer of games for Facebook, and online radio company Pandora slumped following share sales this year, according to research firm Morningstar.
“Technology is still a place where you can get outperformance in terms of growth against a tepid market backdrop,” said David Erickson of Barclays. “You might see more IPOs emerge if we get resolution in Europe or stability that makes investors more comfortable with the overall market.”
IPOs raised $155.8 billion in 2011, compared with $252 billion a year earlier, and US initial offerings generated $38.8 billion, about 10 per cent less than in 2010. In Asia, IPOs this year have raised $79.2 billion, less than half the $176.5 billion last year.
While funds raised in Europe rose for the year, they sank more than 95 per cent since August from a year earlier. – (Additional reporting: Bloomberg)

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Travel Sites Hate Google More than Ever

Travel sites still say that Google is using its own algorithm to promote its flight searches and hiding those of competitors, while the search titan maintains that’s the only way airlines wanted to do business.
“The airlines told us that they would not give us [travel data] if we provided booking links to” online travel agencies, Jeremy Wertheimer, an ITA Software founder and now a Google vice president, said at an online travel conference last month according to the Wall Street Journal.

The travel industry outcry started last year when Google bought ITA Software for $700 million, the company from which most everyone gets their flight search information, and Microsoft, Expedia and Kayak began to lobby to stop the deal. Not surprisingly, when Google managed to clear the government antitrust probe and used a Google flight search without ITA’s software, the travel sites are still unhappy with the deal. (Google has used ITA Software to create a flight search on its Android and iOS app OnTheFly, which is nothing short of great.)

Google, which has branched into travel, likely saw the buy as a supplementing its search services. But online travel agencies such as Expedia, and more importantly travel search engines such as Kayak, see the competition as deadly.
It’s true that Kayak has the most to lose here, because it has the least to offer. At least Orbitz and Expedia are travel agencies that sell airlines, trips and hotel rooms (and make most of their money from hotels,) but Kayak made itself simply an online tool to aggregate travel information. In a face off between aggregators — a small, narrowly-focused aggregator doesn’t stand a chance against Google’s almighty algorithm. Is that fair? We suppose it depends on whom you ask.

Google’s search engine was started 13 years ago, long before Kayak’s travel search started in 2004. So isn’t it simply a matter of Kayak having a poor business model from the beginning? Of course, that idea will be batted away for now because the company is desperately trying to launch an  IPO before anyone sees that this startup isn’t viable in the long term.

 

This article is from http://tourism9.com/ 

Google under fire for travel search placement

Searching for flights on Google.
(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

Google is taking heat from travel companies that say the search engine is giving preferential treatment to its own travel search tools over those of competitors.
The Wall Street Journal today points to a practice begun by the search giant earlier this month, which provides results for travel-related searches–such as domestic flights–from right within Google, as opposed to pointing searchers towards places like Priceline, Expedia, and Orbitz.
The move poses a serious threat, the Journal says, for these competing travel sites, which can depend on Google for 10 percent to 20 percent of their incoming traffic. With the newer technique of putting links to airline sites right up top, there’s a chance visitors won’t scroll down to try their search from one of these other sites, the Journal argues.
Google made serious moves to get into the travel business in the middle of last year, announcing plans to buy travel software company ITA as part of a $700 million deal. ITA’s core business is curating and indexing prices, flight schedules, and open seats, and offering the data to partners. When Google first announced plans to buy the company, it said it intended to use ITA’s technology to let users buy tickets directly from its search pages.
The 500-person company has relationships with airlines and travel agencies and can be found powering sites like Kayak, Hotwire, and Orbitz–many of which opposed the deal.
In April, Google and the Justice Department announced that a deal had been struck, granting Google the right to acquire ITA. But that deal came with strings attached, including that Google continue to license ITA’s technology to competitors for five years, and pass along any complaints from competitors about their listings not receiving fair placement on Google’s results pages.
In October, a federal judge approved the consent decree between Google and the Justice Department.
The Journal points to a statement made by Google vice president, and ITA founder, Jeremy Wertheimer last month, in which he said that airlines refused to give the company data about flights if that information was linked up to travel agencies as opposed to the airliners’ own sales sites. Google declined further elaboration on that point, the Journal said.
Worth pointing out is that Microsoft has a similar practice of putting travel results on the top of its Bing search pages, as it’s done since March of this year. However that technology is a partnership with Kayak, as opposed to Microsoft’s own travel tools. The Journal notes that Bing brings in “less than a quarter of Google’s audience,” giving the practice less of an impact.

This article is from http://tourism9.com/