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• Stocks that won and lost in Nasdaq short interest

  Posted Apr 14 2008, 06:07 AM by Douglas McIntyre
  Filed under: Microsoft, Cisco, Yahoo, E*Trade, Intel, Sirius, XM Satellite Radio, JetBlue, Dell, Take-Two Interactive, Electronic Arts
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  Most companies on Nasdaq did fairly well with the shorts in the two-week period which ended on March 31. The two tremendous exceptions were Level 3, where short interest moved up 20.3 million shares to 243.9 million, and Sirius, where shares sold short jumped 40.4 million to 137.8 million.

  In a tough stock market and credit environment, it is not hard to see why investors would place bets against both companies. Each stock trades near its 52-week low. Level 3 recently pushed out its president. Although it is in an attractive business, bandwidth infrastructure, it is a patch-work of M&A work with a large amount of debt and almost no cash-flow. In other words, a liquidation candidate in a deep recession.

  Sirius is also hurt by a high debt-load -- over $1.2 billion -- and negative operating income. If the company's merger with XM Satellite does not go through, it may not be able to survive as a standalone company either.   Read More...

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• E-mail on a plane? The idea lives again.

  Posted Dec 10 2007, 03:46 AM by Kim Peterson
  Filed under: Yahoo, Research in Motion, JetBlue, Boeing
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  Boeing shut down its ambitious onboard WiFi project last year, saying that after six years of work it couldn't find enough airlines who would offer the service to its customers. The service, called Connexion, provided e-mail, Web and TV during flights, with costs that ranged from $15 for less than three hours to $30 for a full day. It was mainly offered on non-U.S. airlines, and people who used it raved. But analysts said the service, which cost $150 million a year to run, was only used by 1,000 people a day across 125 commercial planes.

  Boeing was too hasty in killing Connexion. U.S. airlines are slowly embracing free WiFi service, hoping to lure customers who want to send e-mails and instant messages from 30,000 feet. JetBlue is launching its WiFi trial tomorrow on just one plane, becoming the first U.S. carrier to do so. American, Virgin and Alaska plan to roll out service next year.   Read More...

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