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Before the bell: Stock futures soar ahead of Bush, Bernanke speechesHome Depot (NYSE: HD) said it completed the sale of its wholesale supply business, HD Supply, to buyout firms for $8.5 billion and would would pay $325 million to keep a 12.5% stake in the supply business. HD shares are up 1.2% in premarket trading (7:39 a.m.).
Chevron Corp (NYSE: CVX) said its Chevron USA Inc and Chevron Credit Bank units agreed to sell their respective proprietary credit card businesses. Chevron also said it has chosen GE Money Bank, a unit of General Electric Co (NYSE: GE), to own and operate its Chevron- and Texaco-branded consumer credit cards, and FleetCor Technologies Operating Co to own and operate its branded commercial credit cards. These are still subject to regulatory approvals.
Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD) was downgraded by Bear Stearns from Outperform to Peer Perform.
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL), which beat estimates when reported earnings yesterday, earned a price target increase at two firms. UBS, which according to Briefing.com has a Sell on Dell, upped the target price from $30 to $35 (update: Briefing.com just contacted me to notify me the UBS price change was incorrect as I've noted that it didn't make any sense). Friedman Billings, with its Market Perform rating upped the target price from $26 to $28. (This doesn't make much sense, perhaps the targets were confused between the two firms).
NBC Universal, which is controlled by General Electric Co (NYSE: GE), will not be renewing its contract to sell digital downloads of television shows on Apple Inc's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes after failing to come to an agreement on pricing, the New York Times reported.
Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) has tentatively set a mid-September target for the launch of its music service, the New York Post reported.
Joe Mansueto, chairman of investment research company Morningstar Inc (NASDAQ: MORN), has emerged as the top bidder for Time Inc's tech-oriented Business 2.0 magazine, the New York Post reported. Time Inc is a unit of Time Warner Inc (NYSE: TWX).
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-31-2007 @ 4:05PM
Jay said...
NBC asked for $4.99/show instead of $1.99 show on iTunes. Apple told NBC to drop dead and yanked their fall programming instead of waiting for the contract to expire in December. Rightfully so.
Apple is sticking up for the consumer here. $4.99 is ridiculous. NBC may think it stood its ground. Instead, it's digging its own grave.
Hulu will fail. All other content delivery platforms will fail. The reason? iTunes will continue to grow internationally along with iPod, iPhone, and AppleTV. It's all about the integrated platform. No one else can deliver this experience. Therefore, nothing will replace iTunes.
The sea change is already past the point of no return. NBC is fearful of Apple's pre-eminent position and I don't blame them. But if they try to get greedy or try to drop iTunes from their digital content delivery system altogether, they are the ones that will be left behind.
Bad move, NBC. And other content providers, take note. Would you prefer to have us pirate or file share your shows instead of us paying a reasonable price for them via our preferred delivery method -- iTunes?
Sheesh.