gty posts

Feed

Analyst downgrades: Priceline.com, Monster, Internap

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Priceline.com, Monster and Internap were today's noteworthy downgrades:
  • Susquehanna downgraded Priceline.com (NASDAQ: PCLN) to Neutral from Positive as they believe upside may be difficult given the macro environment, competition, and currency headwinds.
  • JP Morgan lowered Monster (NASDAQ: MNST) to Neutral from Overweight following the company's expectations for higher 1Q08 operating expenses.
  • Internap (NASDAQ: INAP) was downgraded by Merriman to Neutral from Buy as they believe upside will be limited until the company can complete its integration of the VitalStream CDN acquisition.
OTHER DOWNGRADES:

Jupitermedia folds Flying Hands into its royalty-free music library

Hat-tip to PaidContent.org, a good site about the media business, which reported on Friday about Jupitermedia (NASDAQ: JUPM) purchasing Flying Hands Music, an online library of royalty-free music. Jupitermedia CEO Alan Meckler posted on his blog that this "was part of the company's strategy to expand, what it believes, is the world's largest collection of royalty-free music."

JUPM will be combining Flying Hands with its existing site, RoyaltyFreeMusic.com. It appears Jupiter has larger plans to bulk up its music offering. As announced on Meckler's blog, JUPM has plans to launch a new way for organizations to buy royalty-free background music for websites and other purposes in late February.

It's a good thing Jupiter is looking for expansion. Its stock is down 50% for 2007 and its larger competitor, Getty Images (NYSE: GYI) is down over 30%. Both companies have been plagued by what Citibank analyst Matthew Troy called "investor concern about structural shifts in the stock imaging landscape, driven by rapid growth in alternative channels and forms of lower yielding image licensing" in a research piece in November.

In other words, what was once a lucrative business is being eaten away by smaller sites with aggressive pricing and licensing requirements that just aren't what Jupitermedia was accustomed to seeing. To address this issue, JUPM has changed its focus to expand into media with acquisitions like Flying Hands.

What investors who have followed the story for some time are witnessing is that the Jupitermedia investment thesis has changed. Instead of Jupiter spinning off some of these web properties, Jupitermedia is now actually looking to acquire new businesses to amalgamate to their media business.

Zack Miller is the Managing Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund. Author holds no position in stocks mentioned.

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-37.1910,741.98
NASDAQ-16.872,374.41
S&P 500-5.921,159.90

Last updated: March 20, 2010: 07:13 AM

Hot Stocks

General Electric

18.07-0.12(-0.66)

Alcoa

14.26-0.04(-0.28)

Apple Inc

222.2499-2.4001(-1.07)

Google Inc 'A'

560.00-6.40(-1.13)

Bank of America

16.82-0.26(-1.52)

Wal-Mart Stores

55.34-0.60(-1.07)

Exxon Mobil Corp

67.04-0.35(-0.52)

Ford

13.29-0.44(-3.20)

Citigroup

3.90-0.12(-2.99)

IBM

127.71-0.67(-0.52)

Yahoo

16.44-0.12(-0.72)

Starbucks

24.97-0.05(-0.20)

Microsoft

29.59-0.02(-0.07)

Home Depot

32.36-0.04(-0.12)

DailyFinance Headlines

WalletPop Headlines

AOL Business News

BioHealth Investor Headlines

Sponsored Links

My Portfolios

Track your stocks here!

Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.

BloggingStocks Partners

More from AOL Money & Finance

CNNMoney Headlines

More CNNMoney.com

Financial Times Headlines

More Financial Times

CNBC Headlines

More CNBC.com

SmartMoney Headlines

More SmartMoney

Fox Business Headlines

More Fox Business

Engadget Headlines

More Engadget