Facebook SEC and IPO info

Facebook on Monday filed an amendment to its S-1 documents originally submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on February 1. With its IPO date reportedly set for May 17, the social networking giant has published new stats that reflect growth and revenue over the last fiscal quarter, which ended on March 31.

In addition, Facebook recently announced plans to acquire photo-sharing app Instagram and to purchase a large number of AOL patents from Microsoft. Here are some key stats from the amendment:

Monthly active users now total 901 million (up from 680 million a year ago). Daily active users are up to 526 million (up from 372 million last year). Monthly mobile users now total 488 million. 300 million photos are uploaded to the site each day. 3.2 billion Likes and Comments are posted daily. 125 billion friendships are forged per day.

Facebook will pay $300 million in cash, plus 23 million shares of common stock for photo-sharing app Instagram. If the Instagram deal falls through, Facebook will pay $200 million. Revenue for the first quarter of 2012 was $1.058 billion, up from $731 last year. Net income dropped to $205 million for the quarter, down from $233 last year.

(As pointed out by TechCrunch, the total value of Facebook's Instagram deal -- cash and shares included -- totals $1,010,470,000.) The company also added some new risk factors to its S-1, including one outlining the inherent risks of Facebook's ongoing patent battle with Yahoo. From the filing: [O]n March 12, 2012,

Yahoo filed a lawsuit against us in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that alleges that a number of our products infringe the claims of ten of Yahoo’s patents that Yahoo claims relate to “advertising,” “social networking,” “privacy,” “customization,” and “messaging.” Yahoo is seeking unspecified damages, a damage multiplier for alleged willful infringement, and an injunction.

We intend to vigorously defend this lawsuit, and on April 3, 2012, we filed our answer with respect to this complaint and asserted counterclaims that Yahoo’s products infringe ten of our patents. This litigation is still in its early stages and the final outcome, including our liability, if any, with respect to Yahoo’s claims, is uncertain.

If an unfavorable outcome were to occur in this litigation, the impact could be material to our business, financial condition, or results of operations. Facebook expects to raise $5 billion in its IPO, which may value the company at close to $100 billion.

The company will trade on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol "FB."

Upheaval in European politics

The chase by Marty Cej:

European stocks are falling and U.S. stock index futures are pointing to early declines after reports showing manufacturing contracted in April in China and Europe, French voters handed Socialist Francois Hollande a win in the first round of the presidential election and the Dutch Prime Minister failed to reach an accord with a coalition party over proposed austerity measures that might help the country avoid being pulled into the region's debt crisis. Late Friday, the IMF confirmed it had won $430 billion US in new funding commitments. A good thing since it looks like Europe is gonna need it.

Austerity in Peril! We'll need to focus on budgets today; not the details of this budget or that, but the fact that some tough-talking budgets are in question as elections and votes take place. French President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday became the first incumbent since 1958 to lose the first round of the presidential election, putting the crisis-fighting team of Merkozy in jeopardy. His opponent, Hollande, wants to renegotiate the European fiscal compact. In the Netherlands, the prime minister's calls for additional budget cuts have met with resistance from a parliamentary ally, which may mean he'll need to gamble on early elections to shore up additional support. In Canada, Alberta chooses a new leader today and Ontario's budget goes to a vote Tuesday.

Wal-Mart Stores found itself on the front page of The New York Times yesterday and vying for the Top Story slot everywhere else today. In a lengthy feature, the Times yesterday alleged that the world's biggest retailer bribed local officials in Mexico more than six years ago to speed the opening of stores and that executives probed those allegations as far back as 2005 but then covered them up. Today, Wal-Mart said it is "committed to getting to the bottom of this matter… Unfortunately, we realize that, at this point, there are some unanswered questions. We wish we could say more."

Among the angles we need to pursue are the questions of governance and oversight. We need to understand the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and how it is applied. We need to look at the Canadian equivalent and how it is applied and whether it has been successful or not. I'd like to hear from a company CEO with operations abroad about how difficult it can be at times to apply Canadian governance rules to business done where the rules are different. And we need to be clear that we are talking about allegations.

With the proxy vote to determine the fate of CP Rail inching closer, Headline gets an update with Bill Ackman, CEO, Pershing Square Capital Management, at 12:30 p.m. ET.

There are some big deals we need to consider today. Nestle has agreed to buy Pfizer's (pronounced "Pfizer") baby food unit for almost $12 billion. That's a lot of pablum. AstraZeneca has agreed to buy Ardea Biosciences for $1.3 billion, giving AstraZeneca a new drug to combat gout. Henry IIIV is most pleased with the transaction.

In earnings, we are watching numbers from ConocoPhillips, Hasbro and Xerox. CN Rail reports after the close, as does Texas Instruments.

Jeb Handwerger makes some good points...

We are encountering storms in the market rarely seen. The volatility has affected many mining equities with many high quality assets selling at record low prices. Portfolios have rarely seen such see saw price activity as they have this year. Sacrosanct rules are simply not working. The markets are thwarting and aborting attempts to use time tested approaches.

The great Scottish Poet Robert Burns described the current market by writing, “the best made plans of mice and men go oft astray.”  He also observed “alas in this world there is more offal than poetry.”  But poetry hardly pays and compost does. Gold Stock Trades (GST) tries to tell it like it is. We do not use the technical jargon of the engineers and the economists that serve more to confuse and obfuscate the investor. In fact it was Einstein who stated, “the nth degree of complexity is simplicity.”  GST attempts to cut away the fat from the meat.

So how do we direct you through these present swamps of despond and misdirection? Remember the October 4th low and our GST reversal signal at 1074 on the S&P 500 made a “V” turnaround and vaulted to a new 52 week high. It remains to be seen whether the rally we have called will mark a rotation into the resource markets and precious metals.

 If blood is not flowing for mining investors, they are certainly coloring our screens red, while the moribund banks and housing stocks soar driving the S&P higher. Fundamentally something is just not right. The U.S. debt crisis is far from over and this basing period in precious metals and commodities may turn out to be an exceptional buying opportunity as investors rotate from overbought U.S. equities, treasuries and dollars into high quality wealth in the earth assets.  GOLD, SILVER & HUI CHART In such a scenario, the U.S. dollar and long term bonds by comparison looks attractive when stacked up against the crumbling currencies of the Eurozone.

The chart shows an anomaly occurring. In 2008 and 2010 during the credit crisis and sovereign debt crisis, the dollar and treasuries rallied together. In 2011 and 2012, treasuries hit record highs, yet the U.S. dollar is not at comparable levels. This may indicate that the greenback is losing the safe haven appeal of yesteryear. We note with interest that in 2011 the Chinese Metal Exchange in Shanghai made ominous noises about raising the margin rate on silver.

It would seem that the bankers consistently choose to handicap silver and gold while favoring U.S. bank stocks, dollars and treasuries. Eventually we believe this suppression of precious metals can only be kept down for a discrete period of time before the pressure mounts in the favor of gold and silver, as if and when Bernanke and his European colleagues return to the printing presses as they have done before and are now indicating to do again.

The miners (GDX)  are once again declining and are testing two year lows creating a firesale discount on blue chip producers. The miners are trading at a significant discount to gold at less than $1200 an ounce. Some top notch mining assets in the United States are trading at less than $17 an ounce of resource. This indicates investors are forecasting lower gold prices. We disagree and believe the crowd is wrong here. We are actually near a bottom in precious metals and miners. A turn around should be coming sooner rather than later.

For many months GST has said that there may be a master Keynesian strategy that is being followed to revive the moribund banks of Europe and the United States. This is an ideal time to make this move, the U.S. dollar appears to be stronger for the time being, U.S. bonds are selling at relatively record low yields, unemployment remains high, commodities/precious metals have significantly corrected and the risk of inflation has abated. In fact, they may be already printing LTRO 2 to staunch the Eurozone collapse.

Just as QE2 was used by the Federal Reserve Board to staunch the bleeding of the Eurozone in 2010, it is entirely possible that they will institute the latest version of can kicking down the road. Let us hope they “follow the yellow brick road” and we may witness a rotation from overbought equities into tangible assets, commodities

What is the DNS Changer Malware?

What is the DNS Changer Malware?

On November 8, the FBI, the NASA-OIG and Estonian police arrested several cyber criminals in “Operation Ghost Click”. The criminals operated under the company name “Rove Digital”, and distributed DNS changing viruses, variously known as TDSS, Alureon, TidServ and TDL4 viruses. You can read more about the arrest of the Rove Digital principals here, and in the FBI Press Release.

What does the DNS Changer Malware do?

The botnet operated by Rove Digital altered user DNS settings, pointing victims to malicious DNS in data centers in Estonia, New York, and Chicago. The malicious DNS servers would give fake, malicious answers, altering user searches, and promoting fake and dangerous products. Because every web search starts with DNS, the malware showed users an altered version of the Internet.

Under a court order, expiring July 9, the Internet Systems Consortium is operating replacement DNS servers for the Rove Digital network. This will allow affected networks time to identify infected hosts, and avoid sudden disruption of services to victim machines.

How Can I Protect Myself?

This page describes how you can determine if you are infected, and how you can clean infected machines. To check if you’re infected, Click Here. If you believe you are infected, here are instructions on how to clean your computer.

http://www.dcwg.org/