Filed under: Business, Productivity, Social Software

Despite some current competition from sites like Plurk, Twitter is hanging tough as the microblogging center of the web. Now stock-market investors are catching on to Twitter, too, with an add-on site called StockTwits. StockTwits collects tweets that mention a stock symbol, prefaces with a dollar sign. For example, $AAPL was very popular this week, with the Steve Jobs keynote at WWDC.

If you want to see what the Wall Street speculators on Twitter are talking about, head over to StockTwits and check out the info in tag cloud form, in stream form, or by searching. Each tweet is displayed under a graph of the current performance of the stock mentioned. There’s also a cloud of users, so you can easily locate your fellow investment junkies and connect with them over Twitter. Of course, we can’t vouch for any of the advice you might get, but this looks like an intelligent use of microblogging technology.

[Via Tim Sykes]

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Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, web 2.0

You remember how your boss told you when you were hired that you shouldn’t go around discussing your salary with other employees because some of them were making less than you and you didn’t want to make them feel bad? Yeah, you knew there was a good chance that wasn’t true, but hey, company policy is company policy, so you… yeah, who are we kidding, first chance you got you went and compared your salary with all of your coworkers.

Glassdoor is kind of like that. But on the internet. And anonymous. Anyone can submit a job title and salary for a position they currently or formerly held. You can also submit reviews of the company or the CEO. All reviews and salary submissions are anonymous, but if you’re the only software engineer who worked at a small company for the last 3 years, you might want to think twice before giving away any trade secrets.

You need to register to get full access to the site. Registration is free, but you do need to submit a salary report, which helps build Glassdoor’s databse. As a teaser, anyone can view data from Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Cisco.

Keep in mind, Glassdoor’s data is all user generated. Some people might be lying about their salaries, or even about where they work. And the site is very new, having just launched this morning. So there’s a good chance your company isn’t even listed yet. But if Glassdoor catches on, and given the way people like to gossip about salaries, we think it probably will, the service could become a crucial part of your next job hunt.

[via The Inquisitor]

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Filed under: Deals, Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Motorola (MOT), Blockbuster Inc ‘A’ (BBI)

It would appear that Carl Icahn’s attempt to take over Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) has a few less fans. Short sellers increased their interest in the company by 19.4 million shares to 66.6 million between May 15 and May 30.

The gamble is almost certainly based on the emerging sentiment that Icahn has made an awful decision. He’ll either lose his proxy fight to take control of the company, or win it and find that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) no longer wants to purchase the company. Traders in general seem to care about that theory. Yahoo! shares have moved from just shy of $27 five days ago to as low as $26.26 yesterday.

Icahn’s biggest weakness may be that he has to be right. It has cost him a bundle in Motorola (NYSE: MOT) and Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI). Now, there’s no indication that Microsoft will pay any premium at all for Yahoo!. Redmond might have no interest in any deal any more.

Some group of traders is guessing Yahoo! will trade much lower.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com and author of the Ten Stocks Under $10 letter.

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Filed under: Deals, XM Satellite Radio (XMSR), Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI), Market matters, Stocks to Purchase, Stocks to Sell, Cramer on BloggingStocks

TheStreet.com’s Jim Cramer says the longer Sirius and XM Satellite have to wait for the FCC to rule, the worse things get for these stocks.

Worried.

Worried about the Sirius (NASDAQ: SIRI) (Cramer’s Take) -XM Satellite (NASDAQ: XMSR) (Cramer’s Take) deal.

This is a deal that should have happened when the Justice Department gave the nod to it. That non-political judgment should have been enough to make it work. But it’s been stalled on the FCC’s desk since then, and the comments I’ve heard are incredibly contradictory about when it might be approved, and if it will be approved at all.

FCC chairman Kevin Martin first indicated to people that he didn’t even know if the deal would come up any time soon. Then yesterday he said it might come up this month, and they’re working hard on it.

What’s to work on?

The combined company has concurred to everything anyone has recommended that might be monopolistic. It is true that the FCC will have to go back on its charter on the deal that says there have to be two competitors here.

But the FCC has never, I believe, taken into account what could happen if nothing happens: one or both could go bankrupt.

Isn’t that what is behind the decline in the stocks? Isn’t that what we are really worried about? They obviously act like rejection is a foregone conclusion.

So instead of choice, which the FCC is so worried about, you could get no choice at all, as I simply don’t believe XM can make it at this point if there’s no deal. I think they run out of money. Given that scenario I believe that Sirius could go up, but it won’t go up until XM goes under.

In short, all the scenarios are bad the longer the FCC drags it out, and the scenarios are terrible if the FCC states no.

The good news: if you’re playing any stock game with Sirius you might have a data point that can move the stock coming up after Martin’s comments yesterday.

The bad news is that I think it might turn out to be a bad data point given the wait we’ve seen and the power of the congresspeople responding to terrestrial radio company entreaties.

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Jim Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com’s sites and serves as an adviser to the company’s CEO. At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in stocks mentioned.

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Filed under: Deals, XM Satellite Radio (XMSR), Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI)

Short sellers are guessing that the merger between Sirius (NASDAQ: SIRI) and XM Satellite (NASDAQ: XMSR) will be approved in the fairly near future. Short interest in Sirius fell 29.1 million shares between Might 15 and May 30 to 141.3 million.

There are lots of reasons for the change in sentiment. One is simply the passage of time. The FCC has had the matter for over a year-and-a-half and FCC chairman Kevin Martin recently said a decision would come soon.

Another reason the merger might get green-lighted is that Sirius is probably willing to give up some of the merged company’s spectrum for the government to auction off in the hope of creating yet another satellite radio company.

The final and ideal reason that the FCC may decide to let the marriage move through is that satellite radio isn’t the massive consumer electronics boom that it was a few years ago. There are too many programming competitors in the market. Sirius and XM cannot even make money. There’s, in fact, the issue of whether they can survive at all.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com and author of the Ten Stocks Under $10 letter.

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Filed under: Before the bell, Earnings reports, Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Deals, Yahoo! (YHOO), Apple Inc (AAPL), Caterpillar (CAT), Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), Alcoa Inc (AA), Nortel Networks (NT)

Before the bell: Futures higher ahead of Beige Book, oil supplies

Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA) said its Australian operations declared force majeure under supply contracts because an explosion at a gas supplier slowed production. Alcoa said the disruption will likely lower second-quarter earnings by 2 cents to 3 cents a share. Also, JP Morgan downgraded Alcoa from Overweight to Neutral, saying the company will not be a takeover target.

Bloggers, investors and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) weren’t just interested in the new 3G iPhone unveiled Monday. Many of them commented on the appearance of CEO Steve Jobs and voiced concerns for his health, saying he was gaunt-looking. While a spokeswoman said Jobs was hit with a common bug, many are worried since Jobs was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer four years ago, for which he underwent surgery that Apple stated was successful.

Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) was awarded a $397.1 million contract from the U.S. Army for two types of dozers with armor kits. The contract has one five-year option. Work is expected to be finished by 2018. Caterpillar is also holding its annual meeting this day.

Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) and the activist investor Carl Icahn have sharply different estimates of the cost of a severance plan that Yahoo has put in place, The Wall Street Journal reported. Icahn has called the plan excessively costly and estimates it would cost $2.4 billion.

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Filed under: Before the bell, Deals, Staples Inc (SPLS), Economic data, Lehman Br Holdings (LEH), Federal Reserve

U.S. stock futures were higher early Wednesday ahead of the release of the Beige Book on economic conditions and the release of weekly oil inventory supplies that could move oil prices again.

U.S. stocks ended blended but unchanged much Tuesday following the release of April trade deficit, which widened further and despite crude-oil prices edged lower. Comments from Bernanke on inflation concerned investors. The Dow industrials rose 9 points, or 0.08%, while the S&P 500 fell 3.3 points, or 0.24%, and the Nasdaq Composite declined 10 points, or 0.43%.

This day, the Federal Reserve is scheduled to issue its Beige Book - a survey of regional economic performance - at 2 p.m EDT.
At 10:30 a.m., weekly crude inventories are due out. Oil prices rebounded in electronic trading Wednesday back above $133 a barrel ahead of the report as traders speculate inventories declined and as the dollar weakened.

Meanwhile, in Europe, Juergen Stark, a European Central Bank board member stated the ECB will likely not act in a series of interest-rate increases, but rather just raise borrowing costs the one time in July and that’s it.

In corporate news, Staple (NASDAQ: SPLS) has finally won its battle to buy Corporate Express (NYSE: CXP) after the Dutch firm concurred to a sweetened bid of $2.65 billion and ended its own deal with Lyreco. The first original offer in February was for 7.25 euros, which was then lifted to 9.15 euros and again to 9.25 euros — the accepted offer.

Attempting to raise $6 billion in capital, Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) nearly struck a deal with Korean financial institutions, including nclude Korea Development Bank and Kookmin Bank, and might yet arrange one by the end of the year, the Financial Times reported. LEH stock seems to be recovering somewhat in premarket trading, up about 1%.

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