By Rupert Nicholson:

What is the Volcker Rule?

The Volcker Rule is part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. It got its name from the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker. The rule aims to put an end to proprietary trading by banks on their own accounts. Prop trading is when a company trades stocks, commodities, derivatives etc. using its own cash reserves to make a profit for itself. The goal of the rule is to simply stop the banks trading for profit because the taxpayer will have be responsible for terrible mistakes. The Volcker rule is meant to come into effect on July 21st 2012.

JPMorgan
’s $5 billion loss

JPMorgan’s (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon announced on May 10th that the company had made a $2 billion trading loss on faulty derivatives bets in London. This has since spiraled into a potential $5 billion trading loss. It

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By Jake Zamansky:

Like the horror movie where the little monster created in a test tube in the lab grows and grows only to wind up threatening the whole village, the JPMorgan (JPM) “London Whale” trader’s exotic credit derivative bet is now a potential $100 billion liability, according to the Wall Street Journal of last Friday. And the loss has ballooned from $2 billion to possibly $5 billion in one week! While Jamie Dimon may have beached his Whale, the credit derivatives, which Warren Buffett aptly called “weapons of mass destruction” continue to grow. Indeed, Dimon and JPMorgan continue to argue that this was a proper “hedge” which was “poorly monitored” and have fired the underlings supposedly responsible for the mess.

The rest of us, however, know better. We know how this horror movie will end, because we saw it over and over again in 2008 and beyond. It was called “Too Big

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By Investment Underground:

By Doug Ehrman

It is hard to imagine a more monumental fall from grace than the one that has been suffered by Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) since the third quarter of 2011. Prior to that time, the company seemed nearly unstoppable. As a company, it was everyone’s favorite up-and-comer, giving consumers a new and inexpensive way to enjoy home entertainment while still providing excellent service and expanding technology. As a stock, the chart looked more like a launch pad than a pictorial depiction of performance; the stock marched steadily from a per share price around $20 in early 2007 to an all-time high of $295.14 on July 4, 2011. Even the corrections along the way were minor, providing small buying opportunities to anyone paying careful attention. The biggest complaint of most investors prior to that top was that they had missed the next big thing.

Of course that is when everything

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By Vatalyst:

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) will cut a large number of jobs, with some sources putting the number at 25,000 and others putting it at 30,000. This represents about 8% of the company’s workforce.

This is all part of a huge restructuring plan that the company plans to unveil very soon. The details of the restructuring will be available when the company reports its quarterly earnings. So far, what we do know, is that the company claims that it is not doing this in order to keep shareholders happy but rather to “make needed investments.” In addition, the cuts will not all happen at once. HP reports an intention to cut the jobs over a long period of time, perhaps even as long as a year. This is contrary to certain reports that state that people closely involved in the restructuring plans claim that the restructure is due in large part to declining

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By Dana Blankenhorn:

It was the biggest no-brainer in the history of Earth, it turned out.

Short Facebook (FB) at its open.

I wrote an angry screed over at TheStreet.com last weekend about the way this IPO was handled. Before the day was out the bankers who brought this turkey to dinner were having to lay out their own cash to keep it floating above its offering price.

Now that their commitment to the stock is over, the shares are seeking their own level. And that level is going to disappoint all those insiders who thought during the roadshow that they were all about to get easy billions.

Hey, Bono, don’t quit your day job.

What is Facebook really worth? It’s a fairly mature Internet company, which will have enormous difficulties entering new markets because it is immersive, a destination for peoples’ lives and the data surrounding those lives. China isn’t just closed

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By Harm Hoeksema:

The gaming industry is in turmoil. The unexpected quarterly results of the past weeks have led to big moves in the share prices of various companies such as Electronic Arts (EA), Zynga (ZNGA) and Activision Blizzard (ATVI). To assist the Seeking Alpha reader, and in reaction to Daily Finance’s “How Low Will EA Go,” I will mention the pros and cons of Electronic Arts at this very moment — especially concerning its upcoming lineup of games. Are these games, in fact, truly art? I, for one, think not.

Click to enlarge images.

Source: Electronic Art’s Q4 2012 earnings slides.

Current Situation

Mobile, Social, and Free-to-Play Games

During the last earnings call, no significant revenue stream was given by the Mobile, Social, and Free-to-Play (F2P) segment. For example, merely 6.36% and 8.60% of total revenue (GAAP and non-GAAP revenue, respectively) is generated by Mobile platforms. Electronic Arts has yet to gain

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By Bill Maurer:

Over the weekend, Yahoo (YHOO) finally announced a deal with Alibaba (ALBCF.PK) for the latter to repurchase part of the stake that Yahoo! owns. Under terms of the deal, Yahoo will sell up to half of its stake, or approximately 20% of Alibaba’s fully diluted shares. The valuation on Alibaba shares will be no less than $35 billion (remember, Alibaba has not gone public yet). Yahoo will receive approximately $7.1 billion from the deal. Of that, at least $6.3 billion will come from cash and up to $800 million will come from newly-issued Alibaba preferred shares. A framework was also set for the future, regarding Alibaba repurchasing the other roughly 20% stake Yahoo has in the company.

Investors had been waiting for this deal for some time, and it is finally here. Yahoo shares are jumping more than four percent in early pre-market Monday trading, but lost some of those

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By Value in Stock Market:

When I was in elementary school, the teacher once caught a student sitting next to me copying my answers — I wasn’t a participant in it — not during the exam, but while grading it. The poor fellow mindlessly copied my student ID along with the answers.

So I laughed out loud when I read the news that Baidu (BIDU) is launching Android phones to bite into the mobile market in China. Baidu has been a diligent Google (GOOG) copycat throughout its corporate life. It has introduced almost everything Google has. Now that Google has gotten approval to acquire Motorola Mobility (MMI) and will own a smartphone hardware business, Baidu has copied that too. It’s almost a cruel joke when a mindless copycat copies even bad decisions made by the market leader.

Why go rushing into the smartphone hardware business? Baidu is a software-centric search engine business. Its profit margin

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By Isaac Silbermann:

Heavily promoted companies often issue a flurry of fluffy press releases in order to keep investors excited in their companies. The announcement of a sales contract normally would not fall into such a classification, but sometimes when the company is truly questionable, it just might.

As the first part of a series on Great Wall Builders (GWBU.OB), a company which appears to be the subject of the biggest email promotion campaign of 2012, I will illustrate that there are reasons to doubt the significance of a recently announced distribution contract.

Great Wall Builders markets itself as owning

the exclusive manufacturing and distribution rights to the Start Fuel Efficiency and Emission Device (FEED), an aftermarket device for internal combustion engines that enhances performance by causing fuel to combust more efficiently and completely.

Until May 18, 2012, it appeared that the company had no customers for its product, however on this date

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By Ben Strubel:

Disclosure: You should do your own research and due diligence before making any investment decision with respect to any of the securities mentioned herein. As of the publication date, one or more of the following: Strubel Investment Management, our clients, our employees, and/or funds we advise are short JCOM and stand to realize significant gains in the event that the price of JCOM declines.

Following the publication of this article, we intend to continue transacting in JCOM and we may be long, short, or neutral any time after the date of publication. We undertake no obligation to update or supplement this article or disclose changes in our position in JCOM securities. Nothing in the article should be construed as investment advice or an offer to buy or sell any security.

J2 Global, Inc.’s (JCOM) primary business is providing electronic fax services. which as you would expect is a dying business.

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