To: Johnny Canuck who wrote (49015 ) 1/11/2013 4:25:03 PM From: Johnny Canuck Read Replies (1) | Respond to 0:58AM Facebook denies big drop in Instagram users ( FB ) by Benjamin Pimentel fb ) has denied that its Instragram photo-sharing service has suffered a dramatic drop in its number of users. The New York Post reported that the number of daily active Instagram users dropped to a little over 8 million this week, from 16.4 million in mid-December, based on data from AppStats. On Friday, AppStats showed Instagram with 9 million daily active users. But in a statement, Facebook called the data "inaccurate," saying, "We continue to see strong and steady growth in both registered and active users of Instagram." Facebook says Instagram has 100 million registered users. Shares of Facebook were last trading up 1% at $31.62. 10:04AMbby ) jumped 10% on Friday to be the biggest gainer in the S&P 500 after the struggling electronics retailer reported better-than-expected holiday sales in the U.S., giving hope that business may begin to stabilize under a turnaround plan installed by its new Chief Executive Hubert Joly. Analysts also said the sales results may help founder Richard Schulze convince private equity firms to join him on a bid to take Best Buy private. Best Buy's comparable sales in the U.S. in the nine-week holiday period ended Jan. 5 were flat, compared with expectations for a decline. Still, Wall Street raised worry with the company's sharply reduced free cash flow guidance for the second time since November. 09:52AMcomp ) adding a small fractional gain to trade at 3,125 and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ( sox ) picking up about 0.2%. Microsoft ( msft ) and Dell ( dell ) saw fractional declines in early trades; IDC reported Thursday that PC sales fell more than 6% during the fourth quarter globally despite the release of Windows 8. Hewlett-Packard ( hpq ) , which had the leading global market share for the period, saw its shares rise 0.4% in early trades. Electronic Arts ( ea ) fell more than 2.5% after being downgraded to neutral by Piper Jaffray, a move that followed a disappointing report from NPD Thursday night for videogame sales in the month of December. 09:48AMjcp ) slumped 5.4% to $18.11 on Friday after UBS cut its rating on the struggling department store chain to sell from neutral. Analyst Michael Binetti also lowered his price target on the stock to $13 from $21 a share and cut his fourth-quarter same-store sales estimate to a decline of 28% from a prior estimate of a 20% drop. He reduced his gross margin expectations as well. "We believe a deteriorating earnings outlook and emerging signs of cash flow distress will require significant changes to JCP's turnaround strategy," he said. He added "any credible revised plan will require a significant cut to mid-term" per-share profit partly because the company will have to install deeper price discounts. There's also "mounting evidence" that current cash flows will not be sufficient to support the new shop rollout timetable while the company also has to increase expenses to " re-engage customers," he said. 09:44AMbac ) , Citigroup Inc. ( c ) and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. ( jpm ) also fell. Wells Fargo's net interest margin--the profit margin between lending and investing--was 3.56% versus 3.89% a year ago and 3.66% in the third quarter. The Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF ( xlf ) , which tracks the financial stocks in the S&P 500 [s; spx], fell 0.5%. 07:57AMcvx ) by 3 cents to $3.11 a share after the oil producer's interim update. Wall Street analysts currently expect Chevron to earn $3.04 a share, on average, according to a survey by FactSet. Chevron's production estimate beat Tudor Pickering's target by about 1%, while price realizations were slightly better, analysts noted. Tudor Pickering analysts reiterated their hold rating on Chevron, which is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average ( $dj ) .
