If you're feeling good about the market, you're not alone. Let's go over some of this week's more uplifting headlines.
1. I think we should see other IPO people
Wall Street and dating websites didn't make a love connection on Wednesday.
China's Jiayuan.com (Nasdaq: DATE ) and stateside matchmaker FriendFinder Networks (Nasdaq: FFN ) began trading on Wednesday. I don't know what was in the air, but it certainly wasn't love.
Jiayuan sold 7.1 million shares at $11, but closed down at $10.52. FriendFinder proved an even bigger heartbreaker. Priced at $10, its offering fell 22% to $7.85 on Wednesday. FriendFinder took another 5% hit yesterday.
Is the quality of IPOs waning, or are investors simply not smitten by the notion of online dating sites? Either way, these were two first dates worth forgetting.
2. A song in the key of deal major
Live Nation (NYSE: LYV ) is teaming up with flash sale leader Groupon to launch a hub for marked-down concert experiences and other event-related goodies.
GrouponLive is a win-win venture. Live Nation now has a way to move unsold seats, a figure that the company has estimated to be about 40% in the past. Groupon finally gets access to popular one-time events that wouldn't be possible otherwise, since Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary have the market all but cornered.
Let's also not forget about the touring artists. Up-and-coming acts that may not necessarily sell out venues now have a shot to play bigger audiences, cultivating their followings.
Will the presence of a discount portal cause Live Nation to sell fewer tickets at retail prices? Probably not. The best seats always go to early birds, so existing fans are unlikely to hold out for a better last-minute deal if it means sitting all the way in the back.
3. Striking oil in China
The news is good for modern-day Daniel Plainview CAMAC Energy (AMEX: CAK ) .
The oil explorer announced positive results on a discovery in China's second-largest petroleum-bearing basin.
The logs and cores from CAMAC's deep drilling still need to be evaluated by a third party to asses the size of the discovery, but it's always good when a question goes from "yes or no" to "how much."
4. Putting the pedal to the Google
If you're willing to open up to Ford (NYSE: F ) , you may be able to milk some better mileage from your next car.
Ford showed up for the Google I/O conference this week, demonstrating how Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG ) Prediction API -- a platform that relies on past actions to forecast future behavior -- can make its next wave of plug-in hybrids more cost-effective.
Ford's conceptual use would be able to better manage the allocation of electric- and gas-powered options based on driver patterns on a given day and time. A weekend road trip or a short but traffic-riddled weekday morning commute can be managed more effectively if the engine knows what you're doing.
Consumers are sensitive about divulging too much information, but their tunes may change when gas money's at stake.
5. Skinned alive
Shares of ZAGG (Nasdaq: ZAGG ) rose after the maker of protective covers and cases for smartphones and tablets posted better-than-expected results.
Revenue more than tripled, and earnings more than quadrupled for the company. The stock got knocked around earlier this year, when the iPad 2 debuted with proprietary cases. However, ZAGG's biggest product remains the invisibleSHIELD anti-glare protective film, still a recommended purchase for tablets and smartphones that enjoy regular use.
ZAGG also boosted its guidance for all of 2011, suggesting that short-sellers probably need a protective cover of their own.
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