If you're feeling good about the market, you're not alone. Let's review this week's more uplifting headlines.
1. Some Sirius octane
Satellite radio is hot again. Sirius XM Radio
The media giant now expects to add 750,000 net subscribers to its premium radio service this year. It only targeted closing out the year with 500,000 more members when it posted its first-quarter results earlier this month.
The upward revisions don't end there. More listeners mean more money, and Sirius XM is also raising its guidance for pro forma revenue, adjusted operating profits, and free cash flow.
2. All that glitters isn't gold jewelry
Breakfast at Tiffany
Back-to-back double-digit percentage hikes? This bodes ridiculously well for the retailer as it prepares to report its fiscal first-quarter results next week. A confident spike in its disbursements rate wouldn't be plausible if Tiffany weren't moving a fair deal of its big-ticket bling.
3. The purple people eater
Yahoo!
The dot-com giant will acquire Associated Content, a syndicator of articles, slideshows, audio, and video that prides itself on its ability to generate quality content on the cheap.
Self-billed as "the people's media company," Associated Content pays its contributors between $2 and $15 for every piece of content it accepts and publishes. Popular submissions receive additional performance bonuses. The rates may seem low, but it hasn't stopped the company from recruiting 380,000 creators who cover 60,000 topics.
Associate Content puts out 50,000 editorially vetted pieces of content a month. Yahoo! knows just what to do here. It will be able to broaden the net of distribution, expand abroad, and slap its relevant ads all over the place. That's a good deal for a company that had been selling off non-core assets lately.
4. You are the movie projector
Netflix
One of the cool new features is the ability to stream flicks -- in higher resolution -- through televisions. This may not seem like much of a feature, but the ability to support video output through VGA, component, or composite dongles is huge.
Think of the next time you're heading out to a family reunion or holed up in a Wi-Fi-friendly hotel room. You'll probably be taking your iPad along, but now you can hook it up to a high-def television, to let everyone enjoy one of the thousands of titles that Netflix makes available at no additional cost to its subscribers on unlimited DVD plans.
Apple will sell a ton of these connection cables. Netflix will become harder to cancel. DVD rental chains and hospitality pay-per-view providers will be left smarting.
The way we experience television is transforming before our very eyes. Just yesterday, Google
Technology is moving so quickly in the home-theater space that revolutions take place in the time it takes you to heat up some microwave popcorn.
5. You win this time, GameStop
I've been a harsh critic of GameStop
Comps are still running negative at the video-game retailer, but it managed to post market-thumping growth on the top and bottom lines. GameStop also reiterated its guidance for the entire fiscal year, a welcome break after spending most of the past year watering down its targets.
GameStop even managed to grow its new software sales during a period in which industry-watchers reported bleak performance.
I still have my concerns about GameStop's model in the long run, but I'll tip my hat to it this time around.
You won this time, you crafty gamer. Well played.
