stocks

And the hits just keep coming for the world's most popular social network.

As the rest of the U.S. settled in for the long Labor Day weekend, Facebook investors decided it was a good time to dump some shares before Wall Street traders return to work next week to take a closer look at the stock that just can't stop declining.

Facebook shares closed at $18.08 a share, a 5.3 percent drop from the day's opening.

Throughout the day, the stock hovered ever so close to the $18 mark, a figure that would price … Read more

Add another entry to the lengthening list of reduced revenue estimates for Facebook.

eMarketer said in a report issued earlier today that it has cut its 2012 revenue estimates on Facebook from more than $6 billion to around $5 billion.

In February, eMarketer estimated that Facebook's total revenues would go beyond the $6 billion mark this year, but the company's underwhelming performance in the first and second quarters of 2012 has changed the opinion of analysts.

The new estimate has Facebook's revenue at a 35.9 percent increase from 2011, according to eMarketer's forecast, but analyst … Read more

AOL shareholders are well on their way to collecting that $1.1 billion the company promised them.

AOL announced today that it has entered into a Stock Repurchase Agreement with Barclays Bank that will see the company buy back $600 million worth of shares. According to AOL, it will receive shares through the rest of the year, including 4 million that it'll get from Barclays by the end of the month.

According to AOL, Barclays will buy up its shares on the open market with the proceeds provided in the agreement.

The share repurchase agreement is part of a plan AOL announced back in June … Read more

Shares of Samsung Electronics registered their greatest one-day price drop in nearly five years in their first day of trading after Apple's patent award against the Korean electronics giant.

Shares of Samsung were off 6.98 percent in early morning trading, down 89,000 South Korean wan ($78.38) to 1.19 million wan ($1,043.88). It was the company's largest decline since October 2008. The heavily weighted Samsung brought the South Korean Kospi down 0.6 percent.

The share loss comes three days after a jury in San Jose, Calif., delivered a lopsided victory to Apple, … Read more

A report suggests that Microsoft offloaded around 20 percent of its shares in Facebook just after the social network went public. In doing so, the software giant received $249 million back -- close to $10 million more than it first invested.

The Redmond, Wash.-based company invested $240 million in Facebook in 2007 for a 1.6 percent stake in the social network. Back then it wasn't a huge amount, but was a major boost for Facebook to have a dominant player on its roster. Soon after, Bing Search and Bing Maps were brought to the social network … Read more

Well, this was predictable.

For weeks now, pundits, stock analysts and the media have been warning that Facebook shares -- already under pressure for a variety of reasons -- would face a fresh challenge when so-called "lockups" expire, allowinginsiders holding pre-IPO shares to start selling them.

And that's exactly what happened today, doubtless bringing joy to the many short sellers who bet on the stock to fall.

Today's "lockup" expiration was relatively small, with insiders now free to sell 271 million shares, adding to the 421 million already in circulation. Yet it was enough … Read more

Of all the challenges to Facebook's oh-so-challenged stock -- such as the company's struggle with the giant shift to mobile, and its slowdown of user growth in the U.S. -- one thing Wall Street watchers have been talking a lot about is the upcoming expiration of "lockups" in which insiders can start selling their stock.

And it begins tomorrow. Over the course of the next year, pre-IPO holders of Facebook stock will be able to start dumping their shares, with the potential of adding more than 2 billion shares to the market. In a game … Read more

After examining Groupon's second-quarter financial report yesterday, showing increased revenue and a profit, some might think that the company is on the right track. Judging by investor reaction, however, that doesn't appear to be the case.

In early morning trading, Groupon shares are down a whopping 22.4 percent to $5.86. At its worst point so far this morning, Groupon's stock hit an all-time low of $5.80. At its current level, Groupon shares are down 71 percent since the beginning of the year.

Groupon yesterday announced that sales in the second quarter were up 45 percent year-over-year to land at $568.3 million. … Read more

Zynga is using stock options -- a retention tactic commonly used in startups before they go public -- to keep employees at the company, according to a new report.

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus has decided to issue stock options to all of the company's employees, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing sources. The move is a not-so-subtle attempt on Pincus' part to boost morale and keep employees, many of whom already hold stock in the game maker, from leaving and selling off their shares when able.

Since Zynga went public at $10 per share, the company's shares … Read more