Week Ending 21 Feb - Dominated By Aggressive Facebook

19 billion US Dollars! Now, no one saw that one coming. A valuation of 19 billion dollars, to put it into perspective, is more than the valuation of more than half the companies on the S&P 500. Many where scratching their heads trying to figure out the basis of that valuation, especially considering that WhatsApp is a small company, less than 100 staff and not even listed on any stock exchange.

Therefore it would be a big over sight to give you the weekly update and ignore the latest acquisition of WhatApp by FB as this is one of the largest acquisitions on the street in a long time at 19 Billion. After snapping up Instagram for a Billion, the news caught many traders and WhatsApp users unawares however the App going down during the weekend was not taken lightly by users as they took to twitter in droves to complain. FB is one to watch this week as the market finally digest the news. Prices went down by as much as 5% following the news but have since recovered to all time highs.

So, week ending 21 Feb stocks were mixed in a holiday-shortened trading week, as investors weighed weak economic signals against some good earnings reports as well as encouraging merger and acquisition activity.  There was a lot of disappointing economic data coming out of The US but the market again appeared willing to chalk up signs of weakness to the unusually cold weather that gripped much of the America – whilst politicians in UK were battling with trying to solve flooding problems in the south.

Nearly three-quarters of the S&P 500 companies that had reported earnings by the end of the week managed to beat Wall Street estimates. To note, Priceline.com provided a lift to the market on Friday after reporting earnings well in excess of consensus estimates. Then comes the one I missed – Sonus Networks, even though I had been stalking it for months, yes stalking. Again, beating estimates and...I will not say much #disappointed. 

What’s happening in China? Well, what’s not happening in China? I enjoyed Robert Preston’s piece on How China fooled the world on the BBC - still on i-player. It’s interesting that its only dawning to people now but the ramifications of the China led infrastructural growth in a very short space of time will undoubtedly have ramifications everywhere. It will be interesting to see how the commodities markets react in the long term.

Looking ahead to this week, a lot of mergers and acquisition news have excited the markets therefore definite stocks on the ‘stalking list’ – (watch list for some) this week are $CMCA, $NFLX and $VZ. Have a good week and happy trading.

THINK of the CONSEQUENCES if you do NOTHING