Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), the search engine giant, relies heavily on its paid advertising... but just how good are things going for this part of the company's business? That question is at the heart of the current debate of the future value of the California based search engine company. The reason for the current controversy comes from a recent report from comScore Inc. which states that Google's click through rates have slowed ...

Consumer confidence has fallen to levels that we have not seen for nearly 35 years. According to the Confidence Board, consumer confidence in March has dropped to 64.5, a level not seen since the Nixon administration. There are three main factors contributing to the erosion of consumer confidence currently; falling stock prices, falling home values, and finally... the dollar setting record lows against the euro. It seems like everyday we turn ...

Wall Street has been rallying today, and enjoying the strong start to the week is Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT), which hit a new 52 week high in today's action. The stock traded up as high as $54.15, and is currently trading up 1.3% to $53.95. The past few months have been a little rocky for investors, as traders have been trying to deal with a weak housing market, a falling ...

After a tough day yesterday, futures are looking OK this morning and we should be set for a positive open this morning. It has been a roller coaster week that saw the DOW rise 420 points on Tuesday, and the follow that up with a drop of 300 points in yesterday's market. Helping this morning is a strong earnings report out of shoe and apparel giant Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) which ...

Oil prices have been dropping today after we were given a bearish inventory report from the U.S. Department of Energy. Going into today's report the market had been expecting to see another rise in inventories and that is exactly what it was given. While the increase was lesser than had been expected, it was enough to catapult prices much lower this afternoon. Analysts had been expecting to see an increase of ...

Wall Street is ready to open very rocky today as investors push the panic button after a weekend full of worrisome news. Over the weekend we were given the news that financial institute Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC) was being bought by JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) for a ridiculously low purchase price of $2 a share. At $2 a share, that is an amazing 99% lower than where the stock was trading just ...

Oil giant Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) announced that it is going to be lifting its spending this year in order to find and capitalize on additional oil reserves around the globe. The company is fighting against rising drilling costs and costs of engineering in its battle to locate new oil reserves. Last year the company spent $21 billion on exploration and development, and this year it plans to boost that investment up ...

As we looked at last week, disgruntled eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) users decided to get together and boycott eBay in reaction to a couple of key changes that were made on the site. These changes were (in summary): Increased final selling fees Allowing PayPal to hold certain payments up to 21 days Removing the option for for sellers to leave negative feedback on sellers The eBay boycott was supposed to last a week, but was extended ...

Ford Motor (NYSE: F), already troubled, is set to get off to a weak start this morning after the auto maker was downgraded this morning by broker Citigroup. The broker downgraded the stock this morning from a "hold" to a "sell" rating. Citigroup cited several reasons for the downgrade, and in addition lowered its price target on the stock from $7.00 down to $5.50. Here a few of the reasons for the ...