Bankers, lawyers and shareholders accustomed to hearing ka-ching from mergers and acquisition activity are instead getting used to the sound of deals being flushed down the toilet. Applied Materials (AMAT) on Monday scrapped its takeover bid for Tokyo Electron, just days after Comcast (CMCSA) pulled the plug on its proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable (TWC). Applied Materials and Japan’s Tokyo Electron, makers of chip
Amazon.com shares soared to record highs late Thursday as the e-commerce giant reported better-than-expected first-quarter revenue and broke out results for its cloud-computing services for the first time. Revenue rose 15% vs. a year earlier to $22.72 billion, above the consensus of $22.39 billion. Excluding a $1.3 billion hit from the stronger dollar, sales rose 22%. Amazon (AMZN) reported a net loss of $57 million. Excluding
With plenty of irons in the fire and spending heavily to create products, Facebook managed to beat first-quarter earnings estimates but fell short on revenue. Facebook (FB) earned 42 cents a share minus various items, topping the Thomson Reuters consensus by 2 cents. That was 23.5% above a year earlier but the slowest growth in eight quarters. Revenue of $3.54 billion was just shy of the $3.56 billion consensus. The 42% gain,