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Big Stock Moves Friday For Techs With Earnings Reports This Week

Loading the player… Several tech companies reporting earnings over the latest week lifted in the stock market Friday as major stock indexes perked by more than 1%. It’s been a volatile trading week amid a market in correction. Twitter ( TWTR ) vaulted 10% in afternoon trading, erasing the week’s losses around its fourth quarter report that showed slowing user growth. It’s tweaking its user interface to be a little more like Facebook ( FB ), which currently gets a top stock rating from IBD: a best-possible Composite Rating of 99. (See the video for who’s highly rated or not, and more on the week’s earnings reports.) Akamai ( AKAM ) lifted more than 3% intraday in the stock market today after surging earlier in the week on its quarterly report. IRobot ( IRBT ) was up nearly 4%. Cisco Systems ( CSCO ) and Yelp ( YELP ) stock rose more than 2% by the afternoon. Pandora Media ( P ) plunged 14% Friday afternoon, amid a declining number of users for the streaming music service revealed in its quarterly report Thursday, plus competition from Apple ( AAPL ), highly rated  Alphabet ( GOOGL ) (with a 99 IBD Composite Rating) and Amazon ( AMZN ) in its business. “Pandora’s core profitability appears challenged by higher royalties and diminishing productivity gains, and its new service efforts appear expensive given the poor history of profits in the space,” Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andy Hargreaves said in a research report. Security firm CyberArk ( CYBR ) fell nearly 12%. Travel sites TripAdvisor ( TRIP ) and Expedia ( EXPE ) gave back 2.5% Friday afternoon. Both rose Thursday. Tesla Motors ( TSLA ) fell fractionally. Before Friday’s action, tech companies whose stocks had lifted this week around their quarterly reports included Cisco, Akamai and TripAdvisor, with big jumps, as well as Tesla and Expedia. On the downside were Pandora, iRobot, CyberArk, Yelp and Twitter. Image provided by Shutterstock .    

Facebook Tries To Quell Twitter Firestorm Over India

Facebook ( FB ) founder Mark Zuckerberg found himself in the awkward position of responding to tweets by company board member Marc Andreessen about India that Andreessen later deleted, with apologies to an upset audience. “I want to respond to Marc Andreessen’s comments about India yesterday,” Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page . “I found the comments deeply upsetting, and they do not represent the way Facebook or I think at all.” Andreessen, a high-profile Silicon Valley venture capitalist and active user of Twitter ( TWTR ), apologized Wednesday for tweets that attacked the Indian government for banning Facebook’s free Internet service in that country and referred to India’s past colonial rule. On Monday, India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority ruled that Facebook’s Free Basics and other similar services are illegal for various reasons. Entrepreneurs in India had criticized the service, saying it positioned Facebook as a gatekeeper to the Web and fearing being left at a competitive disadvantage. The Free Basics service provides free but limited Internet service on mobile devices. The service is available to about 1 billion people across Asia, Africa and Latin America, designed to “bring more people online and help improve their lives,” Facebook says. It’s part of Facebook’s Internet.org initiative that, according to Zuckerberg, has provided Internet access to 19 million people in 38 countries. The decision by India to block Free Basics sent Andreessen into a tizzy. “Denying world’s poorest free partial Internet connectivity when today they have none, for ideological reasons, strikes me as morally wrong,” he tweeted. He added, “Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades. Why stop now?” Zuckerberg Response Gentler Twitter users blasted Andreessen for the comments, which he deleted. “I apologize for any offense my comment caused, and withdraw it in full and without reservation,” Andreessen wrote. “I will leave all future commentary on all of these topics to people with more knowledge and experience than me.” On Monday, Zuckerberg had responded to India’s ban, but in a gentler way. “While we’re disappointed with today’s decision, I want to personally communicate that we are committed to keep working to break down barriers to connectivity in India and around the world,” he wrote on a Facebook post. “Connecting India is an important goal we won’t give up on, because more than a billion people in India don’t have access to the internet.” Facebook is not alone in trying to expand Internet access to poor regions of the world.  Alphabet ( GOOGL ) is the founder of Project Loon , a research and development project with a goal to bring Internet access to rural and remote areas using a global network of high-altitude balloons. Alphabet plans to create a network of balloons traveling on the edge of space, designed to connect people all over. Facebook’s Internet.org, in addition to working with regional mobile-service providers, is also researching the use of unmanned aircraft for providing Internet access.

Twitter Video Service Must Dodge Facebook ‘Torpedo’ In 2016

Twitter ( TWTR )’s  live video broadcast app Periscope will have to dodge a big “torpedo” from rival Facebook ( FB )’s live video service, Edison Research said Thursday. And Twitter must offer more than microblogging and instant messaging services if it ever wants to significantly expand its user base and see the kind of social network growth being enjoyed by Facebook, LinkedIn ( LNKD ) and Alphabet ( GOOGL )-owned Google, wrote Edison analyst Richard Windsor in a research report following up on Twitter’s Q4 earnings late Wednesday.  “ In the last three months, Twitter has underperformed its rivals — Facebook, LinkedIn and Google — all of whom have seen the size of their user base expand,” wrote Windsor, who said Twitter currently appeals mainly to a niche group of hardcore users, including marketing reps and journalists. Beyond its microblog, Windsor said Twitter should widen its use of Periscope, the live video broadcast app it purchased in January. “This is a priority for Twitter in 2016 and it clearly intends to develop this service into a go-to place for watching live broadcasts,” he said. “If it can do this successfully, then it will be able to emerge as a competitor in the media consumption space, which is where Facebook and Google are currently seeing strong revenue growth, but Periscope needs to dodge Facebook’s live video torpedo.” Facebook’s deep pockets will be a challenge to Twitter, Windsor said. “The problem is that Facebook is competing directly in this space and has far more resources upon which to rely to ensure that Periscope fails to really gain traction,” Windsor said. Twitter Core Problems: Usability, Accessibility While Periscope is a long way from its goal of being “a major force in video broadcast,” Windsor said, “If it can become a ‘go-to’ place for live video, then we suspect that the user base would once again start growing. This would have a big effect on both revenues and the valuation of the company.” Macquarie Capital analyst Ben Schachter also says that 2016 will be a critical year for Twitter, which saw its price targets cut by at least nine analysts Thursday and its stock fall  after the company said user growth slowed in Q4, for the fourth consecutive quarter, raising concerns that usage has peaked. “We think that it needs to fix its core usability/accessibility problems first,” Schachter wrote. “We broadly agree that these are the correct focus areas for Twitter, particularly the potential for video. Having said all that, obviously execution has been an issue and we want to see some real progress. “In some ways, this should be simple: Facebook has provided a compelling model for usability and monetization, but Twitter needs to execute.” In December, Facebook opened its live video streaming service to all users in a bid to take on Twitter-owned Periscope and Meerkat. Facebook said the service is being tested in U.S. with a “small percentage of people” on iPhones, after originally releasing a live streaming feature earlier this year for celebrities. Twitter stock hit a new all-time low on Thursday, at 13.91 and was down more than 4% in midday trading in the stock market today , near 14.40. Twitter has remained below its IPO price of 26 since mid-December, sparking buyout talk. Shares of Alphabet, Facebook and LinkedIn were all down roughly 1% midday Thursday, in another rough day for the stock market overall.