Tag Archives: Microsoft

Wall St. flat as earnings fail to excite investors

Wall Street

By Abhiram Nandakumar

(Reuters) – U.S. stock indexes were flat on Friday after poor quarterly reports from technology bellwethers Microsoft and Alphabet outweighed gains from steadying oil prices.

Microsoft was the biggest drag on all three major indexes.

Crude rose about 1 percent on signs of strong gasoline consumption in the United States. [O/R]

With recent economic data indicating a sluggish pace of economic growth globally and crude prices hovering near five-month highs, earnings have become a swing factor for stocks.

The S&P 500 has staged a sharp recovery from a steep selloff earlier this year and is inching toward its all-time high, helped by a recent rebound in oil, a cautious Federal Reserve and companies beating tempered expectations.

The index is up half a percent for the week, having posted gains on the first three days.

“We’re back to the every other day theory, bouncing around a little, but I don’t see too strong a sentiment either way,” said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida.

“It’s still a very cautious environment,” Brown said, adding that the negative tone from the quarterly reports were expected.

At 9:42 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 11.91 points, or 0.07 percent, at 17,994.43, the S&P 500 was down 1.52 points, or 0.07 percent, at 2,089.96 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 35.84 points, or 0.72 percent, at 4,910.05.

Eight of the 10 major S&P sectors were higher, but the index was under pressure by a 1.4 percent decline in the technology sector

Alphabet and Microsoft were down 3.7 and 6.5 percent respectively after both missed profit and revenue estimates.

S&P 500 companies are seen posting a 7.2 percent fall in first-quarter profit, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, and shares of companies failing to beat the already lowered expectations are getting hammered.

McDonald’s rose 0.7 percent to $126.63 after the company’s profit beat estimates.

General Electric was off 1.1 percent at $30.63 after it reported lower organic revenue.

Caterpillar shares were down 0.6 percent at $78.16 after its results.

Starbucks slipped 3 percent after missing sales expectations, while Visa was down 2.3 percent after it cut full-year revenue forecast.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,885 to 761. On the Nasdaq, 1,460 issues rose and 740 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed six new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 19 new highs and six lows.

(Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Don Sebastian)

Syrian Electronic Army Makes Thanksgiving Cyber Attack

The Syrian Electronic Army decided to take American Thanksgiving and use it to remind the world they are still watching.

A number of major websites, including major media organizations, were targeted by the SEA.   Their websites were met with an error message that read “you’ve been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA).”

Other websites featured nothing but the SEA logo.

Dell, Microsoft, Ferrari and even UNICEF were hit by the group.

“It is PR move to show they have the skills, but what they are doing is not dramatically sophisticated,” Ernest Hilbert, managing director of cybercrime at investigations firm Kroll, and former FBI agent, told CNBC, who had been a victim of the group.

“This is a defacement of a website and they redirected traffic from the real site to a site with their stuff on it instead.”

The SEA are a group of hackers that support the government of Bashir al-Assad and claim that western media outlets are backing the terrorist groups that have been fighting against the Syrian regime.

NSA Special Unit Targets “Tough” Hacks

The German news magazine Der Spiegel has released another story based on documents from fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden claiming the National Security Agency has a unit dedicated to hacking “tough” systems.

Systems like the Microsoft automatic software reporting system installed on every Windows based computer in the world.

The division is called Tailored Access Operations or TAO.  The team is described as “an elite team of hackers” that specialize in stealing data from targets that the NSA defines as the toughest to crack.

The TAO’s mission was “Getting the Ungettable.”

The group reportedly had “James Bond-like” equipment to complete missions such as computer monitor cables that would record anything typed on a screen, USB sticks with micro radio transmitters and fake base stations that would intercept mobile phone signals.

Microsoft said they do not supply information to intelligence sources and did not comment on the leaked document’s claim the NSA hacked the company’s reporting system.

Cybercriminals Target PC Computers Before They Leave The Factory

A study funded by Microsoft has discovered many new computers with malware that was installed at the factory allowing cybercriminals the opportunity to steal information from a computer from its first use.

The information comes in a release about the company’s investigation into the Nitol virus network. The virus allows criminals to steal personal information allowing them to access online bank accounts and transfer the available funds to untraceable accounts in offshore banks. Continue reading →