OIG General Board Meeting (04/23/2014)

Market update

  • Market rose consecutively for the past 5/6 days. S&P 500 is up 0.6% so far this week. New- home market isn’t doing well in March probably because of harsh winter
  • Federal Reserve policy makers are likely to hold policy steady by trimming their monthly bond purchases by another $10 billion to $45 billion and leaving their benchmark interest rate unchanged at near zero.
  • Facebook: Revenue climbed 72% to $2.5 billion, beating expectation. Active users continue to increase and this gives investors a better indication of user engagement. Advertisers increasingly use Facebook ads to boost sales.
  • Apple: a year-over-year decline in quarterly revenue. Apple started supplying iPhones to China Mobile in January. China Mobile is a potential catalyst for iPhone demand in the world’s largest smartphone market.
  • Weibo: Shares of Weibo Corp. jumped 19% in their trading debut last Thursday. Price right now is around 22. After the IPO, Alibaba is set to own about a third of Weibo. Part of the aim of the relationship is to allow Alibaba merchants to advertise to Weibo users