The New York Stock Exchange has begun offering real-time stock quotes to major financial portals. CNBC.com and Google Finance will be the first to join the pilot program, each paying up to $100,000 a month to display the data free of charge to its users. The program awaits final approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The movie Iron Man features a scene with Jim Cramer of Mad Money appearing as himself as he tells his viewers to sell the fictional Stark Industries. If Stark Industries were a real company, it would trade on the NYSE with a market capitalization of at least $50 billion under the ticker symbol, SIA. According to Forbes 25 largest fictional companies, the company has estimated sales of $20.3 billion. Of course, Marvel Entertainment which made the movie and trades under the very real ticker symbol of MVL does not own any shares of Stark Industries. Meanwhile, we wonder if it's too late to splice a scene with Suze Orman into the movie version of Sex and the City later this month.
Donate to charity by bidding for an encounter with your favorite financial media celebrity at CharityBuzz. Have a 10-minute phone conversation with Suze Orman for $650. Enjoy dinner in the wine cellar of Malcolm Forbes' townhouse in Greenwich Village for $3250. Attend a taping of Mad Money with Jim Cramer for $10,000. Finally, get the undivided attention of Alan Greenspan and Andrea Mitchell over tea and crackers for a mere $16,000.
John Hancock Financial Services has launched its new Cursor advertising campaign with three ads showing family members and friends using the latest technologies and communication tools to talk about money. Boston-based Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos created the $26 million campaign which includes 30-second television spots that will debut beginning today on cable
television networks including: CNN, ESPN, Discovery, A&E, History, Travel
Channel, and Fox News. Full-page, four-color ads will appear in Money Magazine, Sports Illustrated, The Wall
Street Journal, Travel & Leisure, and Real Simple. Online ad banners will apper on AOL, SmartMoney, Time, and CNN Money and
customized microsites with AOL, Dow Jones and FoxNews. John Hancock Financial is a unit of Manulife Financial Corporation.
The financial media fell for an April fool's joke when dedicated short fund manager Doug Kass of Seabreeze Partners Short LP announced that he had become bullish. The Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, Bloomberg and Marketwatch all reported it as serious news. Kass also announced he would host a new CNBC show, called The Mad Bull, which turned out to be true. CNBC program director Bill McChesney said that the station had already test marketed the idea and that the program will begin airing in June.
GFN.com has been given a new facelift while broadening its content offering to include more business blogs and stock market news. It has also relaunched its professional directory giving LGBT-friendly professionals free listings through April 30. Founded by Walter Schubert, GFN.com recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary as the first financial portal targeting the LGBT community.
Stuart Allen, Chief Executive Officer of LatinFinance magazine, will ring the Nasdaq Stock Market closing bell next Monday to celebrate the magazine's 20th anniversary of publication. LatinFinance covers finance and investment in Latin America and the Caribbean as well as organizes networking events.
British media group Reuters has taken a minority stake in China-based online financial news provider ChinaWeb. ChinaWeb's main business, Hexun, is reportedly one of the largest independent online financial websites in China, with nearly 50 million unique users per month. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Dow Jones Newswires and the Associated Press have effectively ended their 41-year-old news partnership after failing to reach new financial terms. Dow Jones also said it will add about 20 positions to its global
editorial staff while securing a deal to distribute news
content from French news agency Agence France-Presse. In addition, Dow Jones has access to more news resources as a newly-acquired unit of News Corp.
