The iPad mini is now the iPad

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The new eight-inch iPad mini now matches the larger iPad Air in processor power, screen resolution and battery life. It runs all the same apps.

But the iPad mini has two things that make it more attractive to many consumers than the iPad Air: It's easier to handle, and it's $100 cheaper.

Even though the iPad mini's screen is a third smaller than its full-sized counterpart, Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) bumped its screen resolution to a "Retina display." That will lessen the already minor impact of staring at a smaller screen.

By putting the smaller iPad mini on level ground with the iPad Air, Apple tacitly announced that it is focusing its tablet strategy on the iPad mini. Despite all the marketing theatrics surrounding the iPad Air, make no mistake about it: the iPad mini is THE iPad now.

Related story: Meet one of Steve Jobs' only bosses

Looking forward, the upgraded iPad mini should be the better selling iPad. Unless you have a real, tangible need for the extra real estate on your tablet screen, there's no real reason to buy the iPad Air.

That's not to say that the iPad Air will fade into total obscurity. Creative types, professionals in specialized fields, and road warriors still hell bent on using their iPad as a laptop will find utility in the iPad Air. But for anyone who is primarily looking for a media consumption device, the iPad mini is more than game.

Perhaps the most ironic part about the emergence of the iPad mini is how much Apple initially resisted the idea of producing a smaller tablet. The company insisted that it was a bad idea and dismissed the notion entirely.

But Apple couldn't dismiss the market trends. When Apple released the iPad mini last year, it was an experiment of sorts for the company, and Apple found a way to make it work. Four months after the release of the first-generation iPad mini, tech consultancy NPD was already noticing that the iPad mini was cannibalizing sales of the 9.7-inch iPad.

In a rare moment for consumer technology, everyone wins as a result.

First Published: October 22, 2013: 3:43 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

IRS: Tax season delayed due to shutdown

The IRS won't be able to start processing tax returns on Jan. 21 this year.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The start of the 2014 tax season, which was scheduled for Jan. 21, will be delayed by one to two weeks, the IRS announced Tuesday.

That means the IRS will start accepting and processing returns somewhere between Jan. 28 and Feb. 4. The agency said it is working to minimize the delay, and it will announce its decision as to the official start of the tax season in December.

While you can still send in a paper return any time, the IRS won't look at it until the season officially starts. And e-filing won't be available until then either.

The decision comes after the agency lost 16 days -- or three work weeks -- to the government shutdown, during which 90% of its operations were closed. Now it has to catch up on everything it was unable to do during that time. Specifically, it still has a lot of work to do on its processing systems before they are prepared for a flood of tax returns.

Related: 2 numbers that could cause another shutdown

"The government closure came during the peak period for preparing IRS systems for the 2014 filing season," the agency said in a statement. "Programming, testing and deployment of more than 50 IRS systems is needed to handle processing of nearly 150 million tax returns."

But if you're hoping this means the filing deadline will also be pushed back, tough luck. The same April 15 due date still applies.

First Published: October 22, 2013: 4:37 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Carl Icahn dumps more than half of his Netflix stake

Activist investor Carl Icahn

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

A year ago this month, the activist investor directly bought or took out options on 5.5 million Netflix shares, representing a 10% stake in the company. Icahn has now sold off 5.5% of that stake, he disclosed in a regulatory filing late Tuesday. Netflix shares fell more than 2% in after-hours trading on the news.

Netflix shares are up a stunning 460% since Icahn bought his stake.

As he is wont to do, Icahn tweeted about the sale of his "block of NFLX." He thanked Netflix executives and staffers, as well as Kevin Spacey, the star of the buzzy Netflix-original series "House of Cards."

Icahn and Netflix weren't so chummy when the investor purchased his stake in 2012. Icahn is known for exerting his will on the companies he takes an interest in, and when he bought his Netflix shares, he said the company would be a nice takeover target for a larger company looking to add streaming video to their portfolio.

Related story: Netflix CEO: Settle down about our stock

Netflix was spooked. Just one week later, the company announced it had adopted a "stockholder rights plan" designed to prevent activist shareholders from launching a hostile takeover.

The plan, known as a "poison pill," would kick in if an individual or group tried to buy a sizable chunk of the company without approval from Netflix's board. If that happened, Netflix (NFLX) could opt to flood the market with new shares and make a takeover prohibitively expensive.

Icahn lashed back at Netflix at that time, calling the move "discriminatory" and blasting the company's board for having too much power over shareholders.

But Netflix began to turn around soon after Icahn bought his stake, so the investor made his money and the company remained independent.

Late Monday, Netflix reported third-quarter earnings that handily beat Wall Street estimates.

First Published: October 22, 2013: 6:22 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

J.C. Penney scales back Martha Stewart partnership

Martha Stewart has provided testimony in the J.C. Penney-Macy's dispute.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Macy's (M, Fortune 500), J.C. Penney (JCP, Fortune 500) and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) have been locked in a closely watched legal battle over Macy's claim that it has exclusive rights to sell certain categories of Martha Stewart products.

The dispute started in December 2011 with the announcement that J.C. Penney would sell Martha Stewart-branded goods in "mini-stores" at its locations across the country. As part of the deal, J.C. Penney paid $38.5 million for a 16.6% stake in MSLO.

The deal incensed Macy's, which had already been selling Stewart-branded products. Macy's filed lawsuits against both companies in February 2012, claiming they had violated a 2006 agreement giving Macy's "an exclusive license" to make and sell Stewart-branded products in categories including bedding and dinnerware.

J.C. Penney and MSLO said in a joint statement Monday that their new agreement "covers a more focused range of product categories over a shorter period of time...than the original agreement."

The partnership is now limited to window treatments and hardware, lighting, rugs and holiday products. J.C. Penney has agreed to give up its stake in Stewart's company as well as its seat on the board of directors.

Related: Is J.C. Penney becoming a penny stock?

Macy's called the agreement "a tacit admission by both Penney and MSLO that Macy's is the only store that can sell Martha Stewart bed, bath, and kitchen goods and that the contract that Penney and MSLO entered into to sell Martha Stewart bed, bath, and kitchen goods at Penney was illegal."

Top executives, including CEOs of both companies as well as Martha Stewart herself, have provided colorful testimony during the legal case this year. The trial began in February, and the judge ordered the parties into mediation in March, though those talks went nowhere.

Macy's said Monday that it is still pursuing damages in the case.

J.C. Penney has suffered massive losses in recent quarters following a failed turnaround effort led by former Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) executive Ron Johnson. Johnson, who was ousted as CEO earlier this year, brokered the deal with Stewart as part of a broader plan to bring well-known designers to J.C. Penney shelves.

First Published: October 21, 2013: 5:43 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Chamber of Commerce: Raise gas tax to fix roads

Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue calls for a hike in the federal gas tax to fix roads and bridges.

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney)

"Twenty years. It's been 20 years since we had an increase in the federal fuel tax. What kind of car were you driving 20 years ago?" asked Thomas Donohue, president of the Chamber of Commerce, at a breakfast Monday morning sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor.

Donohue said Congress should consider increasing the federal gas tax to pay for major infrastructure needs.

Related: Eight states raise gas tax

A higher gasoline tax would be extremely unpopular in a country where almost 90% people drive to work. It's also not a favorite of either the Obama Administration or the Tea Party Republicans.

But it's one of the few economic policy ideas that big business groups and big labor unions agree on.

The last hike of 18.4 cents a gallon took place on Oct. 1, 1993. Currently, the tax raises about $30 billion a year for the country's coffers, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

The idea of raising the gas tax could be picking up steam.

Last week, former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a Republican, said Congress should raise the federal gas tax by 10 cents a gallon. LaHood's made the remarks at a conference in Arlington, Va., as reported by Washington, DC radio station WAMU 88.5 A.M.

LaHood suggested that even to make a "scratch" in the nation's infrastructure needs, the U.S. would need to raise close to $500 or $600 billion dollars.

The chamber has been calling for a hike to the federal gas tax since 2009. But Congress has yet to make any real progress on the idea.

In April, a Gallup poll found two-thirds of Americans opposed a hike in state gas taxes of up to 20 cents, even if it went to pay for infrastructure.

First Published: October 21, 2013: 1:37 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Netflix jumps 10% on robust growth and rosy outlook

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Netflix cynics have been waiting for the company's stock bubble to pop: Netflix shares are up a shocking 440% in the past 12 months, and analysts expected third-quarter earnings nearly to quadruple over the year.

But Netflix (NFLX) delivered. The company reported third-quarter earnings of 52 cents a share, well above the 49 cents that analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting.

Sales came in at $1.1 billion, in line with estimates.

Netflix expects more happy news for the current quarter. The company predicted earnings of 47 cents to 73 cents per share. That's an extremely wide range -- common for Netflix -- but it's far above the 46 cents a share that Wall Street expected.

Shares of Netflix jumped 10% in after-hours trading.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings isn't comfortable with the huge stock run-up, however. On a post-earnings conference call with analysts, he said Netflix thinks "momentum investors" are "driving the price more than we like normally" -- but that it's out of the company's control.

Subscriber growth and original content: Hastings was happier with Netflix's third-quarter subscriber growth, which also impressed. Netflix added nearly 1.3 million new American subscribers during the third quarter, near the top range of the 690,000-1.49 million range the company predicted in July.

International subscriber growth was even more striking: 1.44 million new overseas streaming customers. That pushed Netflix above the 40 million subscriber mark for the first time. But Netflix warned of a surge in free-trial signups in Latin America that artificially boosted the international additions figure.

In order to continue that user-base growth, Netflix has spent years transforming itself into not only a purveyor of other studios' content, but a creator of original content as well.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and other company executives have repeatedly said Netflix "wants to become HBO faster than HBO can become Netflix." (HBO is owned by CNNMoney parent company Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500).)

Related story: RIP television, hello mobile gaming

That original-content strategy has included a new season of "Arrested Development," a U.S. remake of "House of Cards," and -- most notably -- the new series "Orange is the New Black." Netflix called the comedy-drama "one of the most critically well received TV shows of 2013" and said it will end the year as Netflix's most watched original series to date.

Three of those original series netted Netflix a total of 14 Emmy nominations and three wins (all for "Cards") this year, but some analysts are still concerned about Netflix's mounting costs. The company reportedly spent $100 million producing and shooting two seasons of "House of Cards," the first of which was released in February.

Netflix appears unfazed by that criticism. The company said it expects to double its spending on original content in 2014. Content chief Ted Sarandos said on the earnings call that the company is actively looking for documentaries to debut on Netflix and will keep an open mind about feature films -- but Netflix still isn't interested in airing sports.

Meanwhile, the content licensing side of Netflix's business is also expensive. Studios have demanded more money for their content as rival services proliferate: Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500), Hulu and Redbox (OUTR) are only a handful of the competitors. Premium channels like HBO and CBS' (CBS, Fortune 500) Showtime are also expanding their streaming offerings.

First Published: October 21, 2013: 4:34 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Lew pushes to eliminate spending cuts

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

He laid out the Obama administration's case in an op-ed for The International New York Times that the failure to replace the across-the-board "blunt spending cuts" would hurt the U.S. economy.

"As independent economists and business leaders will tell you, these cuts have already slowed economic growth, just as the economy was getting traction," he wrote. "The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that by the third quarter of next year, sequestration will have reduced real gross domestic product by as much as 1.2 percent, which means as many as 1.6 million fewer American jobs."

Related: Spending cuts are hurting economy

The blanket cuts are a product of the 2011 fiscal stalemate and subsequent failed attempts to produce an alternative. The sequester is widely disliked but took effect anyways, shaving spending from nearly every piece of the federal budget, except funds for mandatory programs like Social Security.

Even some Republicans who favor cutting government spending see the sequester cuts as too indiscriminate.

"The real problems are that we're continuing to spend money that we don't have on things that we don't need," Sen. Tom Coburn said Sunday on NBC.

"There's tremendous amounts of waste and fraud. We have to protect the promises made to American people. And we can do that, but we can do that spending a whole lot less money than we're doing today," he continued.

Related: What the heck is the sequester?

The next scheduled round of cuts will be even deeper.

The debt ceiling deal Congress reached this month funded the government at current levels and put off a decision on the sequester until January 15.

But their track record of resolving these issues isn't great.

Related: Congress votes to do its job

Lew, however, said the U.S. remains a stable "backbone of the global financial system."

"The world now knows we are and will remain the safest, most reliable place to invest," he wrote, according to a copy of the text from the Treasury Department. "Make no mistake: What took place was a political crisis, not an economic one."

First Published: October 20, 2013: 3:24 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Stocks: Nothing holding the market back

The Nasdaq rallied this week. Click the chart for more markets data.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

They'll turn their attention back to the economy and earnings.

The September jobs report, delayed by the government shutdown, will finally be released Tuesday. The report was originally scheduled to come out on October 4. According to economists surveyed by Briefing.com, it is expected that 183,000 jobs were added last month and that unemployment rate remained steady, at 7.3%.

This report won't provide any clues as to the effects of the government shutdown. But weekly jobless claims reports have already shown that impact. Last week's report, which covered the first portion of the shutdown, revealed unemployment filings from about 70,000 federal workers. Many will be forced to pay the benefits they received back, as Congress has approved to retroactively pay federal workers.

Related: Shutdown took $24 billion bite out of economy

Stocks may also set some more records. The major U.S. indexes are all up sharply this year and held up well despite fears of a possible debt default. The S&P 500 ended the week at an all-time high while the Dow is about 2% off its peak of 15,709.60 from last month. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was even above 3,900. It hasn't been that high since the dot-com bubble burst in 2000.

Last week, the Nasdaq gained 3%, including 1% growth on Friday. The S&P added 2% -- and posted only one losing day last week -- and the Dow was up about 1% on the week.

Related: Fear & Greed Index

Keeping an eye on earnings: The federal government shut down after the third quarter closed, but two of the largest federal government contractors may give some clues about the damage that was done during their latest earnings reports.

Lockheed Martin (LMT, Fortune 500), which reports results Tuesday morning, received almost $40 billion in government contracts last year and blamed the shutdown for causing at least 3,000 employee furloughs at the company. Dow component Boeing (BA, Fortune 500) releases earnings Wednesday morning. It landed nearly $30 billion in contracts last year, according to the General Services Administration.

Many other high-profile companies are on tap to report their latest numbers, including McDonalds (MCD, Fortune 500), Netflix (NFLX), Caterpillar (CAT, Fortune 500), Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500), AT&T (T, Fortune 500), Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) and Amazon.com (AMZN, Fortune 500).

New iPads coming? The biggest tech event of the week isn't likely to be an earnings report. Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), which isn't set to release its latest results until October 28, is holding an event on Tuesday. The company is widely expected to unveil its latest iterations of its iPad tablet. Apple's stock is still well below its all-time highs from September 2012. But shares have rebounded lately and are back above $500 thanks to indications of strong demand for its new iPhone 5S. Apple investors will be hoping that the new iPads will continue its recent hot streak.

First Published: October 20, 2013: 11:31 AM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Obamacare website a work in progress, government says

Employees prepare for the Minnesota exchange to open.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

A White House official told CNN President Barack Obama would speak publicly about the site's issues on Monday. He said in a recent interview with an Iowa television station the site has made "some significant progress but until it's 100%, I'm not going to be satisfied."

Despite those issues, an unsigned posting on Sunday from the Department of Health and Human Services said, "nearly half a million applications for coverage have been submitted from across the nation."

It did not indicate if those applications were only for the federal exchange, which covers 36 states. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia are running their own marketplaces. It also did not specify if applications completed by phone were included in the number.

Related: Obamacare exchange websites overloaded

CNN surveyed the 15 exchanges run independently of the federal government and found just over 257,000 people have nearly completed or completed an enrollment in those programs.

The administration has previously reported the total number of visitors to the site but resisted requests for enrollment numbers. It has said that data would be available next month.

Since the website debuted on Oct. 1, it has been taken offline several times for maintenance. For coverage to kick in on January 1, individuals must enroll by mid-December.

"Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov," the online post read. "We're also putting in place tools and processes to aggressively monitor and identify parts of HealthCare.gov where individuals are encountering errors or having difficulty using the site, so we can prioritize and fix them."

The department said it is "proud of these quick improvements, but we know there's still more work to be done. We will continue to conduct regular maintenance nearly every night to improve the experience."

First Published: October 20, 2013: 4:42 PM ET

10.20 | 0 komentar | Read More

Top investor not so bullish on Twitter

Twitter will soon go public. But will the stock actually do well? That's up for debate.

SAN DIEGO (CNNMoney)

Cohen, founder and CEO of leading startup accelerator TechStars, said he's a fan of Twitter. He'll probably even own a stake of it through one of the many funds he is invested in. But he suggested that Twitter's stock price may not rise too dramatically over the long-term.

The comments came during a conversation at the Stocktoberfest investing conference in San Diego Friday hosted by StockTwits. The social investing site's chairman Howard Lindzon asked Cohen whether he would take a long or short position on a certain companies.

Cohen said he would go long on Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), Nike (NKE, Fortune 500), Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and Facebook (FB, Fortune 500), but that he would hold, or go "not as long" on Twitter.

Related: Who'll be getting rich off Twitter

"Twitter needs to become more of a platform on the web," said Cohen in a follow-up conversation with CNNMoney. "If Twitter went away today, people would just turn to Facebook. If Facebook went away, people would start screaming -- it's so universal."

Cohen said Twitter has the potential to become a more essential web platform, but it's not there yet.

Though Twitter is not yet profitable, the company's user base and mobile business is growing. In fact, Twitter's monthly active users grew nearly 40% during the third quarter, and mobile ads brought in 70% of the company's total advertising revenue. But the key going forward will be whether Twitter can secure a steady revenue source without pushing users away.

Still, Cohen said he believes it's the right time for Twitter to go public. Twitter is slated to sell $1 billion in stock through an initial public offering next month.

First Published: October 18, 2013: 4:26 PM ET

10.21 | 0 komentar | Read More