Today: San Francisco-based Twitter plummeted on Thursday amid investor uncertainty over the implications and effects of Jack Dorsey becoming Twitter’s chief executive officer means, primarily because Dorsey, who co-founded micro-blogging service Twitter, also is the founder and chief executive officer of San Francisco-based Square, a mobile payments firm.
The lead: Twitter shares plunge amid uncertainty over CEO choice
San Francisco-based Twitter plummeted on Thursday amid investor uncertainty over the implications and effects of Jack Dorsey becoming Twitter’s chief executive officer means.
Dorsey, who co-founded micro-blogging service Twitter, also is the founder and chief executive officer of San Francisco-based Square, a mobile payments firm.
At present, Dorsey is interim CEO of Twitter, and Wall Street is wondering if he can realistically lead two companies that face plenty of challenges in their respective sectors.
The cloudy prospects prompted investors to jettison Twitter shares, forcing the company’s stock 8.4 percent lower.
Some observers also wonder whether Dorsey as a chief executive officer of both Twitter and Square could hobble Square’s prospects for an initial public offering.
SV150 market report: Amazon to ban Google Chromecast and Apple TV
Amazon will ban sales of the Google Chromecast and Apple TV on the online retailer’s site because they don’t work easily on the Amazon Prime Video streaming service.
Locked out of your car? There’s an app for that. General Electric is testing an Apple Watch app that enables owners to lock or unlock their vehicle doors, or start the cars remotely.
Hewlett-Packard’s board of directors has formally approved a split of the tech giant into a pair of companies. HP Inc. will focus on personal computers and printers and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise will on servers, data storage and software.
The five largest tech companies in Silicon Valley started out the fourth quarter of the year with mixed results. Menlo Park-based Facebook rose 1.2 percent, Mountain View-based Google rose 0.6 percent, Redwood Shores-based Oracle was up 0.3 percent and Foster City-based Gilead Sciences eked out a gain of less than 0.1 percent. Cupertino-based Apple fell 0.7 percent.
Silicon Valley tech stocks
Up: The biggest winners by percent change were Quantum, PMC-Sierra, salesforce.com, Workday, Oclaro.
Down: The biggest losers by percent change were Aemetis, Twitter, Nimble Storage, Glu Mobile, Fairchild Semiconductor.
The SV150 index of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies: Down 1.39, or 0.09 percent, to 1,566.26.
The tech-focused Nasdaq composite index: Up 6.92, or 0.15 percent, to 4,627.08.
The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average: Down 12.69 or 0.08 percent, to 16,272.01.
And the broad-based Standard & Poor’s 500 index: Up 3.79, or 0.2 percent, to 1,923.82.
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