Today: Shares in San Francisco-based Twitter soared 7 percent higher on Monday after the social network’s board of directors named co-founder Jack Dorsey as CEO, elevating him from the interim designation he had been holding. Also, Apple and Google are named America’s top brands.
The lead: Twitter shares rocket higher after Dorsey tapped as CEO
San Francisco-based Twitter soared 7 percent higher on Monday after the social network’s board of directors named co-founder Jack Dorsey as chief executive officer, elevating him from the interim designation he had been holding.
Twitter, a micro-blogging service, jumped $1.85 to finish at $28.16 on Monday.
“We’re working hard at Twitter to focus on a few things we can make really great,” Dorsey tweeted in explaining what his strategy is to revive the fortunes of the faltering social site.
Twitter’s shares have slumped in recent months over concerns about the company’s game plan to bolster revenue, harvest profits and increase its user base.
“Our goal is to make Twitter easy to understand by anyone in the world, and give more utility to the people who use it daily,” Dorsey tweeted through his @jack Twitter handle.
Dorsey also faces the challenge of running both Twitter and San Francisco-based Square, a company that has revolutionized the online payments sector. Dorsey is founder and CEO of Square and will retain that role in the company, which is eyeing an initial public offering of its stock.
Adam Bain was tapped to become chief operating officer at Twitter, and he also tweeted his reaction and aspirations for the new Dorsey regime.
“@jack has the insight as well as the moral authority to push teams to make big, bold changes to @twitter,” Bain tweeted.
SV150 market report: Tech companies dominate top brands in U.S.
Led by Cupertino-based Apple at No. 1, and Mountain View-based Google at No. 2, the top brands in the United States increasingly are technology companies, according to this year’s annual list of most valuable consumer brands published by Interbrand. In 2015, six tech companies were in the top 10, with Microsoft, IBM, Samsung and Amazon joining Apple and Google. In 2014, five tech companies were in the top 10. The only Bay Area companies to crack the top 20 during 2015 were six tech companies: Apple, Google, Santa Clara-based Intel, San Jose-based Cisco Systems and Redwood Shores-based Oracle.
Menlo Park-based Facebook announced it will partner with France-based Eutelsat to bring the Internet via satellite to huge stretches of sub-Saharan Africa in a venture that’s scheduled to get underway by late 2016. Facebook shares rose 2.11 percent, or $1.94, to $94.01.
Mountain View-based LinkedIn agreed to pay $13 million to settle a class action lawsuit that stemmed from the business networks’s practice of sending email solicitations to its members’ contacts without permission. LinkedIn has denied the allegations linked to the company’s Add Connections feature. LinkedIn shares jumped 2.88 percent, or $5.44, to $194.65.
On a day that Wall Street staged a major rally, the big 10 tech companies in the Bay Area all enjoyed gains in their shares. Netflix jumped 4.8 percent, Hewlett-Packard soared 4.3 percent, Cisco zoomed 4.2 percent higher, Intel was up 2.3 percent, Google holding company Alphabet was up 2.2 percent on its first trading day, Facebook rose 2.1 percent, Oracle was up 1.9 percent, Salesforce rose 1.8 percent, Gilead Sciences gained 1 percent and Apple rose 0.4 percent.
Silicon Valley tech stocks
Up: The biggest winners by percent change were A10 Networks, Twitter, ServiceNow, SunPower, Servicesource International.
Down: The biggest losers by percent change were Quantum, FireEye, Aemetis, Medivation, Atmel.
The SV150 index of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies: Up 29.37, or 1.84 percent, to 1,624.93.
The tech-focused Nasdaq composite index: Up 73.49, or 1.56 percent, to 4,781.26.
The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average: Up 304.06, or 1.85 percent, to 16,776.43.
And the broad-based Standard & Poor’s 500 index: Up 35.69, or 1.83 percent, to 1,987.05.
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