After a lengthy partnership, Time Warner (TWX) and AOL are currently preparing to go their separate ways. While both companies hope for a smooth transition, a 2007 lawsuit filed by a small company Modavox (MDVX.OB) may significantly impact AOL and Time Warner valuations. Two years ago, Modavox sued AOL for patent infringement of their Behavioral Targeted Marketing intellectual property. Modavox is now asking for sanctions, and a recently released 8K third-party valuation may point to the seriousness of the issue, and its consequences for AOL. The issue will affect parent company Time Warner, as Modavox filed a suit against them as well.

The ease of a case focusing on patent infringement, such as Modavox’s, can be clouded by its a highly technical subject matter; however, Modavox’s request for sanctions is relatively simple: the motion suggests AOL/Tacoda and its attorneys repeatedly and intentionally failed to comply with general court orders pertaining

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Cincinnati Bell (CBB) announced third quarter results with adjusted earnings per share of 11 cents, falling short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a penny. However, this was above the year-ago EPS of 10 cents.   Adjusted EPS excludes special items such as restructuring charges, loss on disposal of assets and gain on extinguishment of debt. Net income increased 4% year over year to $28 million while revenue fell 3% from the prior-year quarter to $338 million as a result of the declines across wireline and wireless segments.   Wireline Segment   The company reported wireline revenues of $191 million down 5% from the year-ago quarter. Lower voice revenues (down 14% year over year to $83 million) and long-distance revenues (down 3% to $24 million) were partially offset by an increase in revenues from data services (up 2% to $70 million).   At the end of the quarter, ...

• Kraft (NYSE:KFT) reported third quarter earnings of 55 cents a share on revenues of $9.8 billion, beating Zacks estimates of 48 cents, but slightly below revenue projections of $10.24 billion

• MedcoHealth Solutions (NYSE:MHS) reported third quarter earnings of 75 cents ex-items, 4 cents above Zacks estimates, on revenues of $14.80 billion, up from estimates of $14.71 billion

• Miller Tabek upgraded entertainment stocks such as CBS (NYSE:CBS), Entravision (NYSE:EVC), News Corp. (NASDAQ:NWS), Viacom (NYSE:VIA.B), and Disney (NYSE:DIS) from "neutral" to "buy"

• Disney (NYSE:DIS) said China approved its plans for a $3.5 billion theme park in Shanghai, set to open in 2014 at the earliest

• Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) reported third quarter earnings of 61 cents a share, ahead of Zacks estimates of 52 cents.  Revenue of $7.14 billion was almost inline with Zacks estimates.  The firm said it sees full-year earnings of at least $2.05

• Garmin (NASDAQ:GRMN) reported third quarter earnings

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U.S. stocks wobbled Tuesday and ended the day mixed even as automakers reported improved auto sales and Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway said it would buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.  Traders were reluctant to place big bets as they awaited the outcome of a two-day FOMC meeting which got underway Tuesday and Friday's monthly jobs report.  Although expectations are the Fed would keep interest rates in the 0-0.25% range, Wall Street has been speculating if there would be a change of tone in the policy statement. 

On Tuesday, the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average closed down 17.53 points, or 0.18%, to 9,771.91.  The broad Standard & Poor's 500-stock index added 2.53 points, or 0.24%, to 1,045.41 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced 8.12 points, or 0.40%, to 2,057.32.  On the NYSE, volume slowed to 1.38 billion shares.  

The news of a sale of 200 tons of gold to India sent

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – November 3, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: CIT Group Inc. (CIT), Dean Foods (DF), Frontier Communications (FTR), Verizon Communications (VZ) and Time Warner Cable (TWC).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Monday’s AnalystBlog:

CIT Group Files Chapter 11

CIT Group Inc. (CIT) has filed for Chapter 11 protection on Sunday. The company struggled for months to avoid collapse since the recession elicited billions of dollars in loan losses, and the financial crisis made it incapable of funding itself from

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Frontier Communications (FTR), a leading telecom operator in rural and suburban areas in the US, has reportedly received approvals from the Public Utilities Commissions of the states of California and Neveda and Public Service Commission of South Carolina for its impending acquisition of the rural fixed-line business of Verizon Communications (VZ). Moreover, the acquisition was recently approved by the shareholders of Frontier. The transaction is now subject to approval by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and other closing conditions and is expected to close during the second quarter of 2010. Verizon is divesting its rural fixed-line business (involving approximately 4.8 million access lines) in 14 states to Frontier under an agreement valued at approximately $8.6 billion. Under the deal terms, Verizon’s shareholders will receive approximately $5.25 billion in common stock of Frontier, equating to around 68% stake in the company. Moreover, Verizon will also ...

Time Warner Cable Inc (TWC) will launch the 4G WiMAX mobile broadband services in three North Carolina markets from Dec 1. The WiMAX connection will offer wireless data transmission at speeds five times faster than the 3G connections currently provided by the company. Under the brand name of “Road Runner Mobile", this super-fast mobile broadband network will support Internet speed of 6 Mbps with a monthly between $40 and $80 for customers with at least one other Time Warner Cable service.  The “Road Runner Mobile" service will provide its subscribers the convenience of mobility so that the customers can enjoy the WiMAX services on their devices anywhere they go within their service circle. The company also said that it plans to add new mobile services in the future, such as the ability to program a DVR from a mobile device and for customers to take their video ...

CNN Money is running an interesting feature by David Goldman entitled "10 countries, 10 solutions" which details the particularities of the global economic crisis facing 10 key countries. In typical old-media fashion, the layout makes no sense from a user-friendliness perspective, so I'm going to take significant liberties in reposting their original content. They also have a single table layout of the 10 countries here. Time Warner lawyers, if you're watching this, get your editorial guys to put their content into a more sensible format that doesn't require constant clicking and I won't have to go such lengths to discuss it and in turn will actually drive more traffic to your site. Got that? Good. Now then, first some

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Disney’s Spidey Sense is Tingling

by Louise Harris, Investment U Research Team

The entertainment world is changing, and companies in the business know that all too well… hence the reason why The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) just announced its acquisition of Marvel Entertainment Inc. (NYSE: MVL)

Comic book fans might hate the move, but in order to survive in today’s climate, Disney has to look outside the box office to the whole entertainment package.

Gone are the days when movies made all their money at the box office. And with DVD sales shrinking, Hollywood has no choice but to bring in more revenue by delving into toys, videogames, clothing, rides, digital copies of movies and Internet streaming.

Naturally, Disney hopes to milk the merger for all its worth, exploiting Marvel’s 5,000 characters across the entire spectrum over the

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• Media reports say Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) have struck a revenue-sharing deal that could be finalized today.  The internet-search alliance could see a fierce competition with rival Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), the reports say

• Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) reported second quarter adjusted earnings 45 cents a share, ahead of consensus estimates of 37 cents a share, on revenues of $6.81 billion, versus estimates of $6.97 billion. The firm maintained its 2009 earnings guidance of flat adjusted results from continuing operations versus $1.98 a year ago

• Moody's (NYSE:MCO) second quarter earnings exceeded estimates by 3 cents at 43 cents as revenues fell 7.6% to $451 million

• Medco Health Solutions (NYSE:MHS) reported second quarter earnings of 69 cents, 4 cents ahead of estimates

• Qwest Communications (NYSE:Q) reported earnings of 13 cents, 3 pennies above estimates, on in-line revenues of $3.1 billion, that was off 9% from a year ago

• Textron (NYSE:TXT) reported second

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