The U.S. stock markets advanced, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index higher for the first time in five days, as American jobless claims fell to a four-year low and Italy’s bond yields fell after a debt sale. Stocks were also cushioned on Thursday as strategists at Citigroup Inc. upgraded U.S. equities to overweight, citing “aggressive” central-bank stimulus plans and strong momentum in companies’ earnings per share. They also predicted a 9 percent increase in the MSCI All-Country World Index by the end of 2013.
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) held Pwnium hacking contest and awarded $60,000 to a security researcher who cracked its Chrome web browser during the contest.
Google (GOOG) confirmed that there was only one participant with a successful entry. The contest was part of the Hack in the Box conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and was the second of its kind. The contest winner was a pwner named “Pinkie Pie”.
Google said in a blog post that exploit qualifies for their highest award level as a ‘full Chrome exploit,’ a $60,000 prize and free Chromebook, as the exploit depends entirely on bugs within Chrome to achieve code execution.
Google rolled out an updated version of Chrome to customers within 10 hours of the flaw being found.
It is speculated that “Pinkie Pie” was the only successful contestant as some bug bounty hunters ignored the contest because they might be better rewarded by selling their findings on the open market. Google originally set aside $2 million to pay out to hackers taking part in the contest, but only Pinkie Pie, who won last year as well, could break the web browser.
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) seems to be serious to overcome security lapse in its Chrome browser as software giant raised the amount it would pay for a single hack from $3,133 to $20,000, earlier this year.
To have a quick look on Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s price history, beta used to measure the volatility or systematic risk in comparison to the market as a whole was 1.17 and the percentage change in the price over the last fifty two weeks remained at +27.01%. The price range in those 52 weeks had a highest hit of $774.38 on Oct 05, 2012 while lowest level during that period was $556.52 on Jun 14, 2012.
In the last trading session, Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)’s price moved -0.50% below its 200 day moving average, changing hands as low as $18.15 per share. The stock is currently trading -1.08% down its SMA 50. The worst hit in its 52 week range is $14.96 per share, with $21.30 being the 52 week best price, which compares with a latest closing price of $18.26. The Beta of this stock is 1.26.
Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) has a market value of $187.63 billion. It employs 103,700 people, over the last 12 months has generated revenue of $63.88 billion and has a net income of $8.81 billion. The firm’s operating margin is 20.16 percent and net profit margin 13.85 percent. The latest closing price of its shares moved up 3.46% from the 50-day moving average.
Peabody Energy Corporation (NYSE:BTU)’s price increased in the last trading session with a previous 52-week high of $47.81. The stock was trading on above-average volume. The stock traded at a volume of 16.71 million shares at a price gain of 8.95%. The share price is now up 16.82% for the past three months. Latest closing price was 14.70% below its 50-day moving average and -5.03% below its 200-day moving average.