investments

Playing fantasy sports can be as addictive as watching "The Biggest Loser."

My own lowest point was when I went to see the Golden State Warriors play the Los Angeles Clippers and cheered when the Clippers' Michael Olowakandi snagged his 10th rebound. I am a Warriors fan, but Olowokandi was in my NBA fantasy team.

It took a team of bullish psychiatrists and several wily girlfriends to remove me from this iniquitous pursuit, which is why I have some sympathy with Cameron Pettigrew and three of his fellow Fidelity Investments employees.

Actually, they are former Fidelity employees, as, … Read more

BOSTON--Green tech has been a hot venture capital investment category the past few years, but that doesn't mean investors are actually earning money. In fact, some venture capitalists eyeing gold in green may soon be moving on, a panel of investors said here on Friday.

In the third quarter this year, green tech garnered more venture capital than the traditional categories of software and biotech, bouncing back after a sharp drop-off earlier this year. That reflects the high level of confidence that investing in energy-related technologies makes sense in the long run.

But there's a growing understanding that … Read more

In foreign exchange trading, or forex, investors prosper by guessing which nations' currencies will rise or fall in value in relation to other currencies. Online forex trading is gaining in popularity, thanks in part to software like eToro, an online forex trading platform that makes it easy for the self-directed investor to participate in the growing market for international currency trades.

Like many such services, eToro is both the software that investors use to trade online in the forex markets and the Web-based portal to the online trading service or services that you have to subscribe to in order to … Read more

Data on third-quarter venture capital shows that green-technology companies are attracting dollars from both investors and government programs.

Ernst & Young on Thursday said that venture investing in green tech rose 46 percent compared to the prior quarter to total $965 million in 50 deals. Solar, auto, green buildings, and biofuels continue to be fast-growing segments within the overall category, according to the Ernst & Young analysis of data from Dow Jones VentureSource.

The numbers show that companies shipping products are garnering more money and that a mix of investors, including private equity firms and corporations, are increasingly part of … Read more

TechStars, a Colorado-based incubator for start-ups, is kind of like a boot camp for entrepreneurs. On Wednesday, CNET News reporter Caroline McCarthy attended TechStars' Investor Day in Mountain View, Calif., where representatives from some of the participating start-ups got to apply what they learned. She joins us with more.

That, and the headlines of the day, on Thursday's CNET News Daily Podcast.

Today's stories:

'State of the Internet' assessed

New filters in Google search for speed, new

Microsoft finalizes Windows 7 'XP Mode'

Cisco to buy video firm Tandberg for $3 billion

Hewlett-Packard hires Sun executive

TechStars' young entrepreneurs head to Silicon Valley… Read more

The latest data for venture capital in green-tech investing are in and the numbers all point upward, with the category now attracting more money than software or biotech.

Research company Cleantech Group and media company Greentech Media on Wednesday each released third-quarter data for venture capital in green technologies, showing that government stimulus spending and signs of a recovering economy have helped restore confidence in the sector.

Third quarter investing rose to $1.59 billion, representing 134 deals in North America, Europe, China, and India, according to the Cleantech Group. Greentech Media's tally, which covers deals in North America … Read more

Failing to find many investment opportunities, Internet search giant Google has begun developing its own green technology and may soon have some breakthroughs.

That's according to Bill Weihl, Google's green-energy czar, who spoke at the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit that began on Tuesday.

In November 2007, Google announced a plan to invest hundreds of millions in technology to find a renewable-energy source for electricity cheaper than coal. Since then, the company has admittedly invested "less than $50 million."

Google had intended to invest much more, but it has not been able to find … Read more

Editors' note: This guest column was originally published on Bill Gurley's blog. See his bio below.

Many are speculating that the year 2009 represents a fundamental turning point for the venture capital industry. Some are arguing that the industry is in dire straits after years of poor performance. Others have argued that the math simply does not work for the industry's current size.

Another theory suggests that permanent challenges with the market for initial public offerings call into question the fundamental economics of the VC industry. Lastly, some credible authors have suggested that things are so bad that … Read more

No other investor has had as much success in open-source software as Peter Fenton, general partner at Benchmark Capital.

A competitive triathlete, Fenton has turned the standard marathon of open-source business-building into a sprint, churning out four big open-source sales--JBoss ($350 million), Zimbra ($350 million), XenSource ($500 million), and SpringSource ($420 million)--while most investors have yet to turn a profit on any.

Not that Fenton is a one-trick pony. He also just sold FriendFeed to Facebook and sits on the board of Twitter. It's fair to say that Fenton can now afford a second Aston Martin.

But Fenton … Read more