Dow

Tech stocks tumble for a second straight day

After a whiplash session on the markets a day earlier, investors were treated to another harrowing ride Tuesday, with the Dow Jones industrial average plunging more than 500 points.

The steep sell-off seems to be partly a reaction to comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who issued a warning Tuesday that the economic malaise could very well continue through the next year.

At the end of the trading day, the Dow closed down 508.39 points at 9,447.11, marking its fourth-consecutive day of losses and a second day where the Dow ended below the 10,000 mark. … Read more

Dow Chemical's green-meets-green vision

SAN MATEO, Calif.--How does Dow Chemical, the world's second-largest chemical producer, turn itself into a sustainable business?

"It's where green meets green," Neil Hawkins, vice president of sustainability at the company, said here Tuesday at the opening of the two-day Dow Jones Environmental Ventures conference.

Hawkins, who was interviewed in a morning keynote address, was referring to the 110-year-old company's efforts to make money by being more energy-efficient, investing in new clean-tech technologies, and working with manufacturers on new green chemistry.

For example, from 1994 to 2005, Dow spent roughly $1 billion on refining … Read more

Presidential election insight via data visualization

Dow Jones Insight is applying text analysis to thousands of documents to measure trends, such as favorability and issue coverage of the presidential candidates over time. In the first example below, Dow Jones Insight parsed 26,435 documents, including English language newspapers, magazine, transcripts from broadcasts and news wire services.

Dow Jones is pitching the service as a generalized tool for analyzing the impact of media coverage, and targeting corporations, as well as political candidates, who need competitive insight. Other services, such as Nielsen BuzzMetrics and BuzzLogic, provide similar kinds of media analysis based on parsing a variety of document … Read more

VentureOne Conference (verdict: kinda bad)

Taking my poor presentation skills as a given, my experience at the Dow Jones Venture One conference yesterday was really lame.

Having been involved in events (Comdex, Interop, LinuxWorld) I've learned a fair amount. I've also participated in a ton of events, some good, some bad.

The main thing I look for is a program that meets the needs of the attendees and gives the speakers a fair chance at getting their attention. I think that this event was a failure at both.

The other thing I look for is for the event staff to be even remotely … Read more

Enough of conferences with no power strips

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--As a fairly frequent conference attendee, I have had to deal with all kinds of little annoyances that come with the endless confabs that go on these days.

Over the years, one of the ones that has most bothered me--and annoyed others--has gotten somewhat better: the lack of Wi-Fi. It's not perfect, of course, but more and more I'm finding that I can get online wirelessly, something crucial to me as a reporter.

But one pet peeve has not gotten any better, and I, and others, have had enough: the lack of power strips.

I'… Read more

A four hour flu at the Wall Street Journal?

Every morning reporters from across the country file into work at their local office of the Wall Street Journal and begin the task of tracking leads, writing copy, and sorting through the plethora of press releases that came in the night before. This morning was a different story. According to a recent post on Poynter, the news staff at the Journal took part in a sick-out in protest over recent contract disputes and the threat of Dow Jones being sold to the highest bidder.

It's unclear whether the strike will have any impact at the journal, and it seems … Read more