Tag - :DCX

The Russell 2000 (NYSE: IWM) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDU) stumbled hard for the second day in a row on fears that cheap credit has dried up. The small-cap index fell 13.65 points, or 1.72%, to 777.83. The Dow lost 208.10 points, or 1.54%, to 13,265.47.

The Russell 2000 fell four out of five days this week, dropping a cumulative 58.61 points to its lowest level since March 14.

Credit has been cheap for the past few years, fueling a boom in corporate takeover deals and helping cash-strapped families finance new home purchases.

But fears are mounting that the party is coming to an end.

The U.S. housing sector started to weaken in the second half of 2006, when stagnant prices led to increased delinquencies and foreclosures jumped as borrowers struggled to repay cheap loans.

The pain was first felt by the subprime financial sector, which serves individuals with poor credit histories, but it increasingly appears that there has been a sizeable ripple effect.

Toronto-based Kaboose, Inc. (TSX: KAB) is North America's largest independent online media company in the kids-and-family market — a sector dominated by giants such as Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS), Time Warner Inc.'s (NYSE: TWX) AOL unit and Viacom Inc.’s (NYSE: VIA) Nickelodeon. Solid planning, creative financing, strategic marketing, and sound partnerships have this small-cap standing strong in the face of stiff competition from larger competitors with well-oiled marketing machines.

Founded in 1999, right before the dot-com bust, Kaboose plowed full steam ahead, aggressively snapping up kid-oriented websites. After a round of acquisitions, the small media company conceded it would never win the battle for children's attention on the Internet, so it shifted gears and targeted their moms. Today, the company runs a string of content-related sites that focus on mothers and young families. Visitors to Kaboose's sites can do everything from staying informed of the latest trends and reading product and service reviews to planning birthday parties and family vacations to creating online photo scrapbooks.

With a Web portfolio including popular sites like BabyZone, ParentZone, Birthday in a Box, Two Peas in a Bucket and the recently acquired image-sharing service Bubbleshare, Kaboose's 120,000 pages of content attract 12 million unique visitors a month and its family of sites have more than 2 million registered users (return visitors who can be tracked and cross-promoted)—a fact that has brought advertisers knocking.

"Kaboose is one of only a handful of Canadian companies that is benefiting from the significant shift in advertising spending from traditional media to online media," Ron Shuttleworth of Jennings Capital Inc., said in a recent report.

"As the company scales and solidifies its position as a pre-eminent destination for families, we expect that Kaboose should capture more share of advertising budgets and higher rates," he wrote.

Last year, the advertising dollars poured in: Kaboose revenues swelled 200% to $11.7 million and in the third quarter of last year, the company recorded its first ever profit, $500,000 (a $1-million turnaround from the same period in 2005). All in all, sales have grown more than 1,000% since 2003. And the company has built an impressive list of business partners, including the likes of McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD), Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT), Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ), DaimlerChrysler AG's (NYSE: DCX) Mercedes-Benz subsidiary, Mattel, Inc. (NYSE: MAT) and M.J. Heinz Company (NYSE: HNZ).

Even with fears of global warming and a worst-case-scenario of a shutdown of oil from the Middle East, it’s not easy being a green company.

The concept of non-polluting fuel cells powering our cars and trucks seemed too good to be true when it first exploded on the scene nearly two decades ago. Investors in one of the leading hydrogen-cell developers, Ballard Power Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BLDP, TSX: BLD) might be left wondering if commercializing the technology is just a lot of hot air.

The Russell 2000 lost big today, while the Dow managed a small rise.  Among specific small cap stocks, QAD Inc. (Nasdaq: QADI) said it expects to report a loss in the first quarter of fiscal 2008, while shares of Source Interlink Companies, Inc. (Nasdaq: SORC) sagged on news of a $1.2 billion media acquisition.

The Russell 2000 lost 7.21 points, or 0.87%, to 822.33.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 20.56 points, or 0.15%, to 13,346.78.

Stocks are trading mixed this afternoon, after news that a private equity group purchased a majority stake in Chrysler for $7.45 billion.  In small cap action, US BioEnergy Corp. (Nasdaq: USBE) missed profit expectations, while consulting company Inforte Corp. (Nasdaq: INFT) is being acquired for $50 million.

At 11:23 a.m. ET the Russell 2000 had lost 2.43 points, or 0.29%, to 827.11.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 30.23 points, or 0.23%, to 13,356.45.