Stocks to Watch: Shutterfly, Zynga (Update 1)

NEW YORK - Internet-based photo and greeting cards company Shutterfly (SFLY) is reportedly looking to acquire Eastman Kodak's online photo services business for $23.8 million.

Kodak has entered bankruptcy protection, and the agreement between the two parties characterizes Shutterfly's offer as the initial "stalking horse" bid for an auction process to be conducted through the bankruptcy court.

Shutterfly shares were jumping 15.5% to $31.07 in premarket trading Friday.

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Zynga (ZNGA), the online game developer, announced Thursday a new online platform to play its titles, a move that will allow users to play games on its site and reduce its dependence on Facebook.

"In addition to serving up popular Zynga games, Zynga.com will let players discover and play social games created by third party game developers," the company said in a press release. "These Platform partners will be able to reach new audiences and make their games even more social."

Shares were adding 3.5% to $14.99.

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Retailer Overstock.com (OSTK) is expected by analysts to post quarterly earnings of 45 cents a share. Shares were gaining 1.7% to $7.

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Big Lots (BIG), the discount retailer, reported fourth-quarter net income of $114.7 million, or $1.75 a share, on net sales of $1.67 billion. Analysts expected earnings of $1.73 a share on sales of $1.66 billion.

For the first quarter of fiscal 2012, the company estimated adjusted income in the range of 75 cents to 81 cents a share, a 7% to 16% increase from the same time a year earlier.

Shares were up 0.3% to $44.60.

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A German court has dismissed a patent infringement suit brought by Apple (AAPL) against Samsung Electronics over slide-to-unlock technology, and also rejected a claim by Samsung that Apple infringed one of its third-generation, or 3G, wireless patents, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Separately, ahead of Apple's expected iPad3 launch at a March 7 event in San Francisco, DigiTimes reported that the company may have trouble keeping up with demand for the product due to a shortage of high resolution display supplies.

Shares were down 0.2% to $543.28 in premarket trading.

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AT&T (T) said Thursday it would slow down service for "unlimited data" cellphone subscribers once they exceed a new monthly usage cap of 3 gigabytes.

The change by AT&T, the No. 2 telecommunications company, relaxes its previous policy of slowing down service when subscribers entered the heaviest 5% of data users for that month.

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Yelp (YELP), the online business review company, said its initial public was priced at $15 a share, above its projected range of $12 to $14.

Yelp is selling 7.1 million shares, while its charitable foundation will sell 50,000.

The IPO values Yelp at $900 million. The stock begins trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

-- Written by Joseph Woelfel and Andrea Tse



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