WNCTIMES

Facebook is the hottest Internet company to hit the stock market since Google went public in 2004. The Silicon Valley companies, located seven miles apart, also happen to be locked in a bitter battle for Web surfers' allegiance and online advertisers' money. The duel is likely to intensify now that the IPO has given Facebook Inc.'s social network billions of dollars to battle Google Inc.'s dominant search engine.

(Reuters) - Yahoo Inc said it is to sell up to half of its stake in Internet entrepreneur Jack Ma's Alibaba Group back to the Chinese company for $7.1 billion, and hand most of the sale proceeds to its shareholders. The deal caps years of discussions between the two companies over Alibaba reclaiming some or all of the 40 percent stake in the Chinese e-commerce firm that Yahoo bought for about $1 billion in 2005. Under the agreement, Yahoo will sell half of that stake in Alibaba for at least $6.3 billion in cash and up to $800 million in new Alibaba preferred stock. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc is nearing a deal on Sunday to sell part of its stake in Alibaba Group back to the Chinese company for $7.1 billion, according to a source familiar with the matter. Under the agreement expected to be announced as soon as Sunday night, Yahoo will sell half of its 40 percent stake in Alibaba in a taxable transaction, the source said. Yahoo plans to use part of the proceeds for a share buyback, the source said, asking not to be named because the matter is not public. Representatives of Yahoo and Alibaba did not have immediate comment. ...

The appearance of actress Kelly Brook at Cannes causes a buzz on Twitter due to her "figure-hugging dress". Reactions to Kelly Brook's dress can be found below in this latest article from Relaxnews examining social media reaction to the Cannes Film Festival.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Securities and Exchange Commission will review the Nasdaq trading glitches surrounding the initial public offering of Facebook Inc on Friday, an agency spokesman said. "As is our practice, staff will review the incident with Nasdaq to determine its cause and steps that will be taken to address it," SEC spokesman John Nester said in a statement. (Reporting By Dave Clarke; Editing by Gary Hill)

Now that Facebook's finished its first day on the market, it's time to figure out what it all means. It ended the day at a price of $38.23 per share, almost exactly where it started the morning at $38 per share, does that mean today basically didn't happen? No. As you can see over at our live blog, it was an eventful day, which saw the stock peak at $45 per share, amid tech glitches and a resounding meh from the Internet. What does this mean for Facebook? America? The Internet? Me? You? Let's find out. 

(Reuters) - Nasdaq OMX said it intends to reach a resolution for Facebook Inc orders entered from 11 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. ET through an "offline matching process." Firms that had questions regarding executions would have to submit requests to Nasdaq by 5 p.m. (Reporting By David Gaffen)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shorting the Facebook IPO on its first day of trading is not for the faint of heart, but some traders are trying. As the hottest initial public offering in recent memory, Facebook has drawn 1990s-style tech-mania interest from mom and pop investors and big institutions alike. That intense appeal means short-sellers are both attracted by the stock's high valuation and wary, at least for now. "I have no interest in shorting a cultural phenomenon," hedge fund manager Jeffrey Matthews of Ram Partners in Greenwich, Connecticut, told Reuters in an email interview. ...