Market Minute: Oracle CEO Bails on Own Meeting; Amazon's Revamped Kindles

Oracle's billionaire chief disses a company conference, and Amazon upgrades the Kindle. Those stories and more are what's in Wednesday's Market Minute.

The Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI) is riding a four day losing streak after falling 66 points Tuesday. The Standard & Poor's 500 index (^GPSC) lost 4, while the Nasdaq composite index (^IXIC) edged up by 3 points.

Oracle (ORCL) chief Larry Ellison chose his America's Cup boat over a major conference sponsored by his company. He skipped giving the keynote address at the OpenWorld conference in San Francisco Tuesday to watch his racing team win two races. An estimated 60,000 Oracle users attend the conference.

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) has selected a site just south of Baton Rouge, La., as the potential spot for a huge plant that will convert natural gas into gasoline and other liquid fuels. The company could invest more than $12 billion in the project. Shell says it's still several years away from making a final decision about green lighting the project.

Amazon (AMZN) is rolling out two new versions of its Kindle tablet. They're priced well below Apple's (AAPL) iPad and other competitors. The intent is to make money on the sale of e-books, music and other services -- not the hardware itself.

Yelp (YELP) is getting bad reviews from New York's attorney general. His office issued a report saying up to 20 percent of the reviews on the company's site are fake.

Ascena Retail (ASNA), which operates the Lane Bryant and Dress Barn chains, is set to soar. The company posted quarterly earnings that blew past analyst expectations.

But Clovis Oncology (CLVS) is set to slide. Bloomberg reports the company failed to attract any buyers after putting itself up for sale.

Finally, the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba -- often considered the Amazon of China -- is reportedly planning to list its shares in the U.S. after talks with Hong Kong broke down. The Wall Street Journal says the initial public offering could be valued at $70 billion or more.

-Produced by Drew Trachtenberg.

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