Companies That Gave Shareholders a HeadacheMorningstarJason Stipp: Im Jason Stipp for Morningstar and welcome to the Friday 5. Now here on the Friday 5 we often have to make amends for our bad jokes but this week we have 5 companies that are either trying to make amends or theyre setting themselves up to be sorry. Here with me to offer the details Morningstar Markets Editor Jeremy Glaser. Jeremy thanks for joining me.Jeremy Glaser: Always a pleasure Jason.Jason: What do you have for the Friday 5 this week?Jeremy: Well were going to look at 5 companies that are going to have to make amends or making amends right now and those are Google, GAP, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and JP Morgan.Jason: There are some interesting news about Google this week and not all that had to do with her earnings what do you see on that front?Jeremy: Google had incredible rings yet again. Theyre really on a role advertising is coming back but there are a lot of stories about googles secretly testing driverless cars investments and cables to connect wind farms and another alternative energy. Now Google has been know for a while that they make a lot of these kind of alternative investments that really are very far field from their core competency and you cant help but wonder if this is really in the best interest of shareholders. It seems like its the founders are using their company as a piggy bank for their hobbies and theyre probably using it as a retention tool. I talked to – earlier he said thats probably one of the primary reasons they do it but as a share holder I have to be wondering could this money be given back to me as a dividend or in a share buy back versus being spent on some hobbies.Jason: Its going to be Google trying to make amends for some of the judge work to its employees by giving something fun to work on.Jeremy: Yeah I guess so.Jason: So with this second one Jeremy this is a story I had to admit I passed by a lot and havent really taken a lot of time to look inside but they got a lot of attention this week because they changed their label and thats gap. What is the story with the gap labels?Jeremy: Gap very quietly rolled out a new logo that was not particularly well received. You know the gap blue squares one of the most iconic corporate logos and they decided to move the square to the side and to make it I dont know maybe a little bit more modern but it really looks like something that came out of a high school photo shop class and not really a professional logo. They made amends extremely quickly about as fast as they rolled up a new one. They rolled back the old logo. I think its probably good to search in I dont think anyone would have recognized that was the gap clothing store but it always shows another adventure in corporate branding.Jason: Something else they had a quick rollout and roll back was in the world of telecom in Microsoft without that can be reported on this before that rolled back pretty quickly but now theyre making amends. Jeremy: Microsoft is making their actual push into the real phone space with windows phone 7 that they discussed the launch of this week and that head sets are going to be available for the holiday season. Now Microsoft has obviously a had a Windows ahead of windows phone for a long time but after Google and apple released their products it just hasnt been up high for them it really lost on a mine chair let alone a market share. Windows Phone 7 is definitely a much better product. You know really in a lot of ways its probably up to the technical standards that people use to with the Apple and with the Google funds but is it too late. They have to get the developers to come in there that should make the apps that theyre going to bring the people to it and convince you know consumers excuse me that there is enough of a difference that its worth paying for this phone versus anything else so its going to be a tough battle, I thin they finally have a horse that has the possibility of running but they could be making amends for this mistake for waiting so long for a really long time.Jason: Let me go and keep an eye out for that phone at my local Wal-Mart maybe come into Chicago Jeremy are they making amends for urban dwellers and trying to move in to the city now?Jeremy: Well see Walmart said this week that theyre really going to make a push to move in to cities like New York Chicago, Los Angeles with smaller format stores theyll be around 30,000 square feet or less compared to 200,000 square feet or more in their giant super centers. I think these stores are going to focus a lot more on groceries are going to focus a lot more on your disposables more than you know buying hardware someone like you know the larger things that you could find at some of the bigger format Walmart. I think time will tell if hes going to be successful or not. I think Walmart has the resources to build a lot of these stores to support them for a long time to see if they gain traction in the community but you have a lot of competitors there. Target has been targeting their urban market for an extremely long time. You know they have had some very successful multi level its multi smaller format stores. Well see if these amends for these consumers if it works or if theyll be able to make amends for building some stores that were a bit too big you know at the peak of the bubble but again its one of those things youre going to have to wait and see. Jason: So lets wait for number 5 Jeremy the financial services industry seems to me maybe having to mix some amends now for getting people on homes that they really couldnt afford is this a good idea?Jeremy: JP Morgan and all of the big banks really are going to be making amends for putting people into homes that they couldnt afford and for the financial crisis in its entirety for a long time. I think youve seen it in their earnings are still very high losses of the JP Morgan this week we saw that they reported a very high loss I think were going to see that through all the banks as their portrait to see but other things that keep coming up like we keep hearing about yeah this foreclosure gate where that instead of following the orderly process of getting people evicted. Theyre kind of going to these law firms that just kind of melt through them people arent really checking the documentation. I was really sure if these people should be evicted or not. You know chances are the last majority of these loans are bad and do need to be a handle through the foreclosure and to the eviction process but it doesnt appear that all of them are that way and I think its the black eye for the industry and one that has been beaten up so much over the past couple of years the fact that even now they cant quake all the documentation. They cant quake at the process right. Theres still a lot of confidence that theyre going to be able to merge from the crisis to be able to follow these new consumer protections and be able to be the better actress in the global stage they say they are going to be. You know I think that certainly theyre going to try to move in that direction that everyone your heart is in the right place to get there but as of now theyre not there yet. I think its something that theyre going to have to work on.Jason: Well Jeremy Im going to have to make amends to you that its not the Friday 6 and were going to have to end it right there.Jeremy: Thanks Jason.Jason: For Morningstar Im Jason Stip thanks for watching.