E-Book Settlement Looks Negative for Barnes and Noble

Barnes and Noble: e-book settlement looks negative for Nook. BKS down nearly 6 percent on heavy volume, began selling off just as several publishers announced a settlement in a DOJ lawsuit on price-fixing of e-books.

Standard and Poor's says, "Without the "agency" model in place, in which publishers set the retail prices, we expect that Amazon.com will once again pursue a strategy of setting prices lower than its competition - even if it sells the e-books at a loss - in order to gain market share.

We think BKS will be forced to respond with lower e-book pricing of its own, with the likely end result being weaker margins, in our view."

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