Detailed Instructions: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Q: Barnes & Noble is considering options for its quickly growing but expensive Nook e-book reading business, its latest attempt to regain profitability as the publishing industry adapts to the rising popularity of digital books and magazines. 
  
 FILE - In this Nov. 7, 2011 file photo provided by Barnes & Noble a demonstrator holds the new Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet following a news conference in New York. Barnes & Noble said Thursday, Jan. 5,... (Associated Press) 
  
 Investors fled as the company also forecast a much bigger loss for the year than originally expected. The stock lost almost a quarter of its value. 
  
 Barnes & Noble has been investing heavily in electronic books and its Nook e-book readers as it faces face tough competition from online retailers and discount stores. That business is growing as consumers increasingly shift to reading e-books. But it has led to losses for the New York-based bookseller. 
  
 Barnes & Noble is facing tough competition from Amazon.com, which offered its Kindle Fire for $199 and its Kindle e-reader for $79 over the holidays. Barnes & Noble sold its Nook Tablet for $249 and its black-and-white Simple Touch e-reader for $99. Demand for the Simple Touch reader lagged expectations during the holidays, Barnes & Noble said. 
  
 Still, combined sales of Nook products were brisk, up 70 percent compared with a year ago during the nine-week period ended Dec. 31. Digital content sales more than doubled. The company expects those sales to total $450 million in fiscal 2012. 
  
 In an interview with the Associated Press, CEO William Lynch said the Nook review is an attempt to provide more visibility into Nook operations, which Barnes & Noble doesn't believe are valued as highly as they should be by investors and analysts. 
  
 "We want to unlock value and shine a bright light on that business," he said. 
  
 He said the company is looking at a "range of options" for the Nook business, which the company expects to generate $1.5 billion in revenue in fiscal 2012. He declined to comment on whether the company was considering selling the business outright. The review is expected to be complete by the end of the year. 
  
 Lynch added that the company could expand the Nook business overseas and should make an announcement related to that within the next two months. 
  
 Analysts expressed skepticism. 
  
 "Separating Nook from the Barnes & Noble brand would be a huge mistake," said Simba Information senior trade analyst Michael Norris. "A lot of people who buy e-books buy physical books as well. Do they really want to tamper with that kind of marriage?" 
  
 The shift is the latest move by Barnes & Noble to contend with the sea change occurring in the book business as more consumers shift to e-books and e-book readers. Its chief rival Borders was driven into bankruptcy last year due to the changing landscape. Barnes & Noble put itself up for sale for a period last year but called that off after receiving a $204 million investment from former suitor Liberty Media in August. 
  
 Overall during the nine-week holiday period Barnes & Noble's sales in stores open at least a year rose 3.4 percent. Total sales rose 2.5 percent to $1.2 billion. 
  
 Barnes & Noble cut its yearly guidance for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a financial measure known as Ebitda, to between $150 million to $180 million. In December it said that figure would be at the low end of the range of $210 million to $250 million. 
  
 The bookseller expects a yearly loss of $1.40 to $1.10 per share on total sales between $7 billion and $7.2 billion. The loss is far greater than the loss of10 cents to 50 cents Barnes & Noble forecast in August. And it's bigger than the 63 cents per share expected by analysts, according to Fact Set. Analysts expect revenue of $7.34 billion. 
  
 Shares fell $3.23, or 23.8 percent, to $10.32 in midday trading. The stock was down about 4 percent since the beginning of 2011 prior to the Nook news. ||||| (Reuters) - Barnes & Noble Inc cut its Nook sales forecast and shocked investors by saying it may spin off its fast-growing digital business, sending its shares plunging 17 percent. 
  
 The No. 1 U.S. bookstore chain has relied on readers, tablets and electronic books to offset shriveling sales at its brick-and-mortar stores, so news of weaker-than-expected Nook sales stoked fears the company is struggling to keep up with Amazon.com Inc’s market-leading Kindle. 
  
 On Thursday, Barnes & Noble also projected a steeper net loss for the fiscal year than Wall Street had been expecting as it keeps shelling out on the Nook. 
  
 The retailer has poured tens of millions of dollars into the e-reader device. The first version hit the market in 2009, two years after the Kindle. 
  
 Barnes & Noble said in a statement it wanted to “unlock” the value of the Nook business and bring it to foreign markets. The company has opened discussions with potential partners such as publishers, retailers and technology companies outside the United States, it added. 
  
 One retail banker who declined to be identified said the Nook business was a faster-growing technology asset trapped within a slower retail stock, and theorized that Barnes & Noble simply wanted to spin off the Nook business to give it a chance to trade at a higher valuation. 
  
 The bookseller said it sold 70 percent more Nook devices this holiday season, while e-book sales doubled. Chief Executive William Lynch told Reuters that investors have not given the company enough credit for that growth. 
  
 “Our (market) share remains very strong,” Lynch said. “We certainly think this is not being properly valued. 
  
 The chief executive of Liberty Media Corp, one of Barnes & Noble’s largest investors, hinted at a conference earlier in the week that Nook would have an easier time attracting investment as a stand alone business. 
  
 Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei, who joined Barnes & Noble’s board last year, said on Wednesday that extracting value from Nook and Barnes & Noble could come by finding “partners to help fund that game,” referring to Barnes & Noble’s digital business. 
  
 But investors were frightened of the prospect of a Barnes & Noble stock that would reflect only its traditional retail business. 
  
 “They would be separating their one growth driver,” said Morningstar analyst Peter Wahlstrom. Barnes & Noble without Nook would be too similar to its former rival Borders, which went out of business in 2011. 
  
 But a source familiar with the company’s thinking said the retailer would remain intimately involved in developing and promoting the Nook, tapping its links with publishers and fleet of 700 stores, and essentially continue to run the business. 
  
 So even if Barnes & Noble does split off its Nook business, everyday customers will scarcely notice. 
  
 Barnes & Noble put itself up for sale in 2010 but attracted only one firm offer - a bid for $17 per share, or $1 billion, last May from Liberty Media, which was drawn by Nook’s growth. 
  
 Liberty ultimately decided to invest $204 million rather than buy the company outright, with much of that money earmarked for the Nook. 
  
 Liberty has preferred shares it can convert into a 16.6 percent stake in Barnes & Noble at a strike price of $17. 
  
 Barnes & Noble shares closed the day down 17 percent at $11.24, after falling as low as 31 percent. The chain now has a market value of about $676 million, or less than 1 percent of Amazon’s. 
  
 PRICE WAR 
  
 Barnes & Noble lowered the sales forecast for the fiscal year ending in July 2012 for the Nook business, which accounts for nearly one-quarter of sales, to $1.5 billion from $1.8 billion, in part because of disappointing numbers for its $99 Nook Simple Touch e-reader. 
  
 “Demand for Nook products appears to be decelerating faster than original expectations,” Barclays Capital analyst Alan Rifkin said in a research note. 
  
 The war with Amazon is ferocious. Amazon last week said it sold 1 million Kindle devices per week in December, including the Fire tablet and a touchscreen device. 
  
 Other Nook devices fared better than the Simple Touch, including its Nook Tablet. Forrester Research estimates that Amazon sold about 5 million Kindle Fire tablets during the holidays, compared with sales of some 1.5 million Nooks. 
  
 The company is second only to Amazon in the e-books market and claims to have as much as 27 percent of that market. 
  
 But when Barnes & Noble introduced the Nook tablet in November, it also cut the prices on other versions of the device, including the Simple Touch, in response to aggressive pricing by Amazon, which is known for uncutting rivals on price. 
  
 Unlike Amazon, Barnes & Noble’s other businesses do not generate enough money to subsidize its e-reader segment. Last month, Barnes & Noble posted an unexpected quarterly loss and last year, it suspended its dividend to finance the Nook. 
  
 Despite the liquidation in September of its one-time archrival, Borders Group, and rising Nook sales, Barnes & Noble now expects sales of $7 billion to $7.2 billion this fiscal year, down from its initial forecast of $7.4 billion, suggesting an accelerating decline in book sales. 
  
 Still, Barnes & Noble expects Borders’ disappearance to boost sales $210 million to $250 million. 
  
 Indeed, sales at Barnes & Noble stores open at least 15 months, excluding Nook and e-books, rose 4.5 percent during the holidays, an improvement over recent quarters. 
  
 The new Nook Tablet is seen during a demonstration at the Union Square Barnes & Noble in New York, November 7, 2011. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton 
  
 Barnes & Noble now expects earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of $150 million to $180 million for the fiscal year ending in July, down from its forecast last month of $210 million to $250 million. 
  
 The retailer forecast a loss of $1.40 to $1.10 per share in the fiscal year, much worse than the average Wall Street forecast of a loss of 63 cents. 
  
 In addition to its bookstores, Barnes & Noble operates a chain of textbook stores on college campuses. |||||
A:
Trouble in Nook-ville? Barnes & Noble shares lost about a quarter of their value this morning on the surprising news that the company might spin off its Nook e-reader. B&N has poured a ton of money into the e-reader business, but the news suggests it's losing the arms race to Amazon, with its deeper pockets and mighty Kindle, reports Reuters. Overall Nook sales were up 70% in the last nine weeks of the year, but sales of the basic model—the $99 Nook Simple Touch—fell short over the holidays. B&N lowered the yearly sales forecast for Nooks from $1.8 billion to $1.5 billion. CEO William Lynch put the potential move in a positive light, telling the AP that the company wants to "unlock value and shine a bright light on that business." One analyst at Michael Norris voices a common skeptical refrain: "Separating Nook from the Barnes & Noble brand would be a huge mistake. A lot of people who buy e-books buy physical books as well. Do they really want to tamper with that kind of marriage?"