Quantcast

Monthly Archives: May 2009

Making Steel Just Got Cheaper (RTP, CLF, MT)

Posted: May 26, 2009 at 7:55 am

UK-based miner Rio Tinto plc (NYSE:RTP) has announced a pricing agreement with Japan's Nippon Steel for iron ore for the contract year beginning April 1, 2009. The new prices are ...
Read Full Story »
bear

If 8% Is New Unemployment Benchmark, Simulus Plans Have Failed

Posted: May 26, 2009 at 7:49 am

Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive officer of Pimco, says that 8% unemployment is "the new normal." He bases that, to a large extent, on the fact the GDP growth will only ...
Read Full Story »

Book Review: Bremmer & Keat’s The Fat Tail

Posted: May 26, 2009 at 7:33 am

By John Tamny of RealClearMarkets In their entertaining new book, The Fat Tail, Eurasia Group investment strategists Ian Bremmer and Preston Keat observe that while banks likely spent $8 billion ...
Read Full Story »

Top 10 Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (AAPL, ARBA, AVID, BAC, FSLR, JCG, ERIC, MWW, Q, YGE)

Posted: May 26, 2009 at 6:58 am

These are the top ten analyst research calls from Wall Street's upgrades and downgrades we have seen early this Tuesday morning: Apple (AAPL) Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley. Ariba ...
Read Full Story »
bank

Microsoft (MSFT) To Spend Tens Of Millions To Promote New Search Engine Called “Bing”

Posted: May 26, 2009 at 5:14 am

Microsoft (MSFT) has come up with a name for its new search engine technology--"Bing". The world's largest software company is prepared to spend as much as $100 million promoting the ...
Read Full Story »
bear

The Failure Of The Mortgage Modification System Threatens Housing

Posted: May 26, 2009 at 4:56 am

The theory was simple and elegant. By offering homeowners who could not afford their monthly mortgage costs lower monthly payments, people could be able to stay in their homes. That would ...
Read Full Story »
bear

Nokia (NOK) Application Store Faces Apple (AAPL) Dominance

Posted: May 26, 2009 at 4:40 am

Nokia (NOK) is the world's largest handset company. It has been late to the high-end smart-phone market, but it has distribution leverage all over the world because of its 37% ...
Read Full Story »
001_1

American Companies Selling More $1 Products (AAPL)(KRT)(WMT)(MCD)(SBUX)

Posted: May 26, 2009 at 4:12 am

American companies are increasingly offering products for $1 or less. Some are among the largest firms in the United States such as Wal-Mart (WMT) and McDonald’s (MCD). Other are smaller ...
Read Full Story »
Winter

Tech Innovation Moves From West To East (HPQ)(AAPL)(DELL)(INTC)(IBM)(MSFT)(CHL)(GOOG)

Posted: May 26, 2009 at 4:05 am

The West, particularly the US, has been able to hang onto its lead in technology innovation for the better part of thirty years while the manufacturing economy was driven by ...
Read Full Story »
bear

Summer 2009: The Long Wait For Evidence Of A Recovery

Posted: May 26, 2009 at 3:46 am

Almost every analyst or forecasting group of any substance has offered opinions over the last few weeks, regarding the performance of the economy for the last half of this year.  ...
Read Full Story »
newspaper

Media Digest 5/26/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg

Posted: May 26, 2009 at 2:59 am

Reuters:   Bears control the dollar because of concerns about the deficit and heal of the US economy. Reuters:   Crunch time looms for the GM (GM) and Chrysler restructurings. Reuters:   The ...
Read Full Story »
Sunset

Asia Markets 5/26/2009

Posted: May 26, 2009 at 2:22 am

Markets in Asia fell. The Nikkei was down .4% to 9,311. The Hang Seng dropped .4% to 17,648. The Shanghai Composite was down .8% to 2,588. At the open in ...
Read Full Story »
bank

Starbucks (SBUX) Explodes In New York City, Literally

Posted: May 25, 2009 at 11:50 am

According to several media reports someone planted a bomb outside the Starbucks (SBUX) store at 92nd Street and Third Avenue in New York City, causing an explosion and shattering windows. ...
Read Full Story »

EPA Administrator Forecasts Potential Shift on Bush-Era Drilling Loophole

Posted: May 25, 2009 at 11:38 am

By Joaquin Sapien, ProPublica Signaling the potential for an important policy reversal, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a congressional hearing on Tuesday that the agency would consider ...
Read Full Story »

To Fix the Derivatives Market, Don’t

Posted: May 25, 2009 at 10:47 am

John Tamny of RealClearMarkets In his 1940s classic, The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek described classical liberalism as essentially a non-system whereby "there are no hard-and-fast rules fixed once and ...
Read Full Story »