courtesy of NBN at German WikipediaThe news around tobacco and smoking cigarettes has been dominated by the trends around the e-cigarette market in 2013, but perhaps something else is afoot here. Cigarette case volumes…
This year truly has been a wonderful bull market year for stocks, with double-digit gains taking the S&P 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average to new all-time highs. The confusion in June…
ThinkstockThe continuing drought over much of the western half of the United States spread modestly in the past week, now covering about 45% of lower 48 states. The drought covered 44% of the continental…
Courtesy United Parcel Service Inc.United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS) cut its second-quarter and full-year earnings guidance this morning, citing overcapacity in the air freight market, a slowing U.S. economy and customers who are…
The Reuters/University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment has been released and investors and the public will care about this number because it is one of the first nearly live reports for the month of July.…
ThinkstockTechnology stocks continue to severely underperform the overall market this year. Through the end of last week, the sector was down 3.28 year to date, and it was the only S&P 500 sector in…
ThinkstockIt is hard to find many analysts or market pundits who will defend gold at this point. Sterne Agee analyst, Michael Dudas, is doing just that in a fresh research call. He is finding…
ThinkstockThe shrinking differential between the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude gets the lion’s share of the blame for last night’s announcement from Valero Corp. (NYSE: VLO) that net income for…
ThinkstockFabless semiconductor firm Spreadtrum Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: SPRD) and China’s Tsinghua Unigroup announced today that the two companies have agreed to a merger under which Tsinghua will pay $31 per American depositary share (ADS)…
ThinkstockWells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) has released its second-quarter earnings report and the market likes what it sees so far. Earnings rose almost 20% with a record net income of $5.5 billion, or…
Ed Brown, via Wikimedia CommonsThe Labor Department is responsible for measuring inflation, and it has just released its first reading with the June Producer Price Index (PPI). This is the measure of wholesale inflation,…
ThinkstockHealth information website WebMD Health Corp. (NASDAQ: WBMD) this morning raised its second-quarter estimates for revenues and profits, citing higher demand for its advertising and sponsorships, especially from biopharmaceutical companies. The company also boosted…
These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations from select Wall Street research calls on Friday, July 12, 2013. They include F5 Networks, Pfizer, Sprint, Kroger and Target.
ThinkstockBiotechnology stocks have had an extremely solid first half of the year. The analysts at Cowen Group point out that expectations are very high and many of the stocks have already made big moves.…
ThinkstockTwo for-profit colleges both had news yesterday. Bridgepoint Education Inc. (NYSE: BPI) received its initial accreditation for a period of five years. Apollo Group Inc. (NASDAQ: APOL) was notified that it had been accredited…