Fed Forecasts Improve a Little
Following today’s announcement from the FOMC that the Federal Reserve will begin another round of easing, the central bank has made a number of changes to its economic forecasts. The June forecast projected 2012…
All Work
Paul Ausick
China Reported to Slash Rare Earth Mining Licenses (MCP, AVL, REE, REMX)
A report that the Chinese government is about to reduce the number of licensed rare earth miners in the country by 40% has given North American-based miners a nice boost today. The report is…
Mortgages Still Cheap — Freddie Mac
The interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to an average of 3.55% last week according to Freddie Mac. That is identical to last week’s average, and well below the year-ago rate of…
Spending on Research Still Lags
Private sector spending on research and development fell by 4.5% in 2008 as a result of the global financial crisis, according to a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD),…
Nintendo Wii U to the Rescue? (MSFT, SNE, GME, BBY, AMZN, WMT, COST, TGT, GOOG, AAPL)
courtesy NintendoAfter more than a year since the product’s introduction, the Nintendo Wii U game controller finally has pricing, shipping dates, and more details on what the device can do. The company said that…
Natural Gas Supply Growing More Slowly (XOM, CHK, EOG, UNG, OIH)
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) today reported the U.S. natural gas stocks rose by a total of 27 billion cubic feet, in line with the 28 billion cubic feet that analysts were expecting.…
Chip Stocks’ Short Interest Tied to PCs, Mobile Devices (INTC, AMD, QCOM, ARMH, MU, SNDK, BRCM, MRVL, NVDA, TXN, AMAT, SMH)
We have tracked the key short interest changes as of August 31 in the following semiconductor leaders: Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD), Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU), SanDisk Corp.…
Solar Stocks Short Interest: Geography Matters (CSIQ, FSLR, GTAT, WFR, SPWR, JASO, LDK, STP, TSL, YGE)
We tracked the short interest in the following North American solar companies: Canadian Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: CSIQ), First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR), GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: GTAT), MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (NYSE: WFR)…
ECB Explains Itself
In its Monthly Bulletin published today, the European Central Bank (ECB) goes about explaining why its decision to begin buying eurozone sovereign debt in the secondary market was the right decision. The program it…
Developed Economies Will Continue Decline — OECD
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said this morning that the most of the world’s major economies will continue to slow down in the next several months. The OECD’s leading economic indicator…
Short Interest: Nasdaq Actively Traded Stocks (FB, SIRI, INTC, MSFT, ZNGA, AAPL, ORCL, YHOO, CSCO, DELL)
We tracked the short interest in the following Nasdaq most actively traded stocks: Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB), Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI), Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), Zynga Inc. (NASDAQ:…
Short Interest: NYSE Actively Traded Stocks (NOK, BAC, AMD, AIG, S, CHK, C, JPM, GE, F)
We tracked the short interest in the following NYSE most actively traded stocks: Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK), Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD), American International Group (NYSE: AIG),…
Europe Still Plenty of Trouble for Carmakers (F, GM)
At the end of August, automaker General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) reached a deal with the German government allowing the company to go to a short-time schedule, which cut workers’ hours but not their…
Sears Rights Offer Goes Out Big
Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD) today launched a rights offering in advance of the planned IPO of its Sears Hometown and Outlet stores spinoff, scheduled for next month. More than 24 million options were…
24/7 Wall St. Closing Bell — September 12, 2012: Markets Get No Traction from Germany’s Decision (AAPL, KMI, POT, RENN, PSX, DG, ADP, PLL, SCMR, UEC, SABA, LRN, PIR, SHLD, SHOSR, FB, ODP, JVA, HK, MNST)
The three major U.S. stock indexes opened higher this morning and, following a morning dip, have remained in positive territory (barely) for most of the day. The first bit of big news that moved…
US Satisfaction Index Leaps — Gallup
The latest Gallup survey of how satisfied Americans are “with the way things are going in the United States at this time” indicates that satisfaction has jumped since the July survey to a level…
Corn Prices Tumble on Crop News
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) now estimates that the U.S. corn crop will fall by another 100 million bushels below the estimate provided just a month ago, to 10.7 billion bushels, the lowest…
Underwater Mortgages Continue to Decline
Research firm CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX) reported today that both the number and total value of residential properties with negative equity declined in the second quarter of the 2012. As a percentage of all properties…
August Website Rankings (GOOG, MSFT, YHOO, FB, AOL, AMZN, CMCSA, WMT, TGT, VZ)
Digital media research firm comScore Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) has released its ranking of the top 50 U.S. web properties for August and the list is topped, once again, by the usual suspects. comScore counted…
Travel Websites at Risk (PCLN, OWW, EXPE, TRIP, KYAK, RJET, JBLU, SAVE, LUV)
A number of airlines are trying to take back their booking business from travel websites like Priceline.com Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN), Orbitz Worldwide Inc. (NYSE: OWW), Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE), TripAdvisor Inc. (NASDAQ: TRIP), Kayak…