All three major US stock indexes opened higher this morning, and spent the rest of the day bouncing around the neutral line. The reports from retailers on same-store sales in January were mixed, but…
South African platinum miner Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. has fired 17,200 of its approximately 46,000 workers at its Rustenberg mine following a court ruling that a strike by the workers was illegal. The mine…
An exclusive story at Geekwire reports that Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) has acquired TeachStreet, a five-year old startup that matches teachers and students in an online marketplace. No acquisition price was given. The teacher-student marketplace…
The 24,000 employees of Barclays plc (NYSE: BCS) can look forward to an announcement next week that they will be getting a cut of 25%-30% in the compensation this year. That’s not as bad…
Credit card giant MasterCard Inc. (NYSE: MA) reported fourth quarter adjusted EPS of $4.03 on revenue of $1.72 billion. Consensus estimates called for EPS of $3.92 on $1.73 billion in revenue. The company took…
Among the major movers at around 1 p.m. today are Vringo Inc. (NASDAQ: VRNG), MediciNova Inc. (NASDAQ: MNOV), Zynga Inc. (NASDAQ: ZNGA), The Brinks Co. (NYSE: BCO), and Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF).…
Apparently most people who want to see this year’s Super Bowl in person already have tickets. Ticket prices have fallen by about 15% since their January 27th peak average price of $4,311 to $3,664,…
President Obama will not include a royalty rate increase on oil produced on federal lands in his 2013 fiscal year budget. The current onshore royalty rate is 12.5% and the offshore rate is 18.75%.…
Last night’s SEC IPO filing from Facebook has lit a fire under some of the other social media stocks this moring. The biggest gainer is Zynga Inc. (NASDAQ: ZNGA), which Facebook noted in its…
The US Energy Information Administration today reported the US natural gas stocks fell by a total of 132 billion cubic feet, somewhat more than the drawdown of 123-127 billion cubic feet that analysts had…
At the end of 2010, Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) listed its long-term debt at $12.64 billion, down from $14.3 billion at the end of 2008, but up a little from $12.3 billion in…
There are several stocks trading more heavily than usual this morning, and also experiencing large gains or drops in share prices. These include Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR), Gap Stores Inc. (NYSE:…
The country’s largest automobile dealership, AutoNation Inc. (NYSE: AN) reported that January sales rose to 15,966 vehicles, up 7% year-over-year. The sales growth follows yesterday’s reports from General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM), Ford Motor…
Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) reported that January same-store sales rose 4.3%, more than double the 2.1% estimate from retail analysts. Total sales for the month totaled $4.61 billion, up 5.1% from January 2011. This…
US index futures are flat to lower this morning following two days of higher numbers. The report on new US unemployment benefits claims is due this morning, and analysts expect a slight drop, although…
Job losses in January totaled 53,486 in January, the highest total since last September and nearly 39% higher than job cuts of 38,519 in January 2011. Compared with December 2011 job cuts of 41,785,…
Royal Dutch Shell PLC (NYSE: RDS-A; RDS-B) reported quarterly earnings early this morning and like counterparts Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) and Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) piles of profit are due almost solely to…
Ireland’s central bank has lowered its forecast for the country’s 2012 GDP growth from 1.8% to just 0.5%. The bank also forecast that GDP growth in 2013 would reach 2.1%. Bloomberg News cites a…
Bankrupt European refiner Petroplus has received more than 40 expressions of interest in its 175,000 barrel/day Coryton refinery in southeast England. The plant is the company’s most profitable and complex refinery. A good comparison…
In remarks to a gathering of a local chamber of commerce, Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Charles Plosser expressed his sharp disagreement on several issues facing the country’s monetary policy makers. Perhaps his sharpest criticism…