Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) is considering making a $10.9 billion takeover bid for British oil & gas company Gulf Keystone Petroleum, according to a report from the UK’s The Independent. The British firm…
In 1969, CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CME) established a trust fund to help investors who were hurt when a brokerage failed. Over the years, CME has used the trust to fund its charitable giving…
US stock futures are rising somewhat this morning, but markets haven’t quite figured out yet how to price in the effects of the death of North Korea’s Kim Jong Il. Asian markets have lost…
The US Senate on Saturday approved a bill extending the payroll tax cut for an additional two months. The legislation still requires approval by the House of Representatives, which is scheduled to vote on…
US equity markets opened solidly higher this morning, but began to lose momentum by mid-morning. From there it’s been a mostly downhill day with the DJIA creeping back to nearly flat with about an…
William Dudley, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, told a US House of Representatives subcommittee today that the Fed will not be buying European sovereign debt. At the same time, he…
The UK-based special administrator charged with sorting out the mess left behind by the bankruptcy of MF Global claims to have found about 82% of the $1.2 billion that MF Global, ahem, misplaced. The…
When the US Environmental Protection Agency issued its draft report on possible contamination to groundwater in Wyoming from the oil & gas drilling practice known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the agency was careful…
>Nearly three years ago Vietnam’s state-run energy company, Vietnam Oil & Gas (PetroVietnam) opened the country’s first oil refinery. The plant’s capacity is about 150,000 barrels/day (or 7.5 million metric tons annually) and it…
There are several stocks trading more heavily than usual this morning, and also experiencing large gains or drops in share prices. These include ISTA Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ISTA), Morton’s Restaurant Group, Inc. (NYSE: MRT),…
Smartphone makers are expected to sell some 142 million units in the current calendar quarter. The bulk of those sales are pumping up the revenues at two vendors — Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and…
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the Consumer Price Index (CPI)for November. The CPI for all urban consumers is unchanged from October, while the core index, which includes food and energy costs,…
Darden Restaurants Inc. (NYSE: DRI) reported second-quarter 2012 earnings this morning that were down -28% from the same period a year ago. EPS came in at $0.41, right on the consensus estimate, as was…
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. (NYSE: VRX) has made an unsolicited all-cash offer of $6.50/share for ISTA Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISTA), a maker of eye-care drugs. The offer values ISTA at around $327 million, including…
US stock futures are up again this morning, as investors await the latest consumer price index report at 8:30 a.m. ET. Analysts are expecting a rise of 0.1% in the CPI, and a similar…
Social media game maker Zynga Inc. (NASDAQ: ZNGA) priced its IPO at $10/share, and the first 100 million shares are now in investors’ hands. The IPO raised a cool $1 billion, in the largest…
US markets opened fast this morning, up nearly 1% in the first hour of trading before giving most of the gain back by mid-morning and then wandering around a gain of less than 0.5%…
This year’s harvest of robusta coffee is expected to be near 3.4 million metric tons, far outstripping demand. The largest producers are Viet Nam, Indonesia, and Brazil. Coffee purveyors like Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX),…
With the global economy growing in slow motion, it is perhaps to be expected that US banks don’t have a bright forecast for the year ahead. An analyst at Standard & Poor’s puts it…
When AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR), parent of American Airlines, filed for bankruptcy, the company hoped it would be able to re-negotiate some labor contracts and reduce its expenses — through downsizing both routes and…