The ADP employment report, sandwiched between Challenger Gray and the Friday government numbers, showed a tiny improvement in private sector payrolls. It was not enough to convince even optimists that the jobless rate will…
Updated throughout the day. BP plc (NYSE: BP) may keep its dividend low (WSJ) Chinese PE firm Hopu Investment Management will begin to shut down operations. (FT) Citigroup may be looking for a buyer…
Unemployment rates in the US may not get worse, but they won’t get better again soon, it seems. Challenger, Gray & Christmas announced that “Downsizing activity remained flat in October, as employers announced job…
Oil moved up to $84.69 on a path that may well take it above $90. US stockpiles were down 4.1 million barrels according to the American Petroleum Institute. OPEC has said that $90 oil…
T-Mobile says there is no need to switch to Sprint-Nextel (NYSE: S) to get the 4G speeds that Sprint WiMax offers. There is also no need to wait for the LTE 4G technology that…
The World Bank anointed China as the premier large growth economy. It reported that, while GDP improvements may moderate slightly, its 9.6% third quarter increase was surprisingly strong. The World Bank downplayed the risks…
The Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives and some of their lead in the Senate, as was expected. The reasons for the shift were obvious before the election. As has been true…
The Republicans took control of the House but not the Senate. Solar panel maker Solyndra was forced to halt expansion, to some extent because of Chinese competition. (NYT) Cotton prices will cause clothing retail costs…
Twitter has, by most estimates, 145 million members, which makes it one of the largest social networks in the world. All major media companies are on Twitter and some have more than one million…
Updated throughout the day. The government will cut its stake in GM as low as 30% with the car company’s IPO (WSJ) The Fed will buy $500 billion worth of bonds (Bloomberg) Goldman Sachs…
The Treasury Department says it will make a profit on the investment it made for taxpayers when it bailed out AIG. That leads to the question of whether the US government can make money…
The Republicans will win the House of Representatives it seems. They may also control the Senate, although that is less likely. The President could face two hostile chambers of Congress. To one extent the…
Car manufacturers will announce their domestic sales for October today. Analysts expect them to be good, although that is relative. The annual run rate of US vehicle sales will probably be below 12 million.…
Twitter has begun to sell ads. These will appear in the streams of tweets that go back and forth between subscribers. Twitter faces the same questions that Facebook does now that the largest social…
In what is surely one of the strangest stories to come out of the election, a Republican member of Congress says that some of her elderly constituents are so worried about their families being…
Less than a quarter after capping its Deepwater Horizon well leak in the Gulf, BP plc (NYSE: BP) made a profit. The UK company said a strong operating performance helped it return to profit…
Mitsui was billed $1.8 billion from BP plc (NYSE: BP) for clean-up costs. (Reuters) A limited number of holidays and warm weather probably hurt retail sales in October. (Reuters) Canada may approve the BHP…
The debate continues to rage about who owns the smartphone market and who will own it in the future. Many new surveys claim that the Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android operating system has overtaken the…
Let’s see. Sony Corp. (NYSE:SNE) just shipped its last Walkman, the original portable music player that was just slightly larger than a cassette tape. If you don’t know what a cassette tape is, ask…
From AppleInsider: Sometimes even the most loyal Apple customer has good reason to be grumpy. Take European iPhone users. As the website reports, many woke up on the wrong side of the bed this…