Hertz: M&A With A Brain
The president of PAR, which owns 7.7% of the shares in Dollar Thrifty (NYSE: DTR), told The Wall Street Journal that his fund will vote against a Hertz offer to buy the smaller company.…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
Borders To Open 25 Temporary Stores: Hire, Then Fire
A temporary job is better than no job, until the person who has it is fired. Toys “R” Us said yesterday that it would add 45,000 workers for the holidays. Presumably, unless holiday sales…
American Mistrust Of Media Surges
American’s do not trust the media, and this mistrust hit an all-time high in 2010, the fourth year the figure has gone higher. Fifty-seven percent of US adults have little or no trust in…
Japan, Full Ahead For Now
The Bank of Japan’s TANKAN Survey of the nation’s large businesses for the month of September showed that the management at the companies polled like things as they are now, but dislike what they…
Can The US Dump AIG?
The media is full of stories about American International Group’s (NYSE: AIG) plan to bring the Treasury’s ownership in the company below 50%. The trustees of the firm and several federal agencies would need…
Media Digest 9/29/1010 Reuters, WSJ, NYT, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: The panel that will give advice to Obama about the deficit met but experts were concerned that it will offer few concrete answers. Reuters: The House may approve a bill aimed that the…
The U.S. Shouldn’t Punish Companies For Shipping Jobs Overseas
Democrats in the U.S. Senate were dead wrong to try and punish U.S. companies for shipping jobs overseas. The effort was thwarted by the Republican minority but is not going away in an election…
TechCrunch Sells For $25 to $40 Million, Close To 24/7 Wall St. Estimate
New reports say that AOL (AOL) bought TechCrunch for between $25 million and $40 million. Most estimates are that the initial payment for the tech blog will be $25 million and there will be…
Sam Zell’s Solution For The Economy: Doing Nothing
Billionaire Sam Zell has a simple idea for how his fellow Chicagoan President Barack Obama can best help the economy: do nothing. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. “The economic malaise is the…
Consumer Confidence Dives
Consumer confidence stumbled in August. Odd, because the stock market was up, and so were retail sales were as well. However, housing and unemployment remained frightening. The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, which had…
Case-Shiller: A Tiny Gain, But No Housing Recovery
Nothing terribly good about the new housing data from Case-Schiller. Prices rose a fraction in July. Data through July 2010, released by Standard & Poor’s for its S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices show that the…
Today’s Best Market Rumors 9/28/2010 Bank Job Freeze, New Apple iPad
Updated throughout the day. Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) will unveil an unnamed consumer product. (Reuters) JPMorganChase (NYSE: JPM) will press federal officials about getting back some of the funds it spent to buy Washington Mutual…
A Retail Holiday Comeback: Toys “R” Us To Hire 45,000
The first half retail sales numbers were anemic and so were back-to-school numbers. It has been assumed that a weakening economy would harm 2010 holiday sales as well. Don’t tell that to Toys “R”…
Another Europe Panic In The Making
Moody’s may take away Spain’s Aaa rating this week, according to a media reports. The Anglo Irish bank was downgraded due to concerns about risk. The cost of insurance against the debt of the…
The Confusions Over Which “Green” Car Will Succeed
Gasoline-powered cars run on gas. It is as simple as that. Regular or high-grade–which depends on the motor. The theory behind the creation of non-gas-powered cars, or partially gas powered cars is that the…
UK: Another Lukewarm Country Assessment From The IMF
Nearly all the International Monetary Fund (IMF) assessments of large, developed economies read the same now. The agency calls them “Statements of Mission.” They are released once the IMF staff has taken several months…
Airline Merger Losers–Passengers, Workers, And Boeing
An industry that goes through a series of mergers usually has several losers, and suppliers are almost always among them. Northwest has merged with Delta (NYSE: DAL) and United with Continental (NYSE: DAL). Word…
Media Digest (9/28/2010) Reuters, WSJ, NYT, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: US businesses fear a fight over the yuan will cause a trade disaster. Reuters: The US will test a cyber-blitz response plan. Reuters: JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) may go to the FDIC for…
BlackBerry Launches A Tablet
Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) unveiled a new professional-grade BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and BlackBerry Tablet OS. Measuring less than half an inch thick and weighing less than a pound, the BlackBerry PlayBook features a…
Machines That Dispense Gold Bars Coming To The US
A German firm called “Gold to go” plans to introduce gold vending machines in the US before the end of the year. The timing is no doubt intended to coincide with both US elections…