Do High Air Fares Equal Profits?
Average domestic air fares in the first quarter of 2010 increased to their second highest level since 2001, rising 4.7 % from the first quarter of 2009, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
AT&T Gets Slammed By S&P, ‘A’ Corporate Credit Rating In Doubt
S&P may lower AT&T’s (NYSE: T) credit rating, on the heels of Sprint-Nextel (NYSE: S) posting a widening loss. “AT&T Inc. may not be able to achieve financial metrics fully supportive of the current…
Today’s Best Market Rumors (7/28/2010)
Updated throughout the day. Yahoo! (NYSE: YHOO) is building a competitor to Facebook (WSJ) Sallie Mae may be broken up and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) may handle the transaction (NY Post). Douglas A. McIntyre
The Twitter-24/7 Wall St. Market Report (7/28/2010) The Wisdom Of Crowds?
Twitter has, by most estimates, 100 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…
Apple Sued Over “Overheating” iPad, As Success Breeds Envy
The Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPad apparently overheats when left in the sun, which makes it like almost everything else left to bake. A suit filed in federal court in Oakland, California claims that…
BP plc–Rebuilding A Safety Structure In An Unsafe World
The oil industry apparently did not learn much from the Exxon Valdez spill, the Ixtoc 1 Oil Well catastrophe of 1979, the Amoco Cadiz disaster off Brittany in 1978. And perhaps there is nothing…
GM’s Volt–An Electric Car No One Will Buy
GM’s Chevrolet division will start to sell the electric Volt model later this year but will produce only about 10,000 models between then and the end of 2011. Nissan will launch its Leaf electric…
Top Ten Consumer Complaints Dominated By Lies And Poor Service
The Consumer Federation of America has come out with its list of the top ten complaints for 2009 based on a survey conducted with the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators and the North…
Media Digest (7/29/2010) Reuters, WSJ, NYTime, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: BP plc’s (NYSE: BP) new CEO called the spill a “wake up call” for the oil industry. Reuters: The IMF backed down on its comments about the yuan’s value. Reuters: Google Inc. (NASDAQ:…
Another Coffin Nail For Housing: High Vacany Rates
Foreclosures and a buyer’s strike may be the most visible enemies of a recovery in the housing market. Vacancy rates in homes and apartments could be just as severe a drag. New Census Department…
Local Governments May Slash Nearly 500,000 Jobs, Ruin Unemployment Forecasts
The Administration said last week in its mid-year report to Congress that unemployment would remain above 9% until the beginning of 2012. That goal may be a struggle, as there is growing evidence that…
Consumer Confidence Poleaxed, Again
Consumer confidence will go to zero soon if it keeps falling at the current rate. The Conference Board reports that in July the figure hit 50.4 down from 54.3 in June. Two other data…
Housing Market Still Badly Broken: The Case-Shiller Index
The latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices showed some very modest improvement in home prices for May, but the data is old now and it likely to represent only a brief pause in the decline…
Today’s Best Market Rumors
Updated throughout the day. Genzyme (NASDAQ: GENZ) is considering an offer from Sanofi-Aventis (Reuters) Clayton Dubilier & Rice and Goldman Sachs’s private-equity unit are negotiating to buy Harrington Holdings (Bloomberg) Douglas A. McIntyre
Money Supply Confuses Deflation’s Confused Proponents
By John Tamny of Forbes Money creation isn’t the driver of economic energy as quantity theorists presume, instead it increases when money values are stable, trade free, and taxes/regulations light. Production itself is the…
The Twitter-24/7 Wall St. Stock Market Report 7.27.2010 The Wisdom Of Crowds?
Twitter has, by most estimates, 100 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…
As United Technologies Fires 1,500, As Corporate America Lays-Off Its Own Customers
There is a fiction mostly written by executive outplacement firms such as Challenger Gray & Christmas that corporate layoffs are falling sharply. Its survey may be incomplete, or at the very least misleading. Job…
State Tax Payments Rise But Several Still Face Ruin
The Commerce Department announced an improvement in new home sales for June. The figure seemed impressive compared to May, but it was still the second worst number on record. The National Conference of State…
Short Sellers Move Back Into Banks, Tech
Short sellers pushed back into banks and other financial firms during the period that ended on July 15. It may be that they sensed earnings would be weak. Or, that the recent financial reform…
Yahoo! Japan To Use Google Search Technology
Yahoo! Japan will use the Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) search engine technology. Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) has a stake in the Japan operation, but is not the controlling shareholder. The decision is a slap in…