The Further Weakening Of Housing
Mortgage rates hit their 2010 low on April 13 at 4.93%. At the same time, RealtyTrac announced that homes which were repossessed hit an all-time high of 92,432 in April. The figure for the…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
Media Digest 5/14/2010 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: The Senate backed restrictions on credit rating agencies and credit card fees. Reuters: Oil dropped to a three-month low based on demand. Reuters: Facebook will hold a staff meeting on privacy. Reuters: Video…
The Thirteen Housing Markets That Will Never Recover
New RealtyTrac numbers show that in April there were well over 300,000 foreclosures and the figure in on track to be higher in 2010 than in 2009. Several research firms say that underwater mortgages…
Blockbuster, Staggered, Loses Its Footing
Blockbuster, Inc (NYSE: BBI), nearly ruined by the high cost of its store network and withering from competition from NetFlix (NYSE: NFLX) and the kiosk operator Redbox, posted another quarter of dismal results. The rental chain’s net loss for…
Alibaba Earnings Rise as Chinese Government Ponders New Regulations
Alibaba.com is the Hong Kong-listed unit of Alibaba Group, a Chinese B2B e-commerce company that is 39%-owned by Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO). Alibaba.com reported better-than-expected earnings and revenues this morning, but saw its share price…
Today’s Best Market Rumors (5/13/2010)
Updated throughout the day. The NY Attorney General is probing the relationship between eight banks and ratings agencies. The financial firms include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Crédit Agricole and Merrill…
The Twitter-24/7 Wall St. Stock Market Report 5.13 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…
Will the Plundered Ever Shrug?
By John Tamny of Forbes Savers delay consumption so we can have jobs, and business owners risk their net worth while offering us guaranteed wages. Their reward is to have politicians seperate them from…
What, Me Worry? American Confidence Unshaken
Whether total unemployment is at 17% of the population or the housing market is still collapsing. the American tradition of confidence in the future continues. It is not unlike BP’s certainty that it can…
Banks Still Hobble Small Business And For Good Reason
Many economists believe that small businesses with under 100 employees are still the engine of the economy and the major source of new jobs. The banking system has killed that since the beginning of…
National Employee Morale Day At British Telecom
BT employees are not willing to see 15,000 of their number thown under a bus. They will strike to protect jobs. Running a telecom without people is still very hard no matter how good…
BP Oil Spill Costs Top $450 Million As Questions About The Dénouement Rise
BP plc (NYSE: BP) says the costs of cleaning up and attempting to cap the oil flow from what is left of the Deepwater Horizon have risen above $450 million. According to The Wall Street…
Sprint: Who Wants 4G?
The premise behind the turnaround plans of Sprint-Nextel (NYSE: S) is that the 4G WiMax ultra-fast wireless network that it is building with Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) with the financial support of Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) will draw…
Sony Earnings And Prospects Still Dismal, Time To Break It Up
Sony (NYSE: SNE) said that its numbers for the fiscal year ending on March 31 were better than last year. They were, but only marginally. And, in several key segments of its business, the…
The Death Of Wall St.
The Wall Street Journal reports that J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C), Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE:DB) and UBS AG are under investigation for allegedly having “misled investors about their roles in mortgage-bond…
A Little Relief In Foreclosure Rates
Mortgage foreclosures are either getting better or worse, depending on the point of view. Realty Trac, which keeps monthly figures on defaults and forecloses, said that there were 333,837 in April. That was down 9%…
Media Digest 5/13/2010 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
NYT: NY Attorney General is investigating eight banks for allegedly providing misleading information about mortgage instruments to rating agencies: The Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS), Morgan Stanley(NYSE: MS), Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB), UBS (NYSE: UBS),…
Cisco Squeeks Past Estimated With Explosive Earnings
Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ: CSCO) reported third quarter net sales of $10.4 billion, net income on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis of $2.2 billion or $0.37 per share, and non-GAAP net income of…
Walmart To Spend $2 Billion To Relieve US Hunger
According to the US Agriculture Department, 15% of Americans do not have access to an adequate supply of nutritious food. Walmart (NYSE: WMT) means to relieve a large part of the problem and will devote a large investment to the cause.…
What’s In That Wall Street Bill? Part Two
Last week was a busy one for Wall Street watchers, ending in a dizzying market whiplash on Thursday, the Dow’s biggest weekly point drop since the free fall of October 2008, which left everyone…