The Double Dip Hits Europe
The theory that some or all the economies of the developed world could fall into a double dip recession got support today as the euro zone reported that growth among its nations rose only…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
Nintendo Leads Large Drop In January Video Game Sales
The Nintendo Wii is such a large percentage of total video game consoles sales that any drop in its numbers signficantly affects overall industry figures. Wii sales in January were 30% lower than in the same month…
Obama Economists Expect 8.2% Unemployment In 2012
The new “Economic Report of the President” prepared by the Council of Economic Advisers shows that The White House has a more grim picture of the unemployment situation than may be evident from its…
Media Digest 2/12/2010 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: The IMF may join the bailout of Greece. Reuters: The European Central Bank will help in efforts to ease Greek debt. Reuters: Motorola (NYSE:MOT) will split its businesses in half in 2011. Reuters: …
Asia Markets And Europe Open (2/12/2010)
Markets in Asia were mixed The Nikkei rose 1.3% to 10,092. Sony (NYSE:SNE) and Toyota (NYSE:TM) rose. The Hang Seng fell .1% to 20,265. HSBC (NYSE:HBC) dropped slightly. The Shanghai Composite rose 1.1% to…
Jerry Yang Dumping Yahoo! Shares (YHOO, MSFT)
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) holders probably never want to hear the name Jerry Yang again. Well, those same holders will love this… Tonight after the close a filing at the SEC from Yahoo! showed…
National Employee Morale Day At Boston Scientific (BSX)
Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX), the worst run of the large medical device and pharma firms based in the US, announced an operating loss for the fourth quarter of 2009 of $1.23 billion. The company’s guidance was…
Will One Solar Merger Precede Others? (SPWRA, FSLR, JASO, ENER, LDK, SOLR, WFR
SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWRA) has made what may be one of the first decent sized mergers in the solar sector. The company agreed to acquire SunRay Renewable Energy in Malta for $277 million. The…
More Triple-Leverage ETF Launches (TQQQ, UDOW, UMDD, URTY, SQQQ, SDOW, SMDD, SRTY)
Usually we think of Direxion in the world of triple-leverage and triple-inverse funds, but there are others. And now there are more… ProFunds Group is launching new Triple Leverage ETFs and Triple-Inverse ETFs. For…
Women’s Group Lauds Reverse Discrimination At Major Companies
Reverse discrimination is alive and well among large corporations which offer access to women’s businesses that results in a high volume of commerce for female-controlled firms. The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council “Top Corporations” program honors companies for “world-class…
Today’s Best Market Rumors (2/11/2010) (NYT)(AAPL)
Updated throughout the day. The Fed is in talks with money market funds to see if they will help to take $1 trillion out of the financial system (Bloomberg) Apple (AAPL) has set a…
Jobless Claims Heading in the Right Direction
The Labor Department has just released its data on weekly jobless claims and there was a drop of 43,000 to 440,000. Bloomberg consensus estimates from economists was listed as 467,000 jobless claims. Last week’s…
Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades (ANF, BIDU, BSX, DF, ENER, GBL, NVDA, PALM, MMM, RHT)
These are the top ten analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations we have seen from Wall Street research calls: Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) Raised to Outperform Oppenheimer. Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) Raised to Neutral…
Deficit Hawks Ignore Greater Spending Peril
By John Tamny of Forbes Last week Congress approved an increase of the U.S. debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion. Once the figure was announced, a lot of understandable hand-wringing ensued, including the suggestion that…
USA to France: You Keep Alcatel-Lucent, We’ll Keep Cisco (ALU, CSCO)
In the land of telecom and communications equipment and services, perhaps Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) is only the second worst company of the last decade of the old one-stop leaders. At least it has Nortel…
When Freddie & Fannie Spend $200 Billion on Delinquent Mortgages… (FNM, FRE)
The government is slowly winding down its added liquidity additions via mortgage and securities purchases from banks and lenders. Sort of. Ben Bernanke’s outline of how to exit the end of free money and…
January Foreclosures Up 15% From Same Month Last Year
Foreclosures in the US reached 315,716 in January. The number was down 10% from December but up 15% from January 2009. The figures were released by RealtyTrac. The research firm expects another sharp increase in foreclosures…
Global Bank Tax Gains Ground, But Not In The US
UK prime minister Gordon Brown expects the G20 to approve a global bank tax at its June meeting, according to the FT. “Mr. Brown believes that opinion has shifted decisively in favour of a globally co-ordinated tax…
Wal-Mart And P&G To Make “Family Friendly” TV
Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) and P&G (NYSE:PG) are fed up with the violence and sexual content in television programs. The Wall Street Journal reports that they have joined forces to create a two-hour TV special that will…
Three Thousand Banks Face Commercial Real Estate Risk
A new report from the Congressional Oversight Panel which tracks the progress of the TARP program projects that commercial real estate losses threaten nearly 3,000 mid-sized and small banks and may severely compromise their…