The Taming of the Inflation Shrew
This morning’s data from the Labor Department on the Consumer Price Index was released for July, and the inflation hawks out there are going to have to keep saying “It’s coming” rather than “See,…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
Top 10 Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades (AMGN, AVY, COLM, DSGX, EJ, JASO, KG, SCSS, SPWRA, THC)
These are the ten top analyst upgrades,downgrades, and initiations we have seen early this Friday morning with roughly two hours until the market opens: Amgen (AMGN) Cut to Hold at Citigroup. Avery Dennison (AVY)…
A Strange New World: A Bidding War For An Airline
Airline analysts are worried that some US carriers will have to make huge cost cuts or face Chapter 11 filings later this year. The rising cost of jet fuel and precipitous dive in passenger…
Home Sellers Cut Asking Prices By $27.8 Billion
The housing market is recovering and then it isn’t. New data from Trulia says that Americans cut the prices on their homes by an aggregate of $27.8 billion in the year ending August 1.…
No Recovery For Video Games
Just when it looked like consumer spending might pick up, one of the hottest retail sectors, at least a year ago, video games, fell apart. In July, the industry had a 29% drop in…
The Failures Of Alternative Energy
It was a bad sign when T Boone Pickens gave up, at least partially, on building a mammoth wind farm in Texas. The process was not only going to be expensive; the ability to…
The Fates Conspire Against The Housing Market
Two pieces of information came into the market today, both about the trouble housing situation. The foreclosure filings and the interest rates on 30-year fixed rate mortgages affect the housing market in different but…
Media Digest 8/14/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: The Chinese are learning the problem of easy access to credit cards. Reuters: The US recovery is still slow while France and Germany are rebounding. Reuters: UBS (UBS) clients in America may face…
Asia Markets And Europe Open 8/14/2009
Markets in Asia were mixed. The Nikkei rose .8% to 10,597. The Hang Seng fell .7% to 20,724. China Life (LFC) fell over 2%. The Shanghai Composite traded down 3% to 3,047. At the…
Blackstone (BX) Chief Makes $702 Million
The thoughts of restricting the pay packages of the CEOs of public companies may be in the air, but new data on chief executive compensation show that boards of directors are not taking any…
Sirius XM Catches S&P Upgrade (SIRI)
Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) has caught a debt upgrade from Standard & Poor’s. The cited reasons were that the liquidity position has improved after debt refinancings, and also that its EBITDA is…
Secondary Offerings Run At Market Flood Rates (MPEL, GSIC, AWK, GLDD, YSI, TBBK, HMPR, SBCF, CADE, UMPQ)
It is one thing that we had two fairly large IPOs this week. But the flood of public secondary stock offerings is almost running at alarming levels when you consider that these share sales…
24/7 Wall St. TV: Starbucks (SBUX) Brand Value Drops 40%
Starbucks (SBUX) brand value dropped 40% to $7.3 billion. Starbucks ran the playbook on hurting a brand’s value. The public perceived that it did not offer enough value for the dollar, particularly as the…
New Biotech Survey Says Sector Will Outperform
Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO.org) has conducted a survey of 80 investors, analysts, and venture capital executives with Thomson Reuters to preview their opinions of the biotech sector and expectations for 2009. The study was…
Top Day Trader Alerts (GSIC, BPAX, PALM, MPEL, C, RF)
These are this morning’s top day trader alert stocks and actively traded stock movers. We have more detailed price and volume analysis with links to each over at VSInvestor.com: GSI Commerce Inc. (NASDAQ: GSIC)…
Less-Bad Still Looks OK in Jobs
The data from the Labor Department on weekly jobless claims has been released. We are seeing a slight rise by 4,000 to 558,000 for week. The four-week average rose by 8,500 to 565,000. This…
Top Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades (CCE, DRI, JASO, MOS, NOK, PALM, PAAS, POT, SOL, TLAB)
These are the top 10 pre-market analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations we have seen early this Thursday morning from Wall Street: Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) Raised to Buy at UBS. DR Horton (DRI) Cut to…
Wal-Mart (WMT) Meets Expectations, But Future Modest
Despite improvement in the economy which is now seen at almost every turn, Wal-Mart (WMT) does not fell confident about the retail sector. It expects its same-store sales to rise only 2% at its core…
Foreclosures Make Huge Move Up In July
The plague of foreclosures is still overrunning the US real estate market, and the situation may actually be getting worse. RealtyTrac reports that July numbers rose 7% month-over-month and 32% over July last year,…
The Recovery Rolls On As Germany And France Post Postive GDP
The recession in Europe was supposed to last until next year, but it has not turned out that way. The GDPs of Germany and France each grew by .3% in the second quarter, figures…