Asia Markets And Europe Open 6/12/2009
Markets in Asia were mixed. The Nikkei rose 1.5% to 10,136. The Hang Seng was down .3% to 18,737. HSBC (HBC) was up almost 4%. The Shanghai Composite fell 1.9% to 2,744. At the…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
Food Investor Alert: Fat & Calorie Displays At Food Chains (MCD, YUM, BWLD, CAKE, PFCB, RRGB, EAT, BKC, WEN, TXRH, SONC, CPKI)
If you like to invest in food chain restaurants, Thursday was a bad day as a group of bipartisan senators are trying to require chains to list calories on their menus. This is aimed…
Squashing A Solar Joint Venture (SPIR, TSL)
Spire Corporation (Nasdaq: SPIR) has announced that it has reached an agreement with Gloria Solar Co., Ltd. in Taiwan to liquidate their joint venture called Gloria Spire Solar, LLC. The venture performed PV systems…
Delta (DAL): The Noose Tightens Around The Airline Industry
All of the fuel-hedging, layoffs, capacity and route-cutting the airline industry did last year in an attempt to offset the rising price of fuel has gone for nothing. Delta (DAL) announced today that it…
Unusual Dividend Tracking (CAT, CLX, MSFT, TGT, TSCM, VMC, ACAS, IAF)
Dividends in general are used as the historic underlying measurement of companies and their abilities to stay profitable at current levels. Today and last night we have seen some rather unusual dividend news or…
Exxon May Increase Alaska-US Pipeline Efforts (XOM, TRP, COP, BP)
Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) may be getting deeper and deeper in Alaska via a monster pipeline project. A report from the Houston Chronicle said the oil giant is in discussions with TransCanada Corp.…
A False Positive From Retail Sales
Retail sales were up .5% in May as expected, but they were up for many of the wrong reasons creating a mirage effect about the economy’s future. The Commerce Department numbers showed that higher…
QUALCOMM: Higher Demand, But Lower ASP’s (QCOM)
It seems that the sudden push for all the smartphone launches and the continued gearing down of the laptops to smaller mobile web devices is acting as a boom for QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM). …
Continuing Jobless Claims Approaches 7 Million
The Labor Department has released its new round of weekly jobless claims. The jobless claims filed last week came in 601,000, and Bloomberg showed the consensus estimate from economists as 625,000. We had an…
Top Analyst Downgrades (ATHN, CNQR, NOA, TIN, UNH, VPRT)
These are the top pre-market analyst downgrades or cautious calls we are seeing from Wall Street firms early this Thursday morning with more than two hours until the market opens: Athenahealth (ATHN) Started as…
Top Analyst Upgrades (CAR, BAC, BCSI, CLRT, IHS, MA, PLXS, QTWW, SLB)
These are some of the top early bird analyst upgrades and positive research calls we are seeing from Wall Street this Thursday morning with more than two hours until the market opens: Avis Budget…
What Does China Do When The Stimulus Well Is Dry?
There is no shortage of cleverness among the bureaucrats who run China. Exports in May fell more than 26% according to the country’s customs agency. That rate was worse than the 22.6% decline in…
China May Buy Volvo, GM May Be Next
The Associated Press released an exclusive story which reported that Chinese car company Beijing Automotive Industry Holding might buy Volvo. It is odd that the auto firm cannot find a buyer in Sweden, the…
The Federal Reserve Loses Money On Every Investment, Will Have To Make It Up On Volume
The Federal Reserve issued the first installment of what it calls its ongoing series of monthly reports that provides new information on its credit and liquidity programs. Most of the June report was dry,…
Budget: The Revenue That Was Never There
The Treasury said that the federal budget deficit in May was almost $190 billion bringing the total for the government’s fiscal year to $992 billion. The government keeps its calendar running from September to…
Foreclosures Keep Up Economic Pressure
The optimist’s view of the May foreclosure data from RealtyTrac is that the rate dropped 6% from April. The realist’s view is likely to focus on the 18% increase from May 2008. Neither view…
Demand For Oil Gets Stronger
The International Energy Agency seems to have caught on to what everyone else already knows: demand for oil is moving up. The IEA’s new forecast may still be off in terms of how much…
Harley (HOG) Buyers Go Down Scale
Over the past week, the 24/7 Wall St.–The Channel Checkers poll surveyed Harley Davidson dealers. We asked the following questions: 1. What is the best selling motorcycle model right now? 2. Are they sold out of any models…
Aloha To California
The State of California, home to perpetual government turmoil, has warned the world again that it will self-destruct leaving its citizens without a single government service. Both taxpayers and the unemployed no longer believe…
Media Digest 6/11/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: Fiat closed its deal for control of Chrysler. Reuters: California may be hit by an economic “meltdown.” Reuters: May foreclosures were third highest month ever recorded. Reuters: The US named a “pay czar”…