Palm Dances Around April Fools With ‘Real’ Announcement (PALM)
Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) is about to make an announcement later today, if the company can keep from dancing around how it wanted to make an April Fool’s joke on the company blog. It…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
March Job Losses Are Huge, National Unemployment Could Hit 8.5%
Based on ADP numbers for private sector lay-offs, the official government unemployment numbers could set an all-time record. ADP says that payrolls dropped by 742,000 in March. The revised figure for February was 709,000.…
Goldman Sachs Raises Crude Price Targets
Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. has raised its forecast for 2009 for the price of Brent (North Sea) crude oil by 12%, to $50.20/barrel. The company attributes the rise to OPEC production cuts, slowing production…
Top Analyst Upgrades (ARRS, ASH, FCS, GME, ONNN, RTN, RVBD, VOD)
These are the top pre-market analyst upgrades or positive calls from Wall Street which we have seen early this Wednesday morning: Arris (ARRS) Started as Overweight at Thomas Weisel. Ashland (ASH) Raised to Overweight…
Top Analyst Downgrades (APOL, STD, BA, BRKR, CHU, CME, GR, PCP, STX)
These are the top pre-market analyst downgrades or negative calls we have seen from Wall Street this Wednesday morning: Apollo Group (APOL) Cut to Neutral at Baird. Banco Santander (STD) Cut to Hold at…
Internet Advertising: After First Quarter Disaster, Industry May Throw In The Towel On Q2
Internet display advertising had what may have been the worst quarter in its history. In the first 90 days of this year, by most measures, the cost-per-thousand that large websites charged advertisers dropped at…
GE’s (GE) Clever Move: Announce A Global Trend To Help Sales
About two years ago, GE (GE) began to talk about its “green” initiative and how important it was that businesses and governments begin to work on sustainable energy solutions to save the environment. Of…
China’s 8% Growth Dream Is Gone
Earlier this year, China’s prime minister said the country’s GDP would be up 8% in 2009. He used the forum for making the prediction as an opportunity to press the advantage of his economic…
Facebook Takes A Dive: Social Networks Never Had A Future
The business of having online sites with content created by amateurs to be viewed by other amateurs never had a reasonable chance of making money. The fact that at one point Facebook had a…
As Google’s (GOOG) Growth Falters, Microsoft (MSFT) Has Chance To Regain Momentum
Most of the recent news about Google (GOOG) has been bad. Online advertising posted a slow fourth quarter. That unexpectedly included both display ads and search marketing which has made Google one of the…
Russia pushing for higher crude prices
By Douglas A. McIntyre for Daily Finance Russia is one of the largest oil producing nations in the world. The falling price of crude has clearly hurt its economy, but the country has seemed…
Media Digest 4/1/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
According to Reuters, Obama demanded that the G-20 find solutions to the global financial crisis. Reuters reports that a bankruptcy for GM (GM) and Chrysler could be a long, drawn-out process. Reuters writes that…
Asia Markets And Europe Open 4/1/2009
Markets in Asia were mostly higher. The Nikkei rose 3% to 8,352. The Hang Seng was up .2% to 13,597. The Shanghai Composite rose 1.5% to 2,408. At the open in Europe, the FTSE…
Nice Surprise For Chrysler: S&P Cuts Fiat To “Junk”
The Administration seems to be counting on a partnership between Chrysler and Fiat before providing federal funds to the No.3 US car company. Most observers would agree that Chrysler is the weaker of the…
Merchants Going After Credit Card Processing Fees (V, MA)
Credit card processing fee legislation appears to be coming back. Whether it becomes law is another matter, but merchants are going after credit card processing fees via a fight in Washington D.C. That puts…
Solarfun Renegotiates Hoku Payments (SOLF, HOKU)
A US-based subsidiary of Hoku Scientific, Inc. (NASDAQ:HOKU) and a Hong Kong-based subsidiary of Solarfun Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ:SOLF) have renegotiated a polysilicon supply contract between Hoku and Solarfun. The renegotiation affects only…
Job One: We now have a plan for automakers. What about their workers?
By Mark Gimein of The Big Money Does anyone still remember Roger and Me? Michael Moore’s 1989 film chronicled the filmmaker’s attempts to interview GM Chairman Roger Smith, whose efforts to streamline and downsize…
Diamonds May Not Be Forever (RTP, KGC, TIF, BRK-A)
Rio Tinto plc (NYSE: RTP) owns a majority stake in a diamond mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories, and apparently has no intention of selling that stake to Kinross Gold Corp. (NYSE:KGC), as rumors had…
Consumers & Purchasing, More Caution
We got another dose of bad-tasting medicine on the economic front. After the dreaded report came from Case-Shiller on January housing data, we saw awful figures from the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index and…
MS Setback for Acorda (ACOR, BIIB)
Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACOR) is taking it right on the chin this morning. The company announced that it has received a “refuse to file letter” from the FDA regarding its New Drug Application…