ThinkstockHardly encouraging: The global economy is expected to continue expanding at a moderate pace over the coming two years, but policymakers must ensure that instability in financial markets and underlying fragility in some major…
courtesy of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) decided to hammer its competition by matching some Black Friday prices one week before Black Friday. The move could drive down Walmart’s margins on a number…
courtesy of Google Inc.Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) calls the six new stores it has opened to demonstrate its consumer products “Winter Wonderlab.” It is a shame the search company will only have six of…
courtesy of TwitterThere have been a long line of companies set up based on the ability to use Twitter Inc. (NASDAQ: TWTR) to predict the direction of the stock market, and to even forecast the ups…
courtesy J.C. Penney Co. Inc.J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JPC) and the Kmart and Sears divisions of Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD) are supposes to be the losers among large U.S. retailers. Their stores…
ThinkstockThe World Economic Forum’s (WEF’s) “Outlook for the Global Agenda 2014” is based on the opinions of 1,592 important people from 112 nations around the globe. Leaving aside whether that sample number is too small…
courtesy Boeing Co.Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT) is the first of the defense contractors to acknowledge how badly it has been gored by the federal government’s slowdown in military spending. Its layoff of 4,000 workers…
ThinkstockFor those who believe that Samsung has beaten Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) handily in the global smartphone war, now there is more evidence that is so. Outside whatever court battles the two companies have…
ThinkstockRealtyTrac, the gold standard of research about foreclosures, reported more evidence that the real estate market continues the process of healing the tremendous damage done to it during the recession. The exception is in…
courtesy of Cisco SystemsJohn Chambers has been the dean of Silicon Valley CEOs for years, based on the length of his time in his position, which goes back to 1995. Many of the most…
thinkstockAmerican’s have become sick of the federal health care exchange site. It happened so quickly, as a matter of fact, that they now worry about health care as the country’s most severe problem. Next…
ThinkstockBusiness Insider, a site that is barely five years old, has moved ahead of CNBC in a critical ranking of online audience. And the upstart site, at its current rate of growth, could soon…
ThinkstockGasoline prices can be influenced by the price of oil, the location of refineries, transportation costs and state gas taxes, among other things. These elements combined have taken the price of a gallon of…
courtesy of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) has started to run a series of ads in media such as The New York Times. The theme of the marketing messages is that it…
courtesy of Tesla MotorsThere will be no recall of Tesla Motors Inc.’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) model S. The three Tesla S cars that caught fire are not enough to justify a recall by the luxury…
courtesy Best Buy Co. Inc.“Showrooming” is one of the most significant enemies of the bricks-and-mortar retail world. Customers examine items in stores, and then shop for them online to get better prices. Showrooming has…
ThinkstockOne of the keys to McDonald’s Corp.’s (NYSE: MCD) profits is its ability to pay its store workers are little as legally possible — sometimes not much better than the federal minimum wage of…
ThinkstockShares of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. (NYSE: MSO) have risen recently on speculation that new CEO Daniel Dienst can sell the company. There is virtually no chance of that. The publicly traded media firm’s…
By International Monetary Fund , via Wikimedia CommonsA massive typhoon has battered the Philippines. That will set back what has been a promising economy for years and make the nation’s troubling unemployment and poverty rates much…
Wikimedia CommonsAmazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) challenge to large retailers is not just that it does not need physical stores to do business, nor that it has one of the most visited websites in America.…