Courtesy J.C. Penney Co. Inc.; photo by Chris RupertJ.C Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) continues to face unprecedented drops in traffic and sales that, to some extent, caused its largest shareholder Bill Ackman to…
courtesy of The Car Spy, via Wikimedia CommonsAfter many years of quality improvement, according to most industry research, U.S. car companies apparently have fallen back into old habits. New data from the American Customer…
courtesy of StarbucksThe arms war among the fast-food chains escalated as McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) confirmed that it would begin to sell chicken wings nationwide next month. Dubbed “Mighty Wings,” the new offering will…
ThinkstockSyria’s oil reserves rank 35th in the world. However, the anxiety index among oil traders ignores that, almost certainly because of worry that the conflict in Syria will spill over to its oil-rich neighbors.…
ThinkstockGermans, buoyed by an improving economy in Europe, and likely a modest recovery of the U.S. economy, have become spectacularly confident about business prospects. According to official statistics bureau Ifo: The Ifo Business Climate…
thinkstockWilliam Ackman too a huge stake in J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (NYSE: JCP) in the belief that its shares would soar on the basis of a turnaround. He helped bring in Ron Johnson from…
ThinkstockThe Fast Food Forward movement to increase pay for people who work at fast-food companies like McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) and Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM) seems to have a fair point. These workers cannot live much…
courtesy of General MotorsElectric cars have only one problem. No one wants to own one. That might change because of the wildly positive publicity around the success of Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA). But…
courtesy Making Change at Walmart and UFCW Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) recently held what it called its “Walmart U.S. Manufacturing Summit.” One of the purposes of the meeting was to promote new initiatives to…
ThinkstockIMF Chief Christine Lagarde has long been a proponent of government and central bank intervention. It could be argued, but not without dissent, that the philosophy worked during the recession. However, since the recovery…
Microsoft Sweden, via Wikimedia CommonsAndy Grove, one of the founders of Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) and its greatest CEO has been gone since 1998. His company has fallen into deep decline as its place as…
White House Photo by Pete SouzaJust as Steve Ballmer prepares to depart as CEO of Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), the guessing game over who will take the reigns at the troubled tech giant has…
thinkstockIt may be that the negative images of banks and the federal government continue to persist in the minds of Americans because of the credit crisis. Or, perhaps people believe that the federal government…
courtesy of Toyota Motor Corp.When Toyota Motor Corp.’s (NYSE: TM) U.S. sales collapsed four years ago, and did not make any recovery for three, most industry analysts blamed recalls and the effects of the 2011…
courtesy Best Buy Co. Inc.Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) and PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE: PEP) are the most respected brands in the United States. While Coke has enjoyed this status for six years straight, Pepsi moved up from…
Courtesy J.C. Penney Co. Inc.; photo by Chris RupertConsider the holiday sales season started, even though Labor Day weekend has not begun. A number of large retailers are stocking up for the period, and…
ThinkstockSupposedly the works of many great painters do not reach their peak value until the artists are dead. In the case of Elmore Leonard, who sold millions of books when he was alive, a related…
Jim Henderson, via Wikimedia CommonsFor those who had hoped that Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD) would break out of its multiyear revenue and earnings funk, think again. After too many management changes to count, and…
ThinkstockThe elements that were needed to show that Europe’s economy has started to recover, and that China’s has not slowed as much as was thought during the past few months, showed up in new…
Brian Solis, via Wikimedia CommonsFacebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) plans to solve one of the Internet’s most vexing problems — most people around the world have no access to it. The notion that Facebook can…