courtesy of SamsungTaiwan smartphone company HTC released its fourth-quarter earnings, which were awful. They show how rapidly the company is losing ground to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Samsung. With each progressive quarter of poor results,…
courtesy of General MotorsIf car buyer brand performance is any measure of the success of a nameplate, Cadillac and Lincoln still have a long uphill battle against foreign competition. Brand weakness is yet another hurdle each has to…
courtesy of Facebook Inc.Bank regulators loosen Basel accords to help increase bank lending. (Reuters) Research from the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE) shows that the United States is a favored place…
Brian Katt / Wikimedia Commons / GNU Free Documentation LicenseA softening of the liquidity rules set by the Basel III accord are based on revisions that probably will help profits at the world’s largest banks for now and may…
ThinkstockLost among most of the discussions about the health of Venezuela’s president-for-life, Hugo Chavez, as he moves toward what seems will be an imminent death is the future of the nation’s oil exports. Chavez…
courtesy of SamsungSamsung is not only the world’s largest handset company; it may soon become the most dominant one in smartphones. That means it must take more market share from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL).…
Courtesy Ford Motor Co.The luxury car sales race in the United States in 2012 was won by BMW, with Mercedes second and Toyota Motor Corp.’s (NYSE: TM) Lexus in third. The two American luxury…
ThinkstockVenezuelan Oil Lost among most of the discussions about the health of Venezuela’s president-for-life, Hugo Chavez, as he moves toward what seems will be an imminent death is the future of the nation’s oil…
courtesy of Kia MediaU.S. car and light truck sales rose 13.45% to 14,491,873 last year. As is true in any industry with a large number of companies, there were winners and losers. This is…
By Steve Jurvetson CC-BY-2.0, via Wikimedia CommonsResearch firm comScore reports that e-commerce sales for the November-December holiday season rose only 14% to $42.3 billion. That growth was weak, and the number modest when the…
courtesy of NetflixTim Geithner’s departure from Treasury will deprive President Obama of his longest serving financial adviser. (Reuters) Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) settles antitrust charges by the United States with very little penalty. (Reuters)…
ThinkstockWhatever recovery the jobs market posted in 2012, mass layoffs remained impressively high. Dozens of companies each fired thousands of workers, with failing firms at the top of the list based on total cuts.…
The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) has decided not to allow a recent series of shootings, particularly the one in Newtown, to hamper its public profile or its support of the use of…
ThinkstockChina’s Service Sector In one more sign that China not only dodged the recession but has been largely unaffected by the economy of the rest of the world, its services sector expanded again in…
courtesy of Apple Inc.Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) was first into the app store business. The huge markets it created with the iPhone and iPad have kept it in place as the head of the…
courtesy Boeing Co.A website called AirfareWatchdog asked about 1,000 travelers which airline has the rudest employees. The sample size may not be any good, at least based on the science of polling, but the results…
ThinkstockAl Jazeera bought Current TV, the failed cable channel started by Al Gore and an army of optimists. Likely the Qatar-headquartered media company paid nothing for the U.S.-based one. It may have absorbed some…
courtesy of NetflixChina’s services index rises to 56.1 in December, a sign of healthy expansion. (Reuters) Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) tests a new iPhone and iOS 7. (Reuters) A court rejects an Apple suit…
ThinkstockHP Asset Sales Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) has filed its 10-K, and among its top disclosures was that the troubled tech company may sell some of its assets. Actually, the comments should not surprise…
Most of the forecasts for the economy and stock markets for 2013 are in. Now that the fiscal cliff has been avoided, and the debt cap debate has moved until the end of the first…