Is Bernanke Up Next?
about what can be done to salvage the US economy will be dominated by whether the Federal Reserve will launch a QE3. So far, the Fed has reported that unemployment, housing, and consumer spending…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
New Nintendo Wii
Nintendo has broken the mold of video console design. It needs to do something to get market share back from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) which builds the XBox, and Sony (NYSE: SNE) which makes the…
Global Markets Pounded by U.S. Jobs
World markets dropped sharply, driven lower in particularly by the Friday May jobs report from the U.S. Signs of recession in Europe and a lack of coordinated effort to solve the sovereign debt crisis…
AOL Setback on Board Members
AOL (NYSE: AOL) had a significant setback in its effort to keep dissident directors off its board. Starboard Value, which owns over 5% of the portal company, nominated three directors. Powerful shareholder evaluation firm Institutional…
Germany Presses For EU Financial Integration
nationsonline.orgSeveral news sources report that Angela Merkel may not want to face a collapse of the EU because efforts for a coordinated financial rescue have failed. Part of the reason for the process being arrested…
Apple Only Major Smartphone Manufacturer To Gain Much
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) was the only original equipment manufacturer of cellphones to gain substantial market share in the US based on an average of the three months through April according to a new study by Comscore.The number…
Moody’s Hammers Greece, Again
Market views Greece’s debt problems as so severe that credit ratings barely matter. That did keep Moody’s from taking negative action on Greece’s sovereign paper. Perhaps the move is a precursor to what may…
Window 8 Preview Hits
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) released it preview edition of Windows 8, putting the world’s largest software company closer to launching what will be its most important product for the next two years. New launches of…
Brent Drops Below $100
The price for Brent crude has dropped below the $100 milestone for the first time since October. It is another signal that the world is: 1) no longer worried about a major supply interruption,…
Google Goes Paid With Product Search
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) will begin to charge money for a service which has been free. Sameer Samat the Vice President of Product Management for Google Shopping wrote in a blog: First, we are starting…
Facebook Site Outage, a Last Straw
courtesy Facebook Inc.“Earlier today, some users briefly experienced issues loading the site. The issues have since been resolved and everyone should now have access to Facebook,” company spokesman Michael Kirkland told Reuters. It is…
Formula One IPO Killed
The Formula One initial public offering, which was supposed to debut on the Singapore market, was killed. The move was extraordinary. Owning shares in the premier racing business in the world is nearly as exciting as owning…
What’s Important in the Financial World (6/1/2012) EU Unemployment, Windows 8 Preview
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) will begin to charge money for a service that has been free. Sameer Samat, Vice President of Product Management for Google Shopping, wrote in a blog: First, we are starting to transition…
Media Digest (6/1/2012) Reuters, WSJ, NYT, FT, Bloomberg
China’s PMI indicates a considerable slowing of its economy. (Reuters) Senior EC and ECB officials warn that the eurozone is on the brink of a calamity. (Reuters) Problems at Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) cause…
Europe Unemployment Hits 11%
Europe’s unemployment remains extremely high at 11% in April. Eurostat economists reported that: The euro area (EA17) seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate3 was 11.0% in April 2012, stable compared with March. It was 9.9% in April…
The Emerging Markets Slowdown Trifecta
Anyone who bet that India, Brazil and China would slow down in an exact order was a winner. Actually, it is hard to say where the drop-off began and when. China certainly joined the…
What’s Important (5/31/2012) Costco Sales, Praise for Steve Jobs
James Gorman, the CEO of Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), went on the record to say his firm’s behavior was perfect as it led the initial public offering of Facebook (NASDAQ: FB). Morgan Stanley followed…
Media Digest (5/31/2012) Reuters, WSJ, NYT, FT, Bloomberg
Annual meetings of Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) and Chevron (NYSE: CVX) will include questions about fracking. (Reuters) Ford (NYSE: F) will begin to buy out some of its pension funds. (Reuters) JP Morgan (NYSE:…
India and Brazil GDP: More Emerging Economies Falter
Two of the world’s largest emerging economies have shown signs of major stumbles. In the first quarter, India’s gross domestic product rose only 5.3% over the previous year. This was the worst figure in…
Internet to Grow Fourfold in Four Years
Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) put out its annual Visual Networking Index (VNI) forecast for 2011 to 2016. The huge router company projects the Internet will be four times as large in four years as it…