Trying to Shake Merkel Loose on Austerity
The tide of approval of austerity measures as the way to solve Europe’s sovereign debt crisis has waxed and waned for the better part of the past year. Germany, the major proponent of expense cuts…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
AOL’s Resurrection
AOL (NYSE: AOL) will release its earnings on May 12. No matter how well they match or fail to match consensus estimates, the company looks nothing like it did a quarter ago. AOL has begun…
What Do Raiders See in Barnes & Noble?
Not much is left of Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS). Its bricks-and-mortar model has been ravaged by online competition. Its Nook e-reader trails well behind the Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) Kindle and also competes with…
Will Google Dump Google Finance?
When Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) launched Google Finance on March 21, 2006, a number of observers believed the search company was set to compete with the largest financial sites — Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) Finance and MSN’s and…
What’s Important in the Financial World (4/24/2012) Nokia Almost Dead, Spain Yields Rocket Up
The important Auto China 2012 show has allowed many large manufacturers to increase their commitment to the People’s Republic. It is the world’s largest market for cars and light trucks, with sales of 18…
Media Digest (4/24/2012) Reuters, WSJ, NYT, Bloomberg
Facebook reports that its revenue grew to more than $1 billion and its membership to 900 million. (Reuters) Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) sells some of the patents it bought from AOL (NYSE: AOL) to Facebook…
Spain Debt Costs Spike Higher
Spain’s financial future took another thrashing today. The yield it had to pay on new bonds almost doubled from its last auction. The yield on three-month bills was .634%. For six month paper, it…
Nokia Steps Closer To The Grave
The blows to Nokia’s (NYSE: NOK) fortunes have become fatal now. Fitch downgraded the company’s debt to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-‘. The outlook for Long-term Issuer Default Rating is negative, Fitch reported. The reason for…
Unfounded Apple Earnings Worry
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) announces earnings at the close today. The sell-off in the company’s shares so far this month shows that many investors believe that the sale of iPhone and iPads will not be…
China Auto Show Heats Up
The important Auto China 2012 show has allowed many large manufacturers to increase their commitment the People’s Republic. This is based on the fact that it is the world’s largest market for cars and…
Netflix Gets Ruined On Weak Earnings, Shares Plunge 14%
Wikimedia Creative Commons, JohnnyMrNinjaShares of Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) fell 14% after hours on top of a drop of a drop of 4% during regular trading hours. The stock reached $88 compared to a 52-week…
The Most Popular Plastic Surgeries in America
The total number of cosmetic procedures performed in the United States by plastic surgeons has nearly doubled since 2000. Surgeries are on the decline, but minimally invasive procedures — such as Botox injections and…
ECB Chief Blocks a European Comeback
nationsonline.orgU.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and International Monetary Fund chief Christine LaGarde almost begged European Central Bank President Mario Draghi to throw his weight behind the effort to steady the sovereign debt crisis in Europe.…
As Employment Surges in Six States, Texas Rules
Six states added, in total, 787,000 jobs during the past year, according to government data for March. This makes them the primary engines of national employment growth over that period. Nearly a third of these…
Laid-Off Workers Cause Little Pessimism
The presence of unemployed workers should make people who currently have jobs nervous. As the economy has rebounded, the number of people who have been out of work for more than a half a…
What’s Important in the Financial World (4/23/2012) Walmart Probe, Weak EU and China’s PMI
Any economic recovery in the eurozone that analysts and politicians might have hoped for will be put off for some time. PMI data for the first month of the second quarter was particularly weak. Markit reported: The…
Media Digest (4/23/2012) Reuters, WSJ, NYT, FT, Bloomberg
Nestle to buy Pfizer’s (NYSE: PFE) baby food operation for $11.9 billion. (Reuters) China’s factory output rises slightly in March, but still not at levels of expansion. (Reuters) Vodafone (NASDAQ: VOD) buys Cable &…
Pfizer Dumps Baby Food On Nestle
Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) wanted out of the baby nutrition business and found a ready buyer for the division that owns its operations in that industry. There has been a rumor that Nestle has wanted the…
Gas Prices Finally Fall
Gasoline prices dropped for the first time this year, according to the carefully followed Lundberg Survey . The service reports that the average price for a gallon of regular fell to $3.91 over the…
China Manufacturing Falters
China’s manufacturing economy improved slightly in April, but is still in rough sharp. The HSBC Flash Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) was 49.1 in April. That is up from 48.3 in March. Any number below…