Comscore–Facebook Has 27.9% Of Display Market
Online research firm Comscore reports that Facebook has 27.9% of the US display ad market, up from 21% in 2010. Yahoo! had 11% of the market, followed by Google and Microsoft at 5% each.…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
Contagion Hits Portugal Debt
The cost to insure Portugal debt rose to an all-time high as worries that the problems Greece has had raising money has spread. Recently, the borrowing costs of most troubled EU nations has fallen,…
Banco Santander’s 98% Drop In Earnings
Banco Santander said its earnings fell 98% in the fourth quarter. It will reserve $1.4 billion for bad real estate loans. The collapse of the Spanish real estate markets is at the heart of…
Another Exec Pushed Out At Avon
Avon Products fired its vice chairman, Charles Cramb, who was in charge of developing markets. There is a concern that he knew of bribery at the firm’s overseas arms. Avon may have violated the…
Euro Area Unemployment Reaches 10.4%–Eurostat
Eurostat, the official statistics bureau of the EU, reports that euro area unemployment reach 10.4%–an all-time high. The EU 27 rate was 9.9% The agency wrote Eurostat estimates that 23.816 million men and women in…
Redbox Passes Netflix in DVD Rental
Coinstar’s (NASDAQ: CSTR) division Redbox held more of the DVD market in the US during 2011 than Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) did. The argument can be made that the top spot is worth little. More and more customers…
MF Global May Have Mislead–S&P
MF Global told S&P that its capital position was strong–a statement that, based on later actions–was almost certainly was not true. Several stories today claim that $1.2 billion in missing customer funds held by MF…
For Those Who Do Not Believe In Global Warming–NASA Finds 2011 Ninth-Warmest Year on Record
The existence of global warming may still be at the center of a debate as to whether industrial or environmental concerns are appropriately addressed most urgently, but the temperature is getting hotter According to…
Almost 5.6 Million Outraged Bank Customer Change Financial Firms
Blistered by high bank fees and the negative PR that firms like Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) has received, 5.6 million Americans have left their banks for others According to Javelin Strategy and Research…
Twenty-Five EU Members Approve New Fund
Twenty five of the 27 members of the EU approved a new permanent rescue fund–the European Stability Mechanism –, the first step toward a foundation of programs to bailout what could eventually be five members of…
Liquor Exports Rise Over 16%
The thirst for drink is up overseas. The Distilled Spirits Council made two announcements it believes are important. The first might be. Distilled spirits took more market share from beer in the US last…
Apple Worth $550–Trefis
Online research gizmo firm Trefis says Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is worth $550 a share. Since the estimate is based on a model and not much on human judgment, it may be worth very little. The…
International Visitors To US Go To Florida, Almost Exclusively
People who visited the US from outside its borders to look at real estate during the fourth quarter went to Florida. The rest of America can forget on seeing real estate traffic. According to Point2’s US…
Super Expensive Coffee Comes To India: Starbucks And Tata Global Beverages
People in India can join global counterparts around the world and buy $5 cups of coffee. Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX), one of the great retail success stories since the recession, will open its first store in…
Union Membership Drop Finally Stops–BLS
The number of people who are members of unions in the US has finally stopped dropping. Much of the drop in previous years had to do with a fall off in car industry and construction…
RIM Slips To Multi-Year Lows
Whatever optimism investors might have had that the firing of the co-CEOs who ruined Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) would cause a rally in the shares can forget it. RIM reached a multi-year low…
Home Prices At New Lows–Fiserv Case-Shiller
The US housing market continues to collapse at a breathtaking pace despite a minor improvement in unemployment and record low mortgage rates Fiserv Case-Shiller reports that average US home prices are now a third below 2006…
In-Store Cellphone E-Comerce Use Rockets, Threatens Retailers
Bricks-and-mortar stores have been concerned for some time that their shoppers would come to their stores, find products, and then go online to get the best prices. Store, in essence, has started to become…
All Megaupload Data May Be Destroyed Forever
Data held by Megaupload users may find that all of it could be deleted. The data is a combination of legitately sourced data and pirated files shared online. Megaupload says it has one billion…
Did Kindle Fire Sales Hit Six Million In Q4? Maybe Not
Did Kindle Fires sales reach 6 million last quarter. Maybe. But, the figure is based on the opinion of only one analyst, which makes it thin. Another three or four analysts who cover Amazon.com probably have…