Starbucks Raises Prices Because It Can
It has been hard for most companies with consumer customers to raise prices in the past three years. The economy has been so weak and personal income has not moved higher. An exception to…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
What’s Important in the Financial World (1/4/2011) New Yahoo! CEO, Higher Oil Prices
Oil prices are rising rapidly, adding nearly 4% in less than two days. The increase could threaten the global economy if it holds for long. The reason for the move is news of a possible armed…
Media Digest (1/4/2012) Reuters, WSJ, NYT, FT, Bloomberg
Bill Gross’s PIMCO Total Return Fund has $1.4 billion in outflows in December, according to Morningstar. (Reuters) MF Global sold some assets to Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) before its collapsed. (Reuters) As a move…
China IPO Market Remains World’s Largest–PricewaterhouseCoopers
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/hub.1324331373.html China’s IPO market may have cooled as the demand for new company issues fell toward the end of last year. Investors also questioned the reliability of the books of some firms based in…
BP Stops Payments From Disaster Fund
BP plc (NYSE: BP) has halted payment from its Gulf Coast Claims Facility. The fund was set, under pressure from the US governemnt, to provide as much as $20 billion for Gulf clean-up and…
MF Global Sold Assets To Goldman Sachs
Investigators and investors want to know what happened to several hundred million of capital held by nearly defunct MF Global went. There is a great deal of concern that client money was mixed with…
NBC-Superbowl Ads Sold Out
NBC says ads for the Superbowl are sold out. The price per 30-second spot is $3.5 million, according to Seth Winter, senior vice president of NBC Sports group sales & marketing. Reuters quotes Winter…
A New CEO For Yahoo!–AllThingsD (YHOO, MSFT)
Dow Jones site AllThingsD reports that Yahoo! has a new CEO, although it is not clear what he will do it most or all of the company is sold. Yahoo!’s board is actively considering the disposal…
The Most Popular American Companies in China
The primary reason, it is often argued, that China is an important market for many large U.S. companies is that its population has doubled since the early 1960s. But the whole picture is actually…
2012: What If Consumers Keep Spending?
The conventional wisdom is that the surge in consumer spending that drove retail sales higher by nearly 4% over the holidays will end in the first quarter. These consumers again have taken on too…
What’s Important in the Financial Word (1/3/2011) Apple NYC Meeting, BP Sues Halliburton
The markets will await several critical pieces of data over the next several days. Stocks likely will not move much until this information is out. December car sales will show whether consumers still have…
The Rich Continue to Give — A Little
The list of people who gave gifts of over $1 million includes 513 for 2011, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy. That may not seem like many unless it is put in the context of…
Chrysler Wins the Car Sales War
Chrysler was supposed to stumble out of Chapter 11. The recovery of General Motors (NYSE: GM) was remarkable. Ford’s (NYSE: F) success was based on its ability to introduce new products quickly because it did…
Media Digest (1/3/2012) Reuters, WSJ, NYT, FT, Bloomberg
Wall St. expects same-store sales for December to rise 4.3%. (Reuters) Returns of holiday online gifts are expect to reach a record. (Reuters) Venezuela says it will pay Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) only $225…
Europe PMI Contraction Follows China
China’s PMI was just above or just below the dead line, depending on whether an HSBC survey or official number from the People’s Republic is correct. China’s factory activity has stalled or is falling some either way. EU…
The Future of Theaters Fades, as the Internet Finally Rises Enough
Ticket sales for movie theaters dropped in 2011 the most in 16 years, according to Hollywood.com. Some of the fall-off is due to a dearth of blockbuster films. But the industry also has to…
American Youth Tilt Toward Socialism, Which Hardly Matters
Young Americans have a more positive view of socialism than capitalism, according to new research from Pew. That puts them in contrast to the balance of adults, the great major of whom view socialism negatively. But…
U.S. Guns for Jobs
The U.S. sold $29.4 billion worth of F-15s to Saudi Arabia. The State Department and defense contractors can take whatever solace they need in the adage that fighter jets do not kill people — fighter…
What’s Important in the Financial World (1/2/2101) Exxon Venezula Deal, EU PMI Low
The PMI of the eurozone contracted in December. Official numbers from research firm Markit showed a figure of 46.9 for the final month of the year. A number of 50 marks the line between expansion and…
Media Digest (1/2/2012) Reuters, WSJ, NYT, FT, Bloomberg
F-16 and F-15 production lines are being extended by U.S. government sales to Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Oman by Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Boeing (NYSE: BA), made through the State Department, should help…