UBS (UBS) To Fire Thousands
As UBS (NYSE: UBS) tries to recovery from trading losses and cost at its investment back, management has decided to sharply cut the number of workers, particularly in its investment bank operations The company disclosed…
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Douglas A. McIntyre
MBA: Foreclosures Rise, Delinquencies Fall
MarketWatch reports that the Mortgage Bankers Association said “The foreclosure-start rate rose to 1.08% of all mortgages for one- to four-unit residential properties in the third quarter, up from 0.96% in the second quarter,…
Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) Up 5%, NetApp (NTAP) Off10%
NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) fell over 10% on a poor quarterly forecast according to MarketWatch. Pacific Ethanol (NASDAQ: PEIX) announced that it has retired in full its $35.0 million senior convertible notes on November 15, 2011…
What’s Important in the Financial World (11/17/2011) Nokia Phone With AT&T, Oil Above $100
Concerns about the price of oil have returned after a summer in which both crude and gasoline prices fell. Slow production from OPEC nations is not to blame. Libyan production is actually higher now…
Branson’s Virgin Money Buys Northern Rock
MarketWatch report’s that Richard Branson’s Virgin Money has bought troubled financial firm Northern Rock for $1.8 billion. “The sale of Northern Rock to Virgin Money is an important first step in getting the British…
U.S. Asks for Higher MPG as Oil Prices Rise
The Obama administration has begun to push the car industry to double the average MPG each company’s fleet gets by 2025. That would push the number to 54.5 MPG, a figure unimaginable based on…
Oil Pushes Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Peers Higher
One beneficiary, and there are few, of a spike in the price of crude is the large oil companies, including their shareholders. The share price of Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) is up by 6%…
Gold Demand Spikes as Markets Run Scared
The World Gold Council reports that gold demand jumped in the third quarter. The buying did not push prices to record levels regularly during that period. That price moderation probably caused demand to rise in nearly every sector, including…
Media Digest (11/17/2011) Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
The super committee makes no significant decisions on the budget deficit. (Reuters) The largest shareholder in Olympus cuts its position. (Reuters) Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) launches its new music service. (Reuters) Germany and France disagree…
Google Largest US Web Property In October, Followed By Microsoft And Yahoo!
Comscore data on visits to US web properties in October put Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) sites in first place with 186.7 million unique visitors. Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) sites followed with 173.8 million. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) sites were third…
Today’s Best Market Rumors (9/16/2011) Citi Lay-Offs,Olympus Fraud
Updated throughout the day Olympus will take legal action against several executives involved in a frauds discovered recently (Reuters) The securities division of Citigroup (NYSE: C) will cut 900 people. Douglas A. McIntyre
Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) decreased
The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) decreased 0.1 percent in October on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all…
What’s Important in the Financial World (11/16/2011) Dell’s Problems, BMW Sales
BMW said its expects double-digit percentage growth in the U.S. in 2012. And Cadillac says it will launch two new models to compete with BMW next year. Both brands have had sales improvements this…
Income Segregation: Stay Out of Bridgeport
A research group from Stanford has just issued a new study called “Residential Segregation of Families by Income: 1970 – 2009.” The cities with the highest level of income segregation are familiar. They are also…
America’s Psychiatric Drug Addition
“Sell crazy someplace else; we’re all stocked up here,” says Jack Nicholson in 1997’s As Good as It Gets. There was a point, not so many years ago, when Prozac did not exist, and…
Investment Firm Wants Kodak’s Poison Pill Killed
So little is left of Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK), at least in terms of common equity value, that the board should let shareholders do what they can to salvage what remains of their investments.…
Media Digest (11/16/2011) Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, Bloomberg
Facebook hit by a bug that put porn and graphic violence images onto many pages. (Reuters) Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) names Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) CEO Robert Iger to its board. (Reuters) Dell (NASDAQ: DELL)…
Microsoft (MSFT) Nixes Breakup
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) killed off talk about breaking up the company when the issue was raised at its annual meeting. Many investors believe that the firm’s game console and search operations should not be…
Firm Wants Kodak to Kill Poison Pill (EK)
Kodak shareholder Investment Partners Asset Management (IPAM) has asked the company to add a proposal to its proxy for 2012 to kill the company’s poison pill. The investment firm said, “Shareholders have a right to…
Postal Service Ends FY 2011, Loss At $5.1 Billion
The U.S. Postal Service ended its 2011 fiscal year ( Sept. 30, 2011) with a net loss of $5.1 billion. The year-end loss would have been approximately $10.6 billion had it not been for…