This past weekend’s startling developments in Libya hit the crude oil markets almost instantly. Brent crude in Europe fell to around $105/barrel at one point, while WTI crude has gained about half a dollar…
Updated throughout the day. Samsung C&T may takeover Parallel Petroleum for $920 million (Reuters) The New York State Attorney General is under federal pressure to a settlement with banks over foreclosure irregularities (NYT) Ben…
Hurricane season is not just underway; it is in full swing. This poses a new danger to the economy due to the threat to rigs and refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, as well…
Walmart’s (NYSE: WMT) domestic sales may have stumbled, but its online presence is still dominant. July Comscore figures show that Walmart’s sites had 38.7 million unique visitors. That is nowhere close to the world’s…
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) may be in the midst of the development of a 4G iPhone. It is not clear when the product will be released, but if it is in the next few months,…
Economists and policy makers in large countries and organizations like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have expressed concern that the world has entered a global recession barely a year after the deep…
The Federal Reserve to make a modest number of steps to keep the economy moving higher. (Reuters) Wall St. layoffs, already begun, will hurt morale as the industry tries to recover. (Reuters) As Hewlett-Packard…
William Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management has dumped more money into J.C. Penney. It is a mistake, unless he has some undisclosed plan to mine assets which are not obvious or break the retail…
Martha Stewart Living Omnivision (NYSE: MSO) retained Blackstone on May 25 to find potential investment partners and explore other opportunities. The announcement was widely viewed as the start of a process to sell the…
There are over 7.5 million households in the U.S. in which the residents do not own an automobile. Of course, these homes rely on public transportation to commute to work, schools and shopping. Yet,…
Among four states, the economy lost over 75,000 jobs last month compared to June. The BLS reported that “Over-the-month statistically significant declines in employment occurred in Illinois (-24,900), Florida (-22,100), Minnesota (-19,800), and Indiana…
Updated throughout the day Zerohedge: Fed’s Dudley Predicts Stronger Growth in Second Half of 2011. And JPM predicts 0.5% GDP in Q1 2012 USA Today: Reports: Bank of America cutting 10,000 or more jobs…
A memo from Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan (NYSE: BAC) says that the financial firm will cut 3,500 jobs this quarter. Further restructuring could push that number as high as 10,000. Analysts have forecast…
Auto sales now are expected to be well below estimates made earlier this year. They seemed to have recovered in the first half from the sickeningly low rates of 2008 and 2009. But that…
Unemployment is not a national problem. It is a regional one. The jobs troubles have been in regions hardest hit by the collapse in real estate prices and layoffs in the older industrial states.…
Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) lost its buyer. Liberty Media will invest $204 million in the book reseller, although it is hard to understand why the company needs the capital, based on its balance…
Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) may spin off its PC business because it bought enterprise software firm Autonomy for $10.3 billion. (Reuters) News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) begins to prepare for the possibility that James Murdoch may…
Those who don’t invest in the stock market would like to pretend stock market crashes don’t concern them, but the truth is that they do. It’s not only those who actively trade who lose…
A 4% collapse of the markets today pushed the DJIA under 11,000 for the second time in two weeks. The market sentiment now is such that the index may be under that benchmark for…
Yahoo! Finance: Jobless claims rise 9,000 last week http://t.co/DBRhnIM #economy Reuters: Consumer prices rise in July Reuters: Jobless claims rise 9,000 last week Zerohedge: More Jobless Stagflation: CPI +0.5% On Expectations Of 0.2%, Jobless…