Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE: PM) has just followed its former parent Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO) with a dividend hike. Philip Morris International’s recent dividend hike was by more than 10% to $0.64…
Retailers are reporting August same-store sales numbers today, and on the whole the reports are positive after a very cautious and dismal July. August is prime back-to-school shopping time, the retailers second-largest season of…
Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE: MO) has hiked its dividend. While we saw a dividend hike earlier in the year, we had a few questions about its dividend coverage. It seems those questions are answered…
Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY) is in a virtual conundrum. The stock has been hitting 52-week lows after a new fresh low of $31.25 Wednesday versus a $32.48 close on the same day…
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR) is already large, but its ties are about to get even larger. The company has announced that it and Luigi Lavazza S.p.A have entered into a $250…
Retailers are reporting July sales figures this morning, and so far there’s not a lot of excitement. July is the time when stores clear out summer merchandise to stock up on back-to-school gear. But…
The Consumer Federation of America has come out with its list of the top ten complaints for 2009 based on a survey conducted with the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators and the North…
Retail sales reports for the month of June are arriving thick and fast this morning, but the news is lukewarm at best and the outlook for the back-to-school season is soft. Consumer worries over…
We are about to get a new ETF this week for investors who love chasing the BRIC trends for Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The Global X Brazil Consumer ETF (NYSE: BRAQ) is set…
America’s upper class has begun to return to the free spending ways that characterized their behavior prior to the recession. This may be because the percentage of people unemployed among the well-to-due lagged the…
If you have watched the markets, and surely you have if you are reading here, then it has been impossible to not notice the sell-off. But the retail segment has been hit as well…
Earnings are in today from a number of retailers, not all of which are blazing, but all are better than a year ago. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT), Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE: HD), TJX…
Earnings season is already winding down, but don’t think it is over yet. Next week we still have much in retail and we still have DJIA components and major tech companies reporting earnings. Some…
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) was hitting new all-time highs today before earnings. The online e-tail giant posted $0.66 EPS on $7.13 billion in revenues versus $0.61 EPS and $6.87 billion in revenues. There was…
Apple, Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) has done too good a job marketing its iPad in the US. Or, it underestimated the number of units it would need to start to sell the product overseas. It is…