Search results for economy
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Posted
Oct 23 2009, 03:24 PM
by
Jim Jubak
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
When I added Microsoft (MSFT) to Jubak’s Picks on July 24, 2009 after the company announced results for its fiscal fourth quarter, I wrote “This is as bad as it gets.”
After its Oct. 23 earnings release, the company is now saying the same thing. In the post-earnings conference call, Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell said that the fourth quarter may have been the bottom. Certainly, the company is behaving as if it were: Microsoft resumed buying back shares in the quarter that ended in September, with purchases of 1.4 billion shares.
First quarter earnings for fiscal 2010 fell to 40 cents a share, but that beat the 32 cents expected by Wall Street. Revenue declined by 14% from the first quarter of fiscal 2009 to $12.92 billion. That big drop in revenue came because Microsoft deferred $1.47 billion in revenue from customers upgrading to Windows 7. Put that back in and revenue came to $14.39 billion, a 4% decline from the year-earlier period.
Microsoft beat Wall Street estimates this quarter by cutting costs by more than Wall Street expected. Operating costs dropped 6.9% after the company made its first ever company-wide firings, slashed travel costs, and cut the prices it pays vendors. In the conference call, the company increased its cost-cutting target.
The big question going forward, however, isn’t about cutting costs, but about how many copies of the new Windows 7 operating system Microsoft can sell.
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Posted
Oct 23 2009, 12:22 PM
by
Jim Van Meerten
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
If there is one economic report I look forward to every month, it's the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index. Most of the stuff written by economist is so full of statistics, formulas, tables and graphs that by the time you weed through it all you forgot what the information says; the Conference Board's report is different. They use only 3 major categories:
- Leading Economic Index -- LEI -- 10 indicators
- Coincident Economic Index -- CEI -- 4 indicators
- Lagging Economic Index -- LAG -- 7 indicators
This month I'll sum up the report by this quote: "All in all, the behavior of the composite indexes suggests that the recession is bottoming out and that economic conditions will continue to improve in the near term." Pretty simple to understand, straight forward and to the point.
Let's look for some gems in the report:
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Posted
Oct 22 2009, 01:43 PM
by
Jim Jubak
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Now that’s the kind of quarter investors own McDonald’s (MCD) for.
Earnings for the third quarter, reported before the market open on Oct. 22, climbed to $1.15 a share from $1.05 in the third quarter of 2008. That was above Wall Street expectations of $1.11 a share. (This puts McDonald’s among the 80% of so of Standard & Poor’s 500 stocks that have beat Wall Street estimates so far this quarter. For more on that, see this Oct. 20 post.)
Revenue fell 3.5% to $6.05 billion. That was below analyst projections of $6.1 billion. But on a constant currency basis, revenue was up 2% from the third quarter of 2008
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Posted
Oct 21 2009, 10:49 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 A second stimulus won't fly with some Americans, despite the fact that Warren Buffett, Joseph Stiglitz and other experts have called for one.
That's why, even though the White House will likely push something that walks and talks like a stimulus, no one will call it the "S" word. Lawmakers are set to extend some stimulus measures and create some new ones as well, CNNMoney.com reports. Here's a quick rundown: Unemployment. One move being considered is extending unemployment benefits after they run out. An estimated 1.3 million unemployed workers will have exhausted their benefits by the end of the year,
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Posted
Oct 20 2009, 03:11 PM
by
InvestorPlace
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
By InvestorPlace's Michael Shulman. You hear it all around you. The economic recovery this, the economic recovery that. Only problem is we're not in an economic recovery.
In fact, we are not at the end of this recession, we are in the middle of it. This will not be a V-shaped recession and recovery, folks. It is a U-shaped one at best, meaning we have a while to go before things truly pick up. But, more than likely, we are dealing with a W-shaped recession, in which we are near the end of the second leg, then down we go. Bing: Economic Recovery
Even if the economy stays flat, the stock market will almost surely head back down when the Street realizes what a jobless recovery actually looks like. So, while the statistics may point to an economic recovery this quarter or next, real people will be feeling recession pains throughout 2010. Here are five key reasons why
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Posted
Oct 16 2009, 09:48 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Here's one of the more discouraging facts I've come across in a while: At the end of August there were fewer than 2.4 million job openings in the country.
To put this in perspective, that equals only 1.8% of all the filled and unfilled positions in the U.S. That's a new record low, according to the Atlanta Fed. For every job opening, there were more than six unemployed people. That's a very bleak scenario, particularly when you compare it to 2007, when the ratio was less than 1.5. The underlying message here is pretty obvious.
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Posted
Oct 13 2009, 12:05 PM
by
Anthony Mirhaydari
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
While the primary trend for stocks continues to arch skyward, we are beginning to see equity traders react to some new developments over in the world of fixed-income, commodities, and currencies. This has made for choppy trading over the last few days.
Much of the catalyst for the recent gains in equities has been the depreciation of the U.S. dollar. Traders are using the greenback as a funding currency in carry trades with riskier, higher yielding assets because of super-low U.S. interest rates. They borrow dollars cheaply, sell them short, and use the proceeds to buy commodities and bonds in countries like Brazil and Australia.
They can do this with confidence because of the apparent support for dollar devaluation among officials in Washington -- who are hoping to boost employment by reviving the competitiveness of our exports -- along with prolonged support for low rates at the Federal Reserve.
With so much leverage at work
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Posted
Oct 12 2009, 10:20 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This article is written by Minyanville's Carol Kopp
There’s a truism among investors that you should invest in what you know, understand, and like. It’s a commonsense strategy: You spot something new. It’s special. It’s useful or innovative. It’s cool and affordable. Let me buy some of that!
The response to that can be summed up in just two words: Krispy Kreme (KKD).
Krispy Kreme had been a popular doughnut chain in the South since 1937, but remained unknown to the rest of us until about 1996. That’s when the first Krispy Kreme popped up in New York City, on West 23rd Street.
Believe it or not, the town went nuts.
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Posted
Oct 07 2009, 07:23 PM
by
Vad Yazvinski
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect” -- Mark Twain
One of the main arguments "perma-bears" used in justifying why the recent stock rally is (and was) destined to fail miserably, has certainly been a widespread expectation of an upcoming collapse in the commercial real estate market.
Just yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that "banking regulators are girding for a rerun of the housing-related losses now slamming thousands of banks that failed to set aside enough capital during the boom to cushion themselves when the bubble burst. 'Banks will be slow to recognize the severity of the loss -- just as they were in residential,' according to the Fed presentation, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal".
This is true. It has been clear for a while that hundreds of smaller banks heavily exposed to commercial real estate market are likely to fail or require more capital during the next 18 months or so. But isn't everyone expecting that at this point?
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Posted
Oct 07 2009, 08:57 AM
by
Jim Van Meerten
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 There are a lot of articles predicting gloom and doom for the Christmas retail season. On one hand we hear the economy is recovering, and on the other hand we hear that we're not out of the woods yet.
I decided to take a very unscientific poll to find out for myself. I'd rather be approximately right than precisely inaccurate, so I called a few friends and asked how they were preparing for Christmas. I got some surprising answers.
Several people told me that they remembered growing up in hard times but everyone's parents had a Christmas Club account. They couldn't find a Christmas Club to join but decided to open a savings account or a money market account and they've been stashing some money away until they see the seasonal sales.
I also heard a term I hadn't heard in years: layaway.
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