Browse by Tags
-
Posted
Oct 20 2009, 03:53 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Price cuts work. In September, Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 outsold the Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii for the first time in recent memory.
Industry research firm NPD said that the video game industry, which includes both consoles and games, had sales of $1.28 billion in September, up 1% from a year ago.
Sony shipped 491,800 PS3 units in September, moving ahead of Nintendo’s Wii which shipped 462,800 units, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 which dropped to third place with 352,600 units shipped.
Read More...
-
Posted
Oct 19 2009, 03:44 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Wall Street believes that Apple (AAPL) will make $1.42 a share for the quarter that just ended on $9.2 billion in revenue. Both figures would be well over 10% higher than a year ago. Apple would have to sell about of 2.9 million Macs, 10.5 million iPods and 6.9 million iPhones to hit those numbers.
Fulfilling those expectations will be a tall order. iPod sales dropped 7% in the June quarter. Mac sales were only up 4% to 2.6 million, and iPhone sales reached 5.2 million.
Wall Street's iPhone sales estimates may be too conservative. The handset has been a hit for AT&T (T), especially after the introduction of the 3GS model, and there is some evidence that sales in Europe are rising quickly due to price cuts in the UK, Germany, and France.
Read More...
-
Posted
Oct 16 2009, 03:59 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
It is easy to forget how important sub-$40 oil prices were at the beginning of this year as the world dove into recession. If crude had been above $140 as it had been in July 2008, the combination of high oil prices and the credit crisis could have caused a depression almost certainly. Gas prices were already above $4 a gallon last summer, and the cost of crude was crippling industries from airlines to petrochemicals.
Whatever recovery is afoot now is a very modest one, especially in the U.S. and rest of the developed world. China may be able to take a blow from $100 oil prices, but due to its huge and rising consumption of crude the blow would be a hard one. The U.S., on the other hand, cannot continue to see tiny improvements in GDP if energy costs soar again.
Read More...
-
Posted
Oct 15 2009, 04:03 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
McDonald’s (MCD) was supposed to crush Starbucks (SBUX) in the premium coffee business when the world’s largest restaurant chain introduced a line of premium java more than a year ago.
It turns out that McDonald’s impressive start as competition to Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, and other specialty coffee retailers has begun to flag.
New research shows the momentum in terms of store traffic patterns has turned in Starbucks’ direction and it is likely that the trend will continue.
Read More...
-
Posted
Oct 14 2009, 03:53 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
American International Group (AIG) is a meritocracy. One of the firm’s best kitchen workers got a $7,700 retention bonus as part of the firm’s plan to keep key employees. According to the FT, the payment was made in March.
Kenneth Feinberg, the government’s pay czar, is asking that AIG retention bonuses be cut by $198 million for 2010 and that the company “claw back” $45 million from last year.
The trouble with the plan is that some of the retention programs were probably part of written agreements with employees, and the federal government may not want to be seen as violating contracts. It would raise the issue of whether employment agreements at firms which have still not repaid government loans are any good at all.
Read More...
-
Posted
Oct 13 2009, 03:39 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
If a very minor recovery in the global economy pushes oil back toward $75, what will a robust expansion do? Crude moved to $73.79 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The reason for the rise appears to be a belief that a pick-up in business spending and consumer activity will increase the demand for crude. There is also no evidence that production is up much or that OPEC and other producing nations are likely to increase global supply.
The price of oil is now nearly double its 2009 lows, and the recession has barely “ended” in regions like the U.S., UK, EU, and Japan.
Read More...
-
Posted
Oct 12 2009, 03:46 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The government is putting part of its $787 billion stimulus package into alternative energy and improving the infrastructure of the energy grid. And private foundations have started to put money into green energy initiatives in underdeveloped nations.
Leave it to billionaire George Soros to try to look good supporting alternative energy while planning to make money at the same time. Soros says he will invest $1 billion in clean-energy technology and donate $100 million to an environmental advisory group to aid policymakers.
Bloomberg says Soros will screen his investments, saying, “they should be profitable but should also actually make a contribution to solving the problem.”
Read More...
-
Posted
Oct 09 2009, 04:01 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 One of the greatest hedge fund managers in history, Jim Rogers, insists that oil will move above $200 at some point during the bull market. He also sees the coming bubble in Treasuries bursting soon.
“The U.S. government bond market will be the next bubble to burst due to unsustainable borrowing,” he said during an interview with Reuters TV.
Rogers' argument is no different from that of most other commodities bulls. A rapid recovery in the global economy will hit oil supplies with unprecedented demand. Oil fields around the world are aging and their production is falling. Underwater fields are hard to drill and some many be unreachable based on current technology.
Read More...
-
Posted
Oct 08 2009, 03:46 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon (AMZN), is being praised as the man who has invented the next big and important electronic device.
That category includes the Sony (SNE) PlayStation 2, the Apple (AAPL) iPod, and the Nintendo Wii. The iPod has sold 200 million units worldwide. That, in the nomenclature of the electronics industry, makes it a once-in-a-generation success, a truly mass market product.
Bezos lowered the price on the Kindle to $249 from $299, and Amazon will release a version this month that can work over wireless networks in 100 countries. There is some compelling research that says people will not pay more than $200, or even $100, for an e-reader. That has not prevented Sony and Barnes & Noble (BKS) from entering the e-reader industry. Rumors are that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (NWS) will come out with a product of its own.
Read More...
-
Posted
Oct 07 2009, 03:51 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
There are two ways to look at management’s sales of millions of shares in Sirius XM (SIRI). One is that the executives saved the company from an almost certain bankruptcy and deserve a payday for that. The other is that the people running Sirius believe that the stock has peaked.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the top five officers at Sirius plan to sell shares they have received as they vest. The total of the grants is 10 million shares which vest over 40 weeks. The executives have already sold seven million shares worth $3.2 million.
There is a reasonable argument that Sirius shares have peaked, at least for the period between now and when the company releases its next set of earnings. Sirius stock currently trades about where it did in May, around 58 cents. The shares had a brief run to 78 cents in August, but for five months the price has been relatively flat.
Read More...
More Posts Next page »
|
