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Posted
Mar 26 2009, 03:44 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Looking at statistics from India, it's clear that the cost of outsourcing technology work to firms there is dropping as unemployment in the country rises.
For a number of years, unions and members of Congress spent a great deal of time complaining about the number of U.S. jobs being sent abroad. The bitterness about the issue has receded recently, especially as the recession has deepened and large American companies have been inclined to cut jobs as much or more than they have been able to export them. Perhaps with the economy losing about 600,000 jobs a month, the need for efficiency through outsourcing has become less immediate.
But, outsourcing may be making a big comeback, with word that IBM (IBM) would cut about 5,000 jobs in the U.S. and move the work to India. This may be the beginning of a new wave of exporting of American jobs to developing countries which have large pools of well-educated workers.
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Posted
Mar 26 2009, 02:51 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from The Big Money.
Apres le deluge of economic ruin, along come new regulations to make sure it never happens again. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will propose a sweeping set of new rules today as he seeks to install greater oversight on risk-taking in financial markets, "pushing for tougher rules on how big companies manage their finances as well as tighter controls on some hedge funds and money-market mutual funds," writes the Wall Street Journal. On the heels of giving more power to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Geithner is expected to advocate a new raft of regulations for large financial firms -- including forcing them to hold more capital reserves -- and handing more power to the Treasury to monitor emerging economic risks. The Treasury plan (subject to congressional approval) would give the government "vast new powers over 'systemically important' banks and other financial institutions that are so big that their collapse would jeopardize the economy as a whole," writes the New York Times.
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Posted
Apr 19 2009, 08:10 PM
by
Louis Navellier
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Wall Street does a fantastic job of making the simple complex. The more Wall Street can confuse investors, the more dependent investors become on Wall Street for products and services. But the stock market is not really that complicated. If companies are growing, you can profit.
The key is to look at the business cycle. When the economy grows, business grows. That growth translates into stock values that go up. Now I like to find stocks that can make money even when their sectors aren't typically fueled by economic growth, like my 5 Hot Stocks in Ice-Cold Sectors. But it's equally as profitable to look to sectors that get a tailwind from economic activity. Technology is one of those sectors right now
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Posted
Mar 18 2009, 03:11 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money. IBM (IBM) is in early stage talks to buy Sun Microsystems (JAVA), the Wall Street Journal reports, in a deal that would "bolster IBM's heft on the Internet, in software and in finance and telecommunications markets." Talks could yet fall through, the Journal says, but there is also a chance the negotiations could wrap up as early as this week. IBM is likely to pay at least $6.5 billion in cash, the newspaper adds, a premium of more than 100% over Sun's closing price Tuesday. Sun's share price rocketed more than 80% in morning trading Wednesday on the news, while IBM shares fell slightly.
Big Blue's interest in Sun comes down to control of a $100 billion market, the Journal writes, and it's all focused on the data center -- the large computer rooms that keep businesses and the Internet running.
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Posted
Jun 15 2009, 04:57 PM
by
Kelley Wright
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Investor sentiment can be visualized as an emotional roller coaster with highs and lows that gives new meaning to the term bi-polar. At the March lows sentiment was black bearish; all news was bad news. Almost on cue, the market reversed and began the first meaningful retracement of the declines from the October, 2007 highs, with green shoots and other assorted flora and fauna nonetheless! Hallelujah, happy days are here again!
As few current market participants were around for the last real bear market from 1966 through 1974, they can be forgiven for not knowing that all trends, be they bull or bear, move in waves. No market trend goes straight up or straight down from beginning to its ultimate conclusion. Both markets and participants need a time of pause to collect their breath, digest the preceding action and gather energy for the next phase of the primary trend.
The typical pattern in a bear market is three down legs interspersed with two very profitable retracements. In the case of this bear market the logical places for a retracement were sliced through like a hot knife through butter, in effect completing two down legs in one fell swoop (if 18 months of declines can be characterized as such).
With so much damage done to the market averages and investors psyches, it’s understandable that investors are hesitant to take long-term positions when quick profits have been readily available. While this approach works well in a bear market rally, it isn’t a long-term strategy with legs.
Shelby Davis (the founder of the Davis family of funds) has been credited with saying that “most of the big money is made by buying in a bear market; you just don’t realize it at the time.” That makes a lot of sense to us, which is why we put together a list of ten stocks we feel will outperform the market over the next five years in each issue of Investment Quality Trends.
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Posted
Apr 06 2009, 03:03 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
The tie-up between between IBM (IBM) and Sun Microsystems (JAVA) is "on the verge of unraveling," The Wall Street Journal reports. Citing sources close to the negotiations, the newspaper says the Sun board is split into two factions, one led by chief executive Jonathan Schwartz, who favors a deal, and one led by Sun chairman and co-founder Scott McNealy.
Their quibble is not with the price tag -- somewhere in the $7 billion range -- but rather "that the offer gave IBM too much 'optionality,' or leeway to walk away from the deal," the Journal writes. Still, a source told the newspaper the negotiation as "fluid."
The New York Times views the negotiations in far less optimistic terms, reporting that the deal has in fact collapsed and that, yes, the negotiations faltered when IBM presented the Sun board with a reduced price of $9.40 per share over the weekend.
Sun's board balked after hearing the offer Sunday, the Times writes.
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Posted
Aug 27 2009, 01:42 PM
by
Tobin Smith
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
I've long believed that the key to a coming economic recovery won't be found on the consumer front. Instead, it's the all-important corporate spending side of the equation that needs to improve before we can begin to really call an end to the "Great Recession."
Fortunately, that improvement in corporate spending may well be taking place -- albeit at a slower pace than in recent past. All this means good news for some of the most stalwart corporate software vendors, including Microsoft (MSFT), IBM (IBM) and SAP (SAP).
Bing: More on corporate software spending
According to the latest ChangeWave Alliance Research Network corporate software survey, business purchasing continues to improve even as the pace of the recovery slows. To put it another way, we are seeing an uptick in planned spending for the next 90 days, but that upward trend is not as pronounced as the rate of improvement we saw back in April.
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Posted
Jan 21 2009, 10:30 AM
by
Andrew Horowitz
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 This is the first blemished earnings release from Apple (AAPL). At least that is the word on the Street. It has been a wild ride for shareholders who have stuck with the company through thick and thin. Apple has been navigating down a long road of numerous problems such as poor economic conditions, concern over Steve Jobs’ health and increased competition from various electronics manufacturers. The major concern with Apple’s current stock price is whether they will be able to properly transition when/if Jobs steps down.
Communication by the company has been lousy of late. After the .mac mishaps you would have thought they would have learned that people hang on every word. As the stock had been pummeled several times after rumors surfaced about Jobs' health, we would have liked to have seen the PR department been a touch more forthright and open about what was going on
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Posted
Jun 23 2008, 05:41 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Filed under: Citigroup, Sprint, Wal-Mart, Intel, AMD, AT&T, Starbucks, Target, Sears, IBM, Costco, Sun Microsystems
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
With the trading year almost half over and results from the first quarter out, 24/7 Wall Street has created the latest installment of its Ten Worst Managed Companies In America list. This is a companion piece to the "CEO of the Year" list and "Large Companies that May Disappear" series.
This analysis is based on: 1) one-year and five-year stock performance relative to the major indexes and other companies in the industry, 2) the company's position in its industry both now and over the last five years, 3) whether management made identifiable and critical decisions which hurt the company, 4) a change in the company's relative market strength compared to its competition, and 5) whether the company could have identified mistakes and changed course quickly enough to avoid a catastrophe.
Some readers will think it is not fair to include companies which have had a recent
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Posted
Apr 23 2009, 03:46 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
As the executives at Apple (AAPL) were passing around the Dom Perignon, their counterparts at other companies that design and manufacture smartphones were putting all sharp objects out of reach. In a recession, there is only so much air in any room. Smartphone sales are suffering like all consumer electronics. If the iPhone is doing extraordinarily well, others are doing badly.
What almost no one saw coming in Apple’s results for the March quarter was that the company would sell nearly 3.8 million iPhones. Most educated guesses were around 3.1 million to 3.3 million. In a world where securities analysts send spies to Apple stores and bribe hardware component suppliers for data on iPhone parts shipments, experts are not supposed to be off that much. It makes them look bad, but it makes Apple look good, both for its ability to keep things secret and for building a handset that is expensive, making the iPhone an aspirational product for many people who buy it. Some consumers walking into AT&T (T) stores don’t have $299 for the iPhone and the money for the exorbitant calling plan that goes with it. They go anyway, like junkies to a dealer.
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