10.30.09
Posted in .com, business, economic, money, top tagged blogs, events, news, people, reviews at 11:05 pm by carydalton
Five farm workers were shot and wounded on Friday at a farm near Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe, capital of Mashonaland West province, in a dispute over possession of the property between owner Louis Fick, vice president of the Commercial Farmers Union, and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Deputy Governor Edward Mashiringwani.
The Commercial Farmers Union issued a statement saying a man who allegedly works for the central bank official came to the farm and shot one worker on the chest, another in the head, and a third in the leg. The extent of injuries to the other two victims could not immediately be determined, but the farmers union said all were taken to the hospital.
Fick was a plaintiff in a suit lodged with the Southern African Development Community’s Namibia-based tribunal which ruled he could not be dispossessed of his farm.
VOA was unable to obtain comment from Mashiringwani, who was said to be in a meeting.
Fick told reporter Patience Rusere of VOA’s Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that the incident on his farm Friday was particularly worrisome as past incidents have not involved gunfire.
Elsewhere, police in Hwange, Matabeleland North, on Friday released the second of two Zimbabwe Election Support Network staff members arrested there late Wednesday while they were conducting an outreach program at Cross-Mabale in Dete district
personal loan for poor credit.
Thulani Ndlovu and Ndodana Ndlovu - who are unrelated - were charged with conducting a meeting without first seeking police clearance. Ndodana Ndlovu was released Thursday while Thulani Ndlovu was freed on Friday on US$200 bail, ZESN sources said.
Those sources said the meeting had been cleared with Chief Dingani who helped organize it, and that a fax was sent to local police seeking clearance for the activity.
The arrest of the two men followed the detention last Sunday of two officials of the National Association of Non-governmental Organizations in the northwest resort town of Victoria Falls, also on charges of holding a meeting without notifying police.
Johannesburg-based human rights lawyer Anna Moyo told VOA Studio 7 reporter Brenda Moyo that such incidents further tarnish Zimbabwe’s human rights record.
More reports from VOA’s Studio 7 for Zimbabwe…
Five Reported Wounded by Gunfire in Dispute Over Zimbabwe Farm Ownership
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Posted in .com, hot news, news, online, top tagged business, campaign, news, personal, work at 8:06 am by carydalton
SHENZHEN, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) — Twenty-eight small and medium-sized enterprises Friday started trading their shares at China’s Nasdaq-style market, ChiNext, in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province.
Huayi Brothers Media Corp., a movie producer, soared the most, up 122.74 percent from its IPO price, to open at 63.66 yuan per share.
Zhongyuan Huadian Co. Ltd. increased the least by 46.26 percent from its IPO price to open at 47 yuan per share.
ChiNext was expected to provide more fund-raising channels for small and medium-sized businesses of high technology and high growth.
The central bank and the whole financial system will consistently support ChiNext, said Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, at the trade opening ceremony.
The index screen shows the increase of the opening prices of the first batch of 28 selected firms for China’s ChiNext after their debut in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong Province, Oct. 30, 2009. The first batch of 28 selected firms for China’s Nasdaq-style market, ChiNext, made their debut Friday on the Shenzhen-based exchange. (Xinhua/Peng Yong)
Photo Gallery>>> All stocks trigger suspensions on China’s Nasdaq-style board under price-rise rules on first day SHENZHEN, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) — All 28 stocks on China’s new Nasdaq-style market for small and medium-sized companies had been temporarily suspended within the first two hours of trading on its opening day Friday. The stocks on the ChiNext exchange in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, had all been suspended at least once by 11:20 a free credit report online.m. under rules to prevent wild fluctuations in share prices. Full story China launches Nasdaq-style market to spur small businesses BEIJING, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) — China held a launching ceremony Friday for its Nasdaq-style market, ChiNext, in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. China holds a launching ceremony for its Nasdaq-style market, ChiNext, in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, on Oct. 23, 2009.(Xinhua Photo)
Photo Gallery>>> The first batch of 28 selected firms will make their debut on Oct. 30 on the Shenzhen-based exchange. Full story 10 companies to list as China’s GEM starts IPO procedures
BEIJING, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) — Ten Chinese companies kicked off initial public offering (IPO) procedures Monday for listing on China’s Nasdaq-style Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) at the end of October. The 10 start-ups will complete their price inquiries and road shows by the end of this week, and begin subscription on September25, according to the prospectus posted on the website of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Full story Twenty-two Chinese companies listed on Nsadaq this year
NEW YORK, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) — The Nasdaq OMX Group, Inc. has welcomed 22 companies from China to the Nasdaq Stock Market year- to-date in 2009, said the company on Wednesday. The 22 listed Chinese companies, include eight IPOs, 13 OTCBB upgrades, and one switch to Nasdaq from NYSE AMEX. Full story
China’s Nasdaq-style board starts trading
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10.28.09
Posted in business, hot news, money, top, world of money tagged business, economy, news, newsreports, work at 11:05 pm by carydalton
In about a dozen videos posted over the last two months to YouTube, a man claiming to be “the world’s fastest nudist” streaks through high-profile locations in New York City clad only in running shoes, tube socks, and a strategically positioned frontward fanny pack.
“The first time you run by, they’re like, ‘Oh my god, that guy’s nude,’ ” he says in one video. “But the next time you run by, they’re like, ‘That’s the world’s fastest nudist!’ ”
Popular blogs like Gothamist, The Huffington Post and Gawker featured the videos in September, with Gawker’s post drawing more than 25,000 views. On YouTube, the videos have garnered more than 60,000 views.
On Sept. 29, “Anderson Cooper 360” on CNN broadcast a video, with Mr. Cooper joking that, “This does not faze New Yorkers — believe me we have all seen much worse than this.”
It turns out, however, that the nudist was actually an actor in a viral video campaign for Zappos, the online shoe store that since 2007 has sold clothing as well.
The campaign, by Agent 16 in New York, underscores that Zappos sells clothes, as demonstrated in the latest video, uploaded to YouTube on Oct. 21, which mentioned the company for the first time. The runner — played by Kyle Overstreet, 30 — is sprinting when a van screeches to a halt and several passengers emerge wearing Zappos T-shirts and carrying Zappos boxes. Moments later, the passengers reboard and the van pulls away, revealing that Mr. Overstreet is wearing a pair of pants and a dress shirt.
“I’d say I got too big for my britches, but as everybody knows I don’t wear britches” explains a caption on YouTube. “Thank you Zappos.com for snuffing out the most important part of being the world’s fastest nudist with your blazing fast delivery of clothes and shoes.”
Robert Manni, president of Agent 16, said that since the agency did not pitch to Mr. Cooper’s show, to “have a viral video go out over CNN was a breakthrough.”
A CNN spokeswoman did not respond to a message seeking comment.
•
Mr. Overstreet, the actor, said in a telephone interview that the largely improvised videos, shot in July, were challenging.
“A van would drop me off in my shorts, with my shirt off,” Mr. Overstreet said. “I really didn’t know what I had gotten myself into until those shorts first came off and I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is insane.’ But I would drop trou, run, and try not to run into any policemen or children.”
He was not quite nude.
“I had this thing called a ‘Houdini’ ” said Mr. Overstreet, who also works as a bellman at the Bowery Hotel. “And I was wearing sheer panty hose, too, so with the nudity laws I could sort of defend myself to a cop.”
Viral campaigns generally introduce material online, often making no reference to the brand until the video or Web site grows popular free instant credit reports. The revelation is, ideally, followed by fans transferring goodwill about the videos to the brand — but it doesn’t always work that way.
In September, Amber Duick, of Los Angeles, sued Toyota Motor Sales USA for a 2008 viral marketing campaign, by Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles, that enabled a friend to sign her up to have a fictional character, an Englishman named Sebastian Bowler, repeatedly send her e-mails saying he was on the run from the police and en route to her house with his pit bull. After a week Ms. Duick was informed that this was a well-intentioned prank and a promotion for the Toyota Matrix. She is seeking $10 million in damages for “emotional distress.”
Mr. Manni, of Agent 16, evoked both the Toyota campaign and the recent suspected hoax involving a Colorado boy erroneously believed to have floated away in a homemade balloon — and compared his Zappos campaign favorably.
“We’re not preying on anyone’s emotions,” Mr. Manni said. “This was all about fun.”
One media outlet, however, may think otherwise.
•
On Oct. 9, The Park Slope Courier in Brooklyn (part of Courier-Life Publications, a unit of News Corporation) published an interview with the naked runner. The interview was conducted over the telephone with Mr. Overstreet, who stayed in character and told the reporter, Gary Buiso, that his name was Donnie Montero and that last year in Barcelona, Spain, he won the World Nude 10K race, which does not exist.
The reporter requested the interview through the character’s Twitter account, fastestnudist, according to Agent 16. Informed that he had been misled, Mr. Buiso declined to comment and referred questions to Kenneth Brown, editor in chief of Courier-Life Publications. Mr. Brown did not return messages seeking comment.
Bloggers first posted the videos because they found them entertaining, with little discussion about their provenance — The Huffington Post even posited that that the videos might be a “viral marketing ploy” — but the reporter who got snookered ends up looking as exposed as the fictional streaker.
Mr. Manni, of Agent 16, brushed aside questions about deceiving the reporter, stressing that the agency did not pitch to him, but rather responded to his request.
“We’re not going around trying to fool everyone — if the reporter was really doing his job he would have asked follow up questions” and discovered the truth, Mr. Manni said.
Mr. Overstreet, meanwhile, who avoided New York’s finest in his streaking excursions, has come full circle: next month on an episode of “One Life to Live,” the ABC soap opera, he plays a cop.
A Campaign for Clothes by a Guy Not Wearing Any
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Posted in .com, All, hot news, news, shortly tagged business, campaign, finance, financial, people at 4:17 am by carydalton
Filed at 7:52 p.m. ET
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Baidu Inc., which runs China’s leading Internet search engine, said Monday that its third-quarter profit jumped 42 percent as revenue from online marketing services climbed.
American Depositary Shares of Baidu, which also predicted fourth-quarter revenue below analyst estimates, fell $55.27, or 12.8 percent, in after-hours trading, after finishing regular trading down $2.34 at $432.97.
The company earned 492.9 million yuan ($72.2 million), or 14.14 yuan ($2.07) per share. When excluding one-time items, Baidu’s profit totaled 14.75 yuan ($2.16) per share.
In the year-ago quarter, Baidu earned 347.9 million yuan, or 10 yuan per share.
Revenue rose 39 percent to yuan 1.28 billion ($187.3 million). Revenue from online marketing services climbed 39 percent to 1.28 billion yuan ($187.2 million).
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who often exclude one-time items from their estimates, expected $1 auto loan interest rates.81 per share on $187.8 million in revenue.
The number of active online marketing customers rose to 216,000, up 11 percent from a year earlier, Baidu said. It said revenue per online marketing customer rose nearly 26 percent to 5,900 yuan ($864).
The company gave outlook for revenue of 1.19 billion yuan ($174 million) to 1.23 billion yuan ($180 million) in the fourth quarter, which would be growth of 32 percent to 36 percent year over year. Baidu expects a temporary hit to revenue due to its discontinuation of ”Online Marketing Classic Edition”
Analysts were expecting $202.9 million in revenue.
Profit at Baidu, China’s Top Search Engine, Rises 42 Percent
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10.27.09
Posted in .com, news, online, top, world of money tagged business, economy, events, financial, money at 3:42 am by carydalton
Battery fires in personal electronic devices can be scary. But if a battery catches fire on board an airplane, the risks are much greater.
With more people traveling with an assortment of portable electronics — sometimes there are more devices than passengers on a plane — fires are occurring on airliners with increasing frequency. More than half of the 22 battery fires in the cabin of passenger planes since 1999 have been in the last three years. One air safety expert suggested that these devices might be “the last unrestricted fire hazard” people can bring on airplanes.
This month, the Federal Aviation Administration along with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issued special advisories to airlines about yet another gadget: the credit card readers that many have begun to issue to flight attendants to ring up sales of food, drinks and other amenities.
While airlines have been using portable credit card readers for several years, the F.A.A. said earlier this month that they needed approval from the agency’s hazardous materials division. Like the majority of hand-held consumer electronic devices, the readers are powered by rechargeable lithium batteries, which the government considers hazardous and in need of special handling.
“The carriers came and asked if we would allow them to have the credit card readers on aircraft and they wanted spare lithium batteries to allow them to switch out the batteries,” said Christopher Bonanti, director of the office of hazardous materials for the F.A.A. “I was concerned about having spare lithium batteries, and I asked them not to do that.”
Some airlines have agreed to special training for handling batteries and were given permission to carry spares, Mr. Bonanti said. But other airlines, like Delta and JetBlue, figured it was safer to avoid carrying extra batteries altogether.
“They’re not charged onboard the aircraft and batteries aren’t removed from these devices while onboard,” Bryan Baldwin, a JetBlue spokesman, wrote in an e-mail message.
While no fires from portable credit card readers have been reported to the F.A.A., the list of spontaneous combustion events with other portable devices reads like a thriller. Last month, a portable DVD player was dropped on an American Airlines flight, causing a fire in the first-class cabin. In March 2008, a United Airlines employee placed a flashlight in the storage compartment of a Boeing 757 at the Denver airport. A report later said the flashlight exploded “like gunshots” turning the on-off switch into a projectile. On a flight to Miami that same month, eight people were injured when a small battery fell against a metal seat frame. In the ensuing explosion, debris singed a passenger’s ear and hair and the smoke sickened seven crew members.
In 2004, an ABC News camera exploded on an airplane being used by the presidential candidate John Edwards. A seat caught fire, causing the pilot to make an emergency return to the airport bad credit car loans. Even more events go unreported, the authorities said.
“If you have an issue in the air there’s not a whole lot you can do to recover from it,” said Gerald McNerney, a vice president at Motorola, which provides hand-held devices to airlines. “You put your brand at risk if one of your devices has an issue with the battery. What we’ve done is look at creating backups, duplicity in development so that you’re not going to have an explosion.”
Figures from the Consumer Product Safety Commission Web site show that at least 400,000 portable device batteries have been recalled so far this year, an indication that manufacturing problems are sometimes to blame. Batteries are also becoming more powerful, so that even the smallest have the potential to unleash a lot of heat.
“The battery industry is trying to squeeze more juice into these batteries for longer life,” said Joe Delcambre, a spokesman for the hazardous materials agency. “Smaller battery, more life, with a terminal that can overheat the product — it’s a risk.”
“We have to get people aware of the safety factors to reduce the risk of traveling with batteries.” Mr. Delcambre said.
Considering that problems with batteries are occurring on passenger planes at a rate of one every four months, Merritt Birky, formerly a fire and explosions expert with the National Transportation Safety Board who is now a private consultant, suggests they should be kept where passengers can keep an eye on them and out of overhead storage bins.
“Any time you have a fire on board it’s alarming, especially in the overhead bin,” Mr. Birky said. “That area is chock full of luggage and coats so you have lots of fuel for a fire and it’s going to go undetected for quite some time.”
The Transportation Department has created a Web site that includes the rules on traveling with lithium batteries, and it works with the manufacturers of portable electronic devices to spread the word about the hazards. But the transportation safety board estimated that only one person in every 170 to 190 travelers had actually visited the Web site.
“Most air passengers and flight crews are likely unaware of the fire risks posed by rechargeable lithium batteries,” the board wrote in 2008 in recommending a more aggressive approach to educating the public. The F.A.A. plans to follow that suggestion when it begins broadcasting public service announcements in airports next year, Mr. Bonanti said.
“There’s a whole slew of things that can go wrong with a lithium battery,” he said, adding that no matter how comfortable people are with their hand-held devices, caution is the best course of action.
The Fire Risk That Clears Security
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10.26.09
Posted in .com, All, economic, money, online tagged business, life, news, reviews, writing at 3:00 am by carydalton
Filed at 8:56 p.m. ET
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s economy grew at its fastest pace in over seven years in the third quarter amid strength in manufacturing and capital spending, the central bank said Monday, as Asian countries lead the global recovery.
Gross domestic product grew 2.9 percent in the three months ended Sept. 30 compared with the previous quarter when it expanded 2.6 percent, the Bank of Korea announced. The figure is preliminary and subject to revision.
That marked the strongest growth since an expansion of 3.8 percent in the first quarter of 2002, according to bank data.
South Korea has been recovering from its worst downturn since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis as a weaker currency and government stimulus programs overseas boost exports. Record-low interest rates and government spending at home have also helped stimulate Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
The unemployment rate fell in September to a nine-month low of 3.4 percent, consumer and business sentiment have risen and the current account — South Korea’s broadest measure of trade — is firmly back in surplus after a deficit last year for the first time since 1997. Hyundai Motor Co. (OOTC:HYMOF) and Kia Motors Corp., both major exporters, reported record quarterly net profit in the third quarter as sales rose.
The country’s latest GDP figure marks the third straight three-month period that the economy has grown. It eked out a 0.1 percent expansion in the first quarter after having contracted 5.1 percent in the final three months of 2008.
The central bank also said Monday that South Korea’s economy grew in the third quarter compared with the same period last year, expanding 0.6 percent. That snapped three straight quarters of year-on-year contraction.
Manufacturing expanded 8.7 percent in the third quarter, while capital spending grew 8 no fax payday advance.9 percent.
The latest growth figures also add to evidence that Asian countries are leading a recovery in the world economy after it slumped severely in the aftermath of the global financial meltdown last year.
China’s economy, the world’s third largest, grew 8.9 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, accelerating from an expansion of 7.9 percent in the second. Singapore’s economy grew an annualized 14.9 percent in the third quarter, expanding for a second straight three-month period.
Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, grew at an annual pace of 2.3 percent in the second quarter, following a yearlong contraction. Japan has yet to release figures for the third quarter.
Asia’s performance contrasts with that of other major economies, some of which remain mired in recession. The German and French economies each grew a modest 0.3 percent in the second quarter. They have yet to release results for the third.
Britain’s economy, however, shrank 0.4 percent in the third quarter, confounding expectations of growth.
The United States shrank 0.7 percent in the second quarter, though is expected to have expanded in the third after four straight quarters of decline.
Given South Korea’s recovery, economists have been closely watching the Bank of Korea for signs it may begin to raise its key interest rate, which has been kept at a record low 2 percent for an eight months. At it most recent meeting this month, the bank largely doused speculation a rise could come this year. Economists expect it to lift borrowing costs, gradually beginning early next year.
South Korea’s Economy Grows at Fastest Pace in 7 Years
Hot News: Green Inc. Column: A Cascade of Plug-In Efficiencies
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10.25.09
Posted in All, economic, money, online, world of money tagged business, life, marketing, newsreports, people at 1:06 am by carydalton
LOS ANGELES
FILM studio management just keeps getting thinner, and it has nothing to do with that cayenne pepper and lemon juice diet that’s been going around since Beyoncé used it to drop weight for “Dreamgirls” a few years ago.
This is serious stuff, a reordering in the way companies like Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and others are structured at the top of their movie-making units.
Earlier this month, Universal Pictures became skinnier by ousting its chairman, Marc Shmuger and co-chairman David Linde. They had been caught in an internal struggle over strategy with Ron Meyer, the president of a unit immediately over the studio.
The company named a new chairman, Adam Fogelson, and co-chairwoman, Donna Langley. But the promotions came from within, tightening a management group that had spread its movie-making decisions across three layers of power players who were not playing well together.
At the same time, the Walt Disney Company said it was trimming about 50 employees, including a number of managers, at its storied Miramax unit, which cut output by more than half, to about three films a year.
It’s a safe bet that movies aren’t going to become more daring or interesting as executives become jittery about their thinning ranks.
Already, studios have been shying away from serious dramas and trickier bets like the baseball film “Moneyball,” which was set to be directed by Steven Soderbergh with Brad Pitt in the lead, until Sony pulled the plug on the eve of production earlier this year.
The majors appear to be hunting for raucous comedies like “The Hangover” or thrillers like “Taken” — relatively low-cost movies with far more upside potential than downside risk.
The cuts have been part of Hollywood’s general effort to reduce production as revenue, particularly from DVD sales, falls. The cuts came shortly after Dick Cook, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios, resigned under pressure as his operation’s bottom line weakened.
The grisly posters for the Stephen King movie “Thinner,” a 1996 film about a lawyer whose misdeeds doom him to keep shrinking, carried a line: “Let the curse fit the crime.”
Something like that appears to be happening here.
During the good years, right into 2008, Hollywood did what any fat and happy industry would do: It piled up managers, larding the ranks with two and even three people in jobs that had previously been done by one.
Over at Columbia Pictures, Matt Tolmach and Doug Belgrad were among the last to take part in the trend. They were named president in March of last year, filling a job that had earlier been held only by Peter Schlessel, who was promoted to president of worldwide affairs for Columbia’s parent, Sony Pictures Entertainment.
But even as Mr. Tolmach and Mr. Belgrad were stepping into Mr payday loans no fax. Schlessel’s shoes (presumably one for each), managers and more than a few workers were beginning to fall away over at Warner.
There, the great diminution began in February 2008, when Time Warner’s chief executive, Jeff Bewkes, declined to renew the contracts of Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne, the co-chairmen and co-chief executives of his New Line unit. This downsizing soon brought the elimination of Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse, with their respective management teams.
For the most part, it doesn’t appear that anybody is co-anything in the upper management ranks at Warner Bros. But for months, the company’s Burbank lot has been rife with speculation that the jobs held by its chairman, Barry Meyer, and president, Alan Horn, a close-knit pair, might someday be collapsed into one.
Sometimes, joint management has seemed to work, at last as far as those of us on the outside can tell. Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos, have operated well for years as co-chairmen of Fox Filmed Entertainment and were rewarded in March with added responsibility for the production of television entertainment.
Elsewhere, accumulating managers quickly began to trip over each other. That happened at Paramount, where John Lesher, the president of the motion picture group, and Brad Weston, the president of production, were ousted in June. At the time, some of those left behind at Paramount (who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a policy against discussing management in public), explained that top executives simply didn’t have enough to do as film output dropped.
THERE is also the matter of cost: Studio chiefs don’t come cheap.
While bonus payments have presumably been less burdensome in these down times, the base annual salary for the chairman of a movie unit — a figure typically not disclosed in corporate filings — can easily reach $5 million, according to estimates offered privately by four Hollywood power players, all of whom were queried on the matter this month. (Those, like the two Mr. Meyers, who employ studio chiefs like Mr. Fogelson at Universal or his Warner movie group counterpart, Jeff Robinov, are almost certainly making more.)
Eliminating an extra chief here and there can also help contain salaries up and down the line. “People below get overpaid to justify the overpayment of the person directly above them in the hierarchy,” said Roger Smith, a former Hollywood executive who is executive editor of Global Media Intelligence.
As to where things go from here, Mr. Smith had a few words of caution, at least for those at the chairman level. “Someone with ‘vice’ in his title should be fairly nervous,” he said.
Scene Stealer: The Skinnier Look of Studio Management
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10.23.09
Posted in .com, money, news, shortly, top tagged blogs, economics, economy, life, money at 11:41 pm by carydalton
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks fell on Friday, with the major indexes slipping for the first week in three, as industrial companies' weak results overshadowed robust earnings from tech and retail heavy-weights.
The blue-chip Dow average finished below 10,000 for the second time this week.
A stronger U.S. dollar hit commodity prices, hurting the energy and materials sectors, while an analyst's comments on a major railroad's stock hit the transports sector.
Shares of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp (BNI.N), the second-biggest U.S. railroad, slid over 6 percent after an RBC Capital analyst cut his price target on the stock and helped drive the Dow Jones Transportation Average (.DJT) down 3.5 percent. An index of S&P industrial companies (.GSPI) lost 1.7 percent.
The U.S. dollar rose against the pound after data showed the UK posted its sixth straight quarter of contraction in gross domestic product, the longest stretch on record, and better-than-expected U.S. housing data gave the greenback an extra boost.
The dollar's strength helped push oil and commodity prices lower, sending shares of companies in the energy and materials sectors down. The S&P materials sector (.GSPM) fell 2.1 percent.
But shares of technology bellwether Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) jumped 5.4 percent to $28.02 and online retailer Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) soared a whopping 26.8 percent to $118.49 after earlier climbing to a lifetime high of $119.65.
"In the face of a market moving down, Microsoft and Amazon are up strong. Today it is not a stock market, but a market of stocks. If companies come out with good reports, they are being rewarded," said Robert Auer, senior portfolio manager at SBAuer Funds in Indianapolis.
"For the rest of the market, it is a normal day. We're up more than 50 percent on the S&P from the March lows, and the market just has to go down sometimes."
The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) dropped 109.13 points, or 1.08 percent, to 9,972.18, marking its second finish this week below the 10,000 mark. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) dropped 13.31 points, or 1.22 percent, to 1,079.60. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) dropped 10.82 points, or 0.50 percent, to 2,154.47.
On Wednesday, the Dow industrials also finished slightly below the 10,000 mark following a late sell-off led by financial stocks.
For the week, the Dow slipped 0 allstate insurance company.2 percent and the S&P 500 declined 0.7 percent, while the Nasdaq dipped 0.1 percent.
RAILROADS' ROUGH DAY
In Friday's session, Burlington Northern's shares fell 6.5 percent, or $5.50, to $79.12 a day after the company reported a 30 percent drop in quarterly profit. The company hauls a variety of commodities such as coal, grain, lumber, construction materials, automobiles and consumer goods.
An RBC Capital analyst cut his price target on Burlington Northern's stock to $87 from $91, while keeping his "underperform" rating.
Shares of Union Pacific Corp (UNP.N), the largest U.S. railroad, tumbled 5.6 percent, or $3.39, to $57.73.
Oilfield services company Schlumberger Ltd (SLB.N) dropped 5 percent to $65.20 after it warned natural gas drilling activity would remain weak until late 2010. [ID:nN2248654] This year, natural gas prices globally have been too low to justify much drilling of new wells, Schlumberger said.
U.S. crude oil futures fell 69 cents, or 0.9 percent, to settle at $80.50 a barrel. The S&P energy sector index (.GSPE) slid 2 percent.
Top decliners in the tech sector included Broadcom Corp (BRCM.O) and MEMC Electronic Materials Inc (WFR.N) following disappointing quarterly results.
Shares of Broadcom, which makes chips for everything from cellphones to TV set-top boxes, slid 7.3 percent to $28.50 on Nasdaq. The stock of MEMC Electronic Materials, which makes silicon, the major raw material for the solar and semiconductor industries, dropped 10.1 percent to $13.87 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The semiconductor index (.SOXX) lost 3.2 percent.
Earlier in the day, September data showed sales of previously owned U.S. homes surged to their highest level since July 2007.
Volume was moderate on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1.28 billion shares changing hands, below last year's estimated daily average of 1.49 billion. On the Nasdaq, about 2.48 billion shares traded, above last year's daily average of 2.28 billion.
Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a ratio of about 3 to 1, while on the Nasdaq, nearly 10 stocks fell for every three that rose.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Aarthi Sivaraman; Editing by Jan Paschal)
Wall St falls on weak industrials; transports drag
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Posted in Free blog Tips, hot news, money, online, world of money tagged business, campaign, markets, people, politics at 2:25 am by carydalton
The New York Times Company reported a $35.6 million loss for the third quarter on Thursday, as newspaper advertising revenue fell nearly 30 percent, but it managed to beat expectations based on continued deep cost-cutting and newspaper price increases.
The company raised its estimate of 2009 expense reductions to $475 million from $450 million, and said there are signs that the drop in advertising is slowing in the fourth quarter. The news comes three days after the company announced that it would eliminate 100 positions in the newsroom of The New York Times by year’s end through buyouts and layoffs, after a similar reduction early last year.
The net loss of 25 cents a share compared with a loss of 74 cents a share in the period a year earlier. The third-quarter 2009 loss included a one-time $76.1 million charge for pension obligations at The Boston Globe. Excluding severance and special items, the company posted a gain of 16 cents a share, well ahead of the average analyst’s estimate of a 1 cent loss, compared with a 5 cent gain in the period a year earlier.
Times Company shares rose 14.2 percent in early trading after the earnings announcement, to $10, a gain of $1.25. It is the stock’s highest point in nearly 12 months.
The largest segment of the company reached a watershed moment, collecting more from readers than from advertisers, in an industry where advertising traditionally outweighed circulation in revenue by at least three to one. At the company’s New York Times Media Group, which includes The Times and The International Herald Tribune, circulation revenue reached $175.2 million in the third quarter, while ad revenue dropped to $164.5 million.
The Times Company had a smaller drop in overall revenue than other major publishers have reported, on the strength of a 6 payday loan.7 percent circulation revenue increase, after raising the prices of The Times and The Globe. Excluding the effects of a money-losing distribution subsidiary that closed in January, total revenue for the company fell 14.3 percent, to $570.6 million.
Ad revenue at the company’s News Media Group, which includes all of its newspapers, fell 29.6 percent compared to the period a year earlier — essentially unchanged from the 30 percent drop in the first half of the year. That compared to a 28.4 percent third-quarter decline for the publishing division of the Gannett Company, and 28.1 percent for the McClatchy Company.
“Early in the fourth quarter, print advertising trends, in comparison to the third quarter, have improved modestly, while digital advertising trends are improving significantly,” said Janet L. Robinson, president and chief executive of the Times Company.
Internet revenue declined 7.2 percent, to $78.9 million. That includes a 7.2 percent increase at the About Group, which includes About.com, and an 18.5 percent decline in digital advertising revenue at the News Media Group.
The company cut operating costs 22.4 percent, to $525.1 million. It lowered outstanding debt to $910 million, down $140 million since the start of the year.
This month, the company said it had dropped plans to sell The Globe, but it recently completed the sale of its radio station, WQXR-FM, for $45 million. It is still trying to sell its 17.75 percent stake in New England Sports Ventures, which owns the Boston Red Sox and Fenway Park.
Times Co. Shows Loss but Beats Forecast
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10.21.09
Posted in Free blog Tips, hot news, news, top, world of money tagged economy, markets, newsreports, opinion, personal at 10:05 pm by carydalton
MOSCOW — President Dmitri A. Medvedev on Wednesday used a now-traditional annual meeting with Russian oligarchs to scold them for their corporate missteps and for corruption, while also demanding that they take a more patriotic approach to conducting business affairs.
In one exchange highlighting the always delicate relationship between the Kremlin and the oligarchy, Mr. Medvedev listened as the Siberian mining magnate, Oleg V. Deripaska, explained that it now seemed all but impossible to get a fair hearing in a Russian court.
“Everybody knows you need to pay,” Mr. Deripaska said at the meeting in the Kremlin. He described the Russian judiciary as “overgrown” with mediators who solicit payments on behalf of judges.
Mr. Medvedev responded that this state of affairs should hardly come as a surprise to the oligarchs, who, after all, had been the ones doing the paying for many years. “A question arises: Who pays them, these mediators?” he said. “I suspect it is business and not somebody else that pays them.”
“This phenomenon did not appear yesterday or the day before yesterday,” Mr. Medvedev said of court corruption. He told the oligarchs to report court corruption to prosecutors.
The meeting, held in a reception hall in the Kremlin, is traditionally open to journalists for an introductory statement by the president and a comment or two from oligarchs he selects to speak, suggesting the exchanges are at least in part choreographed by the Kremlin fast cash.
Mr. Deripaska used his time first to make a jab, apparently, at Mikhail M. Fridman, whose Alfa Bank had threatened Mr. Deripaska’s aluminum smelters with bankruptcy proceedings in Russian courts. While other banks had agreed to restructure the debt, Alfa Bank had pressed ahead with its collection efforts and a threat of using the Russian courts.
Mr. Deripaska suggested this was a situation that “deserves your attention.”
In other remarks, Mr. Medvedev told the businessmen that Russia was falling dangerously behind in technology. They must invest in technological innovation or face obsolescence when Russia opens its economy to greater competition after joining the World Trade Organization, he said. “The crisis revealed the weakest side of our economy,” he said.
The richest oligarch of the group, Mikhail D. Prokhorov, was not at the meeting, but it seemed that his recent activities had not escaped Mr. Medvedev’s attention. Mr. Prokhorov, a basketball fan, announced last month he would buy the New Jersey Nets.
Oligarchs, Mr. Medvedev said, sometimes invested “in the best foreign companies in industry, finance, trade, media and even sports. And, generally, this isn’t so bad. But we, and I mean the government and the people, have a right to expect the same activity inside the country.”
Oligarchs Get an Earful From Russian President
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10.20.09
Posted in .com, hot news, news, online, world of money tagged All, economy, financial, life, world at 6:35 pm by carydalton
NEW YORK/ZURICH (Reuters) – Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) said on Tuesday it would make executives wait three-to-four years for their bonuses, as governments press banks to use compensation packages to limit excessive risk taking.
Switzerland's largest bank by market capitalization will increase the base salary of its executives' pay and link deferred bonuses to business performance and share price.
The new pay formula takes effect January 1 and applies to 2009 compensation for just over 7,000 senior staff, or about 15 percent of the bank's workforce, Credit Suisse said.
"At a time of strong focus on executive compensation, we are announcing a compensation structure that enables us to strike the right balance between paying our employees competitively, doing what is right for our shareholders, and responding appropriately to regulatory initiatives and political as well as public concerns," Chief Executive Brady Dougan said in a statement.
Credit Suisse said deferred variable compensation will have two components — cash and stock.
The stock component will vest over four years and may increase depending on Credit Suisse's share price and its return on equity over those years.
The deferred cash component will vest over three years and will be adjusted annually based on Credit Suisse's return on equity and business performance.
The bank said the new pay formula applies to managing directors, directors and members of the executive board, but not to employees at the level of vice president and below.
The bank also introduced minimum share ownership requirements for senior executives.
Credit Suisse introduced deferred compensation programs even before the subprime crisis. It stood out among financial institutions last year when it decided to award toxic assets to bankers as part of their variable compensation.
FOLLOWING G-20 GUIDELINES
Credit Suisse said the new compensation structure is consistent with guidelines recently announced by the Group of 20 major powers payday loans for bad credit. The guidelines included a ban on multiyear bonus guarantees, clawing back pay where performance has slumped, paying more bonuses in shares, and limiting bonuses as a percentage of revenue in cases where banks have low capital.
"You have less variability of compensations. Employees will have more certainty about their compensations because their bases are going up and it will be less tied to productivity," said Keith Wirtz, president and chief investment officer at Fifth Third Asset Management.
"It is raising the cost structure. You are not paying people based on contribution to profits. There is less discrimination, less distinction on who drives profits versus who doesn't."
Years of multimillion-dollar bonuses awarded to financial executives, even at money-losing firms, have outraged political leaders and become a target for advocates of tighter oversight of banks and capital markets.
Earlier this year a furor erupted over millions of dollars in bonuses paid to executives at taxpayer bailed-out U.S. insurance giant American International Group Inc (AIG.N).
Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N), whose lavish compensation has drawn scrutiny, is on a pace to hand out more than $20 billion in bonuses at year-end. That would be equivalent to more than $630,000 per employee and could surpass the record compensation of 2007.
"Credit Suisse's actions won't be isolated. You will see others entities adopt similar kind of programs," Wirtz said.
(Reporting by Juan Lagorio in New York and Lisa Jucca in Zurich; editing by John Wallace, Leslie Gevirtz)
Credit Suisse changes executive pay structure
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Posted in .com, Free blog Tips, money, news, world of money tagged economics, marketing, money, people, world at 7:48 am by carydalton
MÉRIGNAC, France — On a recent afternoon at the sprawling Dassault Aviation plant, on the perimeter of the Bordeaux airport, the smell of kerosene hung in the air as engineers tested hydraulics and fuel systems on the combat jet Rafale.
Those planes are destined for delivery to the French military, just like the previous 70 to 80 that have rolled off the assembly line. But there is a sense of cautious optimism here that the Rafale is finally within touching distance of a long-sought goal: its first foreign sale.
A tentative deal with Brazil worth 5 billion euros ($7.46 billion), announced last month, would go some way toward offsetting the downturn at Dassault’s commercially more important Falcon business jet division. It also would help France recapture some of the glory — and export revenue — lost when the Rafale’s predecessor, the Mirage, ceased production in 2007.
With military budgets under pressure and many potential clients tied to American fighters, Dassault has been fighting for the leftovers of contracts with the French companies Thales and the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company.
Along with market leaders like Boeing and Lockheed Martin, Dassault’s competitors include the advanced but expensive pan-European twin-engine Eurofighter, which operates in Europe and Saudi Arabia; the Saab Gripen, in Sweden, the Czech Republic, Hungary and South Africa; and the Russian Sukhoi and MIG.
“The market is shrinking, and there are too many players,” said Eugene Kogan, guest researcher at the International Institute for Liberal Policy in Vienna. “And it looks like China may soon start to move into some of the markets once dominated by Russia.”
With its modest size — the group employs 12,500 — Dassault has retained a reputation for agility not always apparent in French industry.
The Brazilians, meanwhile emboldened by their booming economy, are looking for a flexible, twin-engine combat jet to guard their offshore oil deposits and the vast Amazon rain forest. Should the deal go through, they would acquire more than just 36 planes.
The sale also includes a total transfer of technology, which would enable Brazil to assemble most of the Rafale jets itself and sell them regionally. The contract might rise to 120 aircraft.
The terms illustrate the pressures on Dassault and a handful of other military companies competing in a tightening global market.
Not only are advanced new American and European jets coming to market, but also looming on the horizon are the prospect of advanced unmanned fighters and even competition from China, using technology from Israeli and Russian jets.
Jean-Paul Hébert, a strategic expert at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, says Dassault is facing “an appallingly hard decision” as it debates the post-Rafale era. “Long-term research costs are very heavy, and the French arms industry has not been that commercially very successful alone,” he said.
The Rafale was conceived in the mid-1980s and first test-flown in 1991 as a successor to a series of aircraft that included the Mirage, which earned its stripes during the Six-Day War in the Middle East outside fireplace plans. Some 2,800 Mirages were delivered, more than half — 57 percent — for export.
But the French military wanted new capabilities, and so Dassault turned to the Rafale. The first prototype was built in 1986, and it entered service in 2001. Its sleek twin- or single-seat jets are recognizable by their main Delta wings and mini-canard wings below the cockpit; land and sea versions have been built. Its engine is made by the French company Snecma, and Dassault expects the plane to be enhanced by an upgraded RBE2 radar from Thales, in which Dassault took a 26 percent stake this year.
Dassault has come close to exporting the Rafale before, notably to Morocco in 2007 and Singapore and South Korea previously, but those governments chose American hardware instead. The disappointments were blamed on bureaucratic problems in Paris and Washington’s greater clout.
The Brazil package would be complex. Six jets would be made in France and 30 assembled in Brazil by Embraer, in which Dassault has a stake of 0.9 percent. The contract might expand to 120 aircraft, and comes alongside sales of other French hardware to the country and planned purchases by France of Brazilian transport planes.
“It looks like technology transfer was pretty critical,” said Rebecca Grant, senior fellow at the Lexington Institute, a research body in Arlington, Va.
Mrs. Grant also said that the market would become more difficult once the Joint Strike Fighter from Lockheed Martin arrives in the next few years. Also known as the F-35, it appears to be the favored choice among NATO countries like Norway, the Netherlands and Poland, which are tempted by shared production to replace their mainstay F-16s.
The F-35, hit by delays, is now projected by the Government Accountability Office to cost Washington $300 billion for 2,440 deliveries, above 2001 estimates.
Dassault’s most important product is the Falcon business jet, which has been transporting royalty, pop stars and chief executives for decades.
Over the last five years, Falcons represented on average 60 percent of sales and 80 percent of orders; Dassault received 115 orders in 2008, down from 212 a year earlier, and expects even fewer this year.
Falcons, which cost $30 million to $50 million each, are finished in Little Rock, Ark., from parts built in France.
At Mérignac, workers were assembling a Falcon 7X for NetJets, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. Other clients like Royal Bank of Scotland and Citigroup canceled orders last year in the wake of the financial crisis.
Olivier Brochet, an analyst at Natixis Securities, said Rafale exports might help offset lower demand for the Falcon.
Analysts estimate on average that Dassault will have revenue of 3.5 billion euros in 2009, and profit of 289 million euros, down from revenue of 3.75 billion euros and profit of 373 million euros in 2008.
Jet Deal With Brazil Is a Sign of Contractors’ Woes
Hot News: F.D.A. Says No, for Now, to an Amgen Bone Drug
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10.19.09
Posted in hot news, news, shortly, top, world of money tagged financial, life, marketing, reviews, world at 8:36 am by carydalton
(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures pointed to a rebound on Wall Street on Monday, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.46 percent, Dow Jones futures up 0.26 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.52 percent at 3.30 a.m. EDT.
Oil prices steadied after hitting a fresh 12-month high above $79 a barrel on Monday, while metal prices also rose.
China's gross domestic product grew more than 7 percent in the first nine months, a senior official from the National Development and Reform Commission said on Monday. Speaking at a news conference, Xiong Bilin said China would have no difficulty reaching the government's full-year GDP growth target of 8 percent.
Google Inc (GOOG.O) said more than 2 million businesses now use its online office software, and the Web search leader is going global on Monday with an advertising campaign to lure customers away from Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and IBM (IBM.N) products.
General Electric Co (GE.N) and Vivendi SA (VIV.PA) are about $500 million apart in talks over what Vivendi should be paid for its NBC Universal stake, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday instant payday loan.
Japan's Nikkei stock average (.N225) fell 0.2 percent, with exporters such as Kyocera Corp (6971.T) losing ground, while European stocks were up 1 percent in morning trade, with banks such as HSBC (HSBA.L) leading the gains.
On the earnings front, Apple Inc (AAPL.O), BB&T Corp (BBT.N), Gannett Co Inc (GCI.N) and Texas Instruments Inc (TXN.N) are among companies set to report results on Monday.
U.S. stocks dropped on Friday after disappointing results from General Electric Co (GE.N) and Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) demonstrated the road to economic recovery will be bumpy.
The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) fell 67.03 points, or 0.67 percent, to 9,995.91. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) lost 8.88 points, or 0.81 percent, to 1,087.68. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) gave up 16.49 points, or 0.76 percent, at 2,156.80.
(Reporting by Blaise Robinson; Editing by Hans Peters)
Stock futures signal rebound along with commods
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