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19 Jan 2011 11:11

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Biz: Goldman Sachs has crappy quarter; sucks to be them

  • 53% the dip in Goldman Sachs’ fourth-quarter profits (after many hugely profitable quarters last year)
  • 39% the decline in Goldman’s bond-trading revenue; Goldman blamed “generally low client activity levels”
  • 2.5% the decline in their stock this morning, which has generally been strong during the financial crisis source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Jan 2011 10:37

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Biz, World: Obama’s meeting with China bears airplane-shaped fruit

  • $19 billion deal for China to buy 200 aircraft from Boeing source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Jan 2011 22:30

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Biz: Comcast + Hulu – Power to control its investment = Is that enough?

  • problemComcast wants to buy NBC Universal, but has significant reason to competitively damage online streaming site Hulu, which NBC owns a 30 percent stake in. TV fans are worried.
  • solutionThe Department of Justice is forcing Comcast out of Hulu boardroom meetings, meaning they have to allow NBC content on Hulu, but otherwise have no influence on the company. source
  • » Will this be enough? It’s too early to tell, but the Justice Department’s restrictions on Hulu essentially put Comcast in a position of wanting Hulu to succeed, because they won’t be able to sabotage it directly, but their money is still backing it. Comcast’s Executive Vice President David Cohen put it like so: “We continue to have an interest in the growth and advancement of Hulu …and we obviously prefer to maintain our ownership position and our partnership with our content.” Let’s see if this is what actually happens. (thanks popculturebrain)
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Jan 2011 22:09

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Biz, Tech: Steve Jobs may be sick, but Apple’s still killin’ profit expectations

  • Want to know the best way to get investors off your back about your iconic CEO’s illness? Post numbers that make everyone criticizing you look like chumps. That’s what Apple did today. And even though Steve is still sick (and hopefully he’s able to deal with that without a problem), the numbers suggest that Apple does so much right that it’ll be hard for them to screw up the next couple of quarters. Just to give you kids an idea:
  • $22 billion in revenues in the first quarter for Apple (very good)
  • 2% the increase in Apple’s stock after Apple’s numbers were released, nearly erasing earlier Jobs-illness-related losses
  • 4:5 the number of Fortune 500 companies currently field testing the increasingly-popular iPad – suggesting further success
  • 16.2M the number of iPhones Apple sold, which is way up from a year ago
  • 7.33M the number of iPads they sold – an extremely robust number
  • 4.1M the number of Macs they sold – also way up from a year ago source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Jan 2011 11:01

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Biz, Tech: Apple’s stock not reacting well to Steve Jobs’ medical leave

  • 5.2% decline the drop in Apple’s stock in the wake of yesterday’s announcement that Steve Jobs took medical leave
  • $19
    billion     the amount of market value that was erased in the wake of Jobs’ temporary departure source
  • » Not enough to kill their swagga: Apple shares are still up 66 percent over the last twelve months, and have a higher market capitalization than any other technology stock. So, even without Jobs, they’re still in a good financial position.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Jan 2011 09:27

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Biz: Cheezburger Network: Stupid videos, insanely high funding

  • $30 million in funding for cat videos and The Daily What source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Jan 2011 10:58

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Biz, Tech: Stock futures market not liking Steve Jobs being sick again

  • Stock markets don’t have hearts. They’re giant money machines that react to news in callous, cold ways that don’t appreciate the nuances of a person’s achievements. Which is why, when someone like Steve Jobs takes a medical leave of absence – which isn’t the big Apple announcement everyone had been expecting (wait a second, this isn’t shaped like an iPad 2!) – stocks go haywire. Fortunately, they timed the news on MLK day, so the New York stock market gets a bit of a breather. But other markets are still open today, and the futures market isn’t liking the news either. Some quick numbers for you kids:
  • 7.5% Apple’s stock dip on the German stock market today after Jobs’ announcement
  • 0.9%stock futures dip on the NASDAQ – THE ENTIRE THING – this morning after the announcement
  • 0.3% stock futures dip on the S&P 500 – ALSO THE ENTIRE THING – after he dropped the bomb source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

15 Jan 2011 12:19

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Biz: Johnson & Johnson recalls more drugs over quality issues

  • 47 million more over-the-counter drugs recalled by J&J (wow) source
  • » Why did they recall them? Mainly, there were some quality control issues with the drugs. Johnson & Johnson, which has had to recall a lot of drugs in the last little while due to safety issues, claimed that when researching the prior recalls, they found that manufacturing and safety standards weren’t up to snuff for most of the drugs recalled (Tylenol, Benadryl, Sudafed and Sinutab, which make up about 42.9 million of the 47 million recalled products). The rest of the drugs were insufficiently-labeled packs of Rolaids. J&J has lost hundreds of millions of dollars thanks to the recalls, which first began in late 2009 thanks to some metal specks in children’s medicine.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Jan 2011 13:34

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Biz, World: Could food prices be a root cause of Tunisia’s unrest?

  • 32% increase in food prices in 2010’s second half source
  • » How does this matter? We’re at a record with food prices, making it hard for people to live in third-world countries. With quick growth in countries such as China, reserves are becoming harder to keep, and the supplies of basic crops like corn and soybeans (which also get used in vast quantities for such things as ethanol) are down significantly. And since Americans tend to eat more processed foods (which use fewer raw materials), price increases aren’t felt in the developed world as much as they are in the third world. “In this country, a much higher proportion of your food dollar is spent on processing, advertising and promotion and marketing,” said Global Insight economist Tom Jackson. “There’s not really that margin built in between the farmer and the consumer in the developing countries.”

 

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Jan 2011 09:50

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Biz: With 2011 in full swing, so are fresh jobless claims

  • 35,000 the rise in jobless claims last week source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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