Archive for category Trading Markets
The Real Reason Gas Prices Are Soaring
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Trading Markets on Март 31st, 2011
Have you ever wondered why when you go to the gas station to fill up the family car, the price of gas at the pump has just jumped 25 cents a gallon over the past three days? Perhaps you thought the oil companies were just being greedy. Or you believed the nightly news pundit who said that gas prices went up because the crisis in Libya was affecting supplies of oil. One professional oil trader says that you’d be wrong on both counts.
Dan Dicker, who has spent nearly three decades in the oil market, has a profoundly disturbing explanation of why the price of oil, and the gasoline that comes from the crude product, has risen so dramatically in recent months. It turns out, Dicker says, that the price has nothing to do with supply and demand for oil. It’s the financial market for oil, filled with both professional speculators and amateur investors betting on poorly understood oil exchange-traded funds, who have ratcheted up the price of gas to such sky high levels.
«There is no supply issue going on here — what you have is the perception of the possibility of a supply issue,» Dicker says. «A whole bunch of people are pouring money into an oil market trying to take advantage of what they perceive to be a real risk in supply. It’s a marketplace that I argue should not be allowed to be wagered on like a stock or bond.»
Dicker notes that Libya produces only 1.3 million barrels of oil a day, just a tiny fraction of the world oil market. Even if Libyan crude were lost to the world market in the current turmoil, and there is no sign that it is, Saudi Arabia has 5 million barrels a day to use in case of an emergency. Read the rest of this entry »
Wal-Mart Discrimination Case Grapples with Implicit Biases against Women
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Trading Markets on Март 29th, 2011
As the New York Times‘ Adam Liptak reported today, the Supreme Court will decide on Tuesday whether 1.5 million women will be permitted to proceed with their gender discrimination class action against Wal-Mart.
The high court is being asked to decide what role it believes social science research should play in determining whether implicit bias is responsible for women’s underpay and under-representation in Wal-Mart’s management ranks. At the center of the Supreme Court case is the testimony of Sociology Professor William T. Bielby, at University of Illinois at Chicago.
Bielby opined in the lower court that all of the class members were treated unfairly in pay and promotions even though he did not review the individual personnel decisions. In his report to the Court, Bielby opined that “[s]ubjective and discretionary features of the company’s personnel policy and practice ma[d]e decisions about compensation and promotion vulnerable to gender bias.” He also asserted that there were “significant deficiencies in the company’s policies and practices for identifying and eliminating barriers to equal employment opportunity at Wal-Mart.”
When asked in his pre-trial testimony “how regularly stereotypes play a meaningful role in [Wal-Mart's] employment decisions,” Bielby couldn’t “put a number on it.” Prodded further, he admitted that he would be unable to give a range anywhere between “.5 percent of the employment decisions and 99.5%.” Read the rest of this entry »
Japan nuclear crisis: Why are the spent-fuel pools so hard to control?
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Favourites, Trading Markets on Март 24th, 2011
As workers struggle to bring the Fukushima I nuclear plant back under full control, spent-fuel pools appear to be a source of continuing problems. On Tuesday morning, one pool was so hot that its remaining water was either boiling or close to it, according to the Associated Press.
Emergency crews dumped 15 tons of seawater into the pool to cool it to about 105 degrees F., Japanese authorities said later in the day.
If heat in the pool continues to build and water boils down and fuel rods stored in the pool are exposed, more radiation might escape into the atmosphere.
Yet firetrucks and other water-pumping equipment have been shooting streams of water at these pools for days during the Japan nuclear crisis. Why are they so proving so difficult to manage?
The pools at the Fukushima complex are just that – open basins resembling swimming pools. Six are perched on a sort of mezzanine above and adjacent to reactor containment vessels. They’re about 40 feet long by 30 feet wide by 36 feet deep, though they vary in size. Read the rest of this entry »
Toyota Plants in Japan Closed Through March 26
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Trading Markets on Март 23rd, 2011
Toyota Motor (TM) said Tuesday it will keep all 12 of its assembly plants in Japan closed through at least March 26 as it struggles to get back on its feet following the country’s catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.
The world’s largest automaker halted vehicle production at the plants on March 14, including those of its subsidiary manufacturers. A decision about when vehicle production will resume in the island nation has yet to be made.
Production of replacement parts, however, resumed on March 17 for vehicles already on the market. On Monday it resumed production of parts for vehicles in overseas markets.
The impact on its North American operations so far remains limited, with all 13 vehicle and engine plants in the region running normally, though overtime has been curtailed to conserve parts that come from suppliers in Japan. Read the rest of this entry »
Move Over, Apple! My Tablet Cost $200
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Trading Markets on Март 15th, 2011
I didn’t want to spend $500 for a tablet computer. I didn’t even want to spend $400. So instead I went online and bought a brand-new tablet for a bit less. The cost? Less than $200 … and about 20 minutes of my time. No kidding.
It’s hardly a perfect comparison—more on this below—but the tablet is perfect for what I want. I’m not talking about one of those junk tablets from a Chinese website, either.
I bought a Barnes & Noble Nook Color tablet (for $190 plus tax from a temporary online promotion, down from the usual $250). And then I downloaded a very simple, perfectly legal software fix from the Internet that turned it into a fully functioning tablet running on Google’s Android platform. The fix, known as a «rooting,» unlocks Barnes & Noble’s proprietary overlay. The instructions came via Ars Technica, a reputable site devoted to technology, and were pretty easy to follow.
I wasn’t really expecting it to work. I tried it as an experiment. But the results were remarkable.
The Nook Color, which was designed mainly for reading books and magazines, is about half the size of an iPad or a Xoom. It weighs about 30% less. It runs on WiFi, but not 3G. It has an absolutely superb screen. And, once you’ve unlocked the software, it runs many Android applications, from email to news readers TweetDeck to, yes, Angry Birds. Read the rest of this entry »
World’s Most Admired Companies: Apple Is Still No. 1
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Favourites, Trading Markets on Март 10th, 2011
Apple
Top 50 rank: 1
Rank in Computers: 1 (Previous rank: 1)
Why it’s admired
For the fourth straight year, Apple (AAPL) tops Fortune’s Most Admired list. This year, the company’s blistering pace of new product releases has continued to set the bar high for tech companies across the board.
Apple took a stock hit when it released news of iconic CEO Steve Jobs’ ailing health in January, but Jobs assured the market in the company’s earnings report that Apple was still «firing on all cylinders.»
It certainly appears to be. Apple nearly doubled its quarterly profits vs. a year ago. The iPad 2 was introduced in March, marking the second generation of one of Apple’s milestone product successes.
Another huge move by Apple was the announcement this January that the iPhone 4 would be available from Verizon, offering another option to consumers frustrated with dropped calls on AT&T. Read the rest of this entry »
Food prices hit record high in February
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Trading Markets on Март 9th, 2011
Global food prices have reached their highest point in 20 years and could increase further because of rising oil prices stemming from the unrest in Libya and the Mideast, a U.N. agency warned Thursday.
Skyrocketing food prices have been among the triggers for protests in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere, and raised fears of a repeat of the food price crises in 2007 and 2008.
Some experts point to key differences compared to those years: for one, the price of rice, an important food security commodity, is much lower today. Still, Oxfam called the hike «deeply worrying.»
The Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement that its food price index was up 2.2 percent last month, the highest record in both real, inflation-corrected terms and nominal terms since the agency started monitoring prices two decades ago.
It also was the eighth consecutive month that food prices had risen, the Rome-based agency said. In January, the index had already registered a record peak.
The increase was driven mostly by higher prices of cereals, meat and dairy products, FAO said. Sugar was the only commodity of the groups being monitored whose price hadn’t risen. Read the rest of this entry »
Twitter Says No Plans for IPO or Fundraising on the Horizon
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Trading Markets on Март 8th, 2011
Investors looking to tweet about a Twitter IPO found their hopes shot down Thursday for at least the next 12 months. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone (pictured), speaking at a conference in Seoul, Korea, rejected talk of an IPO. He also punctured the widely reported notion, according to Reuters, that the popular microblogging social networking site was in talks to sell a 10% stake to JPMorgan Chase for $450 million — which would have jacked up the site’s valuation to $4.5 billion.
Twitter’s IPO denial is nothing new, and Stone’s comments that the company re are no plans over the next 12 months to raise further funds is not surprising after its $200 million funding round announced last December, which valued the company at $3.7 billion. But Stone’s comments suggested that investors may have a long wait and threw cold water on the notion that JPMorgan (JPM) is lining up to fund the company.
Stone’s comments sent users of the service into a tweet storm.
Geraldebner tweets: «Twitter has no plans to go public: founder: Biz Stone also dismissed reports JPMorgan Chase & Co. was in talks.»
D_K_BRANTLEY tweets: «Thank God — stop giving JPM business! «@NewYorkPost: Twitter says no plans for IPO; $450M sale to JPMorgan ‘made up»
Andrewquinn tweets: «Stone tells Rtrs no IPO or need for additional funds…says (surprise) they making plenty money as it is»
Stone, according to the Reuters report, said in reference to an IPO: «We have so many other things before we even think about that.» Read the rest of this entry »
Oil shock could push world food prices higher
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Favourites, Trading Markets on Март 7th, 2011
Food prices worldwide continued to rise in February, and the recent spike in oil prices could push food costs even higher in the months ahead, according to a report from the United Nations.
The food price index, which measures prices for a basket of food commodities, rose 2.2% last month, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. The index has increased for the last eight months in a row, and is at the highest level since it was created in 1990.
Sugar prices were slightly lower in February, compared with the month before. But prices for cereals, dairy products, meats and all other commodities in the index rose.
The FAO said it expects cereal prices to be sharply higher this year, due to shrinking inventories of wheat and coarse grains on top of growing demand. Export prices for major grains were up 70% last month versus February 2010, the report said.
From bad to worse: Global food prices have been moving higher in recent months as demand from emerging nations increases, and bad weather in certain parts of the world has cut the supply of key agricultural commodities.
But the recent run-up in oil prices threatens to make the situation even worse, the FAO warned. Read the rest of this entry »
Retailers report solid gains in February
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Trading Markets on Март 4th, 2011
Shoppers braved February’s chill to hand retailers surprisingly strong sales gains, extending the momentum from a strong holiday season and providing evidence of a strengthening economic recovery. Worries are growing, however, that rising gas prices could sap shoppers’ spending in the spring.
Among major retailers reporting February results Thursday, Limited Brands Inc., J.C. Penney Co. and Macy’s Inc. reported gains that beat Wall Street expectations. Luxury retailers including Saks Inc. saw sales surge as the affluent kept spending.
There were only a few stragglers. Target Corp. announced an increase slightly below analysts’ projections. And Gap reported a bigger-than-expected drop. Stronger sales from a diverse group of retailers showed that a broader range of shoppers are benefiting from the economic recovery, says Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at the International Shopping Centers.
The ICSC said that its index of 28 retailers rose 4.2 percent for February compared with the same month last year, well above the trade group’s projections for a 2.5 percent to 3 percent increase. The gain, which builds on a 3.7 percent increase last February, follows a revised 4.7 percent increase in January and the best holiday season since 2006. Read the rest of this entry »
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