Posts Tagged profit
Be Wary the Rush to Gold
Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Banks on May 27th, 2010
Most of us have seen advertisements to buy gold or offering cash for gold. With the economy still unsettled and gold prices steadily rising, you may be tempted. But not all gold investments are safe.
On Tuesday, Representative Anthony D. Weiner, a Democrat from New York, attacked one company that is a gold and precious metals dealer, Goldline International Inc. He accused the company of “shady practices,” alleging that it overcharges for collector coins and provides misleading financial advice to consumers. “They’re exploiting the economy that we’re in,” he said.
Mr. Weiner also spoke of the company’s “unholy alliance” with television and radio personalities like Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and Republican presidential candidate; and Fred Thompson, a former Senator from Tennessee and TV actor. But he particularly singled out Glenn Beck, the conservative talk show host.
“It’s debatable whether gold is a good investment,” Mr. Weiner said at a news conference in front of the Mercantile Exchange building in lower Manhattan. “There’s a confluence between a declining economy and the ignorance many consumers have about how the marketplace works.” Read the rest of this entry »
Hedge funds, private equity expect tax hike
Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Budget on May 19th, 2010
Private equity, real estate and hedge fund managers are increasingly resigned to a tax increase on their profits as U.S. lawmakers get set to vote next week on a long-delayed measure.
At issue is a change in the tax treatment of profits earned by partnership fund managers, known as “carried interest.” The measure would treat the profits as ordinary income subject to a 35 percent rate, more the double the 15 percent rate they are currently taxed at as capital gains.
The tax change, which lobbyists have managed to beat back for three years, has gained steam as lawmakers hunt for revenue to fund other popular tax breaks for business that have expired. Many lobbyists and former opponents now see passage of an increase as inevitable.
“Many people are resigned because it is round four,” said Francois Hechinger, a partner at BDO Seidman advising private equity and venture capital clients..
He added that they are still putting up a fight to try to soften the impact. “If it was really their choice they wouldn’t give up on it at all.”
The $20 billion or so of revenue that the tax change could raise over a decade would help pay for a politically popular group of tax breaks for individuals and business, including a corporate research and development tax credit. Read the rest of this entry »
Wal-Mart to slash grocery prices
Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Trading Markets on March 23rd, 2010
Wal-Mart Stores Inc will cut food prices and mount a new ad campaign over the next six weeks, a threat to other U.S. grocers that sent an industry shares index down more than 2 percent on Friday.
A Morgan Stanley analyst first reported the world’s largest retailer’s plan, calling it a major setback for other U.S. grocers, and the company confirmed the promotions in an email.
“While this helps address Walmart’s traffic woes, we view this as a major setback for the grocery stocks, which have been rallying on hopes of a return to more rational pricing,” Morgan Stanley analyst Mark Wiltamuth wrote in a note on Friday.
The Standard & Poor’s Food Retail Sub-Industry Index closed down 2.2 percent.
Walmart has used aggressive pricing in grocery and other units to bring shoppers into its stores. The grocery business is particularly pressured by such pricing, as its profit margins are already low. Read the rest of this entry »
Stiglitz: Regulate Banks. Now. Everywhere.
Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Banks, Favourites on February 1st, 2010
Officials in Davos should try to reach a global consensus about the need for a new regulatory regime for banks, Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz told CNBC Friday.
Banks threaten to move to another location as soon as new taxes or regulation are announced, so the main problems that led to the financial crisis are not addressed, Stiglitz explained.
“If there was a broad consensus… this could stop this race to the bottom which got us into the mess we’re in now,” he said.
Bankers have incentives to take risk and one way to restrain them would be limiting the leverage that banks can have, according to Stiglitz.
“When they win they walk off with the profits, when they lose the taxpayer pays,” he pointed out. “We really need to go more directly at these issues like incentives.” Read the rest of this entry »
Economic survey: Job losses to bottom out in 1Q
Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Budget on November 27th, 2009
Economists expect the joblessness that has weighed down the nation’s economic recovery will start to slowly abate in 2010, but they predict consumers will continue to keep a tight rein on spending, according to a new survey.
While signs have pointed to the end of the recession, unemployment remains rampant. The national unemployment rate jumped to 10.2 percent in October, the highest in 26 years. About 9 million people currently receive unemployment benefits.
The November outlook by the National Association for Business Economics, which is set to be released Monday, shows economists expect net employment losses to bottom out in the first quarter of next year. Employers are seen starting to add to their payrolls after that.
“While the recovery has been jobless so far, that should soon change,”said Lynn Reaser, NABE’s president and chief economist at Point Loma Nazarene University.”Within the next few months, companies should be adding instead of cutting jobs.” Read the rest of this entry »
Weak US Housing Market Drags on Lowe’s Profit
Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Budget on November 19th, 2009
Lowe’s, the second-largest U.S. home improvement chain, posted a 30 percent drop in quarterly profit as consumers put off big renovations as the U.S. housing market remains sluggish, sending shares down 2.1 percent in premarket trading.
But the North Carolina-based chain gave a fourth-quarter profit forecast that could beat Wall Street expectations, noting that it was starting to see signs of improvement in some of the hardest-hit housing markets, including California and Florida.
“The broad-based pressures of the macro environment are clearly evident in our sales as consumers continue to delay large purchases until they feel better about the economic outlook,” Lowe’s Chief Executive Robert Niblock said in a statement.
Lowe’s profits fell to $344 million, or 23 cents per share, in the third quarter that ended on Oct. 30, from $488 million, or 33 cents per share, a year earlier.
Those results fell just short of analyst expectations of 24 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Read the rest of this entry »
College Costs Add Up — Before You’re Even Accepted
Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Budget on September 9th, 2009
Shopping for college gear is expensive, but shopping for a college itself can cost nearly as much.
Guide books, application fees, charges for taking standardized tests, charges for sending said test scores to schools and actually visiting the schools in question can easily cost the families of college-bound students a few thousand dollars. While some of those costs are unavoidable, there are ways to trim expenses without hurting Junior’s chances of getting into Favorite State University. Here’s how:
One inevitable expense families incur when on the college hunt comes from exams, as most colleges require a score from at least one standardized test. Registration for the SAT and ACT costs $45 and $32, respectively. Students are allowed to send SAT scores to up to four schools for free but must shell out an additional $9.50 for each school after that (plus $27 for rush reporting); the ACT charges $9-$13.
Students with extraordinary need (those who receive free or reduced-cost lunches at school) can contact their college counselors about obtaining fee waivers. John Boshoven, counselor for continuing education at Community High School in Ann Arbor, Mich., recommends other needy students ask their schools to forward test scores to colleges along with official transcripts. High schools get the scores automatically, and some universities will accept those scores as “official.” Read the rest of this entry »
U.S. Stocks Drop as Microsoft, American Express, Amazon Retreat
Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Favourites, Fund Markets on July 24th, 2009
U.S. stocks retreated from the highest levels of the year as Microsoft Corp., American Express Co. and Amazon.com Inc. posted disappointing quarterly results, overshadowing reports showing Europe’s economy improved.
Microsoft fell 10 percent, the most since January, on lower profit and sales than analysts estimated. American Express slipped 3.7 percent after saying earnings decreased as the recession made it harder for cardholders to keep up with payments Amazon.com slumped 8.2 percent following price cuts that caused the online retailer’s revenue to miss projections.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped 0.8 percent to 968.22 at 9:58 a.m. in New York after futures on the measure rose as much as 0.5 percent earlier. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 47.24 points, or 0.5 percent, to 9,022.05. U.S. stocks surged yesterday, sending the Dow above 9,000 for the first time since January.
“At these levels in the market, there’s not a lot of room for error,” said Mark Freeman, who helps manage $7.5 billion at Westwood Management Corp. in Dallas. “Anything that deviates brings about a reevaluation by the market.”
Futures advanced earlier as Europe’s economy moved closer to recovery as the manufacturing and service industries contracted at the slowest rate since August and German business confidence climbed to a nine-month high. Later, the Reuters/University of Michigan index of U.S. consumer confidence was better than economists forecast. Read the rest of this entry »
Buying at the Bottom
Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Investing on June 18th, 2009
As the real-estate market heads for the ground, certain investors find themselves uttering some surprising words: “I’ll take two.”
Davis Nguyen thought long and hard about investing in foreclosed homes, but plunging interest rates convinced him that it was time to dive into the housing market.
So the San Jose, California, man bought not one, but two investment properties.
“I decided to jump in because the sales price is reasonable to make a long-term investment,” Nguyen said. “I’m looking for something that is easy to rent because I need to make a little bit of profit.”
Since last fall, Nguyen began looking for three-bedroom, two-bath homes ranging in price from $290,000 to $350,000 in three zip codes: 95121, 95148, and 95112. Read the rest of this entry »
Hedge funds back into options to bet on dollar/yen
Posted by Tetyana Matychak in Currency on May 22nd, 2009
Hedge funds are dipping their toes back into the dollar/yen options market after months of absence, betting that eventual interest rate tightening by the U.S. Federal Reserve will help the greenback gain against the yen.
Dollar/yen‘s implied volatility, a gauge of how much a currency pair is expected to move over a given period, has come down to levels not seen since before Lehman Brothers collapsed in mid-September, sending global markets into a tailspin.
The decline suggests market stress has eased substantially and investor confidence has risen after the battering dealt by the global financial crisis, but it also implies lessening demand for options to hedge against a further surge in the yen.
“It means investors bruised in the past months have regained enough energy to stretch their arms and legs around, and some are starting to bet for economic recovery for the coming years, thinking the worst of the financial crisis is over,” said a senior options trader at a Japanese bank. Read the rest of this entry »
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Consumer Spending in U.S. Rises More Than Forecast
30 August 2010
Monetary Policy Gets No Respect
19 July 2010
Stocks May Surprise By Year-End
5 July 2010
Is A Global Reserve Currency A Necessity?
28 June 2010
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