Weekly Wrap Up
In corporate news, Starbucks (SBUX: Charts, News) released their line of domestically-produced products aimed at spurring job growth. Dell (DELL: Charts, News) paid out their first ever dividend as shares spiked almost 10% on that date. More Market News
Economic News
The U.S. job market is flagging, and consumer prices are barely rising. The picture sketched by data released Thursday has made some economists predict the Federal Reserve will announce some new step next week to boost the economy.
Applications for unemployment benefits rose last week, pointing to a fourth straight month of sluggish hiring in June. And consumer prices were pulled down in May by a plunge in gas prices. (Source: Seattle PI) Click here to read the full article
Government borrowing costs spiked to euro-era highs for Spain on Thursday, and Italy had to pay high rates again to complete a bond auction, as pressure mounted for a unified European response to the region’s financial problems. (Source: New York Times) Click here to read the full article
Business News
Dell Inc. (DELL: Charts, News), which initiated its first dividend yesterday, will use acquisitions to add products for corporate customers and curb reliance on personal computers, a business battered by competition from smartphones and tablets.
The world’s third-largest PC maker plans to boost revenue from data-center products and technology services 45 percent to $27.5 billion by fiscal 2016, Dell said at a meeting with analysts today in Austin, Texas. Over that four-year period, PC- related revenue will climb 8.3 percent to $47 billion. (Source: Bloomberg) Click here to read the full article
Starbucks Corp. (SBUX: Charts, News) has a new line of merchandise that, in line with the conscientious capitalism efforts at several major companies, it said will be used to help support American jobs.
The coffee giant will sell a limited-edition mug, tumbler and bag of coffee – all made domestically – to raise money for its Create Jobs for USA fund. (Source: LA Times) Click here to read the full article
Technology Focus
On Wednesday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) unveiled a list of names and applicants eager to stake a claim on a piece of the Internet, known as a domain.
The new domains would vastly expand the pool of suffixes beyond “.com” and “.net” and perhaps add such new Web address endings as “.baby,” “.apple,” “.google” or “.sex.” Companies anted up $185,000 per domain to apply for naming rights. (Source: USA Today) Click here to read the full article
Drawn to San Francisco by the lure of a pumped-up Apple (AAPL: Charts, News) operating system and other product-line surprises, software developers from across the country and around the globe descended on the Moscone West conference center Monday morning for the Worldwide Developers Conference 2012.
At 10 a.m. Pacific time Monday, CEO Tim Cook took the stage for his first keynote speech at the event since the death last October of Apple co-founder and perennial emcee Steve Jobs. (Source: Mercury News) Click here to read the full article
Unique U.S. visitors to the wildly popular social media site rose 5% in April to 158 million, according to data attributed to comScore. ComScore confirmed the data.
That’s the slowest growth rate since comScore started tracking data in 2008. (Source: USA Today) Click here to read the full article
Your Money
Fazz’s Hot Sauce makes the world’s greatest hot sauce – just ask Brian Fassbender, the founder, chef, bottler and spokesmodel. In three temperature settings, Hot, Kinda Hot and Not-So-Hot, this Spencer, Iowa, start-up is truly a local labor of love.
Everybody loves his hot sauce. But here’s the trouble: A great product isn’t good enough to make a company succeed. (Source: Inc) Click here to read the full article
Getting products into customers’ hands is a complicated business: There’s inventory to store, shipments to coordinate, returns to process – all as fast and efficiently as possible. Check out these six hot companies that help keep the whole thing humming. (Source: Inc) Click here to read the full article
