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| Weekly Wrap Up |
It was a positive week for Wall Street. All the major markets advanced further into positive territory by the week's close. The Dow gained 58.49 points to close at 10,624.69 while the Nasdaq increased 41.31 points to 2,367.66. The S&P also made headway with an 11.29 point jump to finish at 1,149.99 for the week. This marks the second straight week that these indices have recorded weekly gains. Monday was a relatively low-key day of trading for investors. McDonalds (MCD: Charts, News, Offers) announced that its sales from restaurants open one year were up 4.8 percent in February. The US Department of Transportation gave US Airways (LCC: Charts, News, Offers) a $40,000 slap on the wrist after it failed to disclose full ticket prices to customers online. The market movement continued to remain fairly stagnant throughout Tuesday despite some interesting corporate news. Kroger (KR: Charts, News, Offers) managed to beat Wall Street's fourth quarter expectations despite a 27 percent drop in earnings. Chevron (CVX: Charts, News, Offers) announced that it would be slashing 2,000 jobs after it sells its last European refinery. Burger King (BKC: Charts, News, Offers) also reported that sales for stores open at least one year fell 8.2 percent from January to February of this year. Wednesday started the morning off with a big charge, but momentum seemed to fade by the closing bell. American Eagle (AEO: Charts, News, Offers) did its part to inspire consumer confidence with its 81 percent earnings increase for the fourth quarter. In addition, Bank of America (BAC: Charts, News, Offers) unveiled a new plan to eliminate over draft fees on debit cards. Thursday saw nominal market gains, but still had a few noteworthy occurrences. The IMAX Corporation (IMAX: Charts, News, Offers) impressed Wall Street with its fourth quarter revenue increase of 98 percent. IMAX credited a large portion of its performance turnaround to the movie Avatar. Devon Energy Corp. (DVN: Charts, News, Offers) made a splash in cooperate news as it agreed to sell its offshore and international assets to oil giant BP PLC (BP: Charts, News, Offers) for $7 billion. Friday was an up and down day for traders, which seemed to be brought about by mixed reports on retail sales and consumer confidence. The April delivery price for crude oil fell $0.26 per barrel this week to $81.24. The price of gold also declined $33.30 to $1,101.50 for March delivery. More Market News
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| Economic News |
Permanently Modified Mortgages Grow by 45%, Government Says
The Obama administration Friday said its mortgage modification program continued to make progress, with the number of homeowners receiving permanently reduced monthly payments in February increasing by 45% to 168,708. An additional 91,483 three-month trial modifications have been approved by the companies servicing the mortgages and were awaiting acceptance by the borrowers, the Treasury Department reported. While the numbers continue a steady increase in recent months, only about 15% of homeowners who have started trial modifications have had them made permanent. (Source: Los Angles Times) Click here to read the full article
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FDIC's Bair Eyes Low Interest Rates, More Lending
U.S. banking regulator Sheila Bair said on Monday that a low interest rate policy is "clearly appropriate" to get credit flowing, while also saying regulators should stop short of ordering banks to lend. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, has expressed frustration that creditworthy borrowers, including small businesses, cannot get loans. "A policy of low interest rates is clearly appropriate given the struggling economy," Bair said in remarks to the National Association for Business Economics. "Clearly there was too much credit leading into this crisis ... but I am concerned with it moving too far the other way." (Source: Reuters) Click here to read the full article
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Job Openings in U.S. Rose in January to One-Year High
Job openings in the U.S. rose in January to the highest level in almost a year, signaling employers are gaining confidence as the economic recovery takes hold. Openings increased by 193,000 to 2.72 million, the most since February 2009, the Labor Department said today in Washington. More people were hired and the number of workers fired decreased to the lowest level in almost two years, the report also showed. (Source: BusinessWeek) Click here to read the full article
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Inside Alan Greenspan's Nightmare
Alan Greenspan had a dream, or rather a nightmare. Greenspan seems to have woken up in a cold sweat one morning in fear that the period of "disinflationary pressures" that had kept inflation low since the 1990s was about to end. This was 2007, when he published his autobiographical economic treatise, The Age of Turbulence. Despite his well-known love for economic data, and poring over the latest reports from every statistical agency, he did not realise that he was sitting on a housing bubble of epic proportions. Not seeing the bubble (he also missed the prior stock market bubble that accumulated and burst on his watch, causing the 2001 downturn), he could not know that it would soon collapse and cause a very ugly recession, in which inflation would be irrelevant. (Source: Guardian) Click here to read the full article
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| Business News |
JetBlue Offers $10 Last-Minute Fares
Looking for an affordable last-minute getaway? JetBlue Airways (JBLU: Charts, News, Offers) is celebrating its 10th birthday with a $10 one-day fare sale Monday on flights from New York to the airline's original 10 destinations. Travel must be booked on JetBlue's Web site by 11:59 p.m. CST Monday for travel on Tuesday or Wednesday, March 9 or 10. Flights included in JetBlue's "Thank You fare" promotion go from the airline's home base at New York's John F. Kennedy International airport to Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Orlando, West Palm Beach and Fort Myers, Florida; Buffalo and Rochester, New York; Oakland, California; Burlington, Vermont; and Salt Lake City, Utah. (Source: CNN Travel) Click here to read the full article
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Burger King Sales Take Nosedive
Burger King (BKC: Charts, News, Offers) said comparable-store sales in its U.S. and Canada segment fell 8.2% in the two months ended Feb. 28, compared with a 3.1% increase in the same period last year. Burger King said sales in the U.S. and Canada were "severely impacted" during January and February by adverse weather conditions in the central and eastern portions of the U.S. (Source: The Street) Click here to read the full article
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Exxon Boosts 2010 Capital Spending to $28 Billion
Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM: Charts, News, Offers) will increase capital spending nearly 4 percent this year to $28 billion in part as the largest U.S. oil company seeks to increase its share of the global market for natural gas. Exxon, with huge liquefied natural gas projects in Qatar and its planned deal to buy U.S. gas producer XTO Energy Inc (XTO: Charts, News, Offers) in a $28 billion, all-stock deal, has been placing big bets on future demand for natural gas and that spending will continue. Natural gas is expected "to contribute more significantly to the energy mix over the coming decades," CEO Rex Tillerson told analysts at a presentation at the New York Stock Exchange. (Source: Reuters) Click here to read the full article
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| Technology Focus |
Cisco Boosts Bandwidth Play With CRS-3 Intro
Cisco (CSCO: Charts, News, Offers) took its bandwidth strategy to the next level on Tuesday, unveiling an ultra-high-capacity carrier routing system. The CRS-3 product announcement culminates several weeks of hype, during which Cisco teased it as news which would "change the Internet forever." In reality, it's a smart, incremental move intended to position Cisco as the go-to bandwidth provider. (Source: InformationWeek) Click here to read the full article
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'Avatar' Carries IMAX to 98% Revenue Jump
Buoyed by a 98% surge in revenue, IMAX (IMAX: Charts, News, Offers) posted a stronger-than-expected non-GAAP profit on Thursday and issued a bullish outlook for the current quarter. Benefiting from record-shattering sales from "Avatar," IMAX said it earned $4 million, or 6 cents a share, last quarter, compared with a loss of $9 million, or 21 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. The movie theater operator said it earned 20 cents a share on a non-GAAP basis. (Source: FOX Business) Click here to read the full article
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| Your Money |
10 Things Credit-Card Companies Won't Say
1. "We're waiting for you to screw up."
Despite the new credit-card rules, many factors can still cause a credit-card issuer to raise your interest rate. One is when a lender reviews your credit history and decides to change the terms of your credit card when, for example, it's informed that you missed a payment with another credit issuer. The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act, however, does offer consumers some protection here: Should your credit-card issuer change the terms on your credit card, they can do so for purchases going forward - not the balance that you're carrying in most cases. (Source: Smart Money) Click here to read the full article
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