My financial blog

99 High Paying Keywords (Part 1)

2007-12-03T07:58:00.000-08:00

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Here are some of the keywords that pay you the most per click in Google Adsense

Payouts averaging $2-$100 per click

1. Structured settlements

2. Mesothelioma

3. Acne

4. Life Insurance

5. Death Insurance

6. Bextra

7. Asbestos

8. Car Insurance

9. Dental Plans

10. Private Jets

11. Debt Consolidation

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Got my Google Adsense pin code

2007-11-29T21:11:00.000-08:00

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I finally hit the $50 earnings peak and had receievd my in from Google. This is how it looks like

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How to get people's attention

2007-11-29T06:28:00.000-08:00

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Some ways of getting people's attention is to have a catchy headline. Having a catchy headlines would be much better then you spending $10 worth of Adwords money to get a reader who might be in Nigera scramming you of your money.

Once the reader shows interest in the headline and then he would most likely come back to your blog for more stuffs on a later date.

Some examples

Why I want you to be poor?

Make Money Online, all the secrets revealed

But do remember to have good content in that post to attract people not like some freaking scram.

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Earning Money with Flixya

2007-11-26T04:11:00.000-08:00

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Have you ever want to make money with all the videos you had done? Then there is no better place then Flixya.

They pay you to upload videos of anything to them. You can even embed videos from youtube. All you have to do is to sign up for an account and then enter your Google Adsense publisher code and after which you can start earning. The rates are at 50% of all the earnings. Or rather, Flixya would display your ads on your video homepage 50% of the time.

They are also introducing a new feature which pays you to solve technical problems. They can pay you up to $5 per question solved problems.

http://www.fixya.com/ecexplanation.aspx

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Why work from home

2007-11-23T01:30:00.000-08:00

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Why work at home? Most people have the mindset of working at home as people who do not have a job and money or even qualification, that is why they are working at home instead in an office. But the fact is you are earning more then them. You leverage on your knowledge and people.

The Internet is so big, why do not make use of it and make money from it. With all the free blogging platform and the free hosting services, you are just seconds or rather minutes away from making an explosive income. No companies can ensure that you can secure your job forever.

Remember what Donald Trump always says "You Are Fired"

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Would RealRank trump PageRank?

2007-11-22T20:38:00.000-08:00

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IZEA, the company of PayPerPost had released a new version of tracking and ranking blogs. With so many people and reports speculating that Google is going to strip the Pagerank thing,

RealRanks uses a piece of Javascript on your blog to track traffic, and requires you to be an IZEA user. That doesn’t strike me as being particularly accurate, but I think the point is to allow IZEA to replace Google’s PageRank as a way of ranking their own users’ blogs, rather than the wider world.

70% weighted towards visitors per day
20% weighted towards amount of ACTIVE inbound links per day
10% weighted towards pageviews per day

Unlike Google, they are open to feedback. They will publish the actual formulas for all to view. If they make any changes over time based on user input you will see what those changes are and why. They hope this becomes the most valuable site measurement tool worldwide and look forward to rolling this out.

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Setting Goals

2007-11-21T01:30:00.000-08:00

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Setting a Goal. Why is setting a goal so important today? Because it helps you to have a drive, a drive that pushes you to another level. You would never see the importance of setting a goal until you see the following success stories.

1. Microsoft CEO once had this vision of placing a computer in every house running Windows.

Although they did not have all computers running Windows, they have a market share of more then 80%. If Bill did not have this vision for the company, he might still be programing for IBM.

2. Microsoft said that they are going to make Xbox successful no matter what it takes.

Do you know how successful are they now with the Xbox. With the Halo 3 on the Xbox 360. It really crushed the PS3.

3. Donald Trump is richer then ever.

Do you know that Donald Trump lost in real estate before? He was in a huge debt and then he was not able to pay back. Instead of declaring bankrupt, he reserved his misfortune and became more successful then before.

So if you had yet to set your goal in life, I strongly recommend you to set your goals now and make yourself more empowered. There was always a joke. If you plan to be a billionaire, if you do not make it you are a millionaire. If you plan to be a millionaire, if you cannot make it, you would be a thousandaire. So it is always better to aim high and have more choices.

Here are some ideas on how you can start off.

Financially: I want to be a billionaire by the age of 20?

Health: I want to be fit by the age of 24?

Family: I want to have 2 children by 2 years time?

So start your planing now and get your plan ready and get ready to start working on your goal. I know you will and can do it. Never give up. Remember what Donald Trump always says Think Big and Kick Ass

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Intel Announces 13 Percent Increase in Cash Dividend

2007-11-17T04:06:00.000-08:00

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Intel Corporation today announced that its board of directors has approved a 13 percent increase in the quarterly cash dividend to 12.75 cents per share beginning with the dividend that will be declared in the first quarter of 2008.

"Intel's product and technology leadership, the company's focus on growth and the success of more streamlined operations have put Intel in an extremely strong position, now and for the future," said Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini. "Even with one of the highest dividend yields in the technology industry, Intel's cash generating capability allows us to again increase the dividend as a signal in our faith in the future and to reward shareholders."

Intel began paying a cash dividend in 1992 and has paid out approximately $8.9 billion to its stockholders over the past 60 quarters (through the third quarter of 2007). The Intel dividend rate was last increased in November 2006, effective with the first-quarter 2007 dividend.

The above statements and any others in this document that refer to plans and expectations for 2008 and the future are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Many factors could affect Intel's actual results, and variances from Intel's current expectations regarding such factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. Intel presently considers the factors set forth below to be the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the corporation's published expectations:

* Intel operates in intensely competitive industries that are characterized by a high percentage of costs that are fixed or difficult to reduce in the short term, significant pricing pressures, and product demand that is highly variable and difficult to forecast. Additionally, Intel is in the process of transitioning to its next generation of products on 45nm process technology, and there could be execution issues associated with these changes, including product defects and errata along with lower than anticipated manufacturing yields. Revenue and the gross margin percentage are affected by the timing of new Intel product introductions and the demand for and market acceptance of Intel's products; actions taken by Intel's competitors, including product offerings and introductions, marketing programs and pricing pressures and Intel's response to such actions; Intel's ability to respond quickly to technological developments and to incorporate new features into its products; and the availability of sufficient components from suppliers to meet demand. Factors that could cause demand to be different from Intel's expectations include customer acceptance of Intel's and competitors' products; changes in customer order patterns, including order cancellations; changes in the level of inventory at customers; and changes in business and economic conditions, including conditions in the credit market that could affect consumer confidence and result in lower than expected demand for our products.
* The gross margin percentage could vary significantly from expectations based on changes in revenue levels; product mix and pricing; capacity utilization; variations in inventory valuation, including variations related to the timing of qualifying products for sale; excess or obsolete inventory; manufacturing yields; changes in unit costs; impairments of long-lived assets, including manufacturing, assembly/test and intangible assets; and the timing and execution of the manufacturing ramp and associated costs, including start-up costs.
* Expenses, particularly certain marketing and compensation expenses, vary depending on the level of demand for Intel's products, the level of revenue and profits, and impairments of long-lived assets.
* Intel is in the midst of a structure and efficiency program that is resulting in several actions that could have an impact on expected expense levels and gross margin.
* The tax rate expectation is based on current tax law and current expected income. The tax rate may be affected by the closing of acquisitions or divestitures; the jurisdictions in which profits are determined to be earned and taxed; changes in the estimates of credits, benefits and deductions; the resolution of issues arising from tax audits with various tax authorities, including payment of interest and penalties; and the ability to realize deferred tax assets.
* Gains or losses from equity securities and interest and other could vary from expectations depending on fixed income and equity market volatility; gains or losses realized on the sale or exchange of securities; gains or losses from equity method investments; impairment charges related to marketable, non-marketable and other investments; interest rates; cash balances; and changes in fair value of derivative instruments.
* Intel's results could be affected by the amount, type, and valuation of share-based awards granted as well as the amount of awards cancelled due to employee turnover and the timing of award exercises by employees.
* Dividend declarations and the dividend rate are at the discretion of Intel's board of directors, and plans for future dividends may be revised by the board. Intel's dividend program could be affected by changes in Intel's operating results, its capital spending programs, changes in its cash flows and changes in the tax laws, as well as by the level and timing of acquisition and investment activity.
* Intel's results could be impacted by adverse economic, social, political and physical/infrastructure conditions in the countries in which Intel, its customers or its suppliers operate, including military conflict and other security risks, natural disasters, infrastructure disruptions, health concerns and fluctuations in currency exchange rates.
* Intel's results could be affected by adverse effects associated with product defects and errata (deviations from published specifications), and by litigation or regulatory matters involving intellectual property, stockholder, consumer, antitrust and other issues, such as the litigation and regulatory matters described in Intel's SEC reports.

A detailed discussion of these and other factors that could affect Intel's results is included in Intel's SEC filings, including the report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 29, 2007.

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House passes war bill tied to withdrawal

2007-11-15T20:42:00.000-08:00

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House Democrats pushed through a $50 billion bill for the Iraq war Wednesday night that would require President Bush to start bringing troops home in coming weeks with a goal of ending combat by December 2008.

The legislation, passed 218-203, was largely a symbolic jab at Bush, who already has begun reducing force levels but opposes a congressionally mandated timetable on the war. And while the measure was unlikely to pass in the Senate — let alone overcome a presidential veto — Democrats said they wanted voters to know they weren't giving up.

"The fact is, we can no longer sustain the military deployment in Iraq," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "Staying there in the manner that we are there is no longer an option."

The White House pledged to veto the bill, and Republicans said they would back the president.

"These votes, like the dozens of previous failed votes, put the interests of radical interest groups ahead of the needs of our military and their mission," an administration statement said.

The bill represents about a quarter of the $196 billion Bush requested for combat operations in the 2008 budget year, which began Oct 1.

Bill includes interrogation language
It would compel an unspecified number of troops to leave Iraq within 30 days, a requirement Bush is already on track to meet as he begins in coming weeks to reverse the 30,000 troop buildup he ordered earlier this year. It also sets a goal of ending combat by Dec. 15, 2008, and states that money included in the bill should be used to redeploy troops and "not to extend or prolong the war."

The measure also would set government-wide standards on interrogation, effectively barring the CIA from using such harsh techniques as waterboarding, which simulates drowning.

The bill was on shaky ground this week, after some liberal Democrats said they were concerned it was too soft and would not force Bush to end the war. Conservative Democrats said they thought it went too far and would tie the hands of military commanders.

The bill's prospects brightened somewhat after three leading anti-war Democrats announced they would support it. California Reps. Lynn Woolsey, Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters said they had agreed to swing behind it because the bill explicitly states the money should be used to bring troops home.

But still uncertain the bill would pass, Pelosi on Wednesday delayed a vote by several hours while she met with supporters and asked them to help her round up votes.

Fifteen Democrats broke ranks and joined 188 Republicans in opposing the measure. Four Republicans joined 214 Democrats in supporting it.

Timeline nonstarter for opponents
Republicans fought bitterly against the timetable in the bill, as well as the restrictions on interrogations. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, his party's leader, said the bill would lead to "nothing other than failure."

Hours before the scheduled vote, the White House dispatched Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers on Iraq.

In one closed-door meeting, Gates urged a group of senators not to support the bill. He said the same lawmakers who criticized Pentagon civilians for previously ignoring the advice of its uniformed generals were asking him to ignore them now, according to an official who attended the meeting. The official requested anonymity because the meeting was private.

Similar legislation has passed repeatedly along party lines in the House only to sink in the Senate, where Democrats hold a razor-thin majority and 60 votes are needed to overcome procedural hurdles.

It is expected that if the measure fails in the Senate, Democrats will not consider Bush's war spending request until next year. Democrats say the military won't need the money until then and the Pentagon can transfer money from less urgent accounts or from spending set aside for the last three months of this year.

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GM's $39B loss a record

2007-11-08T19:18:00.000-08:00

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General Motors, no stranger to hard times and red ink, still managed to shock Wednesday when it reported an operating loss more than 11 times larger than expected and a $39 billion charge that was among the biggest profit hits ever reported.

The nation's No. 1 automaker, which was hit with a soft U.S. auto market and a two-day strike by the United Auto Workers union during the quarter, lost $1.6 billion, or $2.80 a share, excluding special items.

That compares to the forecast of a 25-cent-a-share loss from analysts surveyed by earnings tracker Thomson First Call and earnings per share of $497 million, or 88 cents, on that basis in the year-earlier period.

Among the problems hurting GM results was a $2.3 billion loss in the home loan business at GMAC due to problems from the meltdown in subprime mortgages. GM sold a majority of GMAC but still owns 49 percent of the lender.

In addition, GM took a huge charge in the quarter related to the writedown of tax credits for losses over the last three years.

That caused it to post a net loss of $39 billion, or $68.85 a share, for the third quarter, compared with the net loss of $147 million, or 26 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Only a gain from the sale of the Allison Transmission unit stopped the loss from being worse.

The report caused shares of Dow component GM (Charts, Fortune 500) to be down 5 percent in midday trading, helping to spark a 200-point selloff.
Problems remain for Detroit automakers

To put the size of the charge in context, the total value of all GM shares outstanding was only $20.4 billion at the close of trading Tuesday.

In addition, the charge is significantly larger than the $12.4 billion net loss posted by GM for all of 2005 and 2006, when the company was hammered by falling shares and labor costs far in excess of its nonunion rivals. The company had net income of $953 million for the first six months of the year before hitting the problems in the third quarter.

The charge was a non-cash expense due to accounting rules, meaning it won't drain resources from the company's balance sheet. But the charge, which was revealed late Tuesday, raised concerns among investors that the automaker wouldn't be able to earn enough money going forward, despite winning a new cost-saving labor deal from the UAW, to fully utilize the tax credits it built up from losses the last three years.

Efraim Levy, equity analyst with Standard & Poor's, cut his recommendation on the stock Wednesday to a "sell" from a "hold."

"Looking at the near term outlook, there's more negatives than positives," said Levy. "The downgrade isn't because of the writedown. But I think it does signal a worsening outlook, that the level of profitability and the ability to use these tax benefits won't be there in the near term the way they would have liked. It bodes poorly on the outlook."

The company's statement about the charge said that it "does not reflect a change in the company's view of its long-term automotive financial outlook." But it also cautioned "the company faces more challenging near-term automotive market conditions in the U.S. and Germany."

Via CNN

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Cisco's earnings beat estimates

2007-11-08T19:15:00.000-08:00

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Computer networking company Cisco Systems Inc., citing strong sales of its routers, set-top boxes and other products, reported higher-than-expected earnings on Wednesday.

Cisco said its latest quarterly net income was $2.2 billion, or 35 cents a share, an increase of 37 percent from a year ago. Excluding certain charges, the company reported a profit of 40 cents a share; analysts were expecting Cisco to report 36 cents per share on that basis.

Cisco's quarterly sales reached $9.6 billion, up 17 percent from $8.18 billion a year ago. Wall Street had been expected revenue of $9.5 billion.

In a conference call to analysts, Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers offered guidance of 16 percent revenue growth for the next quarter - in line with Wall Street's estimates.

Shares of San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco was trading about 4 percent lower after hours.

Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research, thinks that the stock is down because investors were looking for stronger results.

Earnings per share beat consensus expectations by one penny but that was expected, according to Wu. "The results were solid but investors were looking for more," he said.

Another analyst, Timothy Daubenspeck of Pacific Crest Securities, said that investors were looking for as much as $100 million more over the $2.2 billion net income the company reported.

Chambers said he expects overall economic conditions to cool Cisco's U.S. enterprise division, which sells to businesses. For example, Cisco saw a dramatic decrease in orders to its financial services customers, he said, and similar softness in orders from the automotive sector.

Chambers remarks were surprising, according to Wu, since the company had not previously acknowledged the impact of the broader economic turmoil on Cisco's performance.

However, Wu added that Cisco is "doing pretty well given the circumstances."

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PetroChina the first $1 Trillion company

2007-11-07T09:08:00.000-08:00

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PetroChina became the world's first company worth more than $1 trillion on Monday, surging past Exxon Mobil as the Chinese oil producer's shares nearly tripled in their first day of trading in China.

State-owned PetroChina, a unit of state-owned China National Petroleum, is the country's biggest oil and gas producer. Its Shanghai initial public offering of 4 billion shares raised 66.8 billion yuan, or $8.94 billion - a record for a mainland exchange.

Adding the value of PetroChina shares traded in Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York - and those still owned by the government - the company's total market capitalization ballooned to just over $1 trillion, compared to Exxon Mobil's $488 billion.

However, more than 85 percent the shares outstanding - 157.9 billion shares - are held by PetroChina's parent company CNPC and are unlikely to trade in the market any time soon.

PetroChina's new shares listed in Shanghai surged to $5.90 Monday, nearly triple the IPO price of $2.24.

The stellar performance was expected: Shares in elite companies like PetroChina, which already trade in Hong Kong and New York, tend to soar in their trading debuts given the strong appetite among Chinese investors for highly valued companies.

Like other yuan-denominated "A shares" traded in China, the PetroChina shares issued in Shanghai are meant for domestic investors and are not generally available to foreign buyers. They account for 2.18 percent of the company's enlarged share capital of 183.02 billion shares.

"PetroChina's return to the A-share market is a result of the Chinese economy's fast growth and surging energy demand," the company said in a statement. "PetroChina's public offering will bring renewed energy to domestic capital markets and also provide an important investment indicator."
Oil prices back away from record

Before PetroChina's IPO, coal producer China Shenhua Energy's debut in Shanghai in September was the largest for a domestic exchange, raising $8.9 billion.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite index has more than doubled in value this year as investors have piled into the market chasing a slew of IPOs by big-name companies, hoping for higher returns than they can earn on bank savings.

The index fell 2.5 percent Monday, or 143.36 points, to 5,634.45 as institutional investors cut holdings in energy and financial companies to buy into PetroChina.

As of Friday, PetroChina's market value was $456.6 billion.

That was based on the company's share price in Hong Kong, where it has listed 21.09 billion shares, or about 11.5 percent of total stock. Those shares closed Monday at $2.31.

PetroChina's shares closed Monday in Shanghai at a much higher $5.90, lifting the value of company's remaining 162 billion shares - mostly held by CNPC - to $955 billion.

Adding the value of PetroChina's Hong Kong shares, worth about $49 billion, the company's total market capitalization rose to more than $1 trillion.

PetroChina's status as the world's most highly valued company by market capitalization thus does not necessarily reflect stronger profitability or productivity than its rivals.

The company has seen revenue soar amid surging oil prices but has struggled to boost production from its aging domestic oil fields. In refining, it has struggled with a widening gap between soaring world crude oil prices and state-controlled prices for oil products in the domestic market.

PetroChina reported that its first-half net profit rose 1.4 percent from a year earlier on modest output growth to $10.8 billion.

Like other Chinese energy giants, PetroChina is investing heavily in both overseas and domestic oil and gas fields as it rushes to meet soaring demand. The company said it plans to use around $5 billion of the proceeds from the Shanghai IPO to help finance five projects aimed at boosting its crude oil output and refining capacity.

The company's luster appears to have been undimmed by a decision by Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s decision to sell off all its 2.3 billion PetroChina shares.

The company made about $3.5 billion on the sale of that $488 million investment, Berkshire Hathaway chairman and chief executive Warren Buffett has said in interviews

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How can Apple spend

2007-11-07T04:01:00.000-08:00

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The cash coffers are overflowing at Apple these days. While Silicon Valley is abuzz over the fact that social-networking startup Facebook is now worth $15 billion on paper, Cupertino-based Apple has at least that much money -- $15.4 billion to be exact -- in real, spendable cash.

Apple's cash reserves have nearly doubled over the past two years, thanks to surging sales of iPods, Mac notebooks and iMacs. At the end of 2005, Apple reported $8.7 billion in cash and short-term investments, or about 15 percent of its market capitalization. Now, at the end of a stellar fourth quarter, the company's market capitalization is surging past $160 billion.

With more money on hand than it's ever had, the question is: What exactly will Apple do with that pile?

It's easier to predict what the company won't do. If analysts agree on anything, it is that the company will not be making any major acquisitions. It's simply not in Apple's DNA.

While other companies like Intel and Microsoft typically use their excess cash for large acquisitions or the repurchasing of stock, Apple tends to quietly invest its money in forward-looking markets and technologies.

"They just don't make these billion-dollar acquisitions," says analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies, "but they do make (small) strategic ones." For instance, Apple's 2002 purchase of German company Emagic (for an undisclosed amount) was a stepping-stone that helped Apple develop what eventually became GarageBand. Earlier, its $400 million acquisition of Next Software in 1996 laid the groundwork for the Unix-based OS X -- and brought exiled founder Steve Jobs back into the Apple fold.

"Apple's stockpiling of cash has more to do with its money management than anything else," says Bajarin. In essence, he says, the company "uses its cash reserves as a way to buy secrecy."

In 2006, Apple formed an asset-management firm called Braeburn Capital in Nevada (where tax laws are more lenient than in Apple's home state of California). This subsidiary is said to function as a regional treasury office for the company, but Apple won't give precise details about the firm's duties other than to describe it as a vehicle for managing the company's investment portfolio.

One possible use for the cash reserves: strategic purchases of critical components. Carl Howe of Blackfriars Communications points to Apple's $1.2 billion dollar purchase of flash memory in 2005, in anticipation of using that memory in upcoming iPods. Much to the chagrin of other electronics manufacturers, that move created what's known as a monopsony -- a market condition where all of a particular product's supply is monopolized by a single buyer. "They basically locked up the flash memory market for two years," Howe says.

Bajarin concurs, speculating that Apple could use its wad of cash to ensure that iPhone-component makers are keeping up with demand. This is seen as critical for Apple at the moment, especially considering that it's set to launch the phone in Europe next month. Another potential investment could come in the form of building out the new property Apple purchased last year in Cupertino. Indeed, Jobs has said that the 50-acre parcel of land is to be the home of a new campus housing up to 3,500 of Apple's employees.

Less likely is the possibility that Apple might join a Google-led consortium of companies bidding in the upcoming 700-MHz spectrum auction. With the bar set at $4.6 billion just to qualify for the open access "C" block, analysts predict Google will likely want some monetary support from companies that could benefit from a new swath of open spectrum. That includes hardware manufacturers like Apple, whose iPhone and iPod touch might, in future versions, work with an open wireless network.

"Steve (Jobs) has a vision of a connected digital ecosystem," Bajarin concludes. "Right now, we have a limited perception of it, but we don't know what else he's got to fill it out. If you try to approach things from that perspective, then it's possible to get a hint of where that money may be going."

Via Wired

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Citigroup chief is set to exit after losses

2007-11-05T20:19:00.000-08:00

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Citigroup's embattled chairman and chief executive has told senior officials at the bank that he expected to leave after an emergency board meeting this weekend, a banking industry official with ties to Citigroup said last night.

Charles Prince III, 57, had indicated that he expected to leave during this board meeting, this person said. Directors are also expected to discuss the possibility of another large write-off.

"The entire organization is in uproar and people have been looking for leadership," said one Citigroup executive familiar with the situation. "The organization is waiting for something."

"At some point, the company is worse off or better off without the guy," this person said. "That collective point has come and passed."

People close to the board said that a search committee would be formed to find a successor.

Prince's departure would be a crushing blow to the legacy of Citigroup's founder and former chairman, Sanford Weill, and will lead to renewed calls to break up the company.

Not only was Prince Weill's hand-picked successor, he was his chief lawyer who helped engineer a series of big deals that transformed Citigroup into a sprawling banking giant.

Reports of Prince's plans to resign were first reported on The Wall Street Journal online.

Prince would become the second chief executive to lose his job in the wake of the subprime mortgage problems. Also this week, the chairman and chief executive of Merrill Lynch, E. Stanley O'Neal, was forced to retire after the brokerage firm reported an $8.4 billion write-down and a $2.3 billion loss. O'Neal also angered directors with an unauthorized merger approach to a rival bank, Wachovia.

Citigroup, the country's largest bank by market value, in early October reported a $5.9 billion write-down and a 6 percent drop in earnings from the period a year earlier. The earnings report and the size of the write-down renewed speculation that Prince would have trouble remaining atop the bank.

The problems compounded on Thursday, when Meredith Whitney, an analyst at CIBC World Markets, downgraded Citigroup stock and said that the bank would need to cut its dividend or sell assets to stave off what she said was a $30 billion capital shortfall. The report sent Citigroup's shares down $3.39; they fell an additional 78 cents Friday.

Shares are down almost 18 percent for the year, much of that decline coming in the last four weeks.

Since taking over in October 2003, Prince has touted an ambitious strategy that called for expansion overseas and internal growth. This spring, he announced a restructuring effort to rein-in its expenses, months after the bank's biggest shareholder, Saudi Prince Alaweed bin Talal declared "draconian measures" were necessary." But despite a few signs small signs progress earlier this year, investors grew frustrated with the results.

For Prince, his abrupt departure comes as a surprise. In recent weeks two board members, Robert Rubin and Richard Parsons, had said firmly that they expected Prince to stay on for the coming years.

"Chuck is doing a good job, and I think he has been working in an extraordinarily complex situation through difficult markets," Parsons said in an interview in early October. "Now is not the time to be saying, 'Do we change course, or do we change captain.'"

But, in the wake of the quick reaction by the Merrill Lynch board in forcing out O'Neal, the Citigroup board began to feel pressure to take its corrective action.

To a large extent, Prince was bowing to the inevitable. Despite having been the chosen successor to Weill, Prince's austere, lawyerly manner, albeit leavened with a sharp sense of humor, did not go over well as Citi continued to flounder.

He was particularly unpopular within the investment bank, despite having overseen it for a period of time.

Prince became even more unpopular after the bank's write-down forced him to oust Thomas Maheras, a popular fixed income executive. Despite having presided over a series of trading losses in the last four years, Maheras had retained deep loyalty.

By firing Maheras's top lieutenants and placing Vikram Pandit in charge of revitalizing the bank, Prince lost what support he might have had even though it was a move that many saw as necessary given Citigroup's losses.

That there may be more losses coming would certainly seem to have been the last straw for Prince. But what may well have been his undoing was a broad strategic uncertainty that was highlighted in the analyst report written by Whitney.

While Prince has emphasized a more intense focus on international expansion, Whitney's report highlighted the $26 billion in acquisitions he had made in recent years and how it had drawn down the firm's capital. With credit markets seizing up and loans souring, Citigroup's weak capital position has become an indictment of sorts of Prince's strategy.

In the end, Prince's legitimacy was always a result of his close ties to Weill. As his chief lawyer, Prince was by Weill's side from the early days in Baltimore in the mid-1980s. The two men and a circle of other associates of Weill started to build the conglomerate that is today's Citigroup by turning around an obscure financial company called Commercial Credit.

With his sharp elbows and his indefatigable work ethic, Prince became indispensable to Weill. When Prince first took over Citigroup in October 2003, his legal skill served him well in navigating the choppy regulatory matters of the time and he was able to cut deals with U.S. federal and state regulators.

But he ultimately failed in taking the many disparate parts that Weill bequeathed to him and turning it into an organic whole.

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Chrysler to cut up to 12,000 jobs

2007-11-04T08:56:00.001-08:00

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Chrysler LLC said it plans to cut up to 12,000 jobs, or up to 15 percent of its workforce, as part of an effort to slash costs and match slowing demand for some vehicles.

The automaker will cut 8,500 to 10,000 hourly jobs and 2,100 salaried jobs through 2008. The company already had begun cutting 1,100 temporary workers Wednesday. It will eliminate shifts at five North American assembly plants and cut four vehicle models from its lineup.

The cuts come in addition to the 13,000 layoffs Chrysler announced in February as part of a massive restructuring plan. Those cuts included 11,000 production jobs and 2,000 salaried jobs. The new round of cuts was expected to involve buyouts or early retirement packages similar to those made in February.

Chrysler officials said falling demand for vehicles in the U.S. market made the cuts necessary. Chrysler’s sales were down 3 percent in the first nine months of this year, according to Autodata Corp., and the company said it expects sluggish sales to continue in 2008.

“The market situation has changed dramatically in the eight months since Chrysler established the Recovery and Transformation Plan as its blueprint,” Bob Nardelli, Chrysler’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.

As part of the new plan, shifts will be cut at vehicle assembly plants in Belvidere, Ill.; Toledo, Ohio; Brampton, Ontario; Jefferson North in Detroit and a plant in Sterling Heights. Also, jobs will be cut at the company’s Mack Avenue engine plant.

The announcement comes less than a week after Chrysler workers represented by the United Auto Workers union ratified a four-year contract with the automaker. The agreement passed by a slim margin after a six-hour strike. The Belvidere plant and Jefferson North were among the plants that voted against the agreement, while the Sterling Heights plant voted for it. All of the plants except the Toledo plant are covered by the contract, which promised $15 billion in investment at U.S. plants through 2011.

Chrysler became a private company in August when DaimlerChrysler AG, now called Daimler AG, sold 80.1 percent of Chrysler to the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP. Nardelli said earlier this week that the company is focused on amassing cash for its turnaround effort.

The company announced it will eliminate four auto models through 2008, including the Dodge Magnum wagon, the convertible version of the Chrysler PT Cruiser, the Chrysler Pacifica crossover and the Chrysler Crossfire sports car.

In the same time frame, Chrysler plans to add the Dodge Journey crossover and Dodge Challenger sports car, along with two new hybrid models, the Chrysler Aspen and Dodge Durango.

“These actions reflect our new customer-driven philosophy and allow us to focus our resources on new, more profitable and appealing products,” Jim Press, Chrysler’s new vice chairman and president, said in a statement. “These product actions are all in response to dealer requests.”

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Oil Prices hit a record high

2007-11-04T08:56:00.000-08:00

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The prospect of a stronger economy and word of possible new U.N. sanctions against Iran sent crude oil futures back above $96 a barrel Friday, while retail gasoline prices extended their own march higher.

The Labor Department reported that employers boosted payrolls by 166,000 jobs in October, the biggest increase in months and double what economists had forecast. Meanwhile, October’s unemployment rate held steady at 4.7 percent. Separately, the Commerce Department said factory orders rose 0.2 percent in September, better than the 0.4 percent decline analysts were expecting.

“It suggests that concerns about the economy ... are overblown a little bit,” said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research Inc., in Winchester, Mass.

Oil futures added to their gains late Friday when the British Foreign Office said the U.N. Security Council has agreed to draft a new sanctions resolution that could be passed in November if Iranian cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency does not improve. Investors worry that any conflict between the West and Iran would disrupt oil supplies from the Middle East.

Light, sweet crude for December delivery rose $2.44 to settle at a record $95.93 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after rising as high as $96.05 earlier, short of a trading record of $96.24 set Thursday. On Thursday, oil prices retreated from that early record to close down more than $1, in part because of dismal reports on consumer spending and industrial activity that also factored into the Dow Industrial’s 362-point decline.

Crude prices are within the range of inflation-adjusted highs set in early 1980. Depending on the how the adjustment is calculated, $38 a barrel then would be worth $96 to $103 or more today.

At the pump, meanwhile, gas prices jumped 2.9 cents overnight to a national average of $2.942 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Gas prices have risen nearly 19 cents since mid-October.

Analysts say gas prices are rising to catch up with oil prices, which have jumped 39 percent since late August. But low demand for gasoline will keep prices from rising above $3 again this year, many analysts say. Gas prices peaked for the year at $3.227 a gallon in late May.

Refinery problems contributed to Friday’s gains. Operations at a 172,000 barrel-per-day Petroplus Holdings AG refinery in England are expected to be limited for a month due to a fire earlier this week. And Chevron Corp. said Friday its 330,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Pascagoula, Miss., will run at reduced rates until early next year due to an August fire.

December gasoline rose 9.63 cents to settle at $2.4395 a gallon on the Nymex, and December heating oil rose 6.14 cents to settle at $2.5737 a gallon.

Also supporting prices Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Turkish officials the U.S. views Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq as a “common threat” that the United States would help fight. Investors have sent oil prices sharply higher in recent weeks in part on concerns that a Turkish incursion into Iraq in search of Kurdish rebels would cut oil supplies from Northern Iraq.

Additionally, investors already concerned about falling oil supplies and imports received word that Hurricane Noel may have disrupted some oil shipments this week. And analysts said OPEC production increases that began Thursday have been hampered by maintenance at some Middle Eastern oil fields.

The confluence of headlines fueled fears that there will be fourth quarter shortages of oil and other petroleum products.

“I think people ... are worried about the fourth quarter (supply and demand) balance,” Lynch said.

“We’ve got some colder weather finally coming into the Northeast,” Andrew Lebow, senior vice president at MF Global Inc. in New York.

Meanwhile, the dollar dipped to a new record low against the euro on Friday. Oil futures offer a hedge against a weak dollar, and oil futures bought and sold in dollars are more attractive to foreign investors when the greenback is falling.

“The major trend of weak dollar and strong oil prices continues,” Lebow said.

Also on the Nymex Friday, December natural gas fell 21.9 cents to settle at $8.418 per 1,000 cubic feet as investors sold to lock in profits from Thursday’s 30.7-cent rally.

In London, December Brent crude rose $2.36 to settle at a record $92.08 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

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The richest man on earth is no longer Carlos Sim

2007-11-02T02:46:00.000-07:00

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Carlos Sim is no longer the richest man on earth. He was topped by someone from India called Mukesh Ambani. He kicked Bill Gates off the top richest position not long ago.

This shows how important are the growing market. He was from Mexico and the current one is from India. I would not be surprised that the next one would come from one of the developing countries. However, if you see properly. Noone could get as rich or richer then Bill Gates at his age. And most of the richest people are mostly inherited assets. If you say who is the best richest man on earth, it would still be Bill Gates. Just compare the amount of money he donates as compared to other people who toppled him down the charts. They were obviously gaining their wealth to topple Bill Gates. With Bill Gates donating that much money, he is the nicest guys here on earth.

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Google goes head on with Facebook

2007-11-02T01:38:00.000-07:00

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If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. And if you can’t join ‘em, get all your friends to band together—and gang up on them!

In a move that some Silicon Valley pundits are deriding as desperate, Google unveiled a plan to fight back against social network Facebook. A dozen companies, including social networks LinkedIn, Ning, hi5 and Google’s own social network Orkut, have aligned together under Google’s “OpenSocial” banner to “make the Web more social,” said Joe Kraus, who’s managing the project. Business software makers Oracle and Salesforce.com also joined the alliance.

The goal is to lure software developers back to the open Web from Facebook and create standards for applications that can run on any social networking site. In June, Facebook opened its site to apps makers, allowing them to launch their own applications on its social network, and make money from them. Some 5,000 applications were launched enabling Facebookers to do everything from play Scrabble to engage in virtual food fights. And that caused the young site to take off, with membership growing at the healthy rate of 3% a week. It now has some 50 million members and is expected to unveil a new advertising platform next week that, many believe, will cleverly target “social ads” at users, mining their connections for useful information. If it works, it could be a huge breakthrough in online advertising.

And that’s what’s got Google taking the offensive. Google’s business model hinges on selling ads targeted against search—a diminishing activity while people are cavorting within the closed-off walls of Facebook. Adding insult to injury, last week, Microsoft (MSFT) beat out Google and bought a minority stake in Facebook—valuing it at $15 billion. That secured Redmond’s role as the social network’s sole partner in international advertising, and potentially much more.

Google’s OpenSocial project aims to do Facebook one better: It’s opening the entire Web to developers and making it even more remunerative for them to create cool applications. How? For starters, Google will be sharing critical APIs—in this case, datastreams that divulge a user’s profile information, who their friends are and what applications they install. (Among other things, that info helps applications spread virally since people see which applications their friends just installed.) While Facebook does the same thing within its closed network, twice as many people are in the Google alliance—100 million—and it’s just getting off the ground. Better yet for the developers, Google isn’t extracting a penny from them. They can keep 100% of the revenues from advertising or referrals. Finally, while developers need to learn a special programming language to write apps for Facebook, they can write widgets in HTML and Javascript—the common language of the Web.

“It’s a little bit of an apples to oranges comparison, but the full application we’ve built on Facebook took us six months to write,” said Ali Partovi of iLike, one of the better-known music applications. “The one that we’re demoing here took us a matter of days to write.” (It also looked very slick.) Partovi said that since OpenSocial uses the common languages of the Web, it will also make it easier, and cheaper, to hire programmers. Developers such as iLike will continue to work with Facebook.

Ning founder Marc Andreessen applauded Google’s move. “This is more like what we always used to do at Netscape — someone does something proprietary, so we create or embrace an open alternative and get lots of people to support it,” he wrote in an e-mail. ” We did that originally with HTML (!!) and Javascript.”

While a hand-full of demonstration projects will be unveiled Thursday, Kraus said the goal of the announcement today was to invite in the developers and get them started on rolling out new apps. He said it would be about a month before consumers started to see the first OpenSocial apps. Ultimately, the widgets could run on virtually any website that elected to participate.

“They were totally desperate,” one Silicon Valley financier observed yesterday. “Google isn’t making a dime from this. It was just a way of keeping people off Facebook.”

Kraus said that Google’s interest was in preserving the open Web. “By making the web a better place to be, Google ultimately benefits because people spend a lot of time on the Web searching,” he said. Asked whether Facebook could join the alliance, Kraus said, “Obviously we would love to have them participate.” He declined to say whether Facebook was ever invited, however.

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Wing Tai doubles Q1 profit to S$61.8m

2007-10-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

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Higher contributions from two condominium projects in Singapore have helped Wing Tai to double its first quarter profit.

For the three months to September, the property developer booked earnings of S$61.8 million, despite a 39 percent fall in revenue to S$100 million.

Wing Tai is planning to put several new residential projects in Singapore on the market in the next few months.

It says it will continue to position itself to ride on the positive sentiment in the Singapore property market and expand its business activities overseas.

Towards this goal, it signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a real estate project in Chengdu last month.

This will be the developer's first property project in China.

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Microsoft acquires Thai medical software firm

2007-10-31T05:59:00.000-07:00

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Microsoft Corp, seeking to expand in the medical sector, has agreed to acquire the assets of a privately held, Thailand-based health information system company, the software giant announced yesterday.

Global Care Solutions (GCS) specialises in creating software modules for hospitals' clinical and administrative operations, allowing them to run more smoothly. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The Bangkok-based company, whose core product was first marketed in 2000, has implemented its systems in seven client hospitals in the Asia-Pacific region. They are based on already existing Microsoft software products.

'We are really amazed at the quality of care that can be delivered with Global Care Solutions' health information system,' said Peter Neupert, corporate vice-president for the Health Solutions Group at Microsoft, into which GCS employees will be incorporated.

Mr Neupert said that the deal, under which Microsoft will acquire software, intellectual property and other assets of GCS, would allow the technology to be marketed worldwide.

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Oil prices tops $93

2007-10-30T07:45:00.000-07:00

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Oil prices hit a new trading high above $93 a barrel Monday before falling back, propelled by news that Mexico’s state oil company was suspending about a fifth of its oil production due to a storm.

The news that Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, was to stop as much as 600,000 barrels of daily crude production came amid political tensions in the Mideast, a weak U.S. dollar and a tight supply outlook that had already pushed crude oil to record prices.

The Pemex shut-in “is the one that has pushed prices above $93,” said Victor Shum, a Singapore-based energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz. “This is on top of what has already been simmering.”

Pemex announced Sunday that it had already suspended 200,000 barrels of daily production in the Gulf of Mexico because of bad weather and was planning to reduce by another 400,000. Pemex produces about 3.2 million barrels of crude oil a day, of which 2.7 million come from the Bay of Campeche in the southern Gulf.

In addition, Vienna’s PVM Oil Associates noted that “more bad weather could hit the region in the form of Tropical Storm Noel.”

Light, sweet crude for December delivery rose as much as $1.34 to $93.20 a barrel, a new intraday record, in early afternoon Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. By afternoon in Europe, it had slipped back to $92.26 a barrel.

That was still up 40 cents from Friday’s record close of $91.86 a barrel. The previous trading high was $92.22 a barrel, set Friday.

Oil futures have gained almost $8 a barrel, or 9 percent, since the U.S. Department of Energy reported last Wednesday a sharp drop in the country’s crude stocks.

“The strong price is due to supply concerns in general, on top of which we have the geopolitical news,” Shum said.

A rumbling of tensions in the Middle East and elsewhere last week already had traders worried about the disruption of oil exports.

A sharp escalation in fighting between Turkey and Kurdish rebels has brought Turkey to the brink of sending troops south across the border into Iraq, and the United States last week announced harsh penalties against Iran — the world’s fourth largest oil producer — in hopes of raising pressure on the world financial system to cut ties with Tehran.

Also, last Friday, gunmen in speedboats kidnapped six workers from an oil vessel off Nigeria’s coast, the second attack on an oil field there in a week. Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil exporter and the fifth-largest supplier of crude to the United States.

A weak dollar continues to be a factor in driving oil prices as well.

The dollar’s descent against major currencies has drawn investors to crude futures as a hedge against the weakening currency and made dollar-denominated oil futures less expensive to people dealing in other currencies, said David Moore, commodities strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.

Analysts note the price of oil is closing in on the inflation-adjusted highs hit in early 1980. Depending on the how the adjustment is calculated, $38 a barrel then would be worth $96 to $101 or more today.

In London, December Brent crude advanced 39 cents to $89.08 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange.

Heating oil and gasoline futures rose just over a penny to $2.445 a gallon and $2.2850 per gallon.

Natural gas futures gained nearly 11 cents to fetch $7.325 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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UBS Confirms 3Q Loss

2007-10-29T22:25:00.000-07:00

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UBS AG said its third-quarter loss will be in line with a profit warning earlier this month, but primed investors for further write-downs due to U.S. mortgage-securities the bank still holds.

The Zurich-based bank said it will Tuesday post a pretax loss of between 600 million and 800 million Swiss francs ($517 million and $690 million), as flagged earlier this month when the bank was forced to disclose massive write-downs and sweeping management changes as a result of the subprime mortgage woes.

UBS said the current quarter has started positively in all its units, including the investment bank, where the recent trouble has centered.

However, the bank cautioned that it may record further write-downs in the future because it remains exposed to the deteriorating market in the U.S. for mortgage-securities.

"As a result, UBS is not assuming that the quarter will continue as positively as it has begun, or that the current difficulties will be resolved in the short term," UBS said in a statement.

The bank's third-quarter report is scheduled for 0600 GMT Tuesday.

Investors had been fearful UBS would post a worse loss than flagged after U.S. rival Merrill Lynch & Co Inc. (MER) surprised the market last week with far larger third-quarter loss than originally indicated. UBS said it made the statement to refute a Swiss weekend media report, which suggested the losses may have spread further.

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Boeing Board Approves New $7 Billion Share Repurchase and Declares Dividend

2007-10-29T18:30:00.001-07:00

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The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] board of directors has approved a new repurchase plan for up to $7 billion of common stock and declared a regular quarterly dividend of 35 cents a share.

Boeing has bought approximately $8 billion of its stock since resuming repurchases during 2004. This new plan follows the $3 billion buy back that the board approved in August 2006. The company is nearing completion of the repurchases authorized under that plan.

"Our strong financial performance allows us to return value to our shareholders while continuing to invest in our growth and becoming more productive," said Boeing Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Jim McNerney. "We are executing a balanced cash deployment strategy that's serving Boeing and its shareholders well."

The share repurchases will be made on the open market or in privately negotiated transactions. The number of shares to be purchased, and the timing of the purchases, will be based on the level of cash balances, general business conditions and other factors including alternative investment opportunities.

The dividend declared today is payable Dec. 7, 2007, to shareholders of record as of Nov. 9.

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Verizon Reports Continued Success in 3Q 2007

2007-10-29T18:21:00.000-07:00

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Verizon Communications today reported another strong quarter of financial and operational results. Verizon Wireless continued its record of industry-leading profitability, Verizon Telecom reported accelerating sales of FiOS TV, and Verizon Business increased overall sales and sales of strategic services.

Verizon reported third-quarter 2007 earnings of 44 cents in fully diluted earnings per share (EPS). This compares with third-quarter 2006 earnings of 53 cents per share before income from discontinued operations that have since been sold or divested.

On an adjusted basis (non-GAAP), third-quarter 2007 earnings were 63 cents per share. This is a 14.5 percent increase, compared with 55 cents per share in the third quarter 2006 after excluding discontinued operations.

Adjusted earnings in the third quarter 2007 reflect 19 cents per share in special items: 16 cents per share for international taxes, 2 cents per share for costs related to a previously announced spin-off of access lines and 1 cent per share in merger integration costs. Adjusted earnings in the third quarter 2006 excluded 2 cents per share in special items for pension settlement charges, and merger integration and Verizon Center relocation costs.

Successful Transformation

"Our third-quarter results show that we have hit our stride as a leading wireless, broadband and enterprise company," said Verizon Chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg. "In recent years, we have transformed our business model and revenue base. Our results throughout 2007, and especially in the third quarter, show that our strategy has been successful. We expect to build on these results in the fourth quarter and beyond."

Strong Consolidated Results

Verizon's total operating revenues grew 5.8 percent to $23.8 billion, compared with the third quarter 2006. Operating revenues grew 6.0 percent on an adjusted basis (non-GAAP). Verizon's total operating expenses increased 3.4 percent to $19.6 billion, compared with the third quarter 2006. Operating expenses increased 3.5 percent on an adjusted basis (non-GAAP).

On a reported basis, Verizon's operating income grew 19.0 percent to $4.2 billion, compared with the third quarter 2006. On an adjusted basis, operating income grew 18.5 percent to $4.3 billion.

Operating income margin rose to 17.7 percent, compared with 15.7 percent in the third quarter 2006. On an adjusted basis, Verizon's operating income margin rose to 18.1 percent, compared with 16.2 percent in the third quarter 2006.

Cash flows from continuing operations totaled $18.0 billion through the first nine months of 2007. This represents 5.0 percent growth over the same period last year.

Dividends, Repurchase Program Reflect Confidence

Reflecting confidence in Verizon's business model and continued strong cash flows, Verizon's Board of Directors announced during the third quarter that it had increased the company's quarterly dividend 6.2 percent, beginning with the Nov. 1 dividend.

Verizon also repurchased nearly $800 million of its shares in the quarter, for a total of $1.7 billion in the last nine months. Verizon is increasing the 2007 target for its share repurchase program to $2.5 billion, up $500 million from the original target.

Wireless Continues to Lead Industry

Verizon Wireless extended its record of strong, industry-leading performance. It continues to be the largest domestic wireless company in total revenues, data revenues and retail customers.

In the third quarter:

* Nearly all of the 1.8 million retail net customer additions (including acquisitions and adjustments) were post-paid customers.
* Total customers (retail and wholesale) increased to 63.7 million. The company added 1.6 million total net customers after approximately 115,000 net reductions to the company's wholesale base.
* Verizon Wireless continued its industry-leading customer loyalty, with 1.21 percent retail churn. Churn among retail post-paid customers at 0.96 percent was substantially lower.
* Revenues totaled $11.3 billion, up 14.4 percent. Service revenues were $9.7 billion, up 15.1 percent, driven by customer growth and demand for data services.
* ARPU levels (average monthly revenue per customer) were the company's highest ever: $52.17 retail service ARPU, up 1.9 percent year over year; $10.59 retail data ARPU, up 42.9 percent.
* Wireless operating income margin was 27.1 percent, the company's second highest. EBITDA margin on service revenues (non-GAAP) was 44.7 percent.

Wireline Reports Strong Growth in FiOS, Strategic Services

Verizon's Wireline business, which includes Verizon Telecom and Verizon Business, reported continued strong growth in customers of FiOS fiber-optic services and sales of strategic services to enterprise customers.

In the third quarter:

* Verizon added a net of 202,000 new FiOS TV customers. The company has 717,000 FiOS TV customers in total, with approximately 600,000 added within the past 12 months. Including satellite TV customers served in partnership with DIRECTV (a net of 85,000 added this quarter), Verizon has more than 1.5 million video customers.
* Verizon added a net of 285,000 new broadband connections (DSL and FiOS Internet connections combined). Broadband connections totaled 8.0 million, an increase of 21.3 percent compared with the third quarter 2006. The company added a net of 229,000 FiOS Internet connections this quarter, for a total of 1.3 million.
* ARPU in legacy Verizon wireline markets (which excludes former MCI consumer markets) increased 10.8 percent to $58.79, compared with last year's third quarter. This increase was due to strong demand for broadband and TV services.
* Wireline operating income margin rose to 9.4 percent, compared with 8.8 percent in last year's third quarter.
* Verizon Business had revenues of $5.3 billion, or growth of 2.2 percent compared with last year's third quarter on an adjusted basis (non-GAAP). This is Verizon Business' fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year, pro-forma revenue growth (non-GAAP, calculated as if Verizon and MCI had merged on Jan. 1, 2005).
* Strong sales of key strategic services -- such as IP (Internet protocol), managed services, Ethernet and optical ring services -- continued to drive Verizon Business' growth. These services generated $1.4 billion in revenue, up 28.6 percent from last year's third quarter.

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Airlines may be fined for chronically late flights

2007-10-27T07:17:00.000-07:00

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Airlines that operate chronically delayed flights could face stiff fines in the coming weeks as the U.S. government concludes a six-month investigation into potentially deceptive business practices.

The Transportation Department in May began investigating flights that are at least 15 minutes late more than 70 percent of the time, and so far has identified 26 that meet those criteria, an agency spokesman said.

If any of those 26 flights also were delayed in the most recent quarter being reviewed, the responsible airlines will face "significant financial penalties," agency spokesman Brian Turmail said. Results of the investigation are expected within weeks.

The commercial airlines trade group criticized the government's possible penalties.

"We're disappointed that they're taking this course of action given the effort by industry to significantly reduce delays," said David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Association.

"No one has greater incentive to move its flights on-time than the airlines," Castelveter said, because they cost the industry $6 billion per year and it means "we fail our customers." But the answer is not eliminating flights from the chronically delayed list, which are there based on customer demand, he added.

The Federal Aviation Administration handles roughly 85,000 flights per day, a number predicted to reach more than 111,000 daily flights by 2020.

But delays this summer reached record levels. The Transportation Department earlier this month said more than 25 percent of domestic flights arrived late between January and August — easily the industry's worst performance since comparable data began being collected in 1995.

In August alone, 23 flights were late at least 90 percent of the time and more than 100 flights were late at least 80 percent of the time. Almost half of Atlantic Southeast Airlines' flights were delayed, and two arrived late every time they took off.

Kristen Loughman, a spokeswoman for the Delta Connection carrier owned by SkyWest Inc., said the company was not aware of any fines being considered by the government. Any Atlantic Southeast flight on the Transportation Department's monthly report of delays becomes its top priority to fix, she added.

Other airlines that operated flights that were late at least 90 percent of the time in August were: ExpressJet Holdings Inc., which flies regional service for Continental Airlines Inc.; SkyWest Inc.; AirTran Holdings Inc.; Delta Air Lines Inc. and its subsidiary Comair Inc.

Also Tuesday, federal aviation regulators opened a two-day summit aimed at fixing "epidemic" delays at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The latest government proposal for reducing congestion at JFK, which had the worst on-time departure record of any major U.S. airport through August, is to reduce the hourly flight limit by 20 percent.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters repeated the government's desire for airlines to voluntarily change their summer 2008 flight schedules in order to alleviate record delays at JFK and other airports, but also reiterated that schedule reduction mandates remain an option.

Peters said she has "high hopes for market-based incentives," including raising landing fees for airlines during peak periods, to help reduce record delays at JFK and elsewhere.

But airlines say that so-called "congestion pricing" approach would simply result in higher fares and pledged to challenge mandates for it, or mandated schedule cuts, in court or legislatively.

Other recommendations for reducing airline delays are due by Dec. 10 from an aviation rules committee made up of airline executives, government officials and aviation groups. The scheduling summit is being carried out in parallel to that process and FAA officials expect a series of one-on-one meetings with airlines to continue through early December.

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The two wars cost US $2.4 trillion

2007-10-27T01:06:00.000-07:00

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The U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion by 2017 when counting the huge interest costs because combat is being financed with borrowed money, according to a study released on Wednesday.

With President George W. Bush indicating a large contingent of U.S. troops likely will be engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan for many years to come, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the total tab for the wars from 2001 through 2017.

CBO estimated that interest costs alone from 2001-2017 could total more than $700 billion.

So far, Congress has given Bush $604 billion for the two wars, with about $412 billion spent in Iraq, according to CBO, which is Congress' in-house budget analyst. In Iraq alone, the United States is spending about $11 billion a month, with costs escalating.

Bush is seeking another $196 billion for combat in Iraq and Afghanistan through September 30 and Congress is expected to debate that request over the next few months.

CBO estimated that between 2008 and 2017, the wars could cost slightly more than $1 trillion, assuming overall troop strength is cut to 75,000 by 2013.

Currently, there are about 170,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and another 26,000 in Afghanistan.

Finance charges for the money already spent on the war will total $415 billion from 2001 to 2017, according to CBO. For the next decade, "interest outlays would increase by a total of $290 billion over that 10-year period," CBO told the House Budget Committee, which is reviewing long-term war costs.

"To put it all on our credit cards with no accountability, with no plan to pay for it, I think is the height of irresponsibility," said Rep. James McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat who serves on the budget panel and is an outspoken war critic. "It will be just one more toxic legacy of this disastrous war we will have to leave our kids to clean up."

With national elections about a year away and public discontent with the Iraq war running deep, Democrats are highlighting the huge costs of the Iraq war as they seek $22 billion more than Bush wants for domestic social programs such as health care and education.

Bush has vowed to veto the added funding.

CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the war, about $1.9 trillion of that would be spent on Iraq.

Via Reuters

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The problem with being too big

2007-10-26T08:07:00.000-07:00

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Toyota was once an company with an good track record for safety in cars. However, they had dropped the top spot today.

Quote"The survey dropped Toyota from first to fifth place - behind Honda, Acura, Scion and Subaru - in average vehicle reliability. The rankings are based on average predicted reliability for all models sold under a given brand."

Via CNN Money

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Microsoft Reports 23% Profit Jump

2007-10-26T06:30:00.000-07:00

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Microsoft posted a rise in quarterly profit on Thursday, boosted by healthy demand for personal computers loaded with its Windows operating system and strong sales of its "Halo 3" video game.

Shares of Microsoft, which closed at $31.99 Thursday, jumped 11 percent in late trading.

The world's largest software maker said net profit in its fiscal first quarter totaled $4.29 billion, or 45 cents per diluted share, versus $3.48 billion, or 35 cents per diluted share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose 27 percent to $13.76 billion in the three months ended Sept. 30.

Analysts, on average, had forecast 39 cents per share in first-quarter profit on revenue of $12.54 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

Market research firms Gartner and IDC said global PC shipments rose about 15 percent in the September quarter, which helped Microsoft as well as the quarterly results of chip maker Intel.

Microsoft also enjoyed strong sales of "Halo 3," the latest installment of its flagship shooter franchise. The blockbuster game title racked up more than $300 million in its first week of sales after its Sept. 25 debut. Consumers also purchased the Xbox 360 console to play the game, vaulting the game machine past rival consoles in September.

For the current quarter, Microsoft forecast earnings in a range of 44 cents to 46 cents per diluted share on revenue of $15.6 billion to $16.1 billion.

Analysts, on average, were forecasting earnings per share of 44 cents a share on revenue of $15.5 billion in Microsoft's fiscal second quarter, according to Reuters Estimates.

The holiday quarter is a crucial one for Microsoft as it aims to spur adoption of new computers running its latest Windows Vista operating system. Its entertainment arm also counts on the December quarter generating twice as much revenue as any other quarter of the year.

Microsoft also raised full-year earnings estimates to a range of $1.78 to $1.81 per share from a previous range of $1.69 to $1.73. It also raised its full-year revenue estimate range by almost $2 billion, to $58.8 billion to $59.7 billion.

Wall Street analysts, on average, were forecasting fiscal 2008 earnings of $1.73 per share on revenue of $57.3 billion.

As of the close of Wednesday trade, Microsoft shares had fallen about 1 percent since it reported quarterly results in July compared with 2 percent declines for both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.

"It was a huge beat," said First American Funds Senior Analyst Jane Snorek. "The guidance I think is pretty good for the year. Guidance for next quarter is kind of in the middle of what I had."

"These are all huge (revenue) numbers in every division. I'm sure the (second-quarter) guidance is cautious. I'll take it," Snorek added. "This is going to be good for the tech sector."

From CNBC

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Don't underestimate the power of Traditional Media yet

2007-10-25T02:13:00.000-07:00

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Last week could hardly have been grimmer for the newspaper industry. First off, Gannett and McClatchy - the two biggest newspapers publishers in the U.S., respectively - reported diminished revenues and profits. Meanwhile, following the lead of Belo, publisher of the Dallas Morning News, Scripps announced it was splitting its growing television and interactive businesses off from the company's newspaper business so that investors could get excited about the company's slumping stock price.

The kicker of the week was when stock in the New York Times Company hit its lowest point in a decade after a Morgan Stanley fund manager who had been agitating for changes at the company sold off the firm's entire 7.2% stake. Also last week, the equity research arm of Morgan Stanley laid off its newspaper analyst and dropped coverage of the industry, the Times itself noted wryly in its pages. This was almost certainly a coincidence. Otherwise, it might be construed as one heck of a kiss off. The present question in newspaperland is not whether the industry can reclaim its glory, but rather how quickly the erosion in business conditions that has accelerated in the past year or so can be slowed and even reversed.

Maybe the unusually balmy Manhattan October is giving me a gauzier disposition than usual, but I can't help thinking the storyline is not quite as apocalyptic as it seems. Don't get me wrong, the list of dubious achievements in the newspaper business over the past decade is considerable: just a few include the Tribune Company's doomed merger with Times-Mirror; the New York Times' overpriced acquisition of the Boston Globe; the dismantling of Knight-Ridder; and, of course, the epic string of corporate miscues that has delivered Dow Jones and its prize asset, the Wall Street Journal, out of the control of the Bancroft family and into the hands of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Even setting aside the drumbeat narrative about how news readers and especially advertisers have been increasingly moving online, the newspaper industry has always had unique characteristics and idiosyncrasies, both structurally and operationally. These include the public service mission good newspapers prize above even commercial success, and the inherent tension that mission creates with the side of the business that pays the bills.

Beyond that, big daily newspapers in particular are immensely complex organizations with myriad moving parts - and newspaper owners have hardly been alone at failing to heed the threat of emerging competition. Barely two decades ago, the major broadcast TV networks that dominated living rooms derided the emergence of niche cable channels like CNN, ESPN and MTV. And we know how well the music industry has fared in its grasp of digital downloads and file-sharing.

For the newspaper industry, the Internet is just the latest growth opportunity - think also of alternative weeklies and free dailies - that most big newspaper operators failed to clue into when the getting was good. "People are trying to defend the way they've done things and it isn't relevant anymore," says Lauren Rich Fine, who retired from Merrill Lynch earlier this year after a long career as a publishing analyst and is now on the faculty of Kent State University. "Newspapers will never be able to make money the way they made money before." While she said she commends the efforts publishers have made to remake their industry, "I still laugh at some of the conversations I had where they just didn't get what was happening around them."

If they didn't get it then, they ought to be getting it now. And if so, here's a few reasons to still be (cautiously) optimistic about the future of newspapers. One is that an industry's lack of appeal to public shareholders should not necessarily be confused with its viability or relevance. While most big newspapers may not be able to show the top-line growth that investors look for, they still churn out decent profits. One senior newspaper industry honcho said that a popular scenario being bruited around the publishing world is this: core print newspaper revenues continue to fall at 5% per year; costs are held in check; revenue from Internet operations grow at 20%; and increasingly popular targeted magazines (think the New York Times' T Style, the Wall Street Journal's planned weekend Pursuits magazine and Spice, a fashion monthly launched recently by Hearst's Houston Chronicle) grow revenue at 15% or more. "At some point, those lines will cross" and newspaper profits will stabilize, this executive says, although he is also quick to point out that this year is worse than any publisher expected.

What is often overlooked is where newspapers rank, at least for now, in overall spending in the pantheon of media industries fighting for dollars from consumers and advertisers. They are number one, ahead of TV networks, magazines, billboards, you name it. And it's instructive that no legacy medium has been obliterated by a new technology: consumers simply adjust and adapt. In the era of DVDs and downloads, we still go the movies and listen to the radio.

So much depends on how you view the numbers. A report by PriceWaterhouse Coopers estimates that revenue for the newspaper industry will be down 1.4% for 2007 to $59.2 billion, the second straight down year. The report sees advertising for the industry at essentially flat through 2011, after taking into account papers' rising online revenues. Put another way, according to this analysis nearly one out of every four dollars spent on advertising in this country is spent today on newspapers. And much of the upheaval is due to the fact that it is moving to one in five dollars in a hurry, largely thanks to online upstarts. There are plenty of businesses that wish they had these problems.

There's no question newspapers are an industry that needs reinvention - fast - as last week's dreary reports underscored. The Belo and Scripps spin-offs seem to Rich Fine and other analysts as precursors either to taking the newspapers private or further industry consolidation. For papers that are not owned by families or already privately-held, expect more opportunistic and convoluted deals like Sam Zell's buyout of the Tribune Company. And anxiety over whether newspapers will have the resources to be interesting and unique enough that people will read them - not to mention fulfil their public service missions - is not going to go away. Papers are already adjusting to a tough reality of needing to cut costs in some areas while investing in others.

But, call me ink-stained and old-fashioned, it seems a bit premature to put a $60-billion industry on the endangered species list.

Via Fortune

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The best way to work in

2007-10-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

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The best way to work is Google again.Google offers free meals, swimming spa, and free doctors onsite. Engineers can spend 20% of time on independent projects. No wonder Google gets 1,300 résumés a day.

It is beating Microsoft( Rank:50)

Via CNN Money

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Gas up 5 cents in last 2 weeks to $2.80 a gallon

2007-10-23T05:25:00.000-07:00

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Average retail gasoline prices rose by nearly 5 cents and are poised to rise further as those who make, distribute and sell gasoline see their profit margins squeezed, according to an industry analyst.

The national average for self-serve regular unleaded gas was nearly $2.80 a gallon on October 19, up 4.92 cents per gallon in the past two weeks, according to the nationwide Lundberg survey of about 7,000 gas stations.

This was about 38 cents below the May 18, 2007, all-time high of more than $3.18.

“While gasoline prices moved up just under a nickel in that period, crude oil prices are up the equivalent of 18 cents per gallon,” said survey editor Trilby Lundberg. “That missing 13 cents and more will probably turn up at the pump and soon because it represents margin squeeze over months for refiners, jobbers and retails — those who make, deliver and sell gasoline.”

That is in addition to other factors that have fueled high prices at the pump: winter heating oil demand and refinery capacity utilization rates.

“These losses for refiners, jobbers and retailers tell us where gasoline prices have to go, which is up substantially,” she said. “The only thing that could avert that would be a crash in the crude oil price, and I think that is not likely at all near term.”

The average price is likely to exceed $3 per gallon in coming weeks, Lundberg said.

At $3.17 a gallon, San Francisco had the highest average price for self-serve regular unleaded gas, while the lowest price was $2.56 a gallon in Newark, New Jersey, although Lundberg noted that price was not strictly a direct comparison, as New Jersey offers no self-serve gasoline.

Cost for everything goes up but our salary just do not go up so fast.

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Why the rich would become richer and the poorer would become poorer

2007-10-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

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Why the rich would become richer and the poorer would become poorer? This phrase had been common in the rich nations.

The 2 reasons why the rich would become richer and the poorer would become poorer.

1. The rich would have money to grow their money- What this means is that the rich would have money to invest in stocks and multiply their money. Whereas the poorer people would not have even enough money to even scrape pass their daily needs.

2. The rich would know how to evade taxes legally. So even if the government increases the taxes, only the poor and middle class citizens would suffer.

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Would Wall Street Drop?

2007-10-22T07:08:00.000-07:00

CNN Money had published an news article about the US Stocks dropping after hearing the drop in Citibank's earnings. Quote"U.S. stock futures lost momentum Monday after Citigroup reported a sharp decline in quarterly earnings, although news that big banks are setting up a massive fund to help shore up the credit market could help boost sentiment."

The questions is would other companies report lower earnings? If so, would investors sell their stocks as soon as they know that the company's earnings dropped?

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The world's largest corporations

2007-10-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

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With the high oil prices, oil companies had been climbing up the ladder in the world's richest company. Their profits are much more then other companies.

Exxon Mobil is the world's most profitable company. And as usual, Apple had climbed up the ladder using the iPhone and the iPod touch. And Ford Motor had fallen out of the Top Ten and GM lost money too. While Toyota is riding on the fuel bloom.

Quote"But the big story was oil. Exxon Mobil (No. 2), fueled by high crude prices, was again the most profitable company in the world ($39.5 billion). The refining industry overall represented more than 14% of the Global 500's $21 trillion in total revenue. That rising tide of petrodollars lifted a Chinese company, Sinopec (No. 17), into the top 20 for the first time. But for tech companies like Apple (No. 367), up a phenomenal 125 places on the list, it's still a long way to the top.

Ford Motor (No. 12) fell out of the top ten for the first time in the Global 500's 13-year history. Its revenues shrank 10%, and losses totaled $12.6 billion, making it the losingest company on the list this year. General Motors (No. 5) lost money too.

But Asia's largest company, Toyota (No. 6), moved up two places and saw its profits rise 16% as customers flocked to its fuel-efficient and hybrid cars. If current trends persist, it should surpass GM next year to become the world's largest automaker by revenue.

Via CNN Money

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Big oil getting squeezed on refining margins

2007-10-21T04:27:00.000-07:00

Drivers aren't the only ones being squeezed by record oil prices. A surprising casualty of the escalating cost of crude and sagging pump prices turns out to be the oil industry itself.

Even as oil futures set a new record north of $84 a barrel last week, a number of refiners warned that their third-quarter profits won't be as robust as once expected.

That's not to say they are destitute. Profits at the nation's three largest oil companies -- Exxon Mobil Corp, Chevron Corp and ConocoPhillips -- are forecast to drop 8.8 percent to $17.7 billion for the quarter that ended Sept. 30, compared with earnings of $19.4 billion in the same period last year, according to analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

The major reason is falling refining margins, or the difference between what refiners pay for oil and what they are paid for the products they make from it.

Gasoline prices have been moving lower in recent months as supplies have grown and demand has ebbed with the end of peak summer driving season. Crude oil, meanwhile, has surged on a mix of concerns about growing global demand, falling inventories and an influx of speculative investment money.

Many analysts believe either pump prices will need to rise to catch up with oil's recent advance, or oil prices will have to fall. "At some point, something has to give," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch and Associates, in Galena, Ill.

Oil futures jumped above $84 a barrel for the first time ever during trading Friday, and they're up more than 20 percent since August. But gasoline prices have moved the opposite direction. Since peaking at $3.23 a gallon in late May, pump prices have declined to an average of about $2.76 a gallon nationwide for regular unleaded, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

Gasoline prices have been held down in part by rising supplies of ethanol, which is blended with gas at many stations and has been coming down in price in recent weeks. Ethanol production jumped 34 percent to 13.1 million barrels a month in July, the latest month for which data is available, from July 2006, according to the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration.

Imports of refined gasoline also have boosted supplies. In the week ended Oct. 5, for instance, gasoline imports averaged 1.3 million barrels a day, up 169,000 barrels a day from the previous week and up 253,000 barrels a day from a year earlier, the EIA said.

Add all that up and the result has been a startling decline in domestic refining margins. They plunged from a record of $37.40 a barrel in May, when gas prices were peaking and oil futures traded around $65 a barrel, to $2.90 a barrel on Oct. 1, according to Barclays Capital PLC. On Friday, the average margin hovered around $6, Ritterbusch said.

"When they get much below $5, (companies refine gasoline) out of obligation," and many actually lose money in the process, said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp., in Chicago.

The shrinking margins are affecting companies that produce and process oil as well as those focused only on refining. Chevron and ConocoPhillips -- both integrated companies that find, pump, ship and refine oil, then sell the resulting products -- recently warned that third-quarter refining profits will fall sharply.

Valero Energy Corp, the nation's largest independent oil refiner, joined the warning parade, as did Marathon Oil Corp., (Charts, Fortune 500) a smaller integrated oil company.

It's easy to understand why a company like Valero is affected by low refining margins; it has to buy the oil it processes. But why are integrated companies which produce oil also affected?

"They don't actually refine their own oil," explained Ben Tsocanos, director of ratings services at Standard & Poor's in New York.

Oil majors don't run a pipeline from their production wells to their refineries. To keep both arms of an integrated oil company flexible and efficient, its production arms sells oil to the highest bidder, and its refining arms buy oil from the lowest bidder. "The businesses are somewhat separate," Tsocanos said.

But all oil companies pay attention to market forces, which means some refiners may decide to sit out the market for a while. That could lead to a drop in gasoline supplies and higher pump prices.

"At some point, there's going to have to be a situation where refiners who are down for maintenance will look at the margins and say, hey, let's stay down," Ritterbusch said.

Despite lower refining margins, investors tend to flock to oil company stocks when oil prices are rising. Shares of Exxon Mobil, the world's biggest publicly traded oil company, have traded in record territory of late.

In a research note Friday, Bank of America Securities analyst Daniel Barcelo said Exxon Mobil's businesses and cash flows were robust, and its shares were trading at a discount. Barcelo reiterated his "buy" rating and $98 per share target price.

Exxon Mobil shares ended the week at $93.48, up 12.2 percent since its most recent low on Aug. 16. Chevron shares have gained 12.3 percent over the same period, and ConocoPhillips shares rose 10.9 percent.

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Nestle's growth affected by rising raw material costs

2007-10-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

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The Swiss food group Nestle said Thursday that growing raw material costs were having an impact on its growth, as it posted a nine percent increase in sales over the first nine months of the year.

Nestle said in a statement that "input cost pressures were increasing over the second half of the year" and having a "dampening effect" on real internal growth.

The multinational's sales over the first nine months of 2007 reached 78.7 billion Swiss francs (47 billion euros, 67 billion dollars), exceeding analysts' expectations. Nestle did not release data for the third quarter.

"In spite of increasing input cost pressures, I remain confident that Nestle will achieve above-target organic growth and a sustainable margin improvement for 2007 as a whole," said Nestle Chairman and Chief Executive Peter Brabeck.

Organic growth over nine months -- a measure of business performance that excludes financial investments or acquisitions -- reached 7.2 percent, including 2.7 percent due to price rises, the company said.

Nestle maintained its outlook for above target organic growth for the full year. In August, the company said it expected to exceed its original target of five to six percent in 2007.

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CapitaMall Trust posts 29% rise in Q3 distributable income

2007-10-20T06:47:00.000-07:00

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CapitaMall Trust on Friday said its third-quarter distributable income rose 29 percent on-year.

Distributable income for the three months to September amounted to S$53.2 million.

CapitaMall Trust will distribute 3.4 cents for each unit.

The better showing was boosted by a payout by CapitaRetail China and improving rentals.

The property trust said higher rentals were driven by robust retail sales growth achieved by its tenants.

It also said it expects to continue its growth through asset enhancement initiatives and acquisitions.

Via CNA

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Yahoo's Yang May Deliver Lower Profit After Promising Comeback

2007-10-18T00:50:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang pledged in July to craft a turnaround strategy in 100 days. Shareholders say they're still waiting.

Yang, 38, replaced Terry Semel as CEO of the owner of the most-visited U.S. Web site in June. Since then, Yang has named a new sales chief, announced four acquisitions, and upgraded Yahoo's search engine with movies and photographs.

With nine days left before Yang's plan deadline, ``I'm not expecting anything very new,'' said Anthony Valencia, a money manager at Los Angeles-based TCW Group Inc., which oversees $150 billion in assets, including Yahoo shares. Yang's focus, he said, is ``improving the efficiency of their current assets and making sure they don't miss the boat.''

Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo may report its seventh straight decline in quarterly profit today as it continues to lose ground to Google Inc.'s Internet search engine. Third- quarter net income dropped 24 percent to $119.7 million, or 8 cents a share, from $158.5 million, or 11 cents, a year earlier, according to a Bloomberg survey of 16 analysts.

Sales probably rose 11 percent to $1.24 billion, analysts estimate. Yahoo had 20 percent growth in the year-earlier period.

Yahoo's share of Internet searches fell to 19.9 percent in August from 24 percent a year earlier, according to New York- based Nielsen//NetRatings. Google, in Mountain View, California, rose to 53.6 percent from 50.2 percent.

Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.'s Jeffrey Lindsay suggests breaking up Yahoo or farming out its search service to Google or Microsoft Corp.

`Into Irrelevance'

``To stop the inevitable slide into irrelevance, the management team must consider more radical actions and strategies,'' Lindsay wrote in an Oct. 5 report. The New York- based analyst rates the shares ``market perform.''

Lindsay said he doesn't expect Yahoo to follow his recommendations. ``Management will at most make minor tweaks along the way,'' he said.

After tumbling 35 percent last year, Yahoo shares have climbed 9.1 percent in 2007, trailing the Nasdaq Composite Index's 15 percent gain. The stock fell 62 cents to $27.86 yesterday in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.

Lindsay predicts the shares will fall to $25 with management's current strategy. Of 39 analysts tracked by Bloomberg, 18 advise buying Yahoo, 20 have hold recommendations and one suggests selling.

Joanna Stevens, a Yahoo spokeswoman, declined to comment.

`Dramatic' Improvement

Yang, who will join a conference call after he releases the quarterly results, will address analysts today for the first time since his 100-day pledge. In July, he promised a top-to- bottom review of the business that would ``dramatically improve'' performance.

Yang co-founded Yahoo in 1995 when he was a doctorate student at Stanford University. In the 12 years before he replaced Semel, he held the title of chief Yahoo, helping guide strategy and technology focus.

After his return as CEO, Yang sparked an effort to improve Yahoo's search service, bolster products for mobile phones and draw more traffic and advertisers to its sites, such as the Flickr photo service.

Yang promoted Hilary Schneider, a former Knight Ridder Inc. executive, to the top sales position in August, replacing Gregory Coleman, who arrived in 2001 from Readers Digest Association Inc. The appointment followed his decision in June to create a single sales force, combining groups that sold graphical ads and sponsored Internet-search links.

Acquisition Spree

Yahoo agreed last month to buy San Jose, California-based BlueLithium Inc., the fifth-largest U.S. ad network by the number of users. Two weeks later, the company announced plans to purchase San Mateo, California-based Zimbra Inc. to bolster its e-mail service. Yahoo also acquired an online-news site called BuzzTracker in Chicago.

In July, Yahoo bought Right Media Inc., a deal negotiated before Yang's arrival. Right Media, a New York-based auction site for online advertising, may help boost revenue from banner ads. Yahoo lost sales in that market to social-networking sites MySpace, owned by News Corp., and Facebook Inc. In June, Yahoo added sports news site Rivals.com.

To close the gap with Google, Yahoo upgraded its search engine this month to include videos and Flickr photos in query results. This year, the company introduced software designed to make ads more relevant to the user and more likely to be clicked.

`A Nonstarter'

Yahoo has invested too much in the online search business to sell it, said Douglas Anmuth, an analyst at Lehman Brothers in New York.

``Outsourcing search is almost a nonstarter,'' said Anmuth, who rates the shares ``overweight'' and doesn't own them. ``There are probably businesses that can be trimmed. There are resources that can be much better allocated.''

Yahoo may need to fire employees and close some units, said Standard & Poor's analyst Scott Kessler in New York. He cited the company's music program, a subscription service that lets users download songs, as one that doesn't fit its online- advertising strategy.

``They need to take a hard look at a lot of their operations,'' said Kessler, who rates the shares ``hold'' and doesn't own them. ``That involves consolidation of the businesses and layoffs. I'm not entirely sure they're prepared for that.''

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J.P. Morgan profit rises

2007-10-18T00:31:00.000-07:00

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J.P. Morgan announced an stronger earning then the Wall Street expected. Despite the turnoil in the credit market. Can they still do that with all the problems in the background?

Quote"J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. reported a rise in quarterly profit Wednesday, even as its investment banking business was hurt by turmoil in the global credit markets.

The bank said its net income edged higher to a record $3.4 billion, or 97 cents a share, from $3.3 billion, or 92 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Net managed revenue rose 4 percent to $17 billion in the quarter ended in September.

The bank did better than Wall Street thought it would. Analysts had expected J.P. Morgan to post earnings of 90 cents a share on revenue of $16.6 billion, according to estimates from earnings tracker Thomson First Call."

Via CNN Money

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Intel beats estimates, shares jump 5%

2007-10-17T01:49:00.000-07:00

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Intel Corp., citing a strong market for personal computers, reported big increases in third quarter revenue and profit exceeding analysts' projections.

Shares of Intel jumped nearly 5 percent after-hours immediately following the announcement, after closing down slightly at $25.48.

Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, said third-quarter earnings reached $1.9 billion, a 43 percent increase over the same period last year, and earnings per share were 31 cents, up 41 percent from the same period last year.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had forecast earnings per share of 30 cents.

The company reported revenue of $10.1 billion in the third quarter, a 15 percent increase over the same quarter last year.

Analysts had estimated that revenue would be $9.62 billion.

Intel's third-quarter gross margin was 52.4 percent, up from 46.9 percent in the second quarter.

The company also offered fourth quarter revenue guidance of between $10.5 billion and $11.1 billion, ahead of what analysts were expecting.

The gross margin increase and projected gross margin increase for the fourth quarter were among the most notable aspects of Intel's statement, according to Doug Freedman, an analyst at American Technology Management.

Intel said that it saw record sales of total microprocessor units, although the average selling price was flat. Sales of motherboard units were lower.

"Flat in this environment is a good achievement," said Glen Yeung, an analyst with Citgroup.

Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini said during a conference call that notebook computers as a group are expanding. "As notebook volumes grow, prices will come down," he said.

The company's chief financial officer, Andy Bryant, said that one of his goals in the next quarter will be to increase inventory.

"Inventory level is lower than I would like given level of demand," Bryant said.

Intel, which has been restructuring and reducing costs, said it will cut 2,000 more positions by the end of the year. The cuts will bring headcount to about 86,000 by the end of 2007, compared to 94,000 in 2006.

Intel also announced Tuesday that Bryant will become chief administrative officer and be succeeded as CFO by Stacy J. Smith, the assistant CFO.

AMD, Intel's main competitor, is expected to report a net loss of 62 cents per share, according to analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call, when it announces its earnings on Thursday.

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AOL to cut 20 percent of global work force

2007-10-17T01:14:00.000-07:00

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AOL is eliminating another 2,000 jobs worldwide as it tries to cut costs and make room to grow in online advertising.

The 20 percent slice from AOL's work force comes after several rounds of layoffs in recent years, including a cut of 5,000 jobs last fall. The latest cuts would give AOL more flexibility to expand ad-related businesses through acquisitions and potentially new hires, company officials said.

"This realignment will allow us to increase investment in high-growth areas of the company — as an example, we added hundreds of people this year through acquisitions — while scaling back in areas with less growth potential or those that aren't core to our business," AOL Chief Executive Randy Falco told employees Monday.

AOL believes it is now best at developing Web sites such as its Moviefone and MapQuest properties to attract people in some 30 countries, Falco said. Its goal, he said, is to build "the largest and most sophisticated global advertising network" for marketers to reach that online audience.

AOL, once the leading seller of Internet access subscriptions, has struggled in recent years as Internet users have ditched their AOL accounts for high-speed services offered by cable and telephone companies.

To make up for declines in subscription revenues, the company has been trying to boost traffic to its ad-supported Web sites and last year began giving away AOL.com e-mail accounts, software and other features once reserved for paying subscribers.

Last year's job reductions were mostly in customer-service and marketing personnel as AOL opted to stop producing and distributing its notorious trial discs aimed at luring new subscribers.

The latest cuts are expected to affect employees across the board.

Last month, AOL announced that it was consolidating its advertising operations to share innovations across the company and help potential advertisers more easily buy ads.

The idea is to help marketers reach Internet users not only across AOL properties but also at outside sites for which AOL now brokers ad sales.

In a memo to employees obtained by The Associated Press, Falco described the latest cuts as difficult but necessary.

AOL has acquired a number of companies in recent months and added to its payroll each time. The purchase of ad-targeting technology specialist Tacoda Inc., for example, brought in about 100 employees.

The latest reductions would allow AOL to keep making such purchases and perhaps expand its advertising sales team while keeping payroll costs steady.

The cuts affect about 1,200 positions in the United States, including 750 in northern Virginia, where AOL has long had its headquarters.

Most of the affected employees in the U.S. were to be informed and terminated Tuesday, while reductions abroad were expected by year's end. Severance packages are to include at least four months' pay.

None of the reductions is directly related to AOL's recent announcement that it was moving its headquarters to New York to be closer to the media advertising industry. Most of those employees already work in New York. Senior executives like Falco, meanwhile, are expected to keep offices at both locations.

AOL has been counting on ad growth to offset declines in subscription revenue, which continued to plummet, as expected, following its strategy shift in August 2006. AOL had 10.9 million paying U.S. subscribers for Internet access as of June 30, a 60 percent drop from its peak of 26.7 million in September 2002.

After four quarters of at least 40 percent growth, though, AOL ad revenues increased by only 16 percent in the quarter that included April through June.

Workers at AOL's Dulles, Va., campus had speculated for weeks that big layoffs were coming. Speculation intensified last week, when workers reported seeing large pallets of empty cardboard shipping boxes arrive at an AOL warehouse, presumably for laid-off workers to empty their desks.

Shares in AOL LLC's parent company, Time Warner Inc., dropped 19 cents, or 1 percent, to $18.79 in Monday trading.

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Caterpillar's Earnings Increase 15%; Forecast Is Cut

2007-10-16T07:20:00.000-07:00

Caterpillar Inc., the world's largest maker of earthmoving equipment, said third-quarter profit rose less than analysts forecast and predicted sales will weaken next year, citing a slowdown in the U.S. economy.

The stock had its biggest drop in 19 years in its heaviest trading volume ever. Caterpillar said net income rose 15 percent to $769 million, or $1.14 a share, from $667 million, or 94 cents, a year earlier. Sales gained 17 percent to $10.5 billion, the company said today in a statement.

Sales of construction equipment such as bulldozers will be less than the company anticipated as a housing slump triggers a period of slack economic growth, Chief Executive Officer James Owens said in the statement. Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar said dealers started cutting back inventory in the quarter and it expects a ``sharp drop'' in sales of truck engines.

``People are a bit shocked by the miss,'' said Steve Hoedt, an analyst at National City Corp. in Cleveland, which owns almost 500,000 Caterpillar shares. ``The outlook going forward is a bit disturbing. The economy on a global basis is falling.''

Caterpillar is a bellwether of the U.S. economy because its sales span industries from mining to oil to construction, making orders dependent on both consumers and corporate spending. The U.S. economy slowed to a 2.6 percent rate of growth in the second quarter, and Caterpillar said today that third-quarter growth was even slower, possibly less than 2 percent.

Shares of Caterpillar dropped $10.02, or 15 percent, to $59 at 4:04 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. That marked the worst decline since the crash on Oct. 19, 1987. More than 67.6 million shares traded. The stock has gained 2.1 percent this year.

The stock, leader of a four-year rally that pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 12,000, dragged the index down today. Agricultural-equipment maker Deere & Co. fell 3.3 percent. Engine maker Cummins Inc. lost 3.6 percent.

Dead Money

``Caterpillar is going to be dead money,'' said Gary Wolfer, who helps manage about $1 billion at Univest Trust Services in Souderton, Pennsylvania. ``I don't see any opportunity for the stock to appreciate much beyond current levels.''

Higher manufacturing expenses limited earnings in the third quarter, as core operating costs rose by $407 million from a year earlier. Prices for raw materials climbed, and as production volumes increased, so did the costs to support them.

Profit excluding costs of a legal settlement was $1.26 a share. Banc of America's Seth Weber had estimated profit at $1.35, matching the average of 14 estimates in a survey by Thomson Financial. Thomson doesn't disclose to Bloomberg what is included in the estimates. Sales estimates averaged $9.87 billion.

Housing, Interest Rates

The slowdown has been concentrated in consumer spending and housing, Caterpillar said. Except for housing, the company said its industries held up in the third quarter. Housing construction will decline from year-earlier levels for the rest of the year, depressing sales of smaller machines, the company said.

Caterpillar predicted decreases in U.S. housing starts, to about 1.75 million units in 2007. The slowing U.S. economy will prompt the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates in first half of 2007, probably by 50 to 100 basis points, Caterpillar said.

Caterpillar, which gets more than half its sales in the U.S., forecast revenue growth of 13 percent in 2006, instead of a previous goal of 12 percent to 15 percent. Profit will be $5.05 to $5.30, down from its estimate of $5.25 to $5.50.

In 2007, revenue will be little changed to up 5 percent, with per-share profit little changed to up 10 percent from the middle of its 2006 forecast.

Work to Do

``We can't speculate on what investors are doing,'' Chief Financial Officer David Burritt said in an interview. ``We're focusing on what we can control. We have work to do on our production facilities.''

Caterpillar is working to eliminate inventories, so it can produce machines as dealers order them. Burritt wouldn't say how much the company could save. Most of the growth in 2007 will come from higher prices, Caterpillar said. The company said it expects dealers to reduce inventories ``significantly.''

Owens, 60, plans to raise prices as much as 7 percent next year. The company already had increased prices more than 13 percent in the past two years, bolstering profit.

Sales of machines rose 15 percent in the quarter, led by demand from Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Those sales offset slowing demand for large machines in the U.S., where mine permit delays hampered growth. Production problems for new trucks also limited gains, investor relations director Mike DeWalt said on a conference call. Operating profit rose 2 percent.

Competition in China is increasing. Komatsu Ltd., the second- biggest maker of earthmoving equipment, plans to get 10 percent of its construction machinery sales there by 2010.

Engines sales rose 23 percent, as higher prices of oil and gas drove demand for turbines. Operating profit rose 50 percent. The company makes power generators used on oil platforms, and equipment that converts oil field gases and methane into energy.

The finance unit reported a 15 percent increase in sales, helped by higher interest rates. Operating profit rose 39 percent.

Machinery accounted for 63 percent of sales last year, with engines at 30 percent, and financial products made up the rest.

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Citi: Profit plummets but tops estimates

2007-10-16T05:02:00.000-07:00

Citigroup reported sharply lower, but better-than-expected, quarterly results Monday as gains in its international and wealth management divisions helped to temper sizeable subprime mortgage losses.

Citigroup shares gained 1.2 percent in premarket trading Monday.

New York-based Citibank said its net income fell 57 percent to $2.38 billion, or 47 cents a share, in the July through September period, from $5.5 billion, or $1.10 a share, a year earlier.

Analysts were widely expecting the banking giant to report net income of 44 cents per share.

Quarterly revenue also came in better-than expected, rising 6 percent to $22.7 billion from $21.4 billion a year earlier.

"It's in line with what they pretty much said," said Jamie Peters, an equity analyst with Morningstar. "The global business is still going strong, but it's the credit losses that are dragging down the results."

Citigroup chairman and CEO Charles Prince, who has faced much criticism from shareholders, labeled the quarter as "disappointing" but promised improvement going forward.

"As we move into the fourth quarter, we are focusing closely on improving those areas where we performed below expectation, while at the same time continuing to execute on our strategic priorities," Prince said in a prepared statement.

The two divisions hardest hit during the quarter were the company's markets and banking and alternative investments divisions, which saw their revenue tumble 24 percent and 63 percent, respectively, because of losses related to subprime mortgage securities, collateralized debt obligations and leveraged loans.

In an attempt to get ahead of possible criticism from investors, Citi announced Friday that it would combine the two units and appointed former Morgan Stanley (Charts, Fortune 500) exec Vikram Pandit to oversee the new division.

Citigroup closely-watched global consumer group, which includes its credit card, lending and consumer banking divisions, saw its overall revenue climb 14 percent during the quarter due to international growth, although its domestic revenues were flat, hurt by a decline in commercial lending.

Helping to offset some of the company's losses was its global wealth management division, as it reported revenue of $2.48 billion, a 44 percent jump over the year-ago period. Citi's international business also provided substantial revenue growth, as it rose 30 percent to $12.2 billion.

Citigroup also said its credit costs jumped to $2.98 billion as it took a charge of $2.2 billion to increase its loan loss reserves, while the company cited rising payment delinquencies by homeowners.

The overall results come two weeks after Citigroup warned that its quarterly results would fall by as much as 60 percent because of bad subprime bets and other problems.

At the time, Citigroup also announced it would take more than $3 billion in writedowns because of its exposure to subprime-backed mortgage securities and losses on leveraged loans.

Over the weekend, reports surfaced that Citigroup and a number of other big banks were planning to create a $100 billion fund that would purchase some of the troubled debt securities in an effort to prevent a fire sale of the assets.

Prince and the company's chief financial officer are slated to address analysts and investors at a conference call scheduled for 8:30 a.m. ET.

Citigroup is the first of four banks, including JPMorgan Chase (Charts, Fortune 500), Washington Mutual and Bank of America to report quarterly results this week.

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Oil prices hit $86 a barrel

2007-10-16T01:48:00.001-07:00

Slashdot It!

Oil prices surged as high as $86 a barrel Monday for the first time after OPEC said crude production by non-member countries is likely falling even as global demand for oil is rising.

Prices were also supported by concerns Turkish forces will pursue Kurdish rebels into Iraq, disrupting oil supplies, and by technical buying by investment funds.

Despite the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ decision last month to boost its production by 500,000 barrels per day beginning next month, the rest of the world will likely produce 110,000 fewer barrels of oil per day than expected in the fourth quarter, OPEC said in a report.

At the same time, fourth quarter demand for crude oil will grow by 100,000 barrels a day over last year, OPEC said.

The estimates add to sentiment that crude supplies are tight. Last week, the Energy Department reported that domestic crude inventories fell during the week ended Oct. 5 when they had been expected to rise. And the International Energy Agency concluded that oil inventories held by the world’s largest industrialized countries have fallen below a five-year average.

“The fact that U.S. crude inventories fell yet again ... reinforced the market’s underlying concern that demand has yet to slow down sufficiently to allow stocks to build, while supply is also perceived to be struggling to catch up,” wrote Edward Meir, an analyst at MF Global UK Ltd., in a research note.

Light, sweet crude for November delivery rose $2.16 to $85.85 on the New York Mercantile Exchange after rising as high as $86, a record trading price.

Despite the gains, oil is still below inflation-adjusted highs hit in early 1980. Depending on the adjustment, a $38 barrel of oil in 1980 would be worth $96 to $101 or more today.

In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures rose 6.53 cents to $2.1504 a gallon, while heating oil futures rose 5.03 cents to $2.2967 a gallon.

Nymex natural gas futures rose 43.3 cents to $7.407 per 1,000 cubic feet on forecasts for cooler weather next week in the Northeast and Midwest, and on worries a storm in the Caribbean Sea will move north and develop in strength, threatening key oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico.

In London, Brent crude futures rose $1.96 to $82.51 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

At the pump, gas prices fell 0.4 cent overnight to a national average of $2.757 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

The Turkish government’s decision on Monday to ask Parliament for permission to pursue Kurdish rebels into Iraq stoked worries that hostilities will disrupt oil supplies, analysts said.

“Oil out of the northern (Iraq) fields has been erratic for some time,” said Linda Rafield, senior oil analyst at Platts, the energy research arm of McGraw-Hill Cos. “But complete disruption would definitely be bullish for this market.”

Technical buying by investment funds is also driving oil’s record run, analysts say. Data released Friday show that speculative buying of oil contracts increased last week.

Many investment funds automatically buy or sell oil futures when prices hit certain levels. In recent days, as oil has pushed into new record territory, several of these resistance prices levels have been broached. That triggers new buying, driving prices even higher.

“Funds tend to trade more on the technicals,” Rafield said.

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Saving Calculator

2007-10-15T19:59:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon this saving calculator in CNN money. It counts the mount of money you have to save in order to reach your financial goals.

Check them out now
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China Oilfield Technology Services IPO closes

2007-10-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

The IPO of China Oilfield Tech Services had just closed this noon. Anyone brought any shares?

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Oil tops $85 for the first time

2007-10-15T06:15:00.000-07:00

Oil prices kept rising Monday after closing at a new record in the previous session on worries that supplies are insufficient to meet coming winter demand and concerns over the conflict between Turkey and Kurds in northern Iraq.

Light, sweet crude for November delivery added $1.13 to $84.82 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, midday in Europe, rising to a new high of $85.19 before receding slightly.

The contract rose 61 cents to settle at a record $83.69 a barrel on Friday after rising as high as $84.05.

Brent crude futures rose $1.16 to $81.71 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange in London.

Recent reports have indicated that crude inventories are falling. Last week, the U.S. Energy Department reported that U.S. oil supplies declined in the week ended Oct. 5, while the International Energy Agency said that oil inventories held by the world's largest industrialized countries have fallen below a five-year average.

"One of the factors that has provided underlying support to oil prices in recent weeks has been concerns that if we move into the Northern (Hemisphere) winter that oil market conditions are likely to remain tight," said David Moore, commodity strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.

Some analysts think the supply shortfall in last week's U.S. Energy Department inventory report is an anomaly. They doubt demand is as strong as recent forecasts by the department and the IEA suggest. These analysts expect oil prices will soon begin a seasonal decline to $70 a barrel, or lower.

Prices were also supported by worries that Turkey could take unilateral military action against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, following comments by the Turkish prime minister Friday that suggest Turkey will not worry about the diplomatic consequences of such an incursion.

"The main risk to supplies is currently on an escalation of the Turkish army, Kurdish militants conflict, where we believe the risk for disruptions to the Mediterranean supplies would be real," said Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix in Switzerland.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday urged Turkey to show restraint in its response to attacks from Kurdish rebels, but Turkish leaders have appeared to be less receptive to Washington's appeals since a committee of U.S. lawmakers passed a resolution last week labeling as genocide the World War I-era killings of Armenians by the Ottomans -- a characterization that Turkey rejects.

Nymex heating oil futures rose 1.92 cents to $2.2656 a gallon while gasoline prices added 1.74 cents to $2.1025 a gallon. Natural gas futures rose 20.3 cents to $7.177 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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How to earn money the easy way

2007-10-13T19:53:00.000-07:00

Hi, everyone, this is my first post about earning money the easy way.

The best way to earn money without having to do much work is to place Google Adsense in your blog be it personal or commercial. They would place ads in your website that are related to your content. This would earn money for you even when you are sleeping.

Example of an adsense unit

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Ad Space

2007-10-12T05:41:00.000-07:00

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Support My Financial Blog

2007-10-12T05:40:00.000-07:00

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