Archive for January, 2010

Amazon Removes All Macmillan Books

Posted by Amita Kalra on January 30th, 2010

In a pricing dispute that had been brewing for over an year now, Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) has removed all books from Macmillan, one of the largest publishers in the United States. The publisher’s books can only be purchased from third parties now.

People in the industry on condition of anonymity claim that Amazon was expressing strong resentment by this (hopefully) temporary removal of books. Macmillan’s imprints include popular books such as ‘A Long Way Gone’ by Ishmael Beah, ‘Wolf Hall’ by Hillary Mantel and ‘Finger Lickin’ Fifteen’ by Janet Evanovich.

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Now Honda pulls a Toyota, Recalls 646000 Compact Cars Worldwide

Posted by Prabhjot Singh on January 29th, 2010

Hot on the heels of the disappointing news from Toyota (TM) to recall 4.6 million cars worldwide, comes a similar news from the Honda Motor Co. (HMC), who are recalling 646,000 cars over safety concerns. The recall includes all Fit, City and Jazz models made in 2007 and 2008. The Toyota fiasco already has the car’s owners fuming and now they will be joined in the ranks by Honda owners. The news comes as a double blow for the Japanese automotive market.

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US Records Record GDP Growth Of 5.7% (Q-4)

Posted by Amita Kalra on January 29th, 2010

Releasing the first in a series of three reports on the fourth quarter performance of 2009, the Commerce Department today triggered a mixed bag of sentiments, generally positive, to its numbers. It has reported that, in the fourth quarter, the US economy grew by 5.7% annual pace, the fastest in six years. These came in as a pleasant surprise to analysts who expected an average annual growth of 4.7% annual pace. These results perhaps built on the Q3 results, which reported 2.2% annual growth rate. However, they could not negate the discouraging declines in the first (6.7%) and second quarter (0.7%), so that overall, for 2009, the economy shrank at a depressing 2.4% rate, the worst annual performance since 1946.

The good news is that this expansion is said to have little correlation with the federal spending and has been attributed to the increase in consumer activity, and exports sector. The results are indicative of the creation of new demand for goods and services especially in the technology sector. The equipment and software sector itself posted a growth of 13% in the first quarter of last year.

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Ford Posts Whopping $2.7 Billion Earnings

Posted by Amita Kalra on January 28th, 2010

In the wake of the Toyota fiasco, Ford Motors Co (F) is certainly making hay while the sun shines. The American automaker today announced annual earnings of $2.7 billion (86 cents per share), its first profit in the last four years. The quarterly net income soared at $868 million, or 25 cents per share. The company managed to finish way ahead of analyst expectations which predicted it to be in the red. Last year it had recorded dramatic losses to the tune of $14.6 billion.

This is attributed mainly to the aggressive cost cutting and an increased market share. Ford reduced its structural costs by $5.1 billion, far outdoing its goal of $1.1 billion. It also managed to gain market share in North America, South America, and Europe.  It may be reiterated that Ford is the only major U.S. automaker, not to reorganize under a US government-funded bankruptcy despite having debt twice in value to that of General Motors.

What’s more, it is expected that after the Toyota recall, consumer interest in Ford will rise, since it produces several vehicles comparable to the recalled and suspended cars.

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… and there was iPad

Posted by Prabhjot Singh on January 27th, 2010

It’s been three long years since anything phenomenal had come out of Apple’s (AAPL) stable. The last legendary product that was presented to the world by Steve Jobs was the iPhone. Today, the company and Mr. Jobs took to the battlefield again and gave the tech crazy world a new product christened iPad. The first table computer from the company which joins the ranks of the other iconic products they have released.

The launch took place in front of a packed auditorium in San Francisco. Steve Jobs appeared in his customary black turtleneck and blue jeans and said “We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical and revolutionary product today.” Whether it lives up that tag, only time will tell. He then continued to play with the tablet from the comfort of a leather couch set on the screen as the world watched in awe and marveled at the product.

Live blogs gave a running commentary of what was happening in that auditorium. Video feeds enthralled the others who wanted to be part of the historical moment for tablet pc’s. Twitter’s trending topics were swamped with Apple, iPad and other hashtags relating to the launch. Mr. Jobs indeed had the eyes of the world on him and he did not disappoint.

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Toyota pushes the brake pedal

Posted by Amita Kalra on January 27th, 2010

In an unexpected turn of events, the world’s largest automaker, Toyota Motor Corporation, halted the sales of its 8 of its most popular models, including Camry, Corolla and the RAV4. Though it had been experiencing fractures in the form of high product recall in the market, this move seems to have broken the backbone of the company that built its customer base based on its core competence – unmatched quality for the customer. Toyota also said it will stop producing the affected vehicles at several North American plants for one week starting Feb. 1.

The models being recalled include 2009-2010 RAV4, 2009-2010 Corolla, 2009-2010 Matrix, 2005-2010 Avalon, 2007-2010 Camry, 2010 Highlander, 2007-2010 Tundra, 2008-2010 Sequoia.

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Yahoo! Moment for Bartz as Q4 09 Revenue Rises

Posted by Prabhjot Singh on January 27th, 2010

Continuing the trend of positive Q4 results from Dupont and Google earlier in the week, Yahoo! (YHOO) today announced their financial figures for Q4 and the year 2009. Much to the joy of the investors and the relief of CEO Carol Bartz the numbers beat expectations by quite a good margin and restored a positive outlook for the new year.

The Sunnyvale, California based internet company reversed the direction of its revenue earnings from its southward trip for the past year and a half by posting a quarter to quarter gain of 10 percent or 1.73bn. The impressive results could not however prevent the drop in revenue for the same period of 2008. The revenue dropped 4 percent compared to Q4 08. The resulting profit of $153m will mean earnings of 15 cents per share beating the Wall Street analysts projection of 11cents per share. Looking at the operational side Yahoo! posted a $119m income for Q4 2009 compared to a loss of  $278m for the same period of 2008. The numbers for the year 2009 also seemed promising as the annual net profit rose 43 percent to 598 million dollars while annual revenue fell 10 percent to 6.46 billion dollars.

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DuPont posts Q4 profit

Posted by Amita Kalra on January 26th, 2010

Almost like a tit for tat to the depressing NAR reports that came in yesterday, DuPont results thankfully brought some good news today. DuPont Logo1 DuPont posts Q4 profit

E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, more commonly DuPont or Du Pont, the world’s second largest chemical company (after BASF) in terms of market capitalization, reported a fourth quarter profit that surpassed analysts’ estimates with a net income of a whopping $441 million, or 48 Cents a share, as compared to a net loss of $629 million, or 70 Cents, a year earlier. Coming as a pleasant surprise, profit beat the 41% average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, at 44 cents a share (with the exclusion of some items). Its sales volumes had fallen by as much as 20% during the recession, and reported a growth in the fourth quarter for the first time since mid 2008.

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Housing Numbers Present Grim Situation

Posted by Amita Kalra on January 25th, 2010

The National Association Of Realtors today released their Existing Home Sales Report for December, simultaneously ripping apart the curtain of hope for a near term economic recovery. Existing home sales tumbled to 5.45 million annual rate, an abysmal fall of 16.8%, the highest, since the last 40 years. The prices registered a small annual increase (.01%) for single family homes, the first, in the past 38 months.

2539334956 87cef7e457 Housing Numbers Present Grim Situation

Housing crisis

Analysts explain, that buyers who rushed to meet the original November deadline to take advantage of a $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers caused a surge in sales earlier in the year. In fact, sales went up 28 percent in the three months to November. Congress extended the tax credit until April 30 and expanded it to more potential buyers, raising hopes  that sales will pick up again during the spring buying season. “The market is going through a period of swings driven by the tax credit,” NAR economist Lawrence Yun said. “We’ll likely have another surge in the spring as home buyers take advantage of the extended and expanded tax credit.” (more…)

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