Category Archives: Business and Finance
Consumer Spending Numbers Are Skewed
Consumer spending in the U.S. rose 0.7 percent in December, more than forecast, capping its strongest quarter in more than four years, according to figures from the Commerce Department. Mike McKee and Betty Liu report on Bloomberg Television‘s “In the Loop.” (Source: Bloomberg)
Look, I am not refuting the data, but come on, really? I would say that consumer spending as a whole, is not up at all. In fact, I would say it’s down quite a bit.
First of all, look at the sources that are reporting higher sales…Coach, Tiffany’s and other high-end retailers. This is not the common household and does not represent consumer spending accurately.
Second, the reports say that manufacturing is submitting a greater number of purchase orders and that they are doing more hiring. Well, I can say that they are probably putting in orders because they want to fix their price on those orders from China and other countries, so they can benefit from today and not tomorrow. As far as employment goes, there are a lot of Fortune 500 companies that still post jobs, but don’t fill them or they fill them internally and now assign several roles to one person, where it took three people to fill those roles before.
Next time give us the real numbers that contain all of the data and not just a half truth.
Recycle Your Cell Phone for Over $1 billion
A study was done by the US Geological Survey in 2006, which said that less than 1% of all cell phones discarded in the United States are recycled. Most cell phones in the US are only used for about 18 months before they are replaced. Projections indicate that cell phone sales in 2009 could reach 1 billion worldwide.
Why am I telling you this and why is it important to know?
There is gold in them there hills! A cell phone, excluding the batteries, contains .034 grams of gold. If you were mining for gold, you would find about 5 grams in one TON of gold ore, but you would find 150 grams of gold in one ton of recycled cell phones. The average price for gold in today’s market, makes one cell phone worth about $1.20 in gold content. That means that if we recycled 1 billion in cell phones annually, it would provide about $1.2 billion dollars in revenue.
Hmmm…what can be done with $1.2 billion annually….I wonder?
Who is Your Favorite CEO of All Time?
The failure or success of a company, ultimately lies on the CEO and the Executive Management team. It is the CEO’s job to foresee the future of their industry and create a plan and course of action to achieve the success they desire for their company by understanding, listening, delegating, interpreting and nurturing the talent within their company. They are captain’s of a ship and their navigation must be precise, or they will face impending doom.
So who are the best CEOs of all time? Portfolio.com set out to answer that difficult question. They assembled a panel of professors from top business schools around the country and through historical records of CEO’s that provided the best innovation, value and management skills, came up with a list of the 20 Best American CEOs of all time.
Here is the list:
1. Henry Ford – The father of the moving assembly line and the founder of Ford Motor Company.
2. J.P. Morgan – Bailed out the US Treasury two times and the term “Morganization” was coined after him for his unparalleled ability to turn-around poorly managed companies.
3. Sam Walton - A plain man who only wanted to create a great company. It became the largest company in the world.
4. Alfred Sloan – Turned GM around and was the first one to create cars based on specific demographics, as opposed to a one-size-fits all approach.
5. Lou Gerstner – Known for restructuring and turning IBM around.
6. John D. Rockefeller – Had almost 90% of the petroleum refining market within a 7 year period and controlled the majority of the US oil industry.
7. Steve Jobs – The Apple legend…enough said.
8. Jeff Bezos – Led by micromanaging. It looks like it paid off for him.
9. Andrew Carnegie – The Carnegie (US Steel) Steel baron who gave away most of his billion dollar fortune.
10. Bill Gates – The co-founder of the software giant Microsoft. He is the “Rock Star” of CEO’s, as far as recognizable figureheads are concerned.
You can view the full “top 20″ list of CEO rankings by going to Portfolio.com.
Earnings Report
Today we will see the earnings report from the following major companies:
Morgan Stanley, McDonald’s, Apple, eBay and Boeing.
The question becomes, “Are the earnings going to be better than expected because Analysts have dramatically lowered their expectations anyway?”
We shall see.
China Turns Down Coca-Cola
In a bold move, the Chinese have decided to block Coke’s purchase of Chinese juicemakers, to increase its market share to 20% of the juice market.
What is baffling traders on the floor today, is that Coca-Cola already has a market share of 10% of the juice market in China, so what’s the problem?
Analysts believe the move was over protectionism. They believe the Chinese do not wish to have any foreign companies control 25% or more in market share of any of their domestic commodities.
On the flipside, Coca-Cola now has roughly $2.4 billion in cash to sit on, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in light of the economic crisis. I say hold on to that cash Coca-Cola. You never know when you are going to need it.
