• In its latest global outlook, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) slashed the growth forecast for every major country and urged more recovery actions. The IMF said the global economy will likely contract 1.3% this year and post a 1.9% gain next year, Reuters reported.

• Mercatto Estrategia FI, a Brazilian hedge fund that is beating 97% of its peers, is selling assets of the country’s largest homebuilders and banks, saying they are overvalued, Bloomberg reported. “Since we’ve lived through a liquidity crisis, it shook up the economy a lot and there have been huge declines in healthy names,” Regis Abreu, the head of equity at Mercatto, told Bloomberg.

• Prices of U.S. single-family houses rose a seasonally adjusted 0.7% in February, the Federal Housing Financing Agency (FHFA) said. The FHFA’s index is calculated by purchase prices of houses financed with mortgages sold or guaranteed by Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), Reuters reported.

• Home prices in Dubai could sink as much as 70% from their peak values late last year on sour demand and a halt in mortgage lending, UBS AG (UBS) said in a report. “We are still in relatively early stages of the property down-cycle in United Arab Emirates,” Saud Masud, a Dubai-based analyst at the Swiss bank, wrote in a report to clients, Bloomberg reported. “We believe risk-reward profiles are not yet compelling for investors to consider market re-entry, hence continued price declines are expected.”

• Apple Inc. (AAPL) reported second-quarter profit and sales that exceeded analysts’ estimates. Apple’s iPhones and new iPod models helped spur sales of $8.16 billion that yielded net income that amounted to $1.21 billion, or $1.33 a share, in the period which ended March 28 Apple said today in a statement. Analysts predicted profit of $1.08 a share and sales of $7.95 billion, according to a Bloomberg survey.

• Agents with the Pentagon’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service searched the Malvern, PA offices of a unit of Germany’s Siemens AG (ADR:SI) on Wednesday.  The search was part of an ongoing investigation, a Pentagon spokesman said.  Ed Bradley, special agent in charge, said the search began early on Wednesday and continued throughout the day, but he gave no details on the nature of the investigation, according to Reuters.
• David Kellermann, the acting Chief Financial Officer at Freddie Mac (FRE), was found dead early Wednesday in the basement of his home in a Washington suburb, police said. Early reports from sources in the police department indicated Kellermann’s wife reported a suicide. There were no signs of foul play, and the death is under investigation, Fairfax County, Virginia, Police Officer Shelley Broderick told Bloomberg. The medical examiner’s office said it’s conducting an autopsy.

• In a sign that efforts to overhaul its main auction and fixed-price retail site may be working, EBay Inc. (EBAY) reported sales and profit that beat analysts’ estimates, Bloomberg reported. The most-visited U.S. e-commerce site said net income was $357.1 million, or 28 cents a share, compared with $459.7 million, or 34 cents, a year earlier.  Excluding some items, earnings were 39 cents a share, beating the 34-cent estimate by analysts.

Source: Global Investment News Briefs Thursday April 23, 2009

American Idol — the talent show turned cultural icon — is more than just entertainment. The show is also a crash course in mobile media. In the 2008 season, the show generated 78 million text messages from viewers voting for their favorite singer. Even more startling: 22% of voters claim they first learned to text message by voting for their American Idol, according to a poll conducted by the network.

Mobile phones have come a long way from their humble beginnings. Now your phone has become an entire media platform. The possibilities are endless…

The iPhone Changes the Game

With the staggering growth of content available on mobile phones, it’s no surprise that the mobile advertising industry is picking up steam. The first step was paid content. Mobile users could text certain numbers to download ringtones and other content for a small fee. Now we’re seeing advertisers take advantage of the new capabilities of smart phones like the iPhone, the BlackBerry Storm and the T-Mobile G1.

Back in 2007, the new iPhone got off to a rocky start. AT&T (NYSE:T) — the iPhone’s exclusive carrier — announced the disappointing data right after the release. Customers activated only 146,000 iPhones during the first weekend, much less than the 500,000 activations predicted by giddy Wall Street analysts.

Since then, we’ve seen a newer, cheaper, faster iPhone hit the market — this time on a 3G network. And AT&T has finally managed to favorably work the iPhone into its rotation — even with the hefty kickbacks it sends to Apple for its trendy multimedia device. Yes, AT&T has sunk some serious dough into this affair, including $450 million on 3G network upgrades, according to Forbes. These expensive improvements were a major factor in the 23% year-to-year decline in the company’s net income last quarter…

But the 3G iPhone is finally beginning to bear fruit. AT&T has so far activated 4.3 million of the second-gen touch-screen phones— 1.9 million of them in the fourth quarter, according to Forbes. This more than doubles last year’s activation numbers — and nearly doubles Verizon’s activation data for the new BlackBerry Storm.

Believe it or not, the iPhone has changed something… it has changed the way we consume media. AT&T’s wireless division CEO says it best: “The success of our iPhone 3G launch has driven wireless growth and helped redefine the wireless data space.” As these mobile devices become increasingly ever-present, there’s no doubt that advertisers and developers will find new ways to capitalize on this growing media consumption.

Source: The iPhone Helps Mobile Marketing Mature

• FedEx Corp. (FDX) mixed bad news with good in its latest quarterly report. After posting a profit for its second fiscal quarter, the package delivery giant also said it’s suspending pension contributions, freezing new hires, cutting its CEO’s pay by 20% in order to cut $800 million by the end of its fiscal 2010, Reuters reported.

• Wal-Mart Inc. (WMT) store representatives told Bloomberg that the world’s largest retailer would begin selling Apple Inc.’s (APPL) iPhones by the end of the year. The move is seen as positive for both companies, as it gives Wal-Mart a hot new item and Apple a gigantic new sales outlook.

• General Motors Corp. (GM) denied a report yesterday (Thursday) that the company reopened merger talks with Chrysler LLC. The report first appeared in The Wall Street Journal. “We have had no talks with them since we announced during our third-quarter earnings call that the talks had been suspended,” GM spokesman Tony Cervone said, Reuters reported.

• Credit card firm Discovery Financial Services (DFS) added itself to the list of companies applying to become a bank holding company, thus making it eligible for federal TARP money. The company also reported a $432 million profit in its fiscal fourth-quarter, up from a $56 million loss the previous year, MarketWatch reported.

• The Labor Department said yesterday (Thursday) that the number of filings for initial jobless benefits fell to a seasonally adjusted 554,000 from an upwardly revised figure of 575,000 the previous week. Still, claims remain near the highest level since 1982.

• Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) has agreed to share its 29% in Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. (OTC: SANYY) to Panasonic Corp. (ADR: PC) for at least $6.4 billion, Reuters reported. The purchase will make Panasonic Japan’s No. 2 electronics manufacturer after Hitachi Ltd with $120 billion in annual sales. Goldman had previously rejected two other offers from Panasonic.

• The U.S. economy will begin to rebound late next year or early in 2010, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told Spanish newspaper Expansion. He based this view on the likelihood that the housing market will soon bottom and demand will follow the recent wave of fiscal stimuli. Though he added: “We recognize, however that the possibility of a recovery is plagued with uncertainty.”

• Carnival Corp. (CCL), the world’s largest cruise operator, reported a 4% rise in fourth-quarter earnings yesterday (Thursday), but lowered its 2009 outlook as consumers will likely cancel or delay vacations for the next year. The company’s quarterly revenue rose 6% to $3.3 billion.

Source: Global Investing Roundups Friday, December 19th, 2008

• Bank of America Corp. (BAC) announced yesterday (Tuesday) that it had completed its purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp. (CFC). The all-stock deal was initially announced in January. Bank of America expects to eliminate 7,500 jobs now that the acquisition is complete, MarketWatch reported.

• The Institute for Supply Management’s index of manufacturing activity had a 0.6 gain to 50.2 in June, the first measurement since January that showed the manufacturing sector was expanding. “While it may be too soon to say that manufacturing has begun to start growing again, it is possible that a bottom is being reached,” Joel Naroff, president and chief economist of Naroff Economic Advisors, said in a note to clients yesterday (Tuesday).

• Moody’s Corp. (MCO) announced yesterday (Tuesday) that staff in its Moody’s Investor Service unit, which assigns credit ratings to various types of investment vehicles, had breached certain rules in assigning ratings to European constant proportion debt obligations (CPDO), Bloomberg News reported. A computer glitch was initially responsible for assigning the highest rating to CPDO debt in May, however, certain staff did engage in “conduct contrary to Moody’s code of professional conduct,” the ratings company said.

• Hong Kong’s stock, forex and debt markets were closed yesterday (Tuesday) to mark the anniversary of the July 1 handover of the territory to China from Britain, Reuters reported. Hong Kong’s markets will reopen today (Wednesday).

• Construction spending dropped 0.4% in May, the Commerce Department reported yesterday (Tuesday). It was the 11th decline in the past year, as a lack of demand in residential areas continued to offset relative strength elsewhere. Residential construction dropped 1.6% in May, the 25th decline out of the past 26 months, The Associated Press reported.

• Constellation Brands Inc. (STZ) said yesterday (Tuesday) that its fiscal first-quarter profit jumped 50% boosted by strong sales of newer wine brands such as Clos du Bois and Wild Horse, The Associated Press reported. The results beat Wall Street expectations, and its shares rose nearly 6%.

• Beginning July 11, iPhones will go on sale for $199 for the model with 8 gigabytes of storage and $299 for the 16-gigabyte version. These prices apply to customers signing up for a two-year AT&T contract. However, those who don’t want to be locked into such a contract will be able to buy the iPhone for $599 or $699 as long as they sign up for some kind of AT&T wireless subscription, Reuters reported.

• The foreign staff of BP PLC’s joint venture in Russia will be required to leave the country this month, some of them permanently, because their work permits were not renewed, the International Herald Tribune reported. BP is struggling to maintain control over TNK-BP, which is unraveling under pressure from its Russian partners and the Russian government, who are seeking to usurp complete control over the project.

Source: Global Investing Roundups Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008

And it couldn’t have come at a better time. You see, Intel’s biggest competitor is AMD. But AMD is bleeding money and can’t give Intel any real competition. Result? Intel dominates.

Before we declare Intel the winner of the war, graphic chipmaker Nvidia has something to say in the matter. They have the technology to go up against the big boys. Over the past few months, Nvidia’s CEO has even talked about how they have better technology than Intel!

People speculated what it all meant. Now we know – Nvidia is putting out a new CPU that combines a CPU with graphics processing power. In other words, anyone buying this chip wouldn’t need to buy a separate graphics card for their computer.

This is technology that Intel won’t have available until next year, and AMD has been struggling to release their first version for over a year now. It’s funny that a company that wasn’t even a competitor came out with a comparable product first.

These chips could be used inside laptops, miniature computers, future iPhones, and other products.

With AMD losing power in the CPU market, it seems that Nvidia could pick up their market share. And if their product is better than Intel’s future offering, then Nvidia could make plenty of money in the years ahead.

Source: Nvidia is No Slacker