According to Mastercard’s SpendingPulse, retail sales for the holiday season (the day after Thanksgiving through midnight Monday) were up 3.6% – 2.4% excluding gas which is much higher this year compared to last (subscription required). That compares with 6.6% growth…
Yesterday (Monday) after the close, in its mid month sales update, Target (TGT) said that same store sales for December, on a comparable basis, would likely come in between -1% and 1% – below previous guidance (call 612-761-6500 for the recorded…
The Economist has a lengthy and fascinating piece, “A big deal”, on the poker boom in their most recent edition (hat tip Abnormal Returns).
Greg Mankiw, Harvard Economist and former member of the Bush economic team, put a post up on his blog linking to a study with a chart showing the relationship between % of the vote received by incumbents and economic growth. …
BeSpoke Investment Group has a post up on how the market has performed, on a yearly basis, after Christmas through the end of the year. Hard to draw conclusions from the data, but it looks like there is an upward…
Strong earnings (subscription required) from Research In Motion (RIMM) after the close yesterday and news that Merrill Lynch (MER) is in discussions with Singapore for a $5 billion investment (subscription required) provided the excuse today for the much anticipated Santa Claus Rally:…
A lot of important earnings news affecting the market today: Oracle (ORCL), Nike (NKE), Bear Stearns (BSC), Federal Express (FDX) and Winnebago (WGO). ***** Everybody pretty much knew Bear was going to report an ugly quarter and they in fact…
Before the open this morning, Morgan Stanley (MS) announced fiscal year 4th quarter earnings, which included a $9.4 billion writedown related to mortgage backed securities. This resulted in a loss of $3.6 billion in the quarter or $3.61 a share! …
“We’re cautious about the near term outlook for our businesses as we see dislocation in some of the world’s capital markets has continued.” – David Viniar, CFO, Goldman Sachs, in today’s conference call with analysts Charlie Gasparino reported on CNBC…
It’s been another interesting and volatile day in the stock market. Goldman Sachs (GS) and Best Buy (BBY) both posted strong earnings before the open and the market gapped up 10 points. But investors sold the gap up and the S&P…