11/27 DailyFinance

Please add updates@feedmyinbox.com to your address book to make sure you receive these messages in the future. DailyFinance How the Grinch Stole Google News November 26, 2009 at 5:00 pm Filed under: Company News, People, Media (With our sincere apologies to Dr. Seuss) Every Who down in Whoville liked Google a lot, But the Grinch, who lived up in a penthouse, did not. The Grinch hated Google, didn't find Google pleasin' -- Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason. It could be his head wasn't screwed on just right. It could be, perhaps, that his views were too tight. But I think that the most likely reason of all, May have been that his heart was two sizes too small. Whatever the reason, his heart or his views, He came forth this autumn to tear down Google News, Staring down from his suite with that cocked Aussie frown At the warm lighted windows all over downtown. For he knew every Who down in Whoville beneath Was Googling gifts and cheap holiday wreaths. "Now they're Googling stock picks!" he snarled with a sneer. "Tomorrow's Black Friday! It's practically here!" Then he growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming, "I must find some way to stop Google from running!" For tomorrow, he knew, all the Who girls and boys Would wake bright and early to rush out and buy toys! And then! Oh, the news, news, news, news! That's one thing he hated! Google News, Google News! Continue reading How the Grinch Stole Google News How the Grinch Stole Google News originally appeared on DailyFinance on Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments The Great Pumpkin Crisis of 2009: Bad for Libby's, good for organic growers November 26, 2009 at 1:00 pm Filed under: Technology, Economy, Media By the time you read this, disaster may have already struck. You're either looking forward to a Thanksgiving meal with the warm, reassuring taste of pumpkin pie -- or staring down the barrel of a substitute sweet potato pie while trying to pretend that everything is hunky-dory. Either way, any warnings I can offer will surely be too late. As the history books will one day note, the Great Pumpkin Crisis of 2009 began back in August, when heavy rains in Morton, Illinois, left the fields boggy and wet, delaying the harvest. Morton, also known as "Pumpkin Capital of the United States," soon found itself with field after field of moldy, rotten orange gourds that were useless for cooking and canning. This was hardly an isolated problem: Morton supplies Nestle with its pumpkins and Nestle (NSRGY), through its Libby's subsidiary, supplies the country with 85% of its canned pumpkin. Thus, as goes Morton, so goes Thanksgiving. Continue reading The Great Pumpkin Crisis of 2009: Bad for Libby's, good for organic growers The Great Pumpkin Crisis of 2009: Bad for Libby's, good for organic growers originally appeared on DailyFinance on Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Be thankful potatoes are mashed, not paper towels: they're eerily similar November 26, 2009 at 12:00 pm Filed under: Healthcare, Media When you pass around the side dishes at this year's Thanksgiving feast, here's one thing to be thankful for: you're eating mashed potatoes instead of mashed paper towels. But if you were chewing on the towels instead of the spuds, would you even know it, asks a Thanksgiving-related video from the American Chemical Society. "That's not such an odd question from a chemistry standpoint," the society says, as the types of carbohydrates in potatoes and paper towels are so similar. The long chains of glucose -- the stuff our body converts into energy and makes us go -- are composed of identical molecules in both paper towels (cellulose) and potatoes. "You could eat paper towels," says Diane Bunce, associate editor for chemical education research with the society's Journal of Chemical Education in the video. "You wouldn't get any flavor out of them." Continue reading Be thankful potatoes are mashed, not paper towels: they're eerily similar Be thankful potatoes are mashed, not paper towels: they're eerily similar originally appeared on DailyFinance on Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Gift cards: How the new plastic economy is becoming a tool for hidden charity November 26, 2009 at 11:00 am Filed under: Technology, Economy, People, American Express Sales of gift cards fell last year, and they're expected to fall again this year. They're still one of the most popular gifts items, but as unemployment and inflation have transformed everyday indulgences into unjustifiable luxuries, gift cards have changed, too. Once an invitation to impulse purchases, they're becoming a strategy for gift-givers to help friends and family weather economic storms. As my DailyFinance colleague Matthew Scott recently noted, the gift-card economy has shifted over the past year from retailer-branded cards to cards that function as cash or credit cards. Part of this may be a holdover from last year's parade of bankruptcies; as Linens & Things and The Sharper Image crashed and burned, their cards suddenly became worthless. Visa (V) and American Express (AXP) gift cards may lack a store's branding appeal, but they're far more likely to survive a downturn. Continue reading Gift cards: How the new plastic economy is becoming a tool for hidden charity Gift cards: How the new plastic economy is becoming a tool for hidden charity originally appeared on DailyFinance on Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Massucci's Take: Apple teams with AT&T in ad battle with Verizon November 26, 2009 at 10:00 am Filed under: Company News, Technology, Columns, Google , Apple, AT&T, Verizon Apple (AAPL) broke its silence in the advertising battle going on between AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ). The iPhone maker launched its ad campaign this week showing an iPhone user talking on the phone while surfing the Web as a voice asks, "Can your phone and your network do that?" It's Apple's comeback to Verizon's latest attack on the iPhone which runs on AT&T's wireless networks. Continue reading Massucci's Take: Apple teams with AT&T in ad battle with Verizon Massucci's Take: Apple teams with AT&T in ad battle with Verizon originally appeared on DailyFinance on Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments No Thanksgiving for investors: Dubai's debt woes rattle stocks around the globe November 26, 2009 at 9:27 am Filed under: Economy, Investing, Earnings, Real Estate Thursday is one of those days when I wish I could be reincarnated as Jon Stewart. I am certainly hoping that when he returns to live broadcasts, he can find the funny in the media's obsessive coverage of the State Dinner crashers. And if he does this, he should note that while the media salivated over the Salahis, it ignored a far more important story -- Middle Eastern petro-state, Dubai, was defaulting on its debt. Problems with Dubai's finances are not a big surprise. As I posted in February, I first got wind of the potential for a huge collapse there back in 2005 when I read an article in the New Yorker which discussed Dubai's world record breaking pace of commercial real estate development as its government sought to diversify away from oil. And Dubai is perhaps just one extreme example of a bigger problem. As I've posted, the $6.7 trillion commercial real estate lending industry has been dangling out there as the potential cause of a double dip economic contraction. But I did not anticipate that Dubai's inability to repay its debts would be the straw that would break the back of commercial real estate. Continue reading No Thanksgiving for investors: Dubai's debt woes rattle stocks around the globe No Thanksgiving for investors: Dubai's debt woes rattle stocks around the globe originally appeared on DailyFinance on Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Two stocks to be thankful for: Tenet Healthcare and AES Corp. November 26, 2009 at 8:00 am Filed under: Ford Motor Co., Goldman Sachs , Whole Foods, Tenet Healthcare With millions unemployed as Thanksgiving approaches, I can't think of many people who are counting their blessings these days, except maybe Goldman Sachs Group (GS) employees who are getting a chunk of the investment bank's $23 billion bonus pie. But that's only 31,700 people out of 305 million Americans. Yet it's possible that some Americans could have bought shares in 10 stocks that have had a great 2009 so far. And two of those 10 could give you reason to be thankful when Thanksgiving rolls around again in 2010. Thanks to SeekingAlpha, we have the top 10 stocks in the 10 sectors of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, which was up 20% from the beginning of 2009 to Nov. 17. Before getting into the best performing stocks in each sector, let's look at the 10 top performing sectors (with the average percentage stock price increases of each sector's top 10 companies through Nov. 17): Continue reading Two stocks to be thankful for: Tenet Healthcare and AES Corp. Two stocks to be thankful for: Tenet Healthcare and AES Corp. originally appeared on DailyFinance on Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments A long business soap opera ends: AIG and Greenberg settle November 26, 2009 at 7:45 am Filed under: Company News, People, American International Group, INC. Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg did not start AIG (AIG), but he might as well have. Greenberg took over as head of the insurance company in 1968, the only CEO other than its founder C.V. Starr. Greenberg turned AIG into the largest insurance firm in the world. In 2005 he left during an accounting scandal, then shortly after his departure, problems with toxic assets on the firm's balance sheet nearly took the company under. A series of government investments totaling $180 billion kept AIG in business. Washington was worried that a collapse of AIG would bankrupt a number of other large companies that had relationships with the firm. On Nov. 25, AIG and Greenberg agreed to settle all of the outstanding legal issues between them. According to an 8-K filed with the SEC, Greenberg and AIG's former CFO will receive reimbursement of their legal fees of up to $150 million. AIG also dropped a $1 billion claim against Greenberg. Some of Greenberg's property, much of it from his old office, was returned to him. He will also have access to some AIG files "to write his memoirs." Continue reading A long business soap opera ends: AIG and Greenberg settle A long business soap opera ends: AIG and Greenberg settle originally appeared on DailyFinance on Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments Chinese banking stocks continue to slip and Japanese carmakers slide November 26, 2009 at 7:05 am Filed under: Economy, Investing Shares in Asia tumbled Thursday. In China the Shanghai Composite index plunged 3.6%, ending the day at 3,171, and in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index dropped 1.8% to 22,210. In Japan the Nikkei Index lost 0.6% to close at 9,383. Chinese banks sank lower again today as investors and the Chinese authorities await plans as to how banks will raise capital to support the massive loans they have made this year. In addition, Yin Zhongqing, deputy head of the finance and economic committee announced that the amount banks are predicted to lend in 2010 will fall to $730 billion to $1.2 trillion. That's far lower than the estimated $1.4 trillion loaned in 2009. "A level higher than 8 trillion yuan will pose serious inflationary pressure," he told Reuters. "I think five to eight trillion yuan in new loans next year would reflect the appropriately loose monetary policy." Continue reading Chinese banking stocks continue to slip and Japanese carmakers slide Chinese banking stocks continue to slip and Japanese carmakers slide originally appeared on DailyFinance on Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Email this | Comments   This email was sent to gatdemit001@gmail.com.  Create Your Account Don't want to receive this feed any longer? Unsubscribe here.