Article Feed
Twitter
Market News: Citigroup (NYSE:C), Microsoft (NYSE:MSFT), Motorola (NYSE:MOT), JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM)
03/11/10 by Jack Aubrey
Filed under Bourbon & Bayonets
The US Senate voted yesterday to extend jobless benefits for the unemployed. The benefits, which were set to expire, continue to extend unemployment to up to 99 weeks. Initial jobless claims decreased by six thousand for the first week in March, but continuing claims are still up (About a thirty-seven thousand increase). Stocks opened lower today, partly as a result of the continuingly poor unemployment level.
Citigroup (NYSE:C) CEO, Vikram Pandit, released an official statement today regarding the companies Citibank division. There are predictions that the bank could grow by approximately five percent for the next two years. This would give the company a twenty billion dollar profit margin by the end of 2012, according to the Financial Times. This scheduled announcement has caused shares of the large bank to rise early this morning (3/11/10).
The US trade deficit has unexpectedly decreased. The deficit was expected to be approximately $41 billion in the first month of this year, but data showed that America’s imports of oil and cars declined in January. Exports were also down 0.3%, but imports dropped by a much larger 1.7%. The trade deficit sits at $37.3 billion, 6.6% lower than in December of 2009. – Yahoo! Finance
Riots again broke out in the Greek capital of Athens today. An estimated thirty thousand strong demonstration was scheduled to protest the indebted Bulkan nation’s recent social program cuts and tax hikes. The demonstration turned violent, and street clashes broke out between riot police and anarchists. Greece has implemented the new austerity program in an effort to appease its EU partners, who are displeased with the nation’s recent debt ratio.
In technology news, mobile phone company Motorola (NYSE:MOT) has announced a strategic alliance with software company Microsoft (NYSE:MSFT) to deploy the Bing search engine services to Motorola’s Android-powered devices. This will provide both search engine and mapping services to their mobile customers, and are initially planned for release in China this year.
JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) has won a bid to provide an expanded collateral management services for derivatives to the Canadian government, American Banking News is reporting. JPM manages over seventy billion in collateral total annually, and already has a business relationship with the Canadian government. Collateral management solutions “enable clients to better reduce their counterparty credit risk through effective and efficient collateralization” - ABN
Economic Update: Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), British Airways (LON:BAY), Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW), Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) | Oakshire Financial on Tue, 6th Apr 2010 1:19 AM
[...] President Obama appeared before the Export-Import Bank conference yesterday and said that he was interested in aggressively reducing the current American trade deficit. According to the President, he’d like the US economy to double it’s exports within a five-year time period, and apparently wants to use an export-focused government programs to create jobs. “When other markets are growing, and other nations are competing, we’ve got to get even better. We need to secure our companies a level playing field. We need to guarantee American workers a fair shake. In other words, we need to up our game.”, Mr. Obama said. It was announced yesterday that the US trade deficit has been unexpectedly decreasing this year, but… [...]