Archive for May 27th, 2008SpaceAdmiral writes “The once-popular idea that the universe could be small and finite is making a comeback. Many researchers thought that a ‘wraparound’ universe would mean that distant objects would be seen multiple times in the sky, but new research suggests that a ‘3-torus’ (or ‘doughnut universe’), as well as other shapes, could fit our actual observations, particularly the WMAP data.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. #space_on_irc.freenode.net (Dusty) writes “Lake Cheko in Siberia has been noted as the probable crater of the 1908 Siberian Tunguska event. This news was discussed here in December, but details on the crater were scant. Now a new paper written by Luca Gasperini, Enrico Bonatti, and Giuseppe Longo (the same team in Bologna, Italy that made news in December) has a horde of new details on the supposed crater. The team visited Lake Cheko complete with their own catamaran and finished ground-penetrating radar maps, side-scanning sonar images, aerial images, and some sample collection of Lake Cheko. Intriguingly, they also imaged an object under the sediment that may be a fragment of the impacting body. Their paper (PDF) includes a lot more details including images, side-scanning sonar image, a 3-D view of the lake, a morphobathymetric map. It’s an interesting read, these dudes are good. They plan to return this summer and drill the core if weather permits, hopefully answering the question once and for all.” The same team also has a more discursive article in the current Scientific American that includes some detail on the working conditions in the Siberian summer. Think: mosquitos. Read more of this story at Slashdot. Filed under: Products and services, General Electric (GE)
GE announced two weeks ago that it might sell its appliance unit. BusinessWeek and The Wall Street Journal are reporting today that LG is watching the GE situation very carefully. GE wants to exit the appliance business due to intense price competition from manufacturers in Asia. The New York Times speculated that the transaction would be similar to IBM’s sale of its personal brand to Lenovo a few years ago. The purchaser would have a few years to continue using the GE badge before going solo with its own brand. Based in Kentucky with 13,000 employees, the appliance division is one of GE’s oldest and a real piece of Americana. Founded in 1907, it invented a number of each day products, including the room air-conditioner and the toaster oven. However, it suffers from low growth rates and contributed ‘only’ $7 billion to GE’s revenue last year, out of $173 billion total. Analysts think it could bring in $5 billion in a sale. GE has plenty of high growth businesses in transport, medical imaging and energy, so selling its appliance business makes sense in some calculations. But I don’t know — somehow buying a refrigerator or microwave won’t be the same. Yet another chunk of American manufacturing muscle is being shipped overseas, and I wonder what the country will do when virtually all of its basic production capacity sits in other countries.
Filed under: International markets, Products and services, S and P 500 You can say a lot about the Swiss (sorry Mom!), but at least they are always on time. There is a great article over on the BBC that details Switzerland’s obsession with time. Everywhere you turn in Switzerland, there’s a watch, a clock, or a timer of sorts. I love visiting my Mom who’s a recent transplant to Zurich. The trains, the shows, food service — everything is exactly on time. It’s going to be interesting when hordes of tourists from across Europe and hinder pour into Switzerland June 7 for the begin of the European football (that’s soccer to you and me) championships. Extra trams and trains are already being rolled out to make sure fans make it everywhere they need to go — on time. So, how does one think about “playing” the Euro 2008? One could try the iShares MSCI Switzerland Index Fund (NYSE: EWL). Looking under the hood and the top ten holdings show a smattering of some of the world’s biggest financials, consumer goods, pharma, and industrials. If your view is that these multinational firms might benefit from Euro 2008, then do some work here. Hasn’t been a great investment over the past year but it does provide international exposure to some well-run, diversified firms. Another Swiss play is the CurrencyShares Swiss Franc Fund (NYSE: FXF). If your view is that the Swiss Franc will continue its run against the US Dollar (what hasn’t these days?) this is one way to look at it. Doesn’t pay a whole lot of yield but typically pretty strong vs. the greenback. For investors betting that all the tourists impressed with the Swiss compunction will want to take home a souvenir, there’s the Movado Group (NYSE: MOV), selling fine Swiss watch brands such as Movado, Concord, and Ebel. What could be a superior gift than a watch to state “I’m thinking about you”? There’s a watch produced by Movado for everyone, at every price point. As for me, I’m just going to kick back and watch the festivities from afar. I’m sure the time will always be easy to tell. Zack Miller is the lead equity analyst for America Israel Investment Associates, LLC., the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund.
Filed under: Press releases, Products and services, Consumer experience, Apple Inc (AAPL), Marketing and advertising The CD single is dead. At least that is what British supermarket giant Woolworths Group plc (LSE: WLW) is predicting as the company drops the format due to declining sales and with hopes of creating a download store. The chain will remove CD singles from shelves starting in August, but will retain the format for one-off releases like the British TV show X Factor, similar to American Idol in the United Says. Billboard reports that this move could end the use of CD singles across Britain altogether, but figures for CD singles sold versus digital downloaded single tracks weren’t made available. Woolworths stores sold 25.5% of singles in 2006, while the format has dropped from 55 million units sold in 2000 to just eight million last year. Playing on the sentiment that “Everyone remembers buying their first record at Woolworths,” the director’s of the company hope the new download store will create the same sense and feelings of nostalgia that CD singles offered customers. But the size of the store will not compete well with other store’s like Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes Store, since Woolworths will offer only 1.2 million tracks. iTunes offers more than four million, but pricing might become the battleground where Woolworths competes best. CD singles in the United States are rare products, and are often primarily used by American Idol winners (since the one-off releases seem to be their only viable products). Stores such as Virgin Megastores and the former Tower Records regularly import British CD singles, but with Tower Records gone huge cache’s of available singles are no longer available outside of direct importing from British retailers. Unfortunately, Woolworths attempt at creating a new digital store seems very late in the competition, like Tower Records store was just over two years ago. With the growth of digital downloading in the last year alone, store’s like iTunes have gained a significant foothold in the market, despite criticisms and new competition from other major on the web stores like Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN).
Filed under: Products and services, Ford Motor (F), China
Since the end of 2005, Ford has doubled the number of full service dealerships in China. Its network now spans the entire country. The news about Ford in the U.S. is all about the plunge in SUV sales. But Ford, like GM, wants to become more integrated with other markets so a downturn in one market — and one car type — doesn’t affect the entire company. The good news for the growing middle class in China is now they’ve some competition for all those Toyota and Honda subcompacts that are taking market share from many of Ford’s passenger automobiles. And the good news for Ford is that it is actually growing — at least in China.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
27
05
2008
 
Chasing Value: General Dynamics & Raytheon: The defense does not restPosted by: in Products and ServicesFiled under: Products and services, Lockheed Martin (LMT), Chasing Value, Stocks to Purchase, Technology, General Dynamics Corp (GD), Raytheon Company (RTN), Best Stocks for 2008
This day, theThe Arizona Republic reports [registration required] that General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) is to receive billions in contracts for its C4 Systems as part of the Army’s extensive modernization plan. The company is building a communications network for the Army and is the lead contractor with Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) for a wireless network that will deliver mobile connectivity to soldiers on the field. General Dynamics is up about $10 (12.5%) in the last year and offers a 1.5% dividend yield. Its current P/E is 16.5 and its P/S is 1.33 with a 15% ROIC. It opened today at $90.58. The Times of Shreveport, La., writes that Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) recently acquired S.I. Government Solutions, a small Florida software company that specializes in protecting government and commercial data. The deal is estimated to be worth $35 million. The acquisition is expected to give Raytheon the capability to sell more services to its DOD clients. Raytheon is up about $7 (12.7%) over the last twelve months and you can add the 1.8% dividend yield to that. It has a P/E of 15 and a P/S of 1.26 and almost a 19% ROIC. Raytheon opened at $62.78. Everything these companies make is very high-tech but you’ll not find them mentioned in that investment category — that will be the subject of another story. Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own shares of GD.
Filed under: Products and services, Launches, Consumer experience, Apple Inc (AAPL)
Apparently, Apple and the record labels are in dispute over how much the iTunes Store will charge users to download tracks via a wireless iPhone connection, for ringtone use or not. Billboard cites a New York Times article that claims “labels charge more for mobile music downloads than they do downloads via a personal, and apparently there’s still some back and forth over that issue.” The wireless connection currently offered is a slower version than the 3G access that projected for the new iPhone, opening new locations and a “broader range of access.” Billboard notes that Apple has not released any data reporting iTunes usage and purchases from the iPhone’s wireless connection, but does note disappointing data about iPod and mobile phone users. iPod owners buy only 20 tracks per year, while “less than 5% of mobile phone users with music-capable phones have reported ever buying a song via their devices.” If this data can be trusted, opening a new wireless connection will matter little unless the ringtone and ringback features can be upgraded. And if less than 5% of users are downloading music onto phones, it will all be a dead end anyway.
Filed under: Products and services, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), International Business Machines (IBM)
2007 was a triumphant year for HP in many ways, from personal computer market share to service revenue, but overtaking IBM by increasing its server market share by nearly 10% over the year-ago period was a nice ending to the tale. HP’s Mark Hurd continues to ideal many rivals in the Computer and server arenas. The real test will be to see if HP can really remain on top of the tech world. It’s now above IBM in total annual sales, but staying there won’t be simple. HP’s upped numbers were due to a “continued build-outs of huge web data centers and emerging-market growth,” according to Gartner. Gartner also noted that HP’s push to market its blade servers and other products as energy efficient helped win marker share. Combine that with pricing and cost advantages over the competition and HP came out swinging in 2007 and into 2008 with a powerful punch not easily digested by its larger and smaller competitors. For example, smaller rival Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) commanded only 12% of server sales in the first quarter.
27
05
2008
Shahrir: Petrol subsidised with people’s money - Malaysia StarPosted by: admin in Today News
Powered by WordPress, Mandigo theme by tom.
|
Remember Goldstar, the inexpensive color TVs brand popular in the 1970s and ’80s? Those TVs were manufactured by a South Korean firm called Lucky Goldstar, founded after WWII to make appliances and chemicals. Today, that company is known as LG, one of the largest conglomerates in the world, famous for its high quality phones and plasma televisions. And soon it may be the owner of 
When it comes to defense spending over the last nine years, there has not been any rest. As I’ve reported on numerous occasions, the defense sector has beaten the market indices year after year. This year is no exception and two of my recommendations remain ahead of the market and are reporting new contracts every day.
Billboard 
Entries (RSS)