MOORE, Oklahoma (Reuters) – Tornado survivors thanked God, sturdy closets and luck in explaining how they lived through the colossal twister that devastated an Oklahoma town and killed 24 people, an astonishingly low toll given the extent of destruction.
Category Archives: Topnews
Tim Cook’s Improbable Victory In Washington
By Felix Salmon:
When Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared in front of Carl Levin on Tuesday, I was hoping for an epic showdown, as presaged by Levin’s highly aggressive press release from Monday. I was sorely disappointed — although I did end up with a newfound admiration for Tim Cook’s ability to acquit himself with dignity and intelligence and integrity in the toughest of situations.
The Apple (AAPL) executives at the hearing spent most of their time politely listening to various senators pontificate about taxes. But every so often, in response to a rare direct question, they would try to explain why they didn’t think they were evading billions of dollars in taxes.
The Levin report is very long and dry, so let me oversimplify a little. Apple revenues basically end up in one of two places: California, for sales in the Americas; and Ireland, for sales everywhere else. Apple pays
Apple Share Buyback – The Numbers Talk
By J. M. Manness:
Apple (AAPL) announced that it has increased its share repurchase authorization to $60 billion from the $10 billion level announced last year. The buyback is to take place between now and the end of 2015. The question for the investor is “What does this mean for me?”
Apple shares have seen a serious reaction since last September, when shares peaked just over $700. Recently Apple has closed at just under $400. The last two earnings reports have been disappointing as a combination of slower rate of growth and a serious falling margin level have combined to give it its first year-over-year EPS decline in over 10 years.
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All this and other factors have created a state of uncertainty that has driven investors away from the stock, and forced prices down, even as the overall market has improved significantly. Whether Apple’s decision to raise the buyback
Tesla’s Glory Days Will Be Few As Bigger Competitors Are Already Catching Up
Tesla Motors, Inc (TSLA) has recently come into the spotlight due to an extraordinary stock price move following the release of its financial results for Q1, 2013. This was because Q1, 2013 was the first quarter in its history that Tesla made a profit. It also sold more than 4,750 Model S cars outpacing other luxury brands.
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The company that Elon Musk co-founded has every reason to be celebrating these results since they are one step closer to Mr. Musk’s vision. Affordable mass market electric cars that surpass in quality their conventional competitors.
According to reviews from auto magazines & sites like Car & Driver Tesla’s Model S isn’t just the new electric car on the block, it is a top-notch product that heartily beats its traditional gasoline & diesel competitors both in driving experience and functionality.
Due to its
Pricing A Highly Probable Takeover Of MannKind
By George Rho:
Investors, or more accurately, speculators who have followed the MannKind Corporation (NASDAQ: MNKD) saga over the past several years know fully well that the end game is rapidly approaching. Wall Street research coverage has increased of late, trading volume is surging, and the stock has more than doubled in price over the past three months. The pivotal phase 3 clinical trials – Affinity 1 and Affinity 2 – that the developmental stage biotechnology company is conducting of AFREZZA is about to conclude and the recent broad-based enthusiasm clearly reflects the growing collective confidence that the inhaled insulin product could be a “major weapon” in the battle against the global diabetes pandemic, as has been suggested by the company’s founder, largest stockholder, and chief executive Alfred Mann. It also may be instructive to note that during a conference call with the investment community on May 9th, Mr. Mann stated
Loonie overvalued by as much as 10%, warns BMO chief economist
Doug Porter, chief economist at the Bank of Montreal, said the Canadian dollar is overvalued by 5% to 10% given levels of commodity prices.
Porter, speaking in an interview Tuesday at Bloomberg’s Canada Economic Summit in Toronto, said the Canadian dollar will continue to be supported by safe-haven flows in the next couple of years, keeping it trading near parity with the U.S. dollar before weakening in the “medium-term.”
There is also no urgency for the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates, Porter said, adding there is a case for the country’s central bank to drop its tightening bias because the housing market has cooled.
The highest inflation-adjusted yields on Canadian government bonds in almost three months suggest that incoming Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz has room to reverse Mark Carney’s tightening bias and cut interest rates.
The difference between the return of the benchmark 10-year bond and the annual rate of inflation, known as the real yield, widened to 152 basis points on May 17, after Statistics Canada said consumer prices fell to 0.4 % in April. That’s above the average of 114 basis points since before the start of the global financial crisis in 2008.
“After the recent decline in inflation there are still question marks on if the central bank can or will maintain its hiking bias,” Mark Chandler, head of fixed-income strategy at Royal Bank of Canada’s RBC Capital Markets unit, said by phone from Toronto. “Performance from here will be dictated by if the Canadian economy can hook on to the coattails of the emerging U.S. economy.”
Canada’s dollar fell to a more than two-month low against its U.S. peer Tuesday amid speculation improvement in the world’s largest economy would spur the Federal Reserve to reduce stimulus, known as quantitative easing.
The currency declined against the majority of its 16 most-traded peers as crude oil, Canada’s biggest export, snapped a four-day rally amid falling commodities. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will discuss the economic outlook in congressional testimony and the central bank will publish minutes of its latest meeting Wednesday.
Canada’s dollar is “really following the flow, which sees the U.S. dollar stronger across the board,” Jack Spitz, managing director of foreign exchange in Toronto at National Bank of Canada, said in a telephone interview. The U.S. currency is gaining on “the anticipation that QE tapering is in the cards.”
The loonie fell 0.6% to C$1.0306 per U.S. dollar at 10:55 a.m. in Toronto after touching C$1.0321, weakest since March 7. One loonie buys 97.03 U.S. cents.
Crude-oil futures fell 0.6 % to $96.11 a barrel in New York. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of stocks dropped 0.1 %.
Canada’s benchmark 10-year government bonds fell, with yields rising two basis points, or 0.02 percentage point, to 1.94 %. The 1.5% note maturing in June 2023 dropped 15 cents to C$96.05.
Senate panel peels back Apple’s offshore taxes
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Apple Inc’s chief executive officer defended the company’s tax record at a Tuesday Senate hearing where lawmakers said the maker of iPads, iPods and Mac computers kept billions of dollars in profits in Irish subsidiaries to avoid U.S. taxes.
Dimon keeps JPMorgan chairman title after bruising battle
TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) – Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co’s outspoken chairman and chief executive, won a vote of confidence on Tuesday as shareholders decided to let him keep his chairman title by an even greater margin than last year.