The proxy war between Yahoo and Carl Icahn escalates as the billionaire investor said he wants a “talented and experienced" CEO to run the beleaguered Web portal in place of founder Jerry Yang.
Wall Street stocks fell after data showed the US shed jobs for a fifth straight month in May while the unemployment rate jumped by the most in 22 years, reviving fears that the economy is indeed heading for a recession Source: FT.com - US homepage | 6 Jun 2008 | 2:50 pm
The US unemployment rate has risen at its fastest pace in more than two decades in May, stoking recession fears. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 6 Jun 2008 | 2:49 pm
Oil prices have skyrocketed by more than $10 since Wednesday, passing the $134 threshold on Friday. Retail gas prices, however, edged lower, motorist group AAA's Web site showed Friday.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street stocks fell on Friday after the U.S. unemployment rate recorded its sharpest rise in 22 years and oil prices soared nearly 4 percent to within sight of its all-time high.
Technology stocks fall across the board as the sector feels the broad-market impact of the U.S. jobless rate climbing to its highest point in more than three years.
U.S. stocks drop sharply after the government says the nation’s jobless rate in May soared to 5.5%, the highest since October 2004, and as the price of crude-oil futures shot to around $134 a barrel.
For currency traders, it’s been a week defined by shocking comments from prominent central bankers. Now, there's the impending release of pivotal U.S. nonfarm payrolls data to factor into their strategies.
Reuters - U.S. securities regulators are
investigating whether American International Group Inc
overstated the value of contracts linked to subprime mortgages,
the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 2:26 pm
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. securities regulators are investigating whether American International Group Inc overstated the value of contracts linked to subprime mortgages, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
The U.S. unemployment rate jumps all the way to 5.5% in May, surprising economists with the biggest increase in seasonally adjusted unemployment in 33 years.
Drug stocks follow the broader market south early Friday as Wall Street grappled with newly released labor numbers that showed the U.S. unemployment rate in May hit 5.5%, the highest since October 2004.
Stena Line is introducing a fuel surcharge on its Irish Sea routes to cope with its soaring fuel bills. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 6 Jun 2008 | 2:21 pm
Stocks tanked Friday morning after a surprisingly weak jobs report and a 5% spike in oil prices revived fears that the economy is in a recession or heading into one.
Reuters - Wal-Mart Stores Inc
annual meeting got under way on Friday with a
combination of self-congratulations for a year in which the
retailer began to get its U.S. sales back on track and a tinge
of nostalgia for its founder, Sam Walton.
FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc annual meeting got under way on Friday with a combination of self-congratulations for a year in which the retailer began to get its U.S. sales back on track and a tinge of nostalgia for its founder, Sam Walton.
National City Corp.’s banking unit is facing closer scrutiny from federal regulators after entering into a memorandum of understanding that effectively puts the group on probation, according to a report.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. unemployment rate jumped by the most in 22 years in May, reaching its highest level in more than 3-1/2 years and underscoring the recessionary risk the economy still faces.
Airline shares go into a tailspin Friday on higher oil prices and U.S. economic data that raised fresh concerns that airline traffic could be significantly impacted by a contracting domestic economy.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investor Carl Icahn on Friday told Yahoo Inc that it should offer to sell the company to Microsoft Corp for $34.375 per share, the latest volley in an acrimonious war of words.
Reuters - Oil soared by more than $6 a barrel to
over $134 on Friday, bringing gains in the last two days to $12
as the dollar weakened further on a jump in the jobless rate in
the United States.
LONDON (Reuters) - Oil soared by more than $6 a barrel to over $134 on Friday, bringing gains in the last two days to $12 as the dollar weakened further on a jump in the jobless rate in the United States.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Strains in financial markets have eased somewhat but securitizations of non-agency mortgage products remain stalled and will recover only gradually, Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner said on Friday.
The US unemployment rate increased at the fastest rate in 22 years in May as companies cut jobs for a fifth consecutive month in the face of a slowing economy and spiralling energy costs Source: FT.com - US homepage | 6 Jun 2008 | 1:57 pm
On Tuesday night, The Drudge Report recorded the clinching of the Democratic Party nomination by Barack Obama with a photo of the candidate and his family and the headline "June 2008." It was a nice, understated look for Matt Drudge, the site's founder-editor, who is better known for bringing a sensational, opinionated and idiosyncratic flair to digital news, particularly in the political arena.
For six years Virendra Rastogi posed as the highly successful and respectable
chief executive of a multibillion-pound metal trading company. His home was
in Mayfair, a short chauffeur-driven trip from his offices in Piccadilly,
his children were at private school and his customers were dotted around the
world. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 6 Jun 2008 | 1:47 pm
LONDON (Reuters) - The number of companies around the world at risk of getting a credit downgrade climbed to a record in May amid the global credit squeeze, ratings agency Standard & Poor's said on Friday.
Reuters - Investor Carl Icahn on Friday told
Yahoo Inc that it should offer to sell the company to
Microsoft Corp for $34.375 per share, the latest
volley in an acrimonious war of words.
Reuters - Stocks opened sharply lower on Friday,
with all three major indexes down about 1 percent, after the
government reported the unemployment rate in May jumped to its
highest in more than 3-1/2 years, renewing fears that economy
may tip into recession.
LONDON (Reuters) - Crude oil may reach $150 a barrel by
July 4, investment bank Morgan Stanley said in a research note
on Friday, the latest prediction that the market will hit fresh
record highs.
Oil prices jumped after the European Central Bank signalled eurozone interest rates would rise in July, and weak US employment data led to downward pressure on the dollar Source: FT.com - US homepage | 6 Jun 2008 | 1:40 pm
Hornby, the toy-maker and hobby specialist, hopes to drive sales with the introduction of a James Bond themed Scalextric set to coincide with the release of the next 007 film, Quantum of Solace. Source: Telegraph Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 1:35 pm
OGE Energy Corp. (NYSE: OGE) has filed with the SEC for its Oklahoma Gas and Electric unit to sell up to $700 million in senior notes. The filing says the company may offer from time to time in one or more issuances one or more series of unsecured senior notes. The aggregate initial offering price of the senior notes that are offered will not exceed $700,000,000 and these will be offered in an amount and on terms to be determined by market conditions at the time of the offering. OGE Energy closed yesterday at $34.02 and its 52-week trading range...
(Reuters) - Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc may release second-quarter results a week earlier than expected, coupled with the announcement of a plan to raise capital, the New York Post said on Friday, citing a person familiar with the matter.
Reuters - The U.S. unemployment rate jumped by
the most in 22 years in May, reaching its highest level in more
than 3-1/2 years and underscoring the recessionary risk the
economy still faces.
Indian inflation continues to rise, fuelling speculation the government will soon take action to tackle the problem. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 6 Jun 2008 | 12:56 pm
Royal Bank of Scotland will announce later how many investors have agreed to buy extra shares in the firm. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 6 Jun 2008 | 12:33 pm
BGC Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ: BGCP) priced its public secondary offering of 820 million shares at $8.00 per share. According to the company, 10,000,000 of these are primary shares, 3,926,178 of which are secondary shares being sold by Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P., and 6,073,822 of which are secondary shares being sold by limited partners of Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P., and founding partners of BGC Holdings, L.P. Joint book-running managers are listed as Deutsche Bank and Cantor Fitzgerald; co-lead managers are Wachovia Securities and BMO Capital Markets; and co-managers are Keefe Bruyette & Woods and CastleOak Securities. The underwriters were granted an option to...
The next newspaper company to get into real trouble is likely to be Gatehouse Media (GHS). The firm is in bad enough shape that it could be the next Journal Register. JRC, as it was known, hit hard times due to large debt and falling operating income. It was delisted from the NYSE. It would be difficult for any newspaper shares to be down as much as those of McClatchy (MNI), which is also burdened with debt and owns properties in the economically troubled regions of Florida and California. But, GHS shares are off 80% over the last year compared...
Japanese banks suffer $8bn in losses connected to US sub-prime investments, its financial watchdog says. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 6 Jun 2008 | 12:14 pm
Trina Solar Limited (NYSE: TSL) has just posted its quarterly earnings report. The solar player posted net revenues increased to $120.7 million, up 183.6% year-over-year and 19.0% sequentially; while net income was $12.9 million and earnings per fully-diluted ADS was $0.51. First call estimates were $0.48 EPS on $116.9 million in revenues. Gross margin was 25.8% and Operating margin was 16.7%. Solar module shipments were 29.49 MW, up 180.3% from 10.52 MW in the Q1-2007 and up 23.3% Q4-2007. In the second Quarter the company expects to ship between 43 MW and 45 MW of PV modules and has revenues...
The fact that Barack Obama is now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president seems to sit well with Wall Street. After all, the securities industry has been funding his campaign for months.
Up to 1,800 jobs at Aviva, Britain's biggest insurer, are to be lost by 2010, the company said today. Source: Telegraph Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 12:05 pm
An ugly employment report has just provided more ammunition for the presidential battle.
Yes, it's the economy, stupid. It's in serious trouble, and Barack Obama and John McCain would be wise to seize on today's numbers and offer their proposals for jump-starting a recovery.
While the report itself is not terribly surprising, there are numbers in it that have major symbolic significance.
Take one: an unemployment rate of 5.5 percent. That is a half-point jump from April—the sharpest increase since February 1986. A year ago, the unemployment rate was at 4.5 percent, the Labor Department reported.
Or take another number: There are now 8.5 million unemployed Americans, up from 6.9 million a year ago. That is the biggest increase since January 1975, when the economy was in the stranglehold of a condition known as stagflation. (For a look at that '70s woe, click here.)
American employers cut 49,000 jobs last month, the fifth consecutive monthly shrinkage of the labor market. The loss in payrolls, which is computed by a different method than the unemployment rate, was in line with estimates.
Construction, manufacturing, and retail continued to bleed jobs. Temporary help, which can be a precursor of job growth, fell. Health-care employment was the rare bright spot.
The data illustrate that as the economy slows, credit tightens, and costs of commodities and energy rises, employers are retrenching. Worries over their jobs will only accelerate the slowdown, as Americans cut back on their spending.
The one positive in the report was that there was no sign of wage inflation. Average hourly earnings rose just 0.3 percent, to $17.94.
She has argued that Lehman would be wise to move its quarterly earnings announcement up to next week, from the originally scheduled week of June 16, in order to avoid further damage from the rumors swirling around Wall Street. And the firm is apparently considering such a move, according to the New York Post.
Amid difficult market conditions, Lehman is expected to report its first quarterly loss since it went public in 1994, largely as a result of losses from hedging.
Lehman would be better off getting the bad numbers for the second quarter out and telling the world how it is improving its balance sheet—and why it is not like Bear Stearns. (For a look at the heaven-and-hell scenarios for Lehman and Bear, click here.)
Mark DeCambre of the New York Postsays that the early earnings release "would be coupled with an announcement that the bank is bolstering its balance sheet by injecting cash raised through an offering of shares known as a rights offering."
Christine Harper and Yalman Onaran of Bloomberg News, meanwhile, report the firm may raise as much as $5 billion by next week. That would be higher than analysts' estimates of $3 billion to $4 billion.
"Executives at Lehman are in talks with at least one U.S. pension fund and an overseas investor," Bloomberg says, citing an unidentified source.
Shares of Lehman fell 8 percent this week as speculation grew about the firm's strength and whether it would need to sell part or all of itself. For the year, the shares are down 48 percent.
A company called Acclarent, Inc. has filed to come public via an IPO of up to $86.25 million in common stock. The company hasn't selected an exchange or ticker, but noted that it will list on NYSE or NASDAQ. JPMorgan and Piper Jaffray are listed as the book-runners with Leerink Swann and RBC Capital Markets listed as co-managers. The company makes the Balloon Sinusplasty for minimally invasive tools used in treating chronic sinusitis. Revenues in 2007 were $22.187 million and it generated $10.186 million in revenues during the first three months of 2008. As far as how this compares since...
PrivateBancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ: PVTB) has announced that it increased the size of its secondary offering to a proposed 4 million shares and it priced the secondary offering at $34.00 per share. As far as underwriters, Keefe Bruyette & Woods acted as sole book manager, with Robert W. Baird as co-lead manager. Co-managers are listed as William Blair and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. Underwriters have also been given a 30-day over-allotment option for up to 600,000 shares. Shares closed at $35.21 yesterday, so this represents a discounting of about 3.5%. Shares were at $38.00 just 5 days ago and its 52-week trading...
TPG and the private equity arm of Goldman Sachs stand to earn $1.3bn on investments made seven months ago in Alltel if the sale of the carrier to Verizon Wireless for $28bn goes through Source: FT.com - US homepage | 6 Jun 2008 | 11:35 am
These are ten of the analyst calls we are focusing on this Friday morning: Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) Cut to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank. Calamos Asset Management (NASDAQ: CLMS) Cut to Underperform at Credit Suisse. Foundry Networks (NASDAQ: FDRY) Cut to Neutral from Buy at Bank Of America. Greenhill (NYSE: GHL) Cut To Market Perform from Outperform at Wachovia. Hughes Communications (NASDAQ: HUGH) Started as Overweight at Lehman Brothers. Jefferies Group (NYSE: JEF) cut to Market Perform at KBW. Legg Mason (NYSE: LM) Raised to Neutral at Credit Suisse. McKesson (NYSE: MCK) started as Market Outperform at JMP...
UBS has downgraded the US communications towers sector this morning, in a similar move seen just two days ago from RBC Capital. The firm has downgraded Crown Castle (NYSE: CCI) and American Tower (NYSE: AMT). UBS had both companies covered with Buy ratings and the new ratings are now Neutral. As one cellular carrier gets rolled up into another, it lowers the number of customers for the communication towers operators. Even though they likely keep the same number of end users, the transfers to a larger carrier ultimately generate lower "per user" revenues. Jon C. Ogg June 6, 2008
There was nothing wrong with relying heavily on pick-ups and SUVs for the bulk of GM's (GM) sales. That is what CEO Rick Wagoner told the FT. The fact that "light trucks made up 52 per cent of GM’s US vehicle sales last month, compared with 34 per cent for Toyota." should be ignored. Wagoner believes that the Japanese went after the light truck market just as much as his company did, but that they were late to the game. That is good for Toyota (TM). By the time it got close to being a contender for SUV sales, the...
Hornby, the toy-maker and hobby specialist, hopes to drive sales with the introduction of a James Bond themed Scalextric set to coincide with the release of the next 007 film, Quantum of Solace. Source: Telegraph Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 10:26 am
Norwich Union owner Aviva will cut up to 1,800 jobs by 2010 as it restructures its insurance operations. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 6 Jun 2008 | 10:24 am
The bankers in Europe are bigger suckers than the bankers in the US. At least that is what the FT claims. It says "Of the $387bn in credit losses that global banks have reported since the start of 2007, $200bn was suffered by European groups and $166bn by US banks." The Institute of International Finance has discovered the reason for this. Salesmen from US financial institutions where able to dupe banks in the EU more than they were able to finesse domestic banks. The greater fool theory still seems to be at work. Douglas A. McIntyre
The Malaysian government has said it will not back down on its decision to increase fuel prices despite protests. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 6 Jun 2008 | 10:05 am
The world needs to spend $45,000bn on green technologies in the next 40 years, or 1.1% of annual economic output, to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 , the International Energy Agency says Source: FT.com - US homepage | 6 Jun 2008 | 9:03 am
The Chancellor Alistair Darling insisted yesterday that the Bank of England must be instrumental in maintaining financial stability in the future, as he announced that a panel of City experts would be brought in to oversee the Bank to help avoid another Northern Rock. Source: Telegraph Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 8:23 am
The International Energy Agency is calling for a $45 trillion green revolution to tackle global warming. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 6 Jun 2008 | 7:41 am
The New Zealand dollar fell to a seven year low against the Australian dollar today after the Reserve Bank yesterday signalled it would shortly begin an easing cycle.
Against the US dollar, the kiwi picked up a little following... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 5:47 am
Rural parts of England need help to realise their full economic potential, a report says. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 6 Jun 2008 | 5:04 am
For federal prosecutors, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has become a sleeper hit—but no Hollywood types will be celebrating when this once-dormant bribery statute makes a September Tinseltown debut.
The F.C.P.A., after decades of being ignored, is ensnaring an increasing array of companies, from energy exploration and telecom concerns to medical-device makers and freight forwarders, for alleged kickbacks to government officials around the globe. Now, even Hollywood is in prosecutors' crosshairs for bribery along the film-festival circuit—a case that could mark the beginning of the industry's own serious Syriana-style woes.
The Department of Justice has accused critically acclaimed Rescue Dawn producer Gerald Green and his wife Patricia of attempting to pay more than $900,000 in bribes to a high-level Thai government official in the hope of gaining the concession to run an international film festival in Bangkok. The Greens have plead not guilty on all charges.
While the D.O.J. declined to comment on the case, its deterrent effect is not lost on Mark Mendelsohn, deputy chief of the agency's fraud section. "As we bring cases in industries that were not previously a focus of F.C.P.A. enforcement actions, that does have the effect of causing a lot of players in that industry to wake up and pay attention," he says.
The case has already caused fallout in Thailand, which has begun its own investigation into the bribery allegation. The Thai official believed to be at the center of the controversy, Juthamas Siriwan, has discontinued her run for a seat in parliament and publicly threatened to sue the Justice Department for involving her in what she has called a groundless accusation.
For Hollywood, the concern is that recent F.C.P.A. cases in other industries have tended to ensnare other companies using, for instance, the same government go-betweens or the same methods to curry favor abroad. Whether this will be the case for the film industry remains to be seen, but the proximity of the film-festival bribery case comes uncomfortably soon after two other unwelcome revelations.
The trial of celebrity private investigator Anthony Pellicano recently uncovered bribery of government officials to further the aims of some Hollywood power brokers. Also, last year, the Los Angeles Times unearthed budget documents from the 2005 mega-flop Sahara that list $237,386 for courtesy payments, gratuities and local bribes while filming in Morocco.
Nobody involved with Sahara has been charged with a F.C.P.A. violation. And as long as they are correctly accounted for and not part of "a slush fund," the act exempts certain small payments to expedite routine services, says Danforth Newcomb, a well-known F.C.P.A. expert with the law firm of Shearman & Sterling. The question that comes up, the lawyer says, is "when does it stop being a facilitating payment, which implies a one-off situation, and instead becomes a method of doing business. That question applies equally to the film industry."
Bill Lindstrom, C.E.O. of the Association of Film Commissioners International, says production companies have often paid to obtain "extra services," to assure that what is promised by officials is actually provided, and to "prevent something bad from happening on set."
But last month his organization grew concerned enough about these payments that it decided to offer a new seminar at its Locations Trade Show. The title: "Greasing Palms on Location: What You Need to Know About the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act."
Hollywood is right to pay attention, as both the aggressiveness of prosecutors and the cost of violations have been rising.
According to data compiled by Shearman & Sterling, there are currently investigations involving more than 80 companies; in 2003, there were fewer than 10. Meanwhile, last year the oil-services company Baker Hughes paid a record $44 million to settle claims that it bribed officials in Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Angola, Indonesia, Russia and Uzbekistan to obtain oil- and gas-related contracts.
Also, prosecutors hoping to focus corporate managers' attention on the problem have increasingly gone after them individually. For instance, last October, David Kay and Douglas Murphy, two former executives with American Rice, received 37- and 63-month sentences, respectively, for their roles in a scheme to avoid $1.5 million in Haitian import duties and taxes.
Corruption is a massive problem, with the World Bank estimating that more than $1 trillion in governmental bribes are paid every year worldwide.
Still, not too long ago companies had little to fear if they used bribes to gain concessions. Enacted in 1977, following government studies that pointed to widespread corporate bribery, the F.C.P.A. was seldom enforced. And even when it was, prosecutors had an uphill battle gaining evidence, because many other countries turned a blind eye. Until 1999, foreign bribes were tax-deductible in both Germany and France, notes Fred Miller, co-leader of global F.C.P.A. investigations and forensic services at PricewaterhouseCoopers, adding "for a long time the U.S. rule was the only game in town."
But this is no longer the case. Domestically, the Department of Justice and the S.E.C. have made F.C.P.A. enforcement a high priority. For instance, over the last year and a half, the D.O.J. has repurposed three prosecutor slots to handle only F.C.P.A. investigations, while the F.B.I. has created eight dedicated F.C.P.A. agent positions in its Washington field office. Before, they had non
e.
One symbol of greater international cooperation took place last November in Rome at the 10th anniversary of the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development's signing of antibribery statutes. For the first time, prosecutors from the signatory countries, about 70 law-enforcement officials in all, came together to share their experiences and discuss their cases. The group will now meet once a year.
All of this greater law-enforcement focus on corruption has come as companies are uncovering more of their own F.C.P.A. violations—often revealed due to the greater financial controls required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act or searched for during the scrubbing that takes place when there is a merger or acquisition. Federal officials have helped encourage self-reporting of these violations by giving companies steep reductions in fines for cooperation.
There is no indication that Hollywood executives will soon be banging down prosecutors' doors. But another F.C.P.A. trend—that of irritated competitors spilling allegations to prosecutors—may give some in the industry pause. Either way, Miller says filmmaking is just the type of business that might end up with F.C.P.A. issues to atone for.
"If you think about the film industry, they go on location and don't have a lot of time," he says. "If you want to shut down traffic in a town, how does that happen? Could the industry be subject to these bribery rules and might they run into some issues? You bet."
Car maker Holden has confirmed plans to end production of four cylinder engines at its Melbourne operations.
The company said today it now had a timescale for the ending of production of its Family II four cylinder engine.
"Family... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 4:16 am
Long before its first sneak preview, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a monster hit. Not with moviegoers—with marketers.
Industry insiders suggest that advertisers fought a major bidding war to tie their products with film. Why the fuss? Because Indiana Jones is cross-generational and cross-gender, making it a cross-promoter's dream.
The eventual victors in the tie-in title match—Expedia.com, Kraft, and Mars among others—have each launched costly campaigns with interactive appeal.
In case you didn't notice, Indiana Jones is not alone. Kung Fu Panda, Iron Man, Speed Racer, TheDark Knight, and even Sex and the City have piled onto the cross-promotion bandwagon this summer. (For a look at the six biggest winners, click here.)
It's a big bandwagon indeed: Spending can easily match or exceed the estimated $3.5 billion that all studios budget to market movies.
The goal? To start: Produce recordbreaking box office receipts and heightened brand awareness. But some are innovating in the field. The business of hype is growing, even in a down economy, and a new school of advertisers are trying to redefine this industry within an industry.
The allure of Hollywood is its ability to help advertisers stand out to the jaded, overwhelmed consumer. "Why do brands go back? Because they want to break through the clutter, draft off brand awareness and brand affinity," says Alden Stoner, director of the film department at Davie Brown Entertainment, a Los Angeles firm that specializes in brokering cross-promotional deals.
Incremental revenue is rarely the goal, even for advertisers selling big-ticket products like autos and electronics. It's the desire to equate their brands with the "emotional connotation of the movie," says Stoner. They want to sell the adventure of Indiana Jones, the mystery of TheDark Knight, and the sex of Sex and the City in specially marked packages at a store near you.
And ad spending is up—52 percent in 2007 according to an Accenture study, and 24 percent in the motion media category alone, which includes movie and TV. A cross-promotional movie campaign for each product can cost between $2 million and $20 million, depending on the film's buzz and whether a bidding war erupts over the rights to be an exclusive partner in a particular category.
As the competition for both advertisers and studios comes to a boil during the summer months, innovation is king.
"There's a need to research new ways to integrate message and content," says Entertainment Weekly publisher Scott Donaton. "These partnerships lead to the box office."
A division is growing between the easy-to-spot tie-in and the emerging school of brands that don't want you to know, they just want you to want.
An old-school advertiser sticks to a traditional formula. McDonald's, General Mills, and Mattel are prime examples. Their classic tools of the trade include Happy Meal toys, TV spots, on-pack promotions for Lucky Charms, Betty Crocker, and Pop Secret, and rolling out action figures for younger audiences to snap up at retail outlets worldwide. The old school needs to "fill the pipeline" says Stoner.
With traditional cross-promoting, a failed film doesn't translate into a failed partnership. All three of those brands partnered with Speed Racer, arguably this summer's biggest flop: The $160 million film grossed only $40 million in the first four weeks in theatres. Still, advertisers still drew from the film's buzz.
By contrast, the new school of advertisers aim to give consumers a deeper movie experience, through interactive means. "Advertisers are always looking for the cool factor, and now studios are listening," says Tom Meyer, President of Davie Browne Entertainment. "They're no longer looking for just a logo, they want access to exclusive content, to get closer."
The Indiana Jonesmicrosite, for example, offers a chance to win trips to exotic locales, behind-the-scenes footage, an "Indy store," bulletin boards, news, and other features.
When LG and Audi signed on to launch new products with Marvel's Iron Man, they took the idea to another level. Techno playboy Tony Stark was a natural fit to drive an Audi R8 in the film and, of course, be seen yapping on his 18-karat gold LG Shine, while inventing the greatest modern weaponry.
But on-screen product cameos now go beyond the screen. Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. pulled up to the curb of the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood in his Audi R8 for the film's Audi-sponsored premiere. It's getting harder to tell where the advertisement stops and the movie marketing begins.
Mercedes-Benz called on actress Kim Cattrall, who plays the blond cougar in the HBO series turned best-opening R-rated comedy Sex and the City, to attend a Detroit launch party for their GLK S.U.V., which she also drives in the film.
"Very passionate people make Mercedes and they're very smart, and I've always considered both of those things right down Samantha's alley," Cattrall told reporters at the event. "It's a cutting-edge car."
Sony may have the most fingers in the pie, with their launch of Sony movies (and by all means movie previews) on AT&T Mobile—placing their movie marketing directly into the consumers cell phones. Text to win movie premiere tickets? Don't mind if we do.
Microsites, premieres, free video content, and off-screen product demos by the stars are all part of where the game is headed. And the coming of 3-D will open a host of new opportunities. "You'll see things you've never seen before," predicts Meyer.
Old or new, cross promotion—where Madison and Vine meet and make money—is a partnership both studios and advertisers can't afford to let slip.
"Brands need content and content needs brands," says Shelley Zalis, founder and C.E.O. of OTX Research, which has consulted with Disney and other studios to update their marketing strategies.
Another blow for cash-strapped farmers struggling to recover from drought earlier this year.
Just when it seemed things could not get much worse, they are about to be hit by the nation's largest fertiliser price rise on record.
The... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 3:11 am
Airlines are cutting jobs, mothballing planes and reducing flights as they battle record fuel costs that have pushed the industry to its worst crisis since 2001, and the result is likely to be higher fares and fewer choices for travelers.
Continental... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 1:30 am
The telecommunications numbering system is under scrutiny, with the Commerce Commission today saying a study was needed as a result of market changes and technology development.
The commission issued terms of reference for the... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 1:10 am
Collapsed Access Brokerage, whose former boss Peter Marshall is in jail, faces a penalty of $750,000 for breaching NZX participant rules.
In a ruling made public today, NZX Discipline said the penalty was only to be paid if Access's... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 12:30 am
Silverjet, the business-class only airline that collapsed into administration last week, has received two tentative bid approaches from suitors interested in relaunching the carrier. Source: Telegraph Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 12:01 am
There is a peculiar kind of corporate beast that is so rare it usually only crops up on the endangered species list: a defensive non-food retailer. Most companies in the sector have taken such a battering of late that its hard to see where any growth will come from. Source: Telegraph Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 12:01 am
BP'S chief executive Tony Hayward has warned that Russia must respect property rights and the rule of law if its rapid economic development is to be maintained. Source: Telegraph Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 12:01 am
In the battle of the grocery giants, William Morrison lost ground with investors yesterday, finding itself among the biggest blue-chip losers despite posting robust sales figures for the first quarter. Source: Telegraph Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 12:01 am
Network Rail and its regulator have clashed over the funding required over the next five years to run and expand Britain's railways. Source: Telegraph Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 12:01 am
Borders has sold its New Zealand bookstores to A&R Whitcoulls as part of a A$110 million ($138.9 million) deal.
In all, United States-based Borders is selling 30 "superstores" in this country, Australia and Singapore.
A&R Whitcoulls,... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 6 Jun 2008 | 12:00 am
Emirates Airline, the largest customer for the Airbus A380, today announced it will receive the first of the 58 superjumbos it has on order from Airbus' Hamburg facility on July 28.
The Emirates' A380 order book is worth US$18.8... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 5 Jun 2008 | 11:30 pm
Sir Martin Sorrell, the chief executive of WPP, cheerfully compares himself to
Napoleon, because he is the same height as the French leader, 5ft 2in. It is
perhaps not the ideal comparison because whereas Sir Martin is an empire
builder, the French emperor ran into trouble in Russia - but it is not
outrageously immodest either. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 5 Jun 2008 | 11:00 pm
The chief executive of BP issued a veiled warning to the Kremlin yesterday
that Russia was putting its economic reputation at risk in the increasingly
bitter struggle over the future of TNK-BP. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 5 Jun 2008 | 11:00 pm
Halfords laid claim to being one of the most resilient retailers on the high
street yesterday and said it was benefiting from the spiralling price of
petrol. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 5 Jun 2008 | 11:00 pm
Vodafone will have to wait at least three years before Verizon, the US mobile
phone group in which it has a 45 per cent stake, will be able to pay an
estimated £800 million annual dividend to the Berkshire carrier. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 5 Jun 2008 | 11:00 pm
Barclays is using controversial American anti-terrorism laws to shut down the
personal bank accounts of British citizens who are working for Iranian-owned
businesses, The Times has learnt. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 5 Jun 2008 | 11:00 pm
Wm Morrison threw down the gauntlet to its rivals yesterday when it reported a
7 per cent jump in like-for-like sales since January and claimed that it was
poaching customers from all of its competitors. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 5 Jun 2008 | 11:00 pm
There were fears yesterday that the Bank of England could raise interest rates
after the European Central Bank issued a surprise warning that surging
inflation could force it to lift eurozone rates as early as next month. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 5 Jun 2008 | 11:00 pm
Banks that have sold payment protection insurance (PPI) could face a wave of
compensation claims after the Competition Commission said that 14 million
consumers had been overcharged by an estimated £1.4 billion, or an average
of £100 a year. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 5 Jun 2008 | 11:00 pm
Alistair Darling has given his clearest hint yet that he is likely to reject
Mervyn King's first choice for Deputy Governor of the Bank of England when
he announces the new appointment in the coming weeks. Source: Latest Business News from Times Online | 5 Jun 2008 | 11:00 pm
The New Zealand sharemarket started strongly today, following a near 2 per cent rise in US equities.
Around 10.15am the benchmark NZSX-50 index was up 22.57 points to 3578.54.
Yesterday the index closed down 1.7 points, gaining... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 5 Jun 2008 | 11:00 pm
Bank of America can take over distressed mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, the Federal Reserve decides. Source: BBC News | Business | World Edition | 5 Jun 2008 | 10:46 pm
Zespri Group chief executive Tony Nowell has resigned from the kiwifruit company and will leave at the end of this month.
Mr Nowell wished to focus more widely on the development of the broader New Zealand food industry, the country's... Source: New Zealand Herald - Business | 5 Jun 2008 | 10:30 pm
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is in advanced talks with a hedge-fund-backed media group that would enable the venerable Hollywood studio to dramatically increase its production of new films - including another James Bond release Source: FT.com - US homepage | 5 Jun 2008 | 10:22 pm
Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, dismissed the two most senior air force officials following several incidents that revealed embarrassing breakdowns of nuclear-weapons safeguards Source: FT.com - US homepage | 5 Jun 2008 | 10:10 pm
Barack Obama sent a clear signal he was planning an aggressive general election campaign by asking Howard Dean, the controversial chairman of the Democratic National Committee, to stay on in his post Source: FT.com - US homepage | 5 Jun 2008 | 9:56 pm
GM's Rick Wagoner mounted a robust defence of Detroit carmakers' dependence on sport-utility vehicles and pick-up trucks, dismissing criticism that the companies were to blame as demand for those vehicles has collapsed Source: FT.com - US homepage | 5 Jun 2008 | 9:39 pm
A tiny town in England has a novel way to encourage people to buy local -- printing its own currency for in-town purchases. Stephen Beard reports. Source: Marketplace | 5 Jun 2008 | 9:32 pm
Advertising is a seduction, but commentator and ad-watcher Andrea Gardner says that for all the purchasing power women have, advertisers don't always give a lot of thought to what they want to hear. Source: Marketplace | 5 Jun 2008 | 9:32 pm
A new twist on the global rush for food: investors are going straight to the source and investing in farmland and equipment. Host Bob Moon talks to Diana Henriques of The New York Times about this new trend. Source: Marketplace | 5 Jun 2008 | 9:31 pm
Sky-high inflation and a slew of labor strikes have brought the Vietnamese economy to its knees. Host Bob Moon speaks with Marketplace's Scott Tong in Beijing about Vietnam's economic future. Source: Marketplace | 5 Jun 2008 | 9:31 pm
A GAO report says omissions and litigation could keep the federal government from recouping $53 billion in oil royalties, even as oil companies enjoy record profits. Sarah Gardner explains. Source: Marketplace | 5 Jun 2008 | 9:31 pm
Verizon Wireless is buying rural telephone company Alltel. This will make Verizon the largest U.S. wireless service provider. Dan Grech reports on the effect the deal will have on their millions of combined customers. Source: Marketplace | 5 Jun 2008 | 9:31 pm
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced a deal with three major credit rating agencies to overhaul the way they look at mortgage-backed securities. Jill Barshay has the story. Source: Marketplace | 5 Jun 2008 | 9:31 pm
Loans that were traditionally considered safe are beginning to fall into foreclosure. Host Bob Moon gets financial analyst Greg McBride's thoughts on the spread of the subprime mess. Source: Marketplace | 5 Jun 2008 | 9:31 pm
Bart Simpson hasn't aged a day since The Simpsons launched on Fox in 1989.
Neither, it turns out, has its audience, which may explain The Simpsons’ current first-place tie (with Gunsmoke) for the longest-running primetime TV series, ever.
This week, the network announced it would pick up the show, featuring Springfield’s favorite dysfunctional but loving animated family for a 20th season.
The Simpsons’ audience has a current median age of 31.5, and the show ranks among the 10 with the youngest median audiences, which are most appealing to advertisers, at the end of every TV season, according to Brad Adgate, senior vice president at media planning and buying agency Horizon Media. (The youngest median-age shows this year are almost all from Fox and the CW, including Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, Family Guy, and American Dad).
Compare that with American Idol, the most-watched show on TV and Fox's new crown jewel. Idol started life with a median audience age of 32 that has now climbed to about 42. Adgate adds that even videogames, that bastion of youthful recreation, have had the median age of their users jump from 18 or 19 in 1990 to 33 in 2008. The Simpsons has barely budged.
Apart from finding the fountain of youth, what can Simon Cowell learn from his animated colleagues? Idol, after all, is the most-watched show on TV and Fox's zeitgeistiest phenom, but began to show signs of age in its seventh season with ratings that, though still the envy of the industry, have started to wane.
One idea would be to up the show's testosterone quotient, in an attempt to capture more male viewers. Because in addition to being too old, it seems, Idol's fans are too female.
"The Simpsons is male-driven," says Adgate, appealing to 6- to 11-year-old boys as easily as it does to 18- to 34-year-old men. "A lot of young men, what do they do? Play videogames, go to the movies, go on YouTube, and watch The Simpsons." And because young men watch less TV than their female counterparts, they are among the hardest demographic for advertisers to reach.
For that reason, Adgate estimates, The Simpsons can command an advertising rate that is approximately double that of other Sunday night fodder, like 60 Minutes.
Capitalizing on the success of The Simpsons, Fox has rolled out animated knock-offs such as American Dad, Family Guy, and King of the Hill in recent years.
Of course, there is some common ground between Idol and The Simpsons—if not in their audience makeup, then in the impact they've had on popular culture, says Carrie Drinkwater, senior vice president and director of national broadcast at MPG-North America, a media planning and buying company.
"They're both iconic shows, brands in themselves. It's very hard in this day and age to come up with a TV platform that is a brand itself," she says.
And on at least one count, sheer volume, Idol even comes out well ahead. "If The Simpsons could reach 31 million viewers in a finale, they would be happy," she says, referring to the blockbuster end of Idol season 7, which topped last year’s finale by over 1 million people.
Still, that's no guarantee of anything.
Asked if Idol will still be around in 2021, Scott Grogin, Fox's senior vice president of corporate communications, would said only that "any show that's been on TV for 20 years is a remarkable TV show. The Simpsons, right now, is a singular TV show."
Reuters - The three top credit rating agencies
struck a pact with New York's attorney general on Thursday to
change the way they charge fees for reviewing mortgage-backed
securities, the latest development in a probe into the U.S.
home loan industry. Source: Yahoo! News: Business | 5 Jun 2008 | 8:27 pm
European banks have now suffered considerably more losses because of the credit crunch than their US rivals, even though the turmoil was first triggered by problems in the US subprime mortgage market Source: FT.com - US homepage | 5 Jun 2008 | 6:55 pm
Henry Nicholas is like a dream come true for the federal investigator stuck in the white-collar department probing routine accounting frauds.
That's because the Nicholas investigation evolved into much more than just the options-backdating allegations that brought him to the Fed's attention. The government unsealed two indictments today against the former Broadcom chief executive accusing him of 25 charges.
The first includes your standard fare: conspiracy, securities fraud, filing false statements, wire fraud, and falsifying financial statements.
The second includes a whammy: conspiracy to distribute and acquire controlled substances.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Nicholas surrendered to authorities this morning.
Nicholas was separated from the pack of other executives caught up in the options-backdating scandal when two lawsuits filed against him included salacious details about his "personal brothel" and "addiction to cocaine and ecstasy." A construction company that filed one of the suits alleged that Nicholas had plans to build an elaborate, secret hideaway in which to engage in his extracurricular activity.
The indictment unsealed today accuses Nicholas of spiking his Broadcom employees' drinks with ecstasy and maintaining a warehouse for ecstasy, cocaine, and methamphetamine, according to the Associated Press.
Last month, his attorney said that Nicholas had entered an alcohol rehab program.
As for the securities-fraud charges, Broadcom's former chief financial officer William Ruehle was also named in the indictment.
Nicholas and former Broadcom chairman Henry Samueli were already charged with civil crimes relating to the backdating by the Securities and Exchange Commission. In April, the company agreed to pay $12 million to settle all charges against it for the accounting mishaps that caused it to restate earnings to reflect $12 billion in unreported compensation.
Federal Reserve officials played good cop/bad cop Thursday, offering up very different versions of the central bank's relationship with investment banks and other denizens of Wall Street. What are financial titans to take away from it all?
Speaking to Congress, vice chairman Donald Kohn urged tough talk and more comprehensive regulations on Thursday to forestall the next financial crisis. But in an interview, Jeffrey Lacker, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, said the Fed itself encouraged banks' risky behavior.
Kohn said banks failed to identify, measure and understand the risks to their balance sheets from instruments like mortgage-backed securities, despite early warnings by the Fed before the credit market turmoil unfolded last summer.
The remedies outlined in his prepared remarks dealt largely with new rules and regulations meant to strengthen how firms control their overall exposure to risk.
To Kohn, the current financial crisis was caused by "a sense of overconfidence among many bankers" who did not "fully consider the potential for those good times to end."
To ensure level heads the next time around, Kohn outlined plans to stiffen regulatory controls and enhance the rules that govern the Fed's banking examiners. He concluded by calling for the Fed to "send strong supervisory messages" with "more force and frequency."
At the same time, however, Lacker said that he thinks bankers knew exactly how deep in the ocean they had gotten. They just figured—correctly as it turned out—that the Fed would be there with a life preserver, he said.
"In times of financial crisis, the understandable central bank imperative is to alleviate the stress," Lacker said in prepared remarks to a conference in London. But the Fed's own studies show that when banks know it will intervene, they "do not self-protect, and thus leave themselves more susceptible to runs."
Banks, after all, need risk to generate profit, and usually the bigger the risks—a high-interest loan to a subprime borrower, for instance—the greater the reward. When the Fed intervenes in a bank failure, he added, lenders just go deeper and deeper the next time around—regardless of tough talk from Washington.
Lacker said the Fed's interference in some types of banking crisis "interferes with market discipline and distorts market prices," making these incidents more frequent.
Interference can be justified during an irrational run on the bank caused by panic, Lacker said, but becomes risky when the Fed intervenes during a crisis caused by a fundamental problem, like rising mortgage defaults that raised questions about the soundness of mortgage-backed securities.
Fed critics saw a moral hazard in the Fed's $29 billion rescue loan to Bear Stearns, and its active role in supporting a takeover of the troubled bank by J.P. Morgan Chase.
The actions may have ensured the soundness of the banking system at the nadir of the financial crisis this spring. But the Fed's role as lifesaver may have shifted the calculations that banks make when taking on risks.
While the retail sales figures today may have bested the gloomy expectations of analysts, overall, the story was more of the same: Discount retailers are extending their gains while consumers continue to siphon dollars away from department stores and mall-based apparel chains.
What portion of the $50 billion the government has sent out in stimulus payments that didn't go toward filling gas tanks went to the likes of Wal-Mart, TJX, and Costco, which all reported larger-than-anticipated sales growth for the month of May.
Nordstrom appeared to be the one department-store retailer to buck the trend, posting a better-than-expected 10.9 percent rise in sales for the month.
At first glance, that seems very surprising given that the chain has been hard hit in recent months as belt-tightening climbs up the income scale, with sales down 9.1 percent in March and then 3.8 percent more in April.
But investors who sent Nordstrom's stock up 2.4 percent in morning trading today would do well to remember what accounted for the uptick: Nordstrom shifted its popular semiannual sale for women and children forward two weeks to begin on May 21. Last year's sale started on June 6.
Nordstrom said that it made the change in order to attract shoppers over Memorial Day weekend, which is typically a popular time for sale shopping. Judging by today's results, the strategy seems to have worked.
But depending on that kind of discounting is a Band-Aid rather than a cure, which Nordstrom will have to use sparingly if they want to protect their margins. The department-store chain will feel the sting of the calendar shift come next month: Nordstrom is projecting an 18 percent to 22 percent drop in same-store sales for June.
In order to counter rumors of its imminent demise, Lehman Brothers has chosen a kind of "drips and drabs" P.R. strategy: Get the good numbers out into the public domain now, and maybe the bad numbers won't hurt so much in a couple of weeks.
In reality, most investors would rather hear the good, the bad, and the ugly now. Lehman would be wise to move its quarterly earnings announcement up to avoid further damage—as of now, it's scheduled for the week of June 16. In doing so, Lehman might be able to finally shake the comparisons to Bear Stearns. (For a look at the ways Lehman is like—and unlike—Bear, click here.)
On Tuesday, when Lehman shares were in a free fall and rumors circulated that it had tapped the Fed's funds, its treasurer Paolo Tonucci released a statement saying its liquidity position had improved by $6 billion during the second quarter, to more than $40 billion.
Then yesterday, CNBC got its hands on an internal memo—likely the same memo that reportedly was sent by chief executive Richard Fuld to all 28,000 Lehman employees—that had even more good news about the quarter. The bank reduced its net leverage exposure to 12.4 times equity, from 15.4 times equity at the end of the first quarter.
The news, and the reaction to its stock price, has thrown Wall Street analysts covering the company into a veritable tizzy. Merrill Lynch analyst Guy Moszkowski downgraded the stock on Monday due to a new ratings system at the bank, only to turn around and upgrade them on Wednesday, saying the stock's sell-off was an overreaction.
Today, Deutsche Bank analyst Michael Mayo upgraded his rating on the stock, while Bernstein analyst Brad Hintz, who came to Lehman's defense against certain short-seller accusations earlier this week, lowered his earnings expectations for the quarter.
Lehman's stock has regained some of its losses from earlier this week, but it's not clear if this market can endure the drips and drabs for 10 more days.
The European Central Bank and the Bank of England left their key interest rates unchanged Thursday as inflation concerns continue to preoccupy bank officials. The ECB kept its main... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 5 Jun 2008 | 1:09 pm
NEW YORK, June 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Mark A. Goodburn, KPMG LLP's Vice Chairman and Head of Advisory, was named today to Consulting magazine's list of the Top 25... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 5 Jun 2008 | 1:06 pm
TORONTO, June 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Thompson Creek Metals Company Inc. (the "Company") announces that it has closed its previously announced "bought... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 5 Jun 2008 | 1:05 pm
Liquor producer Brown-Forman Corp. says its fourth-quarter profit rose 48 percent partly on the strength of higher demand for its flagship Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey and Finlandia... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 5 Jun 2008 | 1:02 pm
HOUSTON, June 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- NCI Building Systems, Inc. (NYSE: NCS) today announced it will participate in the Piper Jaffray Industrial Growth Conference,... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 5 Jun 2008 | 1:01 pm
CHARLOTTE, N.C., June 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Nucor Corporation (NYSE: NUE) announced today that strong shipments and higher margins have increased the earnings... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 5 Jun 2008 | 1:00 pm
DALLAS, June 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Behringer Harvard announced today that it recently closed on a $75 million secured credit facility on behalf of Behringer Harvard... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 5 Jun 2008 | 1:00 pm
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., June 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mattel, Inc. (NYSE: MAT) today announced that it will webcast a presentation to securities analysts on Tuesday, June... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 5 Jun 2008 | 1:00 pm
AP - The nation's unemployment rate jumped to 5.5 percent in May the biggest monthly rise since 1986 as nervous employers cut 49,000 jobs.
Reuters - Wal-Mart Stores Inc
annual meeting got under way on Friday with a
combination of self-congratulations for a year in which the
retailer began to get its U.S. sales back on track and a tinge
of nostalgia for its founder, Sam Walton.
Reuters - Oil soared by more than $6 a barrel to
over $134 on Friday, bringing gains in the last two days to $12
as the dollar weakened further on a jump in the jobless rate in
the United States.
Reuters - Investor Carl Icahn on Friday told
Yahoo Inc that it should offer to sell the company to
Microsoft Corp for $34.375 per share, the latest
volley in an acrimonious war of words.
Reuters - Stocks opened sharply lower on Friday,
with all three major indexes down about 1 percent, after the
government reported the unemployment rate in May jumped to its
highest in more than 3-1/2 years, renewing fears that economy
may tip into recession.
Reuters - The U.S. unemployment rate jumped by
the most in 22 years in May, reaching its highest level in more
than 3-1/2 years and underscoring the recessionary risk the
economy still faces.