Professional Business Network

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Monday on a jump in crude oil prices and ahead of data expected to show expansion in the manufacturing sector.

Russia

On the first trading day of the year, investors are awaiting November construction spending data and the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index for December, which analysts forecast will rise from the prior month.

“An improvement in the datapoints will be another confirmation of the evidence that we’ve been getting stronger,” said Edward Riley, chief executive of Riley Asset Management in Boston.

“Also, people tend to put more weight on data that comes out in the beginning of the year, so this could have an out-sized influence on trading.”

Russia had halted supplies to Belarussian refineries after failing to resolve an oil pricing dispute, according to traders, but on Monday, the Belarus state oil firm said Russian oil was flowing normally to European Union customers via Belarus.

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A couple of weeks ago I posted “bad research is worse than no research at all” on Twitter. Some thoughts, like that one, fit perfectly well in 140 characters. And it seems like a useful one too. And true.

The reasons for that statement seem pretty obvious to me. Better to know what you don’t know than to make business decisions based on false information and false conclusions. If the focus group said red is better than green, nobody dares to argue for green. Even if green is really better, and the focus group was off, distorted by one very articulate and engaging green hater. Red it is.

Seth Godin gave a great example on his blog a few days ago. He called it Learning from bad graphs and weak analysis. He ta

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For more than 60 years, TV stations have broadcast news, sports and entertainment for free, and made their money by showing commercials. That might not work much longer.

The business model is unraveling at ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, as well as the local stations that carry the networks’ programming. Cable TV and the Web have fractured the audience for free TV and siphoned its ad dollars. The recession has squeezed advertising further, forcing broadcasters to accelerate their push for new revenue to pay for programming.

That will play out in living rooms across the country. The changes could mean higher cable or satellite TV bills, as the networks and local stations squeeze more fees from pay-TV providers such as Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSK) and DirecTV (Nasdaq: DTV) for the right to show broadcast TV channels in their lineups.

The networks might even ditch free broadcast signals in the next few years.

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For most investors, the 2000s will be known as the lost decade — and for technology investors, it was even worse.

Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), EMC (NYSE: EMC) and Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) were the biggest stock market gainers in the roaring 1990s, with gains of around 80,000 percent each, and AOL wasn’t far behind.

A decade later, the picture couldn’t be more dramatically different. The top stocks of the 2000s have been names like Green Mountain Coffee (NASDAQ: GMCR), Hansen Natural (NASDAQ: HANS) and Terra Nitrogen (NYSE: TNH) — representing coffee, energy drinks and fertilizer — and other top names were in energy, slot machines, environmental services, healthcare and apparel, according to Time magazine. No

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We only have a few hours left before the much reviled “death” tax disappears, to be replaced by a complicated and confusing carryover basis regime. So, if your estate is over $3.5 million, the tax impact may be less if you die tomorrow rather than today.  Don’t count on certain tax savings, however, as Congress could very well reinstate the estate tax retroactively to January 1, 2010.  And if you wait until 2011 to die, your estate could be taxed even more, as the estate tax will return then, with a $1 million exemption and a 55% rate.

My advice – don’t die, but see your estate attorney right away!  Failure to plan for all these changing laws could end up being very costly.

MILAN (Reuters) – Italian confectioner Ferrero has met with private equity firms as well as Hershey Co to discuss a possible bid for Britain’s Cadbury Plc, Il Sole 24 Ore daily reported on Saturday.

Deals

The coming weeks will determine whether the family-held company will make an offer for the British confectionery maker rivaling a hostile 10 billion pound ($15.9 billion) bid from U.S. food group Kraft Foods Inc, the newspaper said.

Ferrero has met in recent weeks with private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and Blackstone Group LP to discuss Cadbury, Il Sole 24 Ore said, citing financial sources.

Ferrero also has talked over an offer in recent weeks with Hershey, with the goal an alliance that could offset Kraft’s bid, the paper said.

A Ferrero spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

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Penn National Gaming Inc. (Nasdaq: PENN) said it has completed the purchase of a 44-acre parcel on Miami Street in Toledo that was expressly authorized as a site for casino gaming under the Issue 3 constitutional ballot initiative approved by Ohio voters on Nov. 3.

“Closing on the property moves us a major step closer to making Hollywood Casino Toledo a reality,” Eric Schippers, senior vice president of Penn National, said in a statement.

The Miami Street site was purchased by Toledo Gaming Ventures Inc., an Ohio corporation established by Penn National, from River Road Development, which acquired the property in 2006. River Road used a Clean Ohio Revitalization Fund grant and a matching grant from the city of Toledo to perform environmental remediation on the site. In Read Full Post…