Posted by admin on January 13th, 2010
December sales showed the strongest year-on-year growth since 2005, says the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
Overall, UK sales rose by 4.2 per cent compared to the same month last year, with internet and mail order sales climbing by 26.5 per cent.
Stephen Robertson, director general of the BRC, says: ‘These are stronger figures than we dared hope for. After a surprisingly muted November, this is the best total sales growth for a December since 2005 and goes well beyond just making up for the sales fall the sector suffered a year ago.
‘The figures were certainly helped by the comparison with last December’s terrible results but customers clearly felt more confident about spending than they have for some time.’
According to internet body IMRG, online sellers saw an uplift of 29 per cent in Christmas Day sales compared to last year.
Posted by admin on January 12th, 2010
While most of us grow weary of reading news about what Congress is voting on, the new credit card bill now under consideration may be worth paying attention to. Anyone who carries a credit card will be affected – hopefully in positive ways – by this latest effort toward government bank regulation to ensure that consumer credit card terms and practices are not taking undue advantage of cardholders.
Most legislators have vowed that in order for the credit card bill to pass and get approved with their vote, it will have to include some key components. For one thing they are pushing for more transparency regarding consumer credit card rules – which basically means that they want the new credit card bill to require plain English in plain sight, versus complex legal lingo buried in small print. They Read Full Post…
Posted by admin on January 12th, 2010
Intel will kick off the earnings season for tech firms on Thursday and is likely to set the bar very high. Analysts predict not only will the fourth quarter of 2009 exceed projections, but that the momentum will carry right into 2010.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect Intel to post earnings of $1.9 billion, or 30 cents per share for the quarter ended Dec. 31, a huge improvement over the $234 million, or four cents per share during the year-ago quarter. Analysts also expect sales to rise 23.6 percent to $10.2 billion for the quarter, compared with $8.2 billion in Q4 2008.
Broadpoint.AmTech analyst Doug Freedman is particularly bullish, projecting Intel’s December quarter to come in above consensus with strong results across all key metrics (revenue, gross margin and EPS) not only for Intel but AMD (NYSE: AMD) as well.
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Posted by admin on January 12th, 2010
(Reuters) – U.S.
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Posted by admin on January 11th, 2010
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. home loan rates could rise by as much as three-quarters of a percentage point in the spring as the Federal Reserve ends its mortgage bonds purchase program, a top Fed policymaker said in an interview published on Saturday.
Housing Market
“You maybe would have thought you would have seen rates move up more quickly than they have, but nonetheless it’s a concern,” Boston Federal Reserve Bank President Eric Rosengren told The Hartford Courant.
Thirty-year mortgage rates averaged 5.09 percent the first week of January, according to mortgage finance company Freddie Mac.
The Fed is set by the end of March to end the $1.25 trillion mortgage-backed securities purchase program — put in place to bring down mortgage rates and support the housing market as it struggles out of its worst slump in decades.
Rosengren, a voter on the Fed’s policy-setting panel this year, said the Fed could extend the program if the economy deteriorated dramatically, but that was unlikely.
“That’s not in our forecast,” he said.
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Posted by admin on January 10th, 2010
With the aid of a federal program created as part of the government’s stimulus plan, the MetroHealth System has sold $75 million in bonds, the proceeds of which it will use for capital projects throughout the system.While MetroHealth will have access to the $75 million raised through the bond sale, it also will receive from the U.S. Treasury a portion of the interest back that is pays on the bonds under the Build America Bond program, said Sharon Dougherty, MetroHealth’s chief financial officer. Under the program, state and local government bodies that issue bonds will receive a direct federal subsidy payment for a portion of their borrowing costs equal to 35% of the total interest paid to investors.The market’s reception of the bonds is a testament to the improvement in MetroHealth’s finances, Ms. Dougherty said. Read Full Post…
Posted by admin on January 9th, 2010
The crucial migration phase when moving or modernizing data centers can make or break the success of these complex undertakings. Much planning and expensive effort goes into building new data centers, or in conducting major improvements to existing ones. But too often there’s short shrift in the actual “throwing of the switch” — in the moving and migrating of existing applications and data.
But as new data center transformations pick up — due to the financial pressures to boost overall IT efficiency — so too should the early-and-often planning and thoughtful execution of the migration itself get proper attention.
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