Consumers are more willing to spend money online again, after a year of lackluster results.
Reston-based Internet tracking firm comScore says retail e-commerce sales reached $32.9 billion in the second quarter, up 9 percent from a year ago.
The total does not include online travel, auctions, autos or large corporate purchases.
It marks the third straight quarterly gain in year-over-year online sales, after a year of flat or falling quarterly e-commerce totals. Retail sales fell for the first time ever in the fourth quarter of 2008, and declined in both the second and third quarters of 2009.
“The second quarter’s continuation of the first quarter’s strong retail e-commerce growth rates is encouraging,” said comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR) chairman Gian Fulgoni one hour payday loan. “We remain optimistic heading into the second half of the year, but we will be keeping a close eye on unemployment rates, which along with potential uncertainty in the stock market could limit growth in e-commerce spending in the near term.”
Upper income households, or those with annual incomes of $100,000 or more, spent 17 percent more shopping online than they did a year ago, nearly twice overall e-commerce growth last quarter.
Electronics, computers and software, books and magazines were among the biggest sellers online last quarter.
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It’s the best of times and the worst of times for iPhone 4 case makers.
As a remedy for its so-called "death grip" problem on the new device, Apple announced on Friday that it would send a free case to every iPhone 4 purchaser who wants one, at least until Sept. 30. Sounds like a pretty good deal for a company like Forward Industries (FORD), which manufacturers the Apple-branded "bumper" case for the new iPhone. Forward’s stock shot up 22% right after Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ announcement.
The freebie deal presents an opportunity for other case manufacturers as well: Jobs said his company can’t make enough bumper cases to satisfy anticipated demand, so Apple will also allow customers to get a free third-party case instead. To do this, Apple will post a list of cases to choose from on its website beginning next week, and it will deliver them to customers free of charge.
"There’s a tremendous upside for case manufacturers," said Francis Sideco, principal wireless analyst with supply chain analysis firm iSuppli. "Whatever Apple pays them for the cases, it’s going to be what the manufacturers were going to get from Apple anyway. And the announcement gives them much higher penetration than they would have had before."
But Forward Industries’ shares finished the day essentially flat, at $3.75 a share. Another big iPhone case maker, Zagg Inc. (ZAGG), closed down 5% after rising 5% on the announcement. Why the sudden drop back?
That’s where the "worst of times" comes into play. Jobs mentioned Friday that just 20% of iPhone 4 users have picked up a bumper case so far, despite all of the hoopla about how the case solves the phone’s dropped-signal issue. That’s far fewer than the 80% of iPhone 3GS users who bought a case soon after the phone’s release last year.
Jobs’ said his theory about why fewer customers are buying cases is that people love the look and feel of the iPhone 4 so much they don’t want to ruin it with a rubbery bumper.
Illustrating the point: During a Q&A session at Friday event, veteran Apple chronicler John Gruber asked Jobs if he uses a case. Jobs and two other Apple executives simultaneously whipped out their bare, bumper-free iPhones.
So even if many users will want a case, it’s unlikely that every single iPhone customer would order one.
"The signal issue is a relatively sporadic problem," said Sideco, noting that Jobs said just 1.7% of customers have returned their iPhone 4s and 0.55% have registered complaints. "It wouldn’t be 100% of people who get a case."
Sideco said he still expects the number of customers ordering cases to rise well above 20% after Apple’s offer goes into effect next week. Many people who balked at the bumpers’ $29 price tag will be happy to take a free case, even if they’re on the fence about actually using it.
The offer could be an expensive proposition for Apple, though predicting how much the company will spend is like trying to hit a moving target.
ISuppli expects 8 million to 10 million iPhones will be sold between the iPhone 4’s June 24 launch day and September 30. The cases that Apple will offer on its website will likely retail at $30, though analysts assume that Apple pays far, far less for each case than the retail price.
Shares of Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) fell less than 1% to close the day after rising a bit more than 1% after its announcement.
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Energy Holdings International Inc. has signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a 200 megawatt, $400 million power plant in Bangladesh.
Through a wholly owned subsidiary, EHII signed the deal with the Bangladesh Power Development Board for a single cycle electrical power generation plant with room to expand to a 450 MW combined cycle facility same day payday loans.
Houston-based EHII (NYSE: EGYH) is currently talking with a handful of engineering, procurement and construction contractors to build the plant while EHII will serve as the independent power producer.
Novartis’ acquisition of Chapel Hill-based Oriel Therapeutics in April was one of only eight M&A deals in the biotech, pharma sector nationwide in the second quarter of 2010, according to a new report by VentureDeal LLC.
The Swiss giant purchased the venture-backed startup for its asthma treatments. Meanwhile, nationally, the number of second quarter deals declined by 20 percent from the first quarter, the report says. Of the eight mergers in the sector, totaling $74 million, only two were biotechs, and six were medical device companies.
Financial details of the Oriel transaction were not released payday loans.
Activity was even slower in the Internet e-commerce space, where M&A activity – 31 firms were acquired for $564 million – declined by 38 percent compared with the first quarter.
M&A activity for telecom, wireless, mobile and communications companies declined markedly from the previous quarter, with 54 percent fewer companies being acquired compared to the first quarter, the report says.
For at least 30 cash-strapped states counting on federal stimulus money, the news was a stunning blow: A deficit-weary Congress had rejected billions in additional aid, forcing lawmakers into a mad scramble to balance their budgets.
Now, with a new fiscal year just days away in most states, many governors are proposing to make up for the shortfall with tax increases, cuts in essential services and layoffs of thousands of public employees.
The federal stimulus program enacted last year is set to expire in December. Much of the money goes to states to provide unemployment insurance and to help offset cuts to education, health care and public safety brought on by the recession.
Congress was poised to extend some funding to states through June 2011, including $35.5 billion for unemployment benefits and $16 billion for Medicaid. But the measure died in the Senate earlier this month, blowing a hole in the states’ budgets and bouncing thousands of unemployed workers off the rolls.
The stimulus money represents just a fraction of the help states typically receive from the federal government, but it’s the kind of targeted relief states count on during a poor economy, when revenue is falling.
Without the extra money from Washington, states will be forced to divert cash from other programs to shore up Medicaid, which has swelled to a record enrollment during the economic downturn empire payday loans.
The legislatures in several states have already adjourned for the year, but some will have to return to revise their budgets if the expected federal money does not materialize.
A few states that counted on additional stimulus money to balance their budgets drafted contingency plans in case the money did not come through.
In Massachusetts, the loss of an estimated $687 million in federal funds forced budget negotiators to come up with two versions of the state budget — one that included the money and one that did not.
Some states, unwilling to count on the federal assistance, crafted budgets that did not depend on extra assistance from Washington at all.
"We assumed conservatively that there would not be a bonus check," Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels told The Associated Press.
"It would have never entered our mind to put funny money like that into the budget."
The University of Texas said it won’t join the Pacific-10 Conference, dealing a blow to efforts to grow conference influence and revenue.
Texas said Monday it will say in the Big 12 Conference, USA Today reported.
The news appears to dampen expectations of a seismic shift in the college sports landscape. After Nebraska officially left the Big 12 last week, the Texas Longhorns, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and Texas A&M were expected to finalize plans to join the Pac-10 and create a 16-team conference.
The University of Colorado last week said it will join the Pac-10, leaving the Big 12 Conference.
The Pacific-10 seeks to grow revenues in an increasingly cutthroat world of big-time college sports bad credit payday advance.
Although a winner with its teams on the field, the conference is a laggard in revenues. The Pac-10 reported $96 million in revenue last year. That trails all but one of the major collegiate conferences, despite having prominent schools like the University of California, Los Angeles; University of Southern California; Cal and Stanford, which have traditions of football and basketball success.
Recently the Pac-10 hired Creative Artists Agency to advise on expansion and on upcoming broadcast negotiations. The conference’s agreements with ESPN and Fox expire after the 2011-12 school year.
Secrets of Louisville Chefs, a locally produced television program that features the work of some of Louisville’s most prominent chefs, will have a new home on WBNA-TV beginning June 1.
The show currently airs on WBKI-TV.
The program features hosts Kevin Harned, Kelly K, Cheryl Case and Tim Laird. They give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at Louisville-area restaurants and their chefs.
WBNA will air Secrets of Louisville Chefs Monday through Friday at 6 p.m., and Sundays at 4:30 p.m.
Secrets of Louisville Chefs is produced by Louisville-based BMB Productions LLC.
More information about the show can be found here.
WBNA-TV, Louisville’s Ion TV affiliate, operates seven full-powered television stations in the Louisville market. It is seen on Insight cable, DirecTV, Dish, ATT Uverse, and over the air on channel 21. It also operates digital channels 21.2 Qubo, 21.3 Ion Life, 21.4 Retro TV, 21.5 God TV and 21.6 The Light.
Additional information about WBNA can be found at www.wbna-21.com.
One in 465 homes in the Houston area received a foreclosure filing in March, according to a new report from RealtyTrac Inc.
That’s 53 percent higher than the number of filings in March 2009, and 29 percent higher than the number of filings in February of this year, according to RealtyTrac’s U.S. Foreclosure Market Report.
RealtyTrac is an Irvine, Calif.-based private marketer of foreclosure properties.
In Texas as a whole, 1 in 617 homes received a foreclosure filing and the nation as a whole saw 1 in 352 filings.
Foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in March, an increase of nearly 19 percent from the previous month, an increase of nearly 8 percent from March 2009 and the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005.
“Foreclosure activity in the first quarter of 2010 followed a very similar pattern to what we saw in the first quarter of 2009: A shallow trough in January and February followed by a substantial spike in March,” said James Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac.
“One difference, however, is that the increases were more tilted toward the final stage of foreclosure, with REOs (bank repossessions) increasing 9 percent on a quarterly basis in the first quarter of 2010 compared to a 13 percent quarterly decrease in REOs in the first quarter of 2009.”
Job cuts accelerated in March, driven by planned reductions on government payrolls, a report released Thursday showed.
Employers announced plans to cut 67,611 jobs in March, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. That’s up 61% from February, when 42,090 jobs were lost, the lowest level in nearly four years.
"Unfortunately, many people are still jobless and many businesses still shuttered," said John Challenger, chief executive officer of the firm, in a statement. "This combination is having a significant negative impact on state and local tax revenues and, in turn, leading to continued downsizing in this sector."
Government job cuts led March’s surge, accounting for nearly 75% of the total jobs shed. Year to date, government job losses have made up about a third of all announced cuts.
There were 50,604 announced government job cuts in March, and the United States Postal Service alone plans to reduce its workforce by 30,000 workers this year through retirement and attrition. The rest of the government jobs will be shed by state and local agencies suffering from budget shortfalls.
But overall the trend was still positive. March job cuts were down 55% from the same month a year ago, when 150,411 cuts were announced.
In the first quarter of 2010, a total of 181,183 job cuts were announced, the lowest first quarter total since 2000 and down 69% from the first quarter of 2009.
A separate report Wednesday from payroll processor ADP showed that private-sector employers cut payrolls by 23,000 jobs in March, marking the smallest monthly decline since February 2008. ADP’s report does not include government jobs.
The report sets the stage for the highly anticipated monthly jobs report from the government due Friday. The Labor Department is expected to show a gain of 190,000 jobs in March, compared to the 36,000 lost in February. Economists forecast the unemployment rate will remain unchanged at 9.7%.
White House pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, who has clamped down on executive compensation at the nation’s biggest bailout firms, now has a new target: any firm that accepted a government lifeline.
Unveiling a bold new initiative Tuesday, Feinberg said he would examine compensation paid to top executives at 419 companies made between October 2008 until February 2009, a period when the nation’s financial system was teetering on the brink.
The review is part of an effort to shed light on whether any firms that accepted money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, paid employees any excessive bonuses or awards during that tumultuous period before Congress stepped in and required greater oversight on pay practices at bailed-out firms.
Feinberg is asking each company to provide information on bonuses, retention awards and all other compensation for their senior executives and next 20 most highly-paid employees within 30 days.
Much of his focus though will be on executives earning more than $500,000, Feinberg said during a press briefing, sparing the hundreds of community and regional banks that also took TARP funds.
His review however, could subject paychecks of hundreds of financial executives, who have otherwise been free from leering eyes, to intense government and public oversight.
Among those likely to endure the greatest scrutiny would be employees at Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) and Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500). All three Wall Street firms are known for paying multi-million bonuses to top performers as well as senior executives in any given year.
And while investors have closely examined pay packages of their top executives, the trio avoided any federal scrutiny after paying back the billions of dollars received under TARP last year.
Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase declined to comment. Goldman Sachs was not immediately available.
To date, Feinberg’s efforts have been focused on the seven firms that required an "exceptional" amount of government assistance. Two of those firms — Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) — have since repaid all of their bailout funds to the government though.
On Tuesday, Feinberg set 2010 compensation for executives at the remaining firms under his authority — AIG (AIG, Fortune 500), General Motors, its former finance arm GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial faxless cash advance..
Total pay for those executives would decline by 15% this year, with a larger portion of their compensation coming in the form of stock, according to Feinberg.
GMAC CEO Michael Carpenter, for example, who was appointed to lead the firm last November, will only be paid in the form of company shares.
Feinberg also said Tuesday that executives from AIG’s notorious financial products unit, which brought the firm to its knees, had repaid the entire $45 million in bonuses they originally pledged to return.
No Wall Street brain drain
There have been some questions about whether attempts to cap compensation at bailed-out firms would prompt top employees to seek work elsewhere.
But according to Feinberg’s latest ruling, more than 80% of the executives that submitted to Feinberg’s review in 2009 were still with the same firm earlier this year.
Feinberg’s forthcoming review of all firms that accepted TARP funds is expected to be made public by late spring or early summer.
The pay czar said Tuesday he will attempt to negotiate with those companies and employees that were awarded payments that were "contrary to the public interest."
One likely target could be bonuses paid to bank employees for fiscal year 2008.
An analysis of the original nine banks that received money under TARP published last July by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo revealed that those banks still paid out billions of dollars in bonuses in 2008, even as the firms suffered severe losses.
Citigroup, for example, paid an estimated $5.33 billion in bonuses in early 2009, despite suffering more than $27 billion in losses in 2008.
Goldman Sachs, which continues to face criticism over its pay practices, paid out some $4.8 billion in bonuses despite earning just $2.3 billion, according to the report.
It is unclear though, whether those firms may put up a fight. Others have questioned whether Feinberg will have the legal authority to renegotiate some of these employee payments.
–CNN’s Lisa Sylvester contributed to this report
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