- Obama said to take the lead in New Hampshire
- Nikkei at 17 month low
- Herb Greenberg picks the worst CEOs of — 2008; Candidates so far come from
Circuit City, Office Depot, Sears, more - LSE planning to open an Italian version of its Aim exchange
- MBIA and its troubling CDO squared exposure
- Holiday sales of SonyPlayStation 3 hit 1.2 million in North America
- Toshiba not ready to throw in the towel over HD DVD after Sony Blu-Ray wins
Warner over - McDonalds shootout with Starbucks
- LV Sands nails down $3.7 billion loan for Singapore casino
Barack Obama jumps to lead in U.S. polls
- Reuters
Democrat Hillary Clinton battled to keep crucial New Hampshire from swinging to rising rival Barack Obama on Sunday but new polls showed him jumping into the lead.
In the hotly contested Republican race, Arizona Sen. John McCain leaped ahead of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney even as Romney tried to raise doubts about McCain.
Republican candidates engaged in a Fox News Channel debate on Sunday night.
Obama, an Illinois senator seeking to be the first black U.S. president, built on his victory in Iowa last week with a significant bounce in New Hampshire, which votes on Tuesday….
Nikkei closes at 17-month low on Wall Street
- Reuters
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei average hit a new 17-month low on Monday, beaten down by fresh worries about the U.S. economy that sent Wall Street tumbling and prompted investors to sell chip shares. Friday’s release of poor U.S. jobs data stoked worries that the world’s largest economy might be heading into recession, though a sharp slide of Japanese shares on Friday plus factoring in of the jobs data helped limit Tokyo’s Monday fall.
U.S. chip shares had been especially hard hit on fears that businesses are unlikely to upgrade computer equipment in the face of an economic slowdown, and this dragged down Japanese semiconductor-related shares such as Tokyo Electron….
‘Worst’ CEOs of Year — of 2008, That Is
- Wall Street Journal
It’s not too early to think about which chief executive will be the year’s worst.
Going into 2008, there are plenty of contenders whose jobs would appear to be — or should be — on thin ice.
T
he easiest indicator is stock price. But that, alone, is hardly a reason to ding someone. Stock price, after all, is the one thing a CEO can’t control and doesn’t take into account long-term strategies or broad economic sluggishness. But it is a clue that something may be off, especially if the price has plunged or has performed poorly against peers.Take Philip Schoonover of Circuit City Stores. Mr. Schoonover took over the reins at the ailing firm in March 2006. He launched an ambitious "transformation," which showed early promise. But within several quarters, the words "disappointed" and "not satisfied" started showing up in earnings releases…..
LSE plans Italian version of Aim
- Daily Telegraph
The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is planning to launch a version of its lightly regulated Aim market in Italy. The move follows the LSE’s £4.6bn merger with Borsa Italiana, the Italian stock exchange group, last October.
Both the LSE and Borsa Italiana are keen to capitalise on the large number of growing businesses in Italy whose needs are not satisfied by existing markets.
Bond backer may see its trouble grow exponentially
- Chicago Tribune
You think your credit rating is important?
Try being the largest U.S. insurer of bonds and asset-backed securities after publicly acknowledging that it has $8.1 billion in exposure to the riskiest of collateralized debt obligations backed by subprime home loans….
What’s tripped up MBIA lately is the surprising extent of its exposure to a complicated financial product that even experts consider an unpredictable beast. This instrument takes the collateralized debt obligations — known as a CDOs, which are collateralized by obligations such as subprime home loans — one wobbly step further.
The "CDO squared" is basically a CDO constructed of other CDOs. If you find that concept difficult to get your head around, don’t feel bad. Those issuing billions of dollars in them and those insuring those billions didn’t fully understand them either.
Turns out that CDO-squared products represent nearly one-fourth of MBIA’s total CDO portfolio — the worst of a bad lot…..
Sony says North American PS3 holiday sales hit 1.2 million
- Reuters
Sony Corp sold 1.2 million PlayStation 3 video game consoles in North America over the holiday season, the company said on Sunday.
The company also said it sold 1.4 million of its handheld PSP devices and 1.3 million units of the older PlayStation 2. The sales figures covered the period from November 23 to December 31.
Sales of Sony’s PS3 have trailed those of Microsoft Corp’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo Co Ltd’s Wii consoles due to what analysts say is its relatively high price and lack of must-have games…..
Sony Rises After Warner Backs
Blu-Ray in `Game-Changing Event’ – Bloomberg
Sony Corp. shares rose in Tokyo after Time Warner Inc., the world’s largest publisher of DVD titles, chose to adopt the Japanese company’s Blu-ray format over Toshiba Corp.’s technology.
The world’s second-largest consumer electronics maker climbed 0.9 percent to 5,840 yen at 12:44 p.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Toshiba, the rival HD DVD standard’s leading promoter, fell 2.5 percent to its lowest in more than nine months.
Time Warner’s decision may tip the balance in Sony’s favor in the home theater industry’s biggest format war since VHS beat Betamax two decades ago. Warner Bros. Entertainment, which had been releasing movies based on both technologies, said last week it will drop Toshiba’s standard at the end of May.
“It’s a game-changing event, game over for HD DVD,” Macquarie Securities Ltd. analyst David Gibson said in an e-mail today. Warner “is the industry leader, and other studios will follow,” he said…..
Toshiba Defiant After HD DVD Setback
- AP
Toshiba Corp. executives had a tough moment Sunday, when they had to face reporters just two days after its HD DVD movie disc format was dealt a potentially fatal blow by the defection of Warner Bros. Entertainment to a rival technology.
"It’s difficult for me to read the comments of the pundits that HD is dead," said Jodi Sally, vice president of marketing for digital audio and video at Toshiba America Consumer Products. She was speaking at a news conference ahead of the International Consumer Electronics Show, which starts here Monday.
Sally indicated that Toshiba would continue its fight with a Sony Corp.-led group to dominate the market for a replacement to the DVD.
"We’ve been declared dead before," Sally said…..
McDonald’s Takes On
A Weakened Starbucks – Wall Street Journal
This fall, a McDonald’s here added a position to its crew: barista.
McDonald’s is setting out to poach Starbucks customers with the biggest addition to its menu in 30 years. Starting this year, the company’s nearly 14,000 U.S. locations will install coffee bars with "baristas" serving cappuccinos, lattes, mochas and the Frappe, similar to Starbucks’ ice-blended Frappuccino.
Internal documents from 2007 say the program, which also will add smoothies and bottled beverages, will add $1 billion to McDonald’s annual sales of $21.6 billion.
The confrontation between Starbucks Corp. and McDonald’s Corp. once seemed improbable. Hailing from very different corners of the restaurant world, the two chains have gradually encroached on each other’s turf. McDonald’s upgraded its drip coffee and its interiors, while Starbucks added drive-through windows and hot breakfast sandwiches…..
Sands Gets Loans
For Casino-Hotel In Singapore – Wall Street Journal
Las Vegas Sands Corp. said despite the constricted credit market, it has secured more than $3.7 billion in loans to build Marina Bay Sands, its proposed casino-and-hotel complex in Singapore.
William Weidner, president and chief operating officer of Sands, said the company likely wouldn’t have been able to line up lenders if the project had been outside Asia. "We are lucky to have such a strong Singaporean economy as a backdrop," he said.
The project is part of a push by Sands into Asia. Last year, the Las Vegas company, led by Sheldon Adelson, opened the Venetian Macao, a casino hotel in China. The financing package for the complex also includes a capital contribution of about $558 million in equity from Sands, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission document filed Friday.
The Singapore project includes plans for 2,500 hotel rooms; 1.2 million square feet of flexible meeting, convention and exhibition space; one million square feet of retail space; and three large entertainment venues. The Marina Bay Sands is scheduled to open next year……
