Options Players Wager Big On Herbalife With Ackman On The Attack

Options on Herbalife continue to change hands at a clip on Thursday, one day after Pershing Square Capital Management founder, Bill Ackman, announced a short position in the stock that sent shares in the marketer of weight management products down as much as 15% during trading on Wednesday.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/12/20/options-players-wager-big-on-herbalife-with-ackman-on-the-attack/

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The Mixing Mate Will Make Pouring, Mixing, and Painting Easier

This is the Mixing Mate by Rockler.

Why We Love It: Anyone who has ever had to paint a room knows how messy the paint container can be. That's why the Mixing Mate is so awesome — it clamps down on the paint can and has a pistol grip handle that makes it easy to pour the paint. The spring-loaded spout seals up after each pour, too, so you can set it on the shelf when you're done.

It even comes with a cranking paddle so you can mix your paint more thoroughly than with a stir stick. The Mixing Mate fits any standard one-quart can of paint, stain, or varnish.

Mixing Mate

 

Mixing Mate

Where To Buy: Available through Rockler.

Cost: $14.99.

Want to nominate a cool product for Stuff We Love? Send an email to Megan Willett at mwillett@businessinsider.com with "Stuff We Love" in the subject line.

DON'T MISS: Make Your Own Flavored Popcorn Like A Pro

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Richmond Fed Manufacturing Misses Expectations And Falls To 5

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The December Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index is out and it's a miss.

The headline number fell to 5 from 9 in November.  Economists were looking for a reading of 8.

"Looking at the broad indicators of activity, new orders were virtually unchanged, shipments grew more slowly, and employment declined," wrote the Richmond Fed.  "Other indicators were mixed. Capacity utilization turned positive, while backlogs fell further. Moreover, the gauge for delivery times inched higher, while finished goods inventories grew at a slightly slower pace and growth in raw materials inventories edged higher."

The survey tracks manufacturing activity in the central Atlantic region of the U.S.

Here's some more color from the report:

Current Activity
In December, the seasonally adjusted composite index of manufacturing activity—our broadest measure of manufacturing—lost four points, settling at 5 from November’s reading of 9. Among the index’s components, shipments fell five points to 6, the gauge for new orders was almost unchanged at 10, and the jobs index turned negative, losing six points to -3.

Other indicators varied. The index for capacity utilization moved higher, adding six points to 3, while the backlogs of orders slipped two points to end at -11. The delivery times index picked up three points to 3, while our gauges for inventories were mixed in December. The raw materials inventory index gained three points to finish at 24, while the finished goods lost seven points to12.

Employment
Labor market conditions edged lower at District plants in December. The manufacturing employment index turned negative, losing six points to settle at -3, and the average workweek indicator lost four points to end at -2. However, the wage index held steady at 10.

Expectations
In the current survey, contacts were generally less optimistic about their future business prospects than they reported a month ago. The index of expected shipments lost eight points, ending at a reading of 20, and the new orders index dropped thirteen points to finish at 12. Backlogs moved down nineteen points to 0 and capacity utilization fell eight points to 4. Vendor lead-time declined thirteen points to -3, while readings for planned capital expenditures added five points to end at 9.

District manufacturers’ hiring plans were mixed in December. The index for expected manufacturing employment gained two points to finish at 2, while the average workweek indicator fell eleven points to -5. Furthermore, the index of expected wages shed seven points to end at 21.

Prices
District manufacturers reported that raw materials prices increased at an average annual rate of 2.01 percent, in line with November’s reading of 1.99 percent. Finished goods prices rose at a 1.57 percent pace, slightly below November’s reading of 1.72 percent.

Looking forward, respondents on average expected that the prices they pay will advance at a 2.54 percent pace, somewhat above November’s outlook of 1.95 percent. Contacts looked for finished goods prices to increase at a 0.87 percent annual rate, slightly below last month’s expectation for a 1.29 percent pace.

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Most People Agree With Obama On Tax Cuts

Boehner Obama

There has been a vast and important change of mind among the electorate, regarding the issue of taxes.

On 13 July 2012, McClatchy Newspapers headlined “Poll: Majority Want Tax Cuts for All, Even the Wealthy,” and reported that, “A majority of Americans [who are registered to vote] want the Bush tax cuts extended for everyone, despite a strong push by President Barack Obama to eliminate them on [only] higher incomes, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.

"The poll found 52 percent of registered voters saying they want all of the tax cuts extended, including the tax cuts for incomes above $250,000, while 43 percent want the cuts extended just for incomes below that threshhold.”

Contrast that with now: On 11 December 2012, the same people who took that poll, the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, headlined “Slim Majority Thinks Debt Deal Will Be Reached,” and reported that whereas 57% of registered voters favor expiration of the Bush tax cuts on incomes above $250,000 like Obama proposes, only 24% favor expiration of the Bush tax cuts for everyone, and 74% are opposed to that.

So, now, registered voters do want the Bush tax cuts to expire only for incomes above $250,000. Unlike back in July, the electorate now strongly favor Obama’s position, whereas they formerly favored the Republican position, by a moderate margin.

Registered voters constitute a far more conservative group than all adult Americans, and so there has always been strong support by non-voters for extending the Bush tax cuts on only incomes below $250,000.

Thus, for example, on 2 December 2010, CBS News headlined “CBS News Poll: Most Oppose GOP Tax Plan,” and reported that in a sample of “adults nationwide” instead of just registered voters, 53% wanted the Bush tax cuts to “continue for households < $250K” and 26% wanted them to “continue for all” and this meant that overwhelmingly the Republican position was unpopular amongst all adults.

CBS repeated this polling question for years, and the results have always been similar. So, until recently, there has been, on this matter, a huge difference between what all voting-age citizens want and what all registered voters want – registered voters tend to be vastly more conservative than the U.S. population as-a-whole.

Of course, for any politician seeking election or re-election, all that matters are the smaller group of registered voters. In fact, an even smaller group is all that actually matters to politicians: likely voters. And this sub-group are even more conservative than are the broader sub-group of registered voters.

So, although eligible voters have always been overwhelmingly supportive of the President’s position on this, the people who actually register to vote were not, until just recently – but they are now.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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Target Sends Out Poorly Worded Coupon, Raises False Hopes

Dani got what seemed like a great coupon in the mail with her Target credit card statement. “50% off Nook HD or Nook HD+ Accessory” it promised. Half off one of Barnes & Noble’s pricey e-readers? Clearly this must be too good to be true! And it was. The coupon was good for half off a variety of accessories for … [More]

Source: http://consumerist.com/2012/12/21/target-sends-out-poorly-worded-coupon-raises-false-hopes/

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11 Famous Brands Most Americans Have Never Heard Of

China Mobile ad in China

In the U.S.-centric world most Americans live in, all the greatest and most valuable brands were created here. Several studies by brand valuation experts show that to be true.

But some of the world’s most valuable brands are not only owned by companies outside the United States, they are brands that many Americans know nothing about and may never have heard of. 24/7 Wall St. has taken a look at some of these brands and found that the U.S. is not the only brand capital.

See the biggest brands Americans know nothing about >

U.S. brands that dominate the top spots of most brand valuation lists include Apple, Google, Microsoft, Marlboro, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and IBM. These top brands fall into one of two categories. They are either technology or consumer products brands. They are also all global. Apple, Microsoft and IBM have tremendous overseas sales. McDonald’s has restaurants around the world.

The most valuable brands owned by companies outside the U.S. fall into two different categories. The first is financial services and banks. The most widely known and highly valued of these brands have also been around for some time. RBS, the largest bank in Canada, is more than a century old. So is Sberbank in Russia.

The second set of famous overseas brands are cellular phone companies. By their nature they are relatively new, because the wireless revolution is barely 20 years old. China Mobile was incorporated in 1997. Japan’s NTT DoCoMo was formed in 1992.

To pick the most valuable brands that Americans have not heard of, 24/7 Wall St. relied on the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2012. We ranked the brands that made the list based on gross domestic product of country of origin, and then picked the most valuable brands from the eleven largest countries based on that GDP measurement. In order to exclude well-known brands in America, those with very large market share in the U.S were excluded. That meant Toyota, BMW and Louis Vuitton did not make the cut.

These are the most famous brands Americans don’t know.

11. Movistar

Brand value: $17.1 billion
Country: Spain
National GDP: $1.5 trillion
Industry: Telecom

Movistar is the mobile phone operation of Spain’s primary telecom company Telefónica S.A. Its parent company currently has nearly 314 million customers. Like other European nations that once had colonies in Latin America, Movistar does business in Argentina and Mexico. Movistar has business units that market wireless broadband; Internet TV, which includes the new Google TV product; software, which includes Microsoft Windows powered portable devices; and hardware devices, including Apple’s iPad.

10. RBC

Brand value: $17.2 billion
Country: Canada
National GDP: $1.7 trillion
Industry: Financial services

RBC, originally called the Royal Bank of Canada, has been in business since 1864. Forbes lists it as the largest company in the Canada. Like most extremely big financial services firms in the largest countries by GDP, RBC provides services ranging from consumer savings to underwriting for public companies.

One of the major ways that RBC promotes its presence as a global firm is via a comparison with banks around the world as measured by market cap. Based on this measure, RBC statistics put it in 12th place globally, just behind Citigroup, and Bank of America. RBC, which has more than 80,000 employees, reports its financial results in Canadian dollars. In the quarter that ended July 31, RBC had record net income of $2.2 billion, up from $1.7 billion the year before.

9. ICICI Bank

Brand value: $12.7 billion
Country: India
National GDP: $1.8 trillion
Industry: Financial services

Other than the State Bank of India, ICICI is the largest financial services firm in the world’s second most populous country. It had consolidated total assets of more than $91 billion as of March 31. ICICI operates similar to the way J.P. Morgan or Citigroup do in the U.S. All have large consumer banking, business banking, investment bank, wealth management, and underwriting operations.  ICICI has driven part of its growth through joint ventures with companies based outside India. ICICI Prudential Life Insurance is a joint venture between ICICI Bank and U.K. insurance giant Prudential plc. ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company is a joint venture with Canada-based Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Current & Former GameStop Employees Chime In On Pre-Order Upsells

The World's Executives Are Getting Increasingly Optimistic About 2013

It's been a tough year in the business world. Growth worldwide has been sluggish, and Europe, though out of crisis mode for the moment, will struggle for years to come.

This chart from McKinsey from its periodic survey of top executives is a great account of the ups and downs of the economy. At the beginning of the year, hopes were high, only to plummet during a summer of weak U.S. growth and European woes. Now, execs are slowly, but surely getting more optimistic:

SS

NOW CHECK OUT: Here's Where Wall Street Thinks The Stock Market Is Heading >

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Couple Arrested Following Physical Confrontation With Best Buy Receipt-Checker

No one really likes to have their receipt checked when they leave a store — and some people will outright refuse to show the receipt if their local laws say they don’t have to. But there’s really no need for receipt-checking incidents to get physical.

And yet, a couple of St. Louis-area Best Buy shoppers were arrested on Wednesday following … [More]

Source: http://consumerist.com/2012/12/21/couple-arrested-following-physical-confrontation-with-best-buy-receipt-checker/

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Benefits of Credit Card Debt Consolidation

Consolidation Loans with Bad Credit Is debt consolidation a good solution for my credit card debts? Debtors, upon realizing that in a few years their credit cards would have accumulated thousands of dollars through interests ask the same question. Credit card purchases, in many instances are actually more expensive because of high interest rates. Someone [...]

The post Benefits of Credit Card Debt Consolidation appeared first on legal debt help online.

Source: http://www.legaldebthelponline.com/2012/06/29/benefits-of-credit-card-debt-consolidation/

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