Zecco.com - Brian's Investing Pundit Blog

Home Depot finalizes $100 million purchase of Chinese retailer

findbrian — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 00:35:00 GMT

The nation's largest home-improvement retailer has completed its acquisition of Chinese home improvement retailer The Home Way as of yesterday. The Home Depot/Home Way deal had already received the needed approval from the Chinese government and is expected to close by the end of this year...(read more)

Best Buy and Circuit City both face margin pressure -- due to flat-panel TVs

findbrian — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 22:06:00 GMT

Best Buy and Circuit City -- although different animals really -- seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly sometimes. In this case, Best Buy's latest quarterly results were shy of expectations -- causing a stock slide of 5% . As what has been mentioned already from an analyst (not really that much of an analysis), shares of rival Circuit City stores were already downgraded this week on the news ...(read more)

Shares of home improvement retailer Lowe's upgraded

findbrian — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 20:12:00 GMT

Shares of home improvement retailer Lowe's were changed to outperform from peer perform by ratings house Bear Stearns today, who stated that the home-improvement retailer will benefit from stabilization in the housing market anticipated during the second half of 2007...(read more)

Penneys and Kohl's battle for middle-income holiday dollars

findbrian — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 01:59:00 GMT

The mall store outside the mall -- Kohl's -- is set to do battle with J.C. Penney this holiday season. The fight has already begun, of course, as last Friday -- a week ago today -- set off the retail buying frenzy headed into such holidays like Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa...(read more)

Microsoft's Zune being outsold at Amazon.com by record players

findbrian — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 00:35:00 GMT

When items like pictures frames and analog turntables are outselling the media-hyped Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Zune digital music player shortly after its release and during the hottest shopping time of the entire year, something may be amiss, yes? Sales of Microsoft's Zune digital music device ranked Number 58 on the list of Amazon...(read more)

Wal-Mart's November same-store sales dip worst in a decade

findbrian — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 23:47:00 GMT

With Wal-Mart turning in disappointing November sales figures yesterday -- a 0.5% decline in same-store sales -- there are many questions of the hour when it comes to the world's largest retailer. The news here surrounds that fact that Wal-Mart's November same-stores sales results demonstrated its first monthly sales decline in a decade -- and this is the holiday season no less...(read more)

Home Depot is 'buying growth' while crimping overall margins

findbrian — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 04:18:00 GMT

With all the hubbub about the housing industry coming to a grinding halt, home improvement retailer Home Depot (NYSE: HD) seemed to echo that sentiment last week when it reported near-disastrous results for its latest quarter in terms of just about every mainstream metric that makes the bobbling heads on Wall Street shriek with fear...(read more)

Wal-Mart lauds its 'extraordinary' Black Friday values

findbrian — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 03:10:00 GMT

With the infamous Black Friday less than a week away, details about special offers from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) are beginning to leak out. Some Black Friday ad websites such as BFAds.net are starting to post sale items from actual ads for this Friday's massive retail sales day...(read more)

Amazon.com starts selling high-speed Internet service in an ironic twist

findbrian — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 02:19:00 GMT

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) seems to sell just about every possible category of retail goods under the sun these days, as the venerable online e-tailer has expanded from books only to car parts, electronics, groceries and even pet supplied. With that said, most of these categories are products...(read more)

McDonalds to return $10 billion to shareholders

findbrian — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 04:21:00 GMT

McDonald's Corp. (NYSE:MCD), the world's largest restaurant chain, today said that it will be returning up to $10 billion to its shareholders over the next 18 to 24 months. CEO Jim Skinner also detailed some of the chain's plans during a presentation in New York this morning...(read more)

Will MySpace.com be sold by News Corp. for a multi-billion dollar profit?

findbrian — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 02:39:00 GMT

Will Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (NYSE:NWS) rid itself of the famous social gathering website MySpace.com in order to get a big return on its investment? That rumor is swirling about these days amid reports of a possible shift in where finicky and trend-obsessed teens go online...(read more)

Bush meets with auto execs from the "Big Three"

findbrian — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 02:16:00 GMT

Top executives from General Motors, Daimler-Chrysler and Ford met with President Bush to discuss the state of the American automakign industry in light of all the recent financial mishaps and pension situations that continue to drain cash from the American auto industry and starve it of profits while foreign competition -- without all this baggage -- continues to design better-looking vehicles and sell their image of reliability more effectively than ever...(read more)

Is Wal-Mart the best blue chip stock for 2007?

findbrian — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 03:28:00 GMT

Is Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) stock the blue-ship holding to have in 2007? Over at The Fool , there is a good point made about Wal-Mart shares -- "it's hard for me to think of a blue-chip business where the stock price has so badly lagged the performance of the company over the last few years...(read more)

Sears rumored to be looking at acquiring Safeway -- or Home Depot

findbrian — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 03:01:00 GMT

With Eddie Lampert's Sears Holdings (NYSE: SHLD) being pressured to bring in the profits after the recent merger with Kmart, will the company report stellar earnings and revenues next Thursday when its Q3 numbers are due? Whatever they may be, rumor has it on The Street today that Sears Holdings Corp...(read more)

Best Buy cancels website pre-orders for Sony Playstation 3

findbrian — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 00:59:00 GMT

What is going on with the Sony Corp.'s (NYSE:SNE) Playstation 3? The nation's largest consumer electronics retailer, Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE:BBY), has just canceled pre-orders for the new gaming console on its website. This "mistake" was not supposed to happen; the highly-anticipated game system should not have actually been available on the Best Buy website until the day it is officially released...(read more)