Good morning
The headlines:
- The Superbowl of Earnings Announcements.
Link: superbowel?
This week in earning announcements (gives me a chance to be punful in short bursts):
Yahoo: is it turning around, or could there be a fourth CEO on her way (I mean no gender disrespect – but Yahoo seems to have a penchant for women in the driver seat)…
Caterpillar: where there are rumours of accounting misconduct.
jetBlue: because who doesn’t love a budget airline with a thin budget.
Harley Davidson: the recently restructured.
Ford Motors: still selling trucks to Americans.
Amazon: throwing kindle on the fire?
Boeing: still reeling from the 787 recall.
Facebook: does anyone understand their new graph search story?
TimeWarner: always in the news.
Exxon Mobil: who has freshly regained the title of “MOST VALUABLE COMPANY IN THE WORLD”, after Apple’s rapid nosedive (nosebleed?) since September last year.
- Debt-collectors.
Link: Just want to be your friend.
Sometimes I pick articles because they’re newsworthy; increasingly, I find myself reading articles because they’re entertaining.
And this is one of them.
Why shouldn’t debt collectors contact you on facebook and twitter? Naming and shaming makes sense; because clearly, avoiding debt is not something that you’re ashamed of doing in private if you’re in that position…
Of course, the other side of the coin is: what if the debt collector is unscrupulous and invents debts to claim, because they know that you’re easily embarrassed*?
The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is set to decide on whether or not facebooking is appropriate for debt collectors. Especially if debt collectors send friend requests that have scantily-clad models for profile pics and adopted names like “Amber Tightush”. And then publish to your wall a little comment about the debt that you owe on your fourth credit card…
*Which is not that far-fetched. Most websites have cookies to circumvent your privacy settings and collect “information for marketing purposes”. A little tracking of your activities, some identification of likes, dislikes and fetishes, and a team of well-trained psychology technicians to do some analysis… Easy to identify the targets, right? Besides – we’re the world where public image is all the social-networking rage. Never has it been so easy to destroy a reputation. And never have we been so generally concerned with it.
- Currency warring.
Link: China asks the question!
Yi Gang is the head of China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange, and deputy governor of China’s Central Bank. And on Saturday, he asked:
“Quantitative easing for developed economies is generating some uncertainties in financial markets in terms of capital flows. Competitive devaluation is one aspect of it. If everyone is doing super QE, which currency will depreciate?”
The Chinese are concerned about currency manipulation. Which is ironic but unsurprising. You have a competitive edge if you’re the only one manipulating your currency. But once everyone else starts doing it – then you’re left asking the question “who will win?”
Which can also be paraphrased as “which currency will depreciate?”
That’s all for now.
Have a good day.
