Filed under: Company News There’s no doubt eBay Inc. ( EBAY ) has been refocusing itself on its core market of e-commerce. Only this past week, eBay announced its intention to unload Skype in an IPO, sell StumbleUpon back to its founders, change and tweak its marketplace Website and buy Korea’s...

Filed under: Company News A major union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, is beginning a new push to unionize workers at Wal-Mart ( WMT ). Congress has been working on new legislation that would make it much easier for labor to bargain and set up contracts. A numbers of companies, both large...

Filed under: Columns , Economy Are people going to spend $20 for an issue of Worth ? I would suspect not. The publicity gimmick by Sandow Media Corp., which bought Worth from CurtCo. Media last year, says a mouthful about the precarious state of the print media. First quarter magazine advertising revenue...

Filed under: Company News , Earnings Sony Ericsson, the handset maker which is the joint venture between the two electronics companies, passed more bad news along to the global cellular industry. For the last quarter Sony Ericsson said it lost 293 million euros ($386 million). The firm also said it...

Filed under: Company News , Earnings What a quarter it has been for General Electric ( GE ). Manufacturer of everything from light bulbs to nuclear reactors, it has seen its stock fall 25 percent so far this year — and that’s including a six-week-long surge in which it has nearly doubled...

The financial sages have started calling the market grossly overbought on the near-term, but enthusiasm for stocks is exactly as high now as it was low six weeks ago. That optimism pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 96 points, or 1.2 percent, to 8,125 today. Tech stocks like Microsoft ( MSFT...

Filed under: Company News , Technology , Columns It’s a story that is playing out quite similarly to the failed Yahoo and Microsoft talks last year. It’s a story of a company with lots of money to invest (IBM, Microsoft), wanting to buy a company (Sun, Yahoo) that has seen its growth stall...

Filed under: People Those who are convinced that President Obama is anti-business will probably shout “Aha!” when they see his choice for the new head of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. David C. Vladeck is a long-time part of the legal team for Public...

Filed under: Company News , Earnings The wave of optimism that swept over the financial services sector on Monday’s news of Wells Fargo’s larger than anticipated profit could crash when Citigroup ( C ) announces its first quarter earnings on Friday. The latest consensus estimates by Thomson...

Filed under: Company News By now, it is an old idea. General Motors ( GM ) should merge with Chrysler, cut weak brands, bargain with the UAW for better pay and benefit terms, and downsize plants. Based on news reports, the companies talked about merging several month ago. The talks fell apart and it...