Filed under: Company News It takes a lot of dirty boots to make sure the lettuce leaves are clean. This year in spinach, lettuce and kale fields throughout California and Arizona, state inspectors hired by the leafy greens industry are auditing fields to make sure pickers are washing hands and rinsing...

General Electric climbed and Citigroup fell after each announced first-quarter results this morning, and a key gauge of consumers’ mood registered its highest reading since September, with the net effect of pushing the Dow Jones Industrial Average up six points, or 0.07 percent, to 8,131. American...

Filed under: Company News When we hear of pharmaceutical companies’ ventures it’s usually either a straight merger & acquisition or a collaboration on a drug or two in their pipelines to share costs and, of course, potential profits. But Pfizer Inc. ( PFE ) and GlaxoSmithKline ( GSK...

Filed under: Company News An interesting article crossed my desk this morning. Turns out Fidelity Investments may cut bonuses and profit-sharing this year , if the recession continues. Fidelity’s president, Rodger Lawson broke this news to his employees in a memo. That said, Fidelity spokeswoman...

Filed under: Company News , Earnings Citigroup ( C ) surprised Wall Street today, reporting a lower than expected loss of 18 cents per share and higher than expected net income of $1.6 billion, further fueling sentiment that a recovery in the banking sector may be underway. Citi reported revenues of...

Filed under: Economy Don’t look now but the U.S. economy is set to record another decent week. The stock market is about to post a weekly gain after surmounting the psychologically important Dow 8,000 level. The Q1 earnings season has, so far, not produced any “just dreadful” reports...

Filed under: Economy As I wrote earlier, some of the largest recipients of Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) money want to pay it back. TARP was originally designed to buy toxic waste from banks, but it turned into a plan to put capital into banks in exchange for senior preferred stock. Since TARP...

Filed under: Company News Citigroup Inc. ( C ) ended a five-quarter losing streak by posting a $1.6 billion profit on gains from an accounting rule that helps companies in distress. But the bank posted a loss per share of 18 cents because of payment of preferred dividends, beating analyst estimates...

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 , 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...