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 On Thursday, Starwood Hotels and Resorts sued Hilton Hotels, including two former employees who now work for the massive chain. Starwood’s claim is that Hilton has stolen confidential information that it intended to use in the launch of its new Denizen “lifestyle...

Filed under: Company News , Economy Sony Ericsson succumbed to rapidly falling global handset sales. The number of units it shipped in the first quarter dropped 35 percent compared with the same period last year, and the joint venture posted a 293 million-euro ($382.7 million) net loss. Experts say...

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 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: Company News , Columns After letting his two young children play with and watch movies on his Apple ( AAPL ) iPhone, Arizona game developer Justin John Sullivan wondered if he could provide them more educational fare. Thus, the first applications or apps for what Sullivan calls the “toddler...

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 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 Today we have another example of why it is such a huge mistake to let companies write their own report cards . That’s right folks, Citigroup, Inc. ( C ) reported a $1.6 billion profit for the first quarter of 2009. Doesn’t this sound great? It sure does...