Filed under: Economy The Tea Party rallies this week have prompted an obvious question from investors and public officials alike: will the Tea Partiers seek an economic third way? Let’s put on the old political science hat for a moment to see if history and research can tell us anything about...

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: 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 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: 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 , Economy , Investing U.S. stock futures were mixed to higher Friday morning after General Electric and Citigroup reported quarterly results that beat analyst estimates. Without much economic data on the docket today, investors will likely focus on earnings now that the first...

Filed under: Company News , Earnings Proving that a rising tide can lift even the most leaky of boats, Citigroup Inc. ( C ) became the latest Wall Street firm to post better-than-expected profits. The New York-based bank posted a loss to common shareholders of $966 million because of the payment of...

Filed under: Company News , Technology , Earnings Google ( GOOG ) beat analysts’ profit estimates after cutting jobs and costs, but the online ad giant saw its first quarter-to-quarter drop in sales since going public in 2004. “We’re still basically in uncharted territory,” Eric...

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...