| » Steve Jobs decided to step down as chief executive of Apple. He is battling health problems and is on his third period of medical leave, but will stay on in a newly created position as chairman of the board. Mr Jobs's replacement is Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer since 2007. As he announced his departure Mr Jobs was widely praised for his visionary leadership, which has turned Apple into today's dominant force in consumer electronics. See article  » Investors responded negatively to Hewlett-Packard's shift in its strategy, after it said it wanted to hive off its PC business and focus on software and services. HP took in $40 billion in revenues last year from PCs, leaving many to wonder how it would make up the shortfall. Underlining its new direction, HP agreed to pay $10.3 billion for Autonomy, a British software company, the biggest deal to date in Europe's IT industry. See article The post-PC world? » China overtook America in the second quarter as the world's biggest market for PCs, according to IDC, a consultancy. Shipments of PCs to China accounted for 22% of the world total, compared with 21% to America. IDC forecast that America would remain the biggest market for all of 2011, but that China would take the top spot next year » Google paid $500m to settle claims that it had allowed Canadian drug firms to target American consumers through its website. Shipping medicine into America from Canadian pharmacies is illegal. » Fears about European banks' exposure to losses on debt in the euro zone weighed on investors. Share prices continued to struggle; at one point Apple's market capitalisation was more than the combined value of the DJ STOXX index, which lists the 32 biggest euro-zone banks. See article
Toil and trouble » The costs surged of insuring against a default on bonds issued by Bank of America. There are fears that it has inadequate capital to meet new rules and may need to return to the markets for funding. The share price of Goldman Sachs fell by 5% after rumours surfaced that Lloyd Blankfein, the bank's boss, has hired an eminent Washington lawyer, whose past clients include executives at Enron and WorldCom. The Department of Justice is investigating Goldman's practices. » More discord erupted in Europe over the second rescue package for Greece, which still requires parliamentary approval in euro-area countries. There were particular grumbles about Finland securing a deal with the Greek government to guarantee the repayment of any Finnish contribution to the bail-out by means of a separate account, into which the Greeks will deposit €500m ($720m) in cash. » Meanwhile, Germany's Bundesbank criticised July's rescue plan as a potential threat to the currency union. The central bank warned that "the euro area has taken a major step towards pooling risks arising from unsound public finances". » Japan took more action to try to tackle a strong yen, but without intervening directly in currency markets. The government set up a fund that makes $100 billion of its foreign-currency reserves available for Japanese acquisitions overseas in a bid to encourage capital outflows. It also introduced a more robust monitoring system of foreign reserves held by banks. The actions did little to stop the yen from rising. See article  » The price of gold saw its biggest fall over two days for three decades, as investors beat a sharp retreat from the recent bull market. » Standard & Poor's announced that Deven Sharma was stepping down as its president. The ratings agency said that Mr Sharma had decided to leave the job well before S&P's downgrade of America's credit rating, and that his departure was in no way related to the controversy that followed. » BHP Billiton reported that net profit for the year to June 30th had risen by 86%, to $23.6 billion. However, the world's biggest mining company gave a cautious outlook, noting that demand in the Chinese market had yet to reflect the government's effort to dampen spending. Glencore was more upbeat as it posted a 57% jump in first-half profit, saying the push for higher living standards in countries such as China would help its business in commodity trading. See article
A page turner » Barnes & Noble was dealt a blow when Liberty Media, a conglomerate, opted not to pursue a takeover of the book retailer, deciding instead to buy a stake of around 17%. After the demise of Borders, Barnes & Noble is the only remaining chain of bookshops to operate across America, though its 700 stores are struggling to compete with competition from supermarkets and online rivals such as Amazon. | 
No comments:
Post a Comment