Oklahoma: pioneer outpost for retail giants
From Flowing Data, the same folks who bought us the WalMart growth map, comes the Target growth map. Among the lessons learned from this visual data display: Get to Oklahoma early.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Bonds downgraded
Stocks are bad. Bonds are no great shakes either. Fitch Ratings notes that nearly one in four U.S. corporate bonds was downgraded last year. Of course, that raises the question of whether some of those bonds may initially have been overrated.
A new Fitch Ratings study finds that downgrades affected $891.9 billion in U.S. corporate bonds in 2008, or 24% of U.S. bond market volume, narrowly topping the previous high of 23.4% recorded in 2002 (on $558.1 billion in downgrades).
‘Downgrades, not surprisingly, accelerated significantly in the second half of the year,’ said Eric Rosenthal, Senior Director of Fitch Credit Market Research. ‘In the fourth quarter alone downgrades totalled $391.5 billion or 10.6% of market volume.’
Overall, downgrades affected 9.3% ($279.5 billion) of investment grade volume in the fourth quarter while upgrades affected 1.5% ($45.3 billion). On the speculative grade front, the effects of negative and positive changes were 16.8% ($112 billion) and 1.2% ($8.2 billion), respectively.
For the full year, downgrades and upgrades affected 21.7% ($667.5 billion) and 4.0% ($121.8 billion) of investment grade bonds, respectively, and 34.2% ($224.4 billion) and 11.4% ($74.4 billion) of speculative grade bonds.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
More proof of global nature of recession
The latest proof that the recession has reached just about everywhere: abandoned luxury cars at the Dubai airport. The Times Online recently reported that expatriate workers are parking their cars at the airport and boarding planes to escape their debts and the area’s fading fortunes.
Many Westerners invested in Dubai’s skyrocketing real estate market, buying and reselling homes before building was even complete. But, as the recession took effect, property and financial companies made thousands of workers redundant and banks tightened lending. Construction companies have delayed or cancelled projects and tourism is slowing.
There are increasing signs that the foreigners who once flocked to Dubai are leaving. “There is no way of tracking actual numbers, but the anecdotal evidence is overwhelming. Dubai is emptying out,” said a Western diplomat.
However, The National makes the situation sound less dire.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Photos of people at work
A worker walks over steel bars at an iron and steel plant in Wuhan, Hubei province, China on November 1, 2008. Moves by China to restrict steel exports may push trade distortion problems into other industries down the line and run counter to world rules, a U.S. trade official said. (REUTERS/Stringer)
The Big Picture blog (definitely worth a visit if you’ve never checked it out) has gathered a collection of photographs of people around the world in their workplaces. Laborers measure gunpowder, decorate minature train sets, monitor nuclear power plants and make sneakers. Kim Jong-Il even makes an appearance at a candy factory. Click through for the complete post.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Orange you glad?
Above are the current, and soon-to-be discontinued design of a carton of Tropicana orange juice, and the former and future design.
Tropicana has bowed to public pressure and will revert back to its former packaging of its orange juice, restoring the image of an orange with a straw jammed into it. As a buyer of Tropicana juice, I welcome that change. The new packaging, featuring a glass of orange juice, lacked distinction, which made it more difficult to find the stuff on the shelf at the grocery story.
Random fact: It takes 18 oranges to make a 64-ounce carton of Tropicana orange juice.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Freecreditreport.com — NOT FREE!
I wrote a story a week ago about credit scores, and mentioned that all consumers should regularly check their credit reports. You can do that annually for each of the three major credit reporting bureaus for free at annualcreditreport.com. Every time I mention annualcreditreport.com, I get a few calls and emails from folks who try to get the information at freecreditreport.com.
Let me make this perfectly clear: freecreditreport.com IS NOT FREE!
The free place is annualcreditreport.com.
You know what happens when you go to freecreditreport.com? Let this guy fill you in:
(via boingboing)
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Bidding on Sooner stuff
My story on an IRS auction that will include several lots of Sooner sports memorabilia prompted a few emails and phone calls seeking more information about how to participate. First of all, I apologize that the information wasn’t printed with the original story. It should have been.
The IRS has a site that offers a lot more information, including a list of all the stuff that’s for sale and some photographs. You can inspect the items on the afternoon of March 4. The auction is March 5. Registration of bidders begins at 8:30 a.m., and the auction kicks off at 9 a.m.
Some of the items clearly are more valuable than others. It’s up to the bidders to separate the trash from the treasure.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Crisis of credit videos
Graphic designer Jonathan Jarvis has produced a clever and compelling explanation of the current credit crisis. It’s worth the several minutes it takes to view. Unfortunately, it’s so popular it has crashed his site, where a HD version of this appears (I’m told). Here are the YouTube versions:
PART 1
PART2
(via The Consumerist)
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Manure value calculator
It’s from the Texas Cattle Feeders Association in Amarillo.
I’m thinking it might have more than the obvious use, the politics of the day being what it is.
http://www.tcfa.org/forms/ManureVsFert/ManureVsFert.htm
Richard Mize, Real Estate Editor
Happy birthday, Abe!
In honor of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday today and the 100th anniversary of his image gracing the front of the penny, the U.S. Mint has issued new designs for the back of that ubiquitous coin. The first of the four designs goes into circulation today and a new design will be issued about every three months.
The reverse designs featured on the series of circulating coins are emblematic of four periods, or themes, in the life of Abraham Lincoln: his birth and early childhood in Kentucky; his formative years in Indiana; his professional life in Illinois; and his presidency in Washington, D.C. The coins will be issued in approximately three-month intervals.
And it sounds like the Mint will be issuing a permanent new design for the penny at the end of this year.
At the conclusion of the 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial One-Cent Program, the 2010 (and beyond) one-cent coin will feature a reverse design that will be emblematic of President Lincoln’s preservation of the United States of America as a single and united country.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
