Financial & Economic Blog

Mort Zuckerman, owner of the New York Daily News, isn't going to let his archrival, News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch snatch away Newsday without a fight. He's matched News Corp.'s offer to pay $580 million for Tribune Co.'s Long Island paper. The Zuckerman camp is also warning that Murdoch's pending deal with Tribune may not withstand regulatory scrutiny.

Running a business with more than 300 locations worldwide keeps Charlene Begley in perpetual motion. A company vet who led Plastics for two years before helping GE (No. 6 on the 500) sell the unit last May, Begley has always had a packed travel schedule.

One of the things we continue to watch within the Global 5000 db is the movement to globalization and how industry sectors change. In one example, we can take the financial services companies and look at their growth and the growing influence of global organizations.

There are 366 active financial companies in the Global 5000. From big US players like Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway, JP Morgan and AIG to international organizations like HSBC, Dexia, BNP and Allianz. 210 of these are in the US and 156 are international.

When we examine their revenue growth over time we find the following and very interestign stats.

Non - US companies grew at the rate of 30% in 2005, 21% in 2006 and 25% last year. US financial firms reported growth of 15% in 2005 followed by 18% in 2006 and 7% last year.

This means that the International share of the Financial Services revenue has grown from 39% in 2004 to 47% last year. Pretty stark evidence. Either get involved in global markets and market to organizations worldwide or you will likely be smaller and show smaller growth.

Oil producer BP reported a 63% increase in profits Tuesday to a whopping $7.6 billion. Royal Dutch Shell's first-quarter earnings increased 25% to a record $9.1 billion.

If the stock markets' wild swings have been making you nervous, it might be time to consider an asset-allocation fund. These hybrids mix stocks, bonds, and cash in parachute portfolios designed to catch wind in boom times and to cushion against sharp drops.

America isn’t the only country that holds a lot of Consumer debt; the U.K, India, Greece, and Turkey hold their fair share as well. Because consumer debt keeps people from spending money, it has a negative effect on a country’s economy and its GDP Governments seek to cure this problem and encourage people to spend by lowering taxes and interest rates. The sub-prime mortgage problem is another negative factor affecting America’s economy which is sure to make the consumer debt problem worse.

Should a debtor find himself unable to pay off his ,Consumer debts he should realize that there are certain method of debt collection that are illegal. The Fair Debt Collections Practices Act prevent creditors from demanding larger payments than permitted, harassing the debtor, threatening the debtor, impermissible calls to the debtor’s place of employment, revealing debt to third parties, failing to send notices, continuing to contact the debtor after receiving a cease communications letter, and failing to verify the owed debt.

If the person cannot pay back their consumer debt they may turn to a debt relief service for help. These services have proven to be quite effective at helping people get themselves out of consumer debt. Keep in mind that some of these businesses are actually owned by credit card companies so they may be preoccupied with getting as much money as possible, so make sure you know who owns the company whose help you enlist. There are also some consumer debt relief agencies that non-profits, be aware that this doesn’t stop them from collecting fees for their services.

Cash flow is a generic term used to describe different ideas depending on the context. In accounting, for example, there is the statement of cash flows which is used to determine a company’s ability to invest further cash into creating a profit. This statement is different from an income statement as it is only concerned with actual cash on hand and not cash owed. Cash flow is derived from three major sources: operating activities, investing activities, and financing activities. Operating activities include cash used during the regular course of business. Investment activities include cash used or earned from investments or acquisitions. Financing activities involves cash used or earned from financing, Loans , stock, or dividends.

The Cash flow statement is one of the four main statements a company produces for accounting purposes. There are many reasons for measuring cash flow such as: to evaluate the state a business is in, to determine if there are any liquidity problems, to project a rate of returns, and to measure the income or growth of a business.

Cash flow matching is when a company or person matches their cash inflows to their cash outflows. It is an effective but impractical method of doing away with interest rate risk. If an investment has a positive cash flow its market value will increase or decrease inversely with the spot interest rate of maturity. An investment is matched when every cash outflow is equal to every cash inflow on the same date and vice versa.

Read full story for latest details.

Oil and gasoline prices continue to soar Monday as worker strikes, political turmoil, and speculation of a rate cut by the Federal Reserve rocked a market that does not need much of an excuse to trade higher.