Finance & Business World

Even the hottest initial public stock offerings can lose steam after their first day of trading.

Sure, company insiders will make money selling at the opening price. And investors who used connections or big bucks to score shares at the IPO price will profit if they sell after a first-day “pop.”

For everyone else, the wildly mixed record of other ballyhooed IPOs beyond their first trading session offers a lesson. It’s one that should remind us that buying Facebook stock Friday provides a chance to lose money.

It’s understandable that everyone wants to get in early on what could be the next Google. Shares of the Internet search leader had an initial offering price of $85 in 2004, started on the stock market at $100 and climbed above $700 by 2007. Even after moving sideways for more than four years, they’re still above $600.

But odds are against hitting a grand slam like that in the current market.

Cautionary points to weigh if the Facebook frenzy is tempting you to buy stock on Day 1:

YOU’LL PAY MORE FOR YOUR STOCK THAN THE SMART MONEY DID.

The vast majority of average investors couldn’t get in at the $38-per-share offer price. Those shares went largely to company insiders, the deal’s underwriters or their fat-walleted clients. The price almost always shoots quickly higher by the time orders to buy at the market price kick in no fax cash loans.

SEVERAL OF LAST YEAR’S “MUST-HAVE” IPOS AREN’T ANY MORE.

— Pandora, an Internet radio company, went public June 15 at $20 a share. You could have bought the stock during the day for $26. It’s now trading under $11.

— Groupon, the online daily deal company, priced its stock at $20 a share in its Nov. 4 IPO. The stock traded above $31 the first day. Now it’s under $13.

— Zynga, the developer of “FarmVille” and other Facebook games, went public at $10 a share on Dec.16. The stock traded as high as $11.50 on its opening day. Lately it’s around $8.

— Even one of last year’s IPO stars isn’t a huge winner when you factor in the risk. LinkedIn more than doubled from its $45 offer price within minutes of hitting the market last May 19 and reached $122.70 before closing the first day at $94.25. It’s back to around $105 after a turbulent year, with a modest overall gain of 11 percent since the first day.

Buy-and-hold investors who want to make money off Facebook should hold off on the first day of trading. Maybe later they can think about buying.

Dave Carpenter is a AP’s personal finance writer

Source

Get instant health insurance quotes, compare medical insurance plans, and find affordable health insurance to fit your health care coverage needs.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. • Missouri and Kansas are divided here only by the yellow stripe of State Line Road. It’s a single community, but the division is sharp when it comes to the cutthroat business of economic development.

The two states have burned through hundreds of millions of dollars to lure businesses to one side of that stripe or the other in the pursuit of jobs. Yet sometimes, those jobs merely have shifted to different buildings across the border with little real growth for the region’s economy.

Amid rising competition nationwide for “job creation,” Missouri and Kansas have committed more than $750 million in tax incentives and bonds in the last five years for nearly 200 businesses to locate or expand in the Kansas City area, according to state records obtained by The Associated Press. The crosstown battle also has drawn in millions more dollars in incentives from cities and suburbs.

The two states sacrificed revenue and incurred debt even during tough budget times that forced cuts to public school districts, universities and social services. Kansas and Missouri each had projected budget shortfalls of around $500 million last year. Calls for a truce in the business border war have been growing from local business leaders, some lawmakers and from former officials who once doled out the incentives.

“You get to a point where you have to say we are wasting taxpayer money,” said Greg Steinhoff, Missouri’s economic development chief from 2005 to 2008.

Yet a truce appears unlikely anytime soon — in part because the states are still scrambling for every job.

“Politically, it sounds good — can’t we all get along? — but competition’s competition,” said Gary Sherrer, who was Kansas lieutenant governor and commerce secretary about a decade ago.

About three-fourths of the $750 million of tax breaks and bonding approved in the last five years has come from Kansas, though Missouri has given incentives — in smaller amounts — to about twice as many businesses to keep them from leaving or to attract new firms.

In part because of the glimmer of its big-ticket projects, Kansas appears to be winning the business border battle.

The spoils of success are highly visible in the sprawling Village West district at the junction of Interstates 70 and 435. Anchoring the development is the Kansas Speedway, the NASCAR track that the state landed more than a decade ago with a $150 million package of bonds, tax breaks and infrastructure aid after Missouri’s $42 million incentive package failed in the Legislature credit report. The Kansas incentives included bonds with a 30-year repayment life.

Nearby is a new, 18,500-seat stadium for the Major League Soccer team Sporting Kansas City, built with $145 million in bonds after Kansas lured the franchise away from the Missouri side. Also in the neighborhood is a new office complex for Cerner Corp., a medical computer systems firm that employs about 5,500 people on the Missouri side and planned to expand. Missouri and Kansas offered nearly equal incentives of about $85 million for Cerner’s expansion, which is projected to employ an additional 4,000.

Kansas’ willingness to issue bonds backed by tax revenue, which Missouri couldn’t match, helped cinch the deal, said Marc Naughton, Cerner’s executive vice president and chief financial officer.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, was unapologetic about giving away public revenue. “You’ve got to go out to compete and hustle,” Brownback said.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, appears only slightly more open to a truce. “I’m going to compete for jobs for our state, I’m not backing up on that,” Nixon said.

In Kansas City, the most recent crosstown defection came in April, when Teva Neuroscience Inc. announced that it would move its headquarters — and 400 jobs — from Kansas City to a site about four miles away in suburban Overland Park, Kan. Records provided to the AP show that Missouri offered $11 million in incentives to try to keep Teva. Kansas did not disclose how much it offered, but the Kansas City Star reported the package totaled nearly $31 million.

Some firms have bounced back and forth across the state line. Restaurant chain Applebee’s International moved its headquarters from Kansas City to a Kansas suburb in 1993. Last year, it was lured back to Missouri ith nearly $10 million in state incentives plus additional local aid.

A few months later, movie theater operator AMC Entertainment Inc. announced it was moving to the suburb of Leawood, Kan. Missouri offered $4.2 million in incentives to keep the company, according to state records. Kansas declined to disclose its incentives, but media reports have valued the total aid at $47 million.

Source

fast cash loan is fast becoming a viable financial option for consumers who need a few extra dollars.

South Korea added workers last month and the unemployment rate held at two-month low as demand increased for jobs in health, social welfare and education.

The rate was 3.4 percent in April, Statistics Korea said today in Gwacheon, south of Seoul, matching the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 12 economists. The number of employed people increased 1.9 percent to 24.76 million last month from a year earlier.

South Korea

Embattled Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson told company employees late Monday that he is sorry for the distraction his resume padding scandal has caused — without commenting on what role his own actions might have played in creating the drama.

"I want you to know how deeply I regret how this issue has affected the company and all of you," Thompson said in a memo obtained by CNN. "We have all been working very hard to move the company forward, and this has had the opposite effect. For that, I take full responsibility, and I want to apologize to you."

The scandal erupted late last week, when activist shareholder group Third Point first alleged that Thompson lied about his college degree. Thompson’s published bios have claimed that he holds a Bachelor’s degree in both accounting and computer science from Stonehill College, but his degree is actually only in accounting.

Yahoo (, Fortune 500) said that it had incorrectly stated Thompson’s academic credentials, claiming the mistake was an "inadvertent error."

On Tuesday, the Yahoo announced that Patti Hart, the director who led the search committee that picked Thompson, will soon leave the board.

First reported by tech blog AllThingsD, the news was later confirmed by Yahoo, which said Hart is stepping down at the behest of her own company, International Game Technology (). Hart, who joined Yahoo’s board in 2010, serves as CEO of IGT.

"The IGT board requested that she not seek reelection as a Yahoo director," Yahoo said in a written statement.

Yahoo’s board said also Tuesday that it has hired an outside counsel to conduct a review of the false statement. It appointed the company’s three independent directors to oversee the investigation.

All three directors were named to Yahoo’s board under Thompson’s watch, after a board shakeup that wiped out most of Yahoo’s previous directors.

Thompson said he would cooperate fully with the board’s review, and the CEO urged a "prompt" conclusion to the probe.

Thompson’s memo to Yahoo’s staff included no explanation for how the mistake happened. His apology was solely for the impact the scandal has had on the company, not for the act itself.

That didn’t impress the troops.

A senior Yahoo executive, who spoke to CNN on the condition that his name not be used, said: "Thompson has quickly lost the confidence of many employees, who think he has to go."

False statements about Thompson’s degree predate his tenure at Yahoo, which began in January. References to a "computer science" degree also appeared in his online biographical information on PayPal’s website when he was president of the eBay (, Fortune 500) subsidiary.

Thompson’s degree information is actually correct in eBay’s regulatory filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission and in the bio featured in filings for F5 (), where he serves as a director quick payday loans. In both cases, the companies state: "Mr. Thompson holds a B.S. in Accounting from Stonehill College," with no reference to a computer science degree.

Related story: Résumé padding: inconsequential or inexcusable?

But the false statement about his degree appeared in Yahoo’s latest annual report filed to the SEC: "Mr. Thompson holds a Bachelor’s degree in accounting and computer science from Stonehill College."

Critics like Third Point seized on that line and are demanding answers about how it made its way into Yahoo’s regulatory filings. CEOs are required to personally certify that their company’s statements are accurate.

The annual report Yahoo filed last month includes this line, directly above Scott Thompson’s signature: "This report does not contain any untrue statement of a material fact."

A spokeswoman from Third Point declined to comment on Thompson’s apology.

The investment group said earlier on Monday that it wasn’t satisfied with Yahoo’s review process. It sent Yahoo’s board a letter demanding that it be allowed to inspect books and records relating to Thompson’s hiring, and it urged the company to make details of the review public.

Yahoo’s board "will make an appropriate disclosure to shareholders" upon conclusion of its review, Yahoo said in a statement e-mailed statement to CNNMoney.

Yahoo typically uses the headhunting firm Heidrick & Struggles for its executive searches. But AllThingsD says the firm wasn’t involved in the search for Thompson — he reportedly reached out directly to company directors to pitch himself for the CEO job.

CNNMoney has reached out to Heidrick & Struggles to find out if the firm was involved in vetting Thompson’s background. The firm declined to comment, but a source close to the company said Heidrick & Struggles was not involved in Thompson’s appointment in any way.

Meanwhile, Thompson said he would continue pushing forward on the company’s latest attempt to rebuild.

"I feel I owe it to all of you to make sure that nothing disrupts the progress we’ve made in just a few short months due to all of your focus, commitment, and hard work," he said. "We have a lot of work to do. We need to continue to act as one team to fulfill the potential of this great company and keep moving forward. You have my word that all my energy and attention will be on that mission."

– CNN’s Dan Simon and Katy Byron contributed reporting to this article. 

Source

The Canadian company trying to build the disputed Keystone XL pipeline in the U.S. submitted a new application for the project Friday after changing the route to avoid environmentally sensitive land in Nebraska.

TransCanada said it applied again to the State Department for permission to build the pipeline to carry oil from so-called tar sands in western Canada to a company hub in Steele City, Neb. From there, the project would link up with other pipelines operated by the company to carry oil to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

President Barack Obama blocked the pipeline earlier this year, citing uncertainty over the Nebraska route - a decision that drew fire from Republicans and industry groups.

TransCanada had proposed a new route last month that would veer east around the groundwater-rich Sandhills region before looping back to the original route.

State Department approval is needed because the $7 billion pipeline would cross a U.S. border. The department confirmed Friday the application for the new route had been received.

The pipeline filing came on the same day as a disappointing report on U.S. job growth. The Labor Department said employers pulled back on hiring in April for the second straight month, evidence of an economy still growing only sluggishly, though the overall jobless rate slipped to 8.1 percent as more people gave up looking for work.

Obama is under pressure to support the pipeline from Republicans and business and labor leaders who argue it would create jobs; the State Department estimates it could result in up to 6,000 new jobs.

“The multi-billion dollar Keystone XL pipeline project will reduce the United States’ dependence on foreign oil and support job growth by putting thousands of Americans to work,” said Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive officer. “Keystone XL will transport U.S. crude oil from the very large Bakken supply basin in Montana and North Dakota, along with Canadian oil, to U.S. refineries.”

The pipeline’s opponents, including Democrats and environmental groups, say it would transport “dirty oil” from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, that would require huge amounts of energy to extract. They also worry about a possible spill. The pipeline would travel through Montana, South Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma, in addition to Nebraska.

In blocking the pipeline in January, Obama said there was not enough time for a fair review before a looming deadline forced on him by congressional Republicans. The action did not kill the project but put off a tough choice on the once-obscure pipeline, which has become a flashpoint in the bitter partisan political fight over jobs and the environment and a focus of the presidential campaign between Obama his likely Republican opponent, Mitt Romney. Romney has called on Obama to approve the pipeline.

Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman signed a bill last month that allows the state to proceed with its review of the proposed pipeline through his state, regardless of what happens at the federal level.

A senior State Department official said U.S. officials would conduct a thorough review of the new application, with a final decision not expected until early next year _ well after the presidential election.

Officials will use previous studies to the extent possible, the official said, but will need to complete a new environmental assessment, especially since the route has changed since TransCanada first applied for the pipeline in 2008.

The State Department review is likely to include hiring an outside consultant, a point of contention in the original review conducted by the agency. Democratic lawmakers complained that the firm that conducted the review, Cardno Entrix, had a conflict of interest because of previous work with TransCanada.

The department’s acting inspector general found no conflict of interest or improper political influence but said the State Department could have done a better job of evaluating some concerns about the project and should improve its oversight of contractors.

Jane Kleeb, executive director of Bold Nebraska, a group that opposes the pipeline, said the new route still goes through an aquifer that serves eight states and should not be approved.

“The fundamental facts remain: Americans are being asked to put clean water at risk for an extreme form of energy that will add nothing to our energy security,” Kleeb said.

But Girling, the TransCanada CEO, said the company’s proposal builds on more than three years of environmental review already conducted for Keystone XL, “the most comprehensive process ever for a cross-border pipeline.”

The earlier work should allow the new proposal to be processed “expeditiously,” Girling said, with a federal decision made after a final route through Nebraska is approved by state officials.

TransCanada expects to begin construction of the pipeline next year.

Source

Filtration equipment manufacturer Pall Corp. says it has agreed to sell certain operations and equipment used in blood transfusions to health care company Haemonetics Corp. for $550 million.

The deal announced Sunday calls for Haemonetics to receive blood collection, filtration and processing systems and equipment, along with manufacturing facilities in California, Mexico and Italy from Pall.

Some of Pall’s assets in Puerto Rico are also included.

About 1,300 Pall employees will be transferred to Haemonetics as part of the deal payday loans guaranteed no fax.

Pall expects to record an after-tax gain of $230 million to $240 million, or $1.95 a share to $2.04 a share on the sale.

The deal is expected to close at the start of Pall’s 2013 fiscal year. The current fiscal year ends July 30.

Source

Household confidence improved last week to match the highest level in four years as more Americans said their finances were in better shape.

The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index was minus 31.4 in the period ended April 15, compared with minus 32.8 over the previous seven days. The reading equaled that from two weeks earlier as the best since March 2008. Nonetheless, the monthly expectations measure fell from a one-year high, showing concern remains that too many Americans are still unemployed.

China is slowing, inflation is sleeping, bank stocks are slipping and Google is splitting. Got all that?

There’s a lot of economic and market news to digest on this frenetic Friday the 13th. Stocks were lower after a big move up Thursday.

Here’s why.

China’s gross domestic product grew at an 8.1% annualized pace in the first quarter. While that’s obviously a fantastic level of growth, it’s down from the 8.9% pace in the fourth quarter. And it’s disappointing, considering that Thursday’s market rally was partly due to whispers that China’s growth may not slow after all. Oops.

The China GDP number may not be a cause for alarm yet. But it will not silence the chorus of China critics who think that nation’s economy is destined for a hard landing.

The slowdown may also put more pressure on China’s central bank to lower its reserve requirement ratio for banks again — or even cut interest rates.

"It is important for global sentiment that China’s growth remains strong," said John Derrick, director of research for U.S. Global Investors. "If China were to be more aggressive with easing, that would be good for stocks."

Speaking of interest rates, the Federal Reserve has more justification to leave rates near zero for awhile thanks to the March consumer price report. Consumer prices rose 2.7% year-over-year through March, down from a 2.9% pace a month earlier.

The Fed can continue to keep monetary policy loose as long as inflation remains low. But while the latest round of job market data — a pullback in hiring in March and a pickup in weekly unemployment claims — is disheartening, those numbers are probably not weak enough to give the Fed good reason for further bond buying.

Correction? Perhaps. But investors shouldn’t panic

What’s more, even though inflation is low, the price of consumer goods is still rising at a higher clip than wages. So the Fed can’t completely write off concerns about inflation just yet. The market seems to sense that, and that may be another reason why stocks are down Friday.

"The Fed can keep current policy in place, but there is nothing hinting at deflation. So there is no ammunition for more easing right now," Derrick said.

Finally, there’s earnings. Profits at JPMorgan Chase (, Fortune 500) and Wells Fargo (, Fortune 500) did both top estimates. That’s the good news. But both stocks were lower Friday, as were shares of Citigroup (, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (, Fortune 500), which are each set to report results next week.

Investors may be looking beyond the first-quarter results and worrying about whether credit quality is deteriorating once again. The level of so-called non-performing assets at JPMorgan and Wells rose slightly from the fourth quarter. That could be an ominous sign, especially if the job market loses more momentum in the coming months.

"Earnings quality is poor and non-performing assets are up, which will scare people. Charge-offs and credit costs could go up," said Christopher Whalen, senior managing director with Tangent Capital Partners, a New York firm that focuses on banks.

And then there’s Google (, Fortune 500). The company’s sort-of evil stock "split" is overshadowing its latest earnings. When you look at those numbers closely, there is cause for concern.

Sure, earnings topped estimates. But sales narrowly missed forecasts. And a key gauge of how much advertisers are paying Google, the cost per click, fell from both the end of the fourth quarter and the first quarter of last year.

Sell in April and hide under the table?

Shares of Google slipped nearly 3% Friday. Combine Google’s lackluster numbers with the banks’ and it is reasonable to wonder if first-quarter earnings won’t be as strong as some people thought they might be after Alcoa (, Fortune 500) reported a surprise profit and much better sales Tuesday.

"Profit levels are already at record highs. So Corporate America has to start showing sustainable revenue growth to justify current stock valuations. That is key. And there are considerable headwinds for companies to digest," said Adrian Cronje, chief investment officer at Balentine in Atlanta.

Add this all up — slowing growth in China, worries about the U.S. economy and concerns that earnings can’t get that much better — and it’s clear that investors still have plenty to worry about this year. And we didn’t even tackle the fact that Europe’s debt crisis is rearing its ugly head again.

The recent slump may still turn out to be a correction as opposed to a major market rout. But anyone that still thinks there’s nothing but blue skies ahead for stocks and the economy is kidding themselves.

"There was too much enthusiasm about the economy at the beginning of the year," said Milton Ezrati, senior economist and market strategist with Lord Abbett in Jersey City, N.J. "This is a plodding recovery and earnings should reflect that. This is a wake-up call."

Best of StockTwits and reader comment of the week: The Google stock split has made some investors angry while others don’t seem to care too much about it.

bradloncar: $GOOG supposedly worrying about shareholder activism is such a red herring. It’s a $200B company!

The new C class of non-voting shares is strange. As I said in today’s Buzz video, it may not be "evil" but it is "devious." Google’s co-founders and chairman Eric Schmidt already have voting control of the company through the B shares — which is why there is virtually no way the plan to split the stock will be defeated.

And with a $200 billion market cap, who could really buy up enough of the A shares — with limited voting power by the way — to make a difference? This isn’t Yahoo (, Fortune 500).

OptionsHawk: $GOOG trades like 8X earnings ex-cash - that is about all u need to know…

JoshPritchard: $GOOG saw 34% growth in FCFO, but no one’s talked about it. Great Fundamentals. At 12% discount rate, current mkt cap implies <5% LT growth

That is true. As I wrote in my Google earnings preview piece Wednesday, the stock is cheap and the company is still growing rapidly. But the latest results show some cracks. Anyone who’s worried about competition from Facebook and Apple still has reasons to be doubtful.

Nokia launched its new Lumia smartphone in the United States on Easter. A few days later, it warned that it would report a bigger quarterly loss. Shares plunged, leading some to wonder if CEO Stephen Elop, who joined the company from Microsoft (, Fortune 500) last year, can really turn the ship around.

Douglas Blake gets the reader comment of the week award for referencing a blunt term that Elop used in a memo to Nokia () employees last year.

"$NOK forgot to jump off the burning platform!," he tweeted.

Ouch. I keep waiting for Research in Motion () to come up with a disaster metaphor of its own as well to describe the BlackBerry. Iceberg straight ahead!

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul R. La Monica. Other than Time Warner, the parent of CNNMoney, and Abbott Laboratories, La Monica does not own positions in any individual stocks. 

Source

The fear trade picked up steam Tuesday, as investors grew increasingly worried about Europe’s fiscal health. All three indexes closed down more than 1.5%, marking the fifth straight losing day for stocks.

Early in the day investors, traded out of stocks after reading headlines about rising borrowing costs for Spain and Italy. As the day progressed, investors grew increasingly jittery over the health of the global economy, which caused the sell-off to intensify.

"People are starting to get very concerned about the macro picture of both sovereign debt and China’s slowing growth," said Sam Ginzburg, head of trading at First NY. "We’re starting to get very worried about going back to a recession."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average () closed down 214 points, or 1.7%, capping off the worst day since November 2011. The S&P 500 () lost 24 points, or 1.7%. The Nasdaq () fell 56 points, or 1.8%.

The S&P 500 also had the worst day since November 2011, while Nasdaq posted the worst finish since December 2011.

European stocks slumped more than 2%.

First-quarter earnings: They won’t be pretty

Yields on Spain’s 10-year bonds hovered just under 6%, the highest level in more than three months. Borrowing costs have been trending higher as the government struggles to push through budget cuts. In Italy, the yields rose near 5.7%.

Peter Boockvar, chief equity strategist at Miller Tabak, said that while U.S. investors had been largely ignoring sovereign debt questions in Europe, the continent’s problems cannot be ignored now.

As part of a broad retreat from risky assets, investors jumped into U.S. Treasuries, driving the yield on 10-year Treasuries below 2% for the first time in more than a month.

Twenty-nine of the Dow’s 30 components ended in the red, with Bank of America (, Fortune 500) leading the broad retreat. Oil and industrial stocks were also among the biggest decliners. GE (, Fortune 500), Caterpillar (, Fortune 500) and Exxon (, Fortune 500) fell more than 1%.

The so-called fear index, the VIX (), rose nearly 11% Tuesday and is up nearly 33% over the past five days. It’s at 20.5, still far from 30 — a reading that typically signals heightened investor fear.

Investors got one positive surprise after the markets closed. Dow component Alcoa (, Fortune 500) beat earnings estimates when it reported after the closing bell. Alcoa’s earnings unofficially begins the release of first-quarter financial results personal loan for poor credit.

Analysts are forecasting a 0.1% drop in first-quarter earnings for companies in the S&P 500 compared to a year earlier, according to FactSet. While that’s not a major decline, it would mark the end of a nine-quarter winning streak. Stocks were on a tear in the first three months of this year, with the Dow and S&P 500 enjoying their best first quarter in over a decade.

"We’re essentially expecting no growth, but we could see earnings come in worse than that," said Boockvar. "I think we have the potential for some disappointment."

Stocks finished lower Monday, as investors reacted to the disappointing March jobs report released last week.

World markets: European stocks closed down sharply. Britain’s FTSE-100 () slipped 2.2%, the DAX () in Germany dropped 2.5%, and France’s CAC 40 () shed 3.8%.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei () slipped 0.1%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng () lost 1.2% and the Shanghai Composite () gained 0.9%.

Economy: Wholesale inventories came in higher than expected for February with a 0.9% increase above the 0.5% rise forecast by economists. Inventories rose 0.4% in January.

On Monday, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said in a speech in Georgia that banks need to increase their capital buffers in order to ensure stability in the financial system.

Companies: Shares of electronics retailer Best Buy (, Fortune 500) surged then dropped after the company announced that CEO Brian Dunn had resigned and the company would begin a search for a new CEO.

Sony () shares dropped after the electronics maker announced it expects an annual loss of more than double its previous projection. The company said the revision came after recording additional tax expenses, primarily in the United States.

Shares of grocery retailer Supervalu (, Fortune 500) were up 15%, after the company reported earnings that beat expectations and offered strong guidance.

Apple’s (, Fortune 500) shares hit another all-time high Tuesday.

Introducing Wall Street’s new rainmakers

Currencies and commodities: The dollar gained against the euro and the British pound but fell against the Japanese yen.

Oil for May delivery lost $1.32 to $101.14 a barrel.

Gold futures for April delivery gained $16.60 to $1,660.50 an ounce.  

Source

With gas prices rising, even truck fans are looking to go easier on the stuff. So the latest version of Chrysler Group’s Ram truck, being unveiled at the New York Auto Show, is geared to minimize fuel consumption.

Chrysler boasts that it will be the most fuel-efficient non-hybrid full-sized truck sold in America.

The new Ram — the Dodge name has been dropped — will be the first pickup available with an eight-speed transmission, Chrysler said.

Ram buyers will be able to choose between a 5.7-liter V8 or 3.7-liter V6 engine. The new V6 will produce considerably more power than the Ram’s current V6 engine with 20% better fuel economy, Chrysler said. That would mean the new Ram truck should get combined city and highway fuel economy of better than 19 miles per gallon compared to 16 mpg in the current V6 Ram.

Cool cars from the New York Auto Show

Today, only about 10% of Ram trucks sold are equipped with a V6 engine with the vast majority of buyers opting for the big Hemi V8.

A new eight-speed transmission will also be available with both engines.

Recently, many truck makers have been emphasizing better fuel efficiency. Ford (, Fortune 500), for example, has found major success with its EcoBoost V6. However, the fuel economy benefit of the EcoBoost V6 compared to Ford’s 5.0-liter V8 engine is rather small (only about one mile per gallon).

Ford’s V6 and EcoBoost V6 trucks get 18 and 19 miles gallon in combined city and highway driving, respectively

The new Ram V8 will offer better fuel economy than Ford’s EcoBoost V6, while the Ram V6 will beat Ford’s non-EcoBoost V6, Chrysler spokesman Nick Cappa said.

Chrysler expects more buyers to opt for the V6 engine, especially since it’s now offered in the Crew Cab and 4-wheel-drive models that were previously available only with the big V8.

In addition to the new engine and transmission, the new Ram will have an automatic "start-stop" system that will shut off the engine whenever the truck pauses at a stop light or stop sign.

Also, the new truck has adjustable air suspension. At highway speeds, the suspension automatically lowers the truck one inch for better aerodynamics.

Various parts of the truck have also been redesigned with lighter materials to save weight. For example, the new frame, made with high-strength steel, is 30 pounds lighter, while the new aluminum hood is 26 pounds lighter.

One big change for Ram truck drivers will be the way they use the new transmission. Instead of the usual stick-like gear selector, drivers will switch from Park to Drive or Reverse using a knob in the dashboard. The knob, similar to that used in Jaguar luxury cars, frees up more space inside the cab compared to traditional gear selectors. 

Source