Sunday, 06 February, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO: Is the Internet bubble half empty or half full? With Google’s stock on a roll, rising more than 7 percent on Wednesday to close at $205.96 and prompting some analysts to predict it will hit $290 or more in the coming months, it can seem like the late 1990s again on Wall Street. Shares in Google have been trading for less than six months, but they have risen 142 percent and the company has a market value of $56.2 billion, equal to that of Starbucks, Nike and Southwest Airlines - combined. 2:11:04 AM    comment []

Scheme shows business there's life after failure A programme aimed at removing the stigma of business failure and giving people a second chance in business has been launched in Belfast. 2:01:33 AM    comment []

Business Overviews Even though their economies were long ago reorientated toward the West, 1998 economic turmoil in Russia still impacted all the Baltic states to one degree or another. But their reforms held them in good steed: their economies weren't wrecked by the tremors, and all three have long since recovered. These days, all three Baltic economies are growing at a quick pace, as they've been doing for successive years, despite global economic slowdowns.           Questions about how European Union membership—which the Baltic countries will receive in 2004—will affect local economies have also been raised: better access to EU-member markets will be one result of membership, but some skeptics wonder if increased red tape might not be another.  1:54:54 AM    comment []

Baltic Economic Annual GDP Growth Around the time of the Soviet collapse, Baltic economies were in free-fall. In 1992, all three were registering breathtakingly dismal growth figures of between -15 to -30 percent. But thanks to impressive pro-reform policies, all three were seeing positive growth within just three years. The 1998 Russian crisis cut into the strong GDP rates, but by early 2000 Baltic growth was back in positive territory. As of 2003, the three countries were posting some of the highest growth figures in Europe. In the first quarter of 2003, Lithuanian officials said the economy expanded by a whopping 9 percent; Latvia and Estonia were anticipating 2003 growth to be around 5 percent. 1:53:36 AM    comment []

Eye on Eurasia: Russia's rumbling regions TARTU, Estonia, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- In the wake of the victory of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and of Moscow's decision to yield one and a half small islands to China to resolve its border dispute there, approximately one in every six Russians now believes that there is a significant foreign threat to their country's territorial integrity -- an increase of 50 percent over the last year alone, according to recent polls. 1:47:48 AM    comment []

US warns trade deficit 'unsustainable' The US trade deficit with China is ballooning at a "clearly unsustainable'' level, a senior US Commerce Department official said Thursday as a Congress-mandated commission sought tough steps to contain the problem. 1:41:38 AM    comment []

Chuppie culture China's rich urban professionals are obsessed with the American Dream Nearly 60 years after the end of World War II, Japan has still not earned the affection of China's upper middle-class urban youth. They love American culture and dislike, if not outright hate Japan, even though they prefer Japanese-made consumer goods, according to a new survey and mainland media reports. 1:39:59 AM    comment []

Lackluster pace in U.S. jobs growth January increase of 146,000 falls well below most observers' forecasts   NEW YORK The U.S. labor market expanded at a lackluster pace last month, the government reported Friday, indicating that employers are still cautious about hiring despite more than a year of robust economic growth. 1:35:54 AM    comment []

Spotlight: FedEx chief looks at next destination France is central to rail-hub plans   PARIS The founder of FedEx, Frederick Smith, is used to having his ideas laughed at - until they become moneymakers. 1:34:41 AM    comment []

Petri dishes and growth: Finding the right formula MUNICH The sprawling complex of laboratories and offices on the outskirts of Munich offers scant evidence of the traditional Bavaria embodied by beer and brass bands. But it paints a vivid portrait of a southern German region that was not afraid to embrace change - and is making itself a corner of Europe that functions exceptionally well. 1:32:30 AM    comment []

Investing: Time to bet on Mideast? The prospect of change after the death of Yasser Arafat has raised hopes for improvements in political, social and economic conditions in the Middle East. The glimmer of light that the ascendancy of a new Palestinian leadership has cast amid the perpetual gloom is leading professional investors to take a look at publicly traded companies in the Middle East and just beyond, including many based in Israel and Turkey that trade on Western markets, and a sprinkling of others, mainly in Morocco and Egypt. 1:31:17 AM    comment []

Currencies: Dollar gains ground on grim Europe data NEW YORK The dollar rose against most major currencies on Monday, after European business confidence fell and as traders concentrated on the likelihood of higher U.S. interest rates 1:29:26 AM    comment []

Briefs: Bilbao Vizcaya cuts back on business in tax havens Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, a leading Spanish bank, said Friday that it had reduced the number of companies it operates in tax-haven countries last year and was focusing its offshore activities in consumer banking in Panama and Andorra 1:28:28 AM    comment []

Briefcase: Japan market is hot for risk consultants But somebody clearly does worry, judging by the fact that risk consultants - the detectives of the corporate world - are in hot demand in Japan. 1:27:10 AM    comment []

Doing business close to the edge Afghan Garden Two, Nadene Ghouri's second boutique hotel in Kabul, opened for business on August 29, 2004. That morning, a dozen guests, aged 60 to 75, arrived from the United States. That afternoon, a car bomb attack believed to be linked to Al Qaeda killed 10 people mere blocks away 1:25:42 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2005 pryvateer.news. Last update: 03/14/2005; 10:08:12 PM.