Money - AOL Money & Finance

Hewlett Packard (HPQ), the Silicon Valley pioneer, reported a 14% jump in profit Monday night, thanks to cost-cutting measures that more than offset an 8% reduction in revenue. The results weren't a surprise: HP provided guidance earlier this month, when it announced plans to acquire 3Com, the networking giant.

"We believe that HP will outperform the market," HP CEO Mark Hurd said in an upbeat appearance on CNBC. "Spending will continue to be prudent in 2010, but it will be better than 2009."

Despite the profit growth, investors weren't that impressed. HP shares were trading down over half a percent late Monday in after-hours trading.

Comments (1)Permalink

What's really in Glade, Windex and Pledge? SC Johnson will finally tell you

By Alex Salkever | Nov 23rd 2009, 9:00PM EST Filed Under: Wal-Mart Stores, Procter & Gamble

The dirty little secrets of Glade, Pledge and Windex are all coming clean courtesy of venerable consumer products company SC Johnson. The Racine, Wis. outfit said last week it had launched a new website that lists the ingredients of more than 200 of its products. The WhatsInsideSCJohnson site represents the most significant disclosure to date of the ingredients found in household cleaning products.

Lack of disclosure has been a key complaint of green activists who have often alleged that many household cleaners contain toxic ingredients. Equally important, these environmental do-gooders have charged that some supposedly green products contain ingredients that are either unsafe or suspected of having strong health effects on people. As SC Johnson is the first major consumer products company to take this step, its move puts huge pressure on Clorox (CLX), Colgate-Palmolive (CL) and Procter-Gamble (PG) to make similar information available online to consumers.

Comments (11)Permalink

How psychology is driving the economic rebound

By Jonathan Berr | Nov 23rd 2009, 12:30PM EST Filed Under: People, Investing, Media

Earlier this year, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert interviewed Jim Cramer about market psychology against a video background of puppies and kittens. Did it help the market rebound from its March lows? Who knows? But investors are sure feeling better about themselves.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange's Volatility Index (VIX), the so-called "Fear Index," has fallen this year as stock prices have rallied. It dropped recently to 22.19, down from a record high of 80.86 in November 2008, though it remains above its 20.28 average over its 19-year history, according to Bloomberg News. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has jumped 27 percent over the past six months.

Comments (3)Permalink

Nearly a quarter of all U.S. home mortgages are underwater

By Douglas McIntyre | Nov 24th 2009, 5:00AM EST Filed Under: Real Estate

There have been a number of attempts to come up with a figure about how many U.S. home mortgages are underwater -- in other words, the value of the home loan is more than the value of the house.

All estimates are bound to be wrong because no one has had the time or money to appraise every house in America and match it with the value of its mortgage plus any second mortgages. But, The Wall Street Journal has asked First American CoreLogic, a real estate research company, to give it a try. The report, which is available free online, says that that 23% of mortgages were underwater at the end of the third quarter.

Comments (2)Permalink

Infant deaths prompt biggest crib recall in U.S. history

By AP | Nov 24th 2009, 6:41AM EST Filed Under: Company News

More than 2.1 million drop-side cribs by Stork Craft Manufacturing are being recalled, the biggest crib recall in U.S history, following reports of four infant suffocations.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission said late Monday the recall involves 1.2 million cribs in the United States and almost 1 million in Canada, where Stork Craft is based. Sales of the cribs being recalled go back to 1993.

Comments (0)Permalink

Facebook spying costs Canadian woman her health benefits

By Bruce Watson | Nov 23rd 2009, 5:30PM EST Filed Under: Technology, Economy, People, Healthcare, Media, Facebook

On the surface, the twisted tale of Nathalie Blanchard seems to be yet another cautionary tale about how Facebook isn't really private, how social media can get you fired, and how the internet is a cruel mistress. On a deeper level, Blanchard's story indicates the growing popularity -- and danger -- of Facebook spies.

Blanchard, a Quebec employee of IBM, has been on longterm sick leave since Valentine's Day 2008, when she was diagnosed with major depression. For the ensuing year and a half, she has lived off monthly payments from her health insurance company, Manulife.

Comments (34)Permalink

Campbell Soup's stock looks m'm, m'm good

By Dan Burrows | Nov 23rd 2009, 4:45PM EST Filed Under: Investing, Earnings, Campbell Soup Company, Stock Picks

When you're the world's biggest soup maker, it's important to have good stock.

Campbell Soup (CPB) reported Monday that its fiscal-first quarter earnings rose 17%, beating Wall Street's view by a hearty 6 cents a share. True, revenue dipped slightly, but that was more due to difficult year-over-year comparisons and the fact that Campbell rolled out its major soup-season marketing campaign a couple of months early this year.

Comments (1)Permalink

War for grounds: Coffee firms Peet's and Green Mountain sweeten Diedrich bids

By Tim Catts | Nov 23rd 2009, 4:00PM EST Filed Under: Company News

coffee-competitors-sweeten-bids-for-roaster-diedrich

There's a bidding war brewing over Diedrich Coffee (DDRX), the maker of single-serving cups of joe for home or office percolation.

Diedrich agreed on Nov. 2 to sell itself to Peet's Coffee and Tea (PEET), the java chain that is said to have inspired Starbucks (SBUX). But now Peet's has competition from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR), owner of Keurig, the maker of the machine that brews Diedrich's cups.

Comments (1)Permalink

Wall Street's no-longer-so-secret society: High speed trading gets scrutiny, rivals

By Matthew Scott | Nov 23rd 2009, 3:30PM EST Filed Under: Investing

An arms race has begun in the secretive world of high frequency trading, the practice of making a high number of trades netting small gains that can add up to big profits at the end of the day. Fueling the competition is the entry of more players into the field as well as technological advances that continue to enhance the speed and quality of trades. A sense of urgency comes from the fact that the industry is bracing for new regulation.

Becoming increasingly popular in the last couple of years, high frequency trading uses technology and computer algorithms to take advantage of sub-millisecond arbitrage -- or essentially the spread between the buy and the sell price of a stock or commodity that can appear in fractions of a second. But the trading technique has come under scrutiny for several reasons. Some fear that stocks could be manipulated by the practice. There's also the concern that high speed trading gives an unfair advantage to high-rollers and major institutional clients who can afford the expensive, high-tech setups needed to participate.

Comments (13)Permalink

People@Work: Social media gives job seekers a leg up in finding work

By David Schepp | Nov 23rd 2009, 2:00PM EST Filed Under: Economy, People

Welcome to People@Work, DailyFinance's new weekly workplace column written by career columnist David Schepp. In the weeks and months to come, we'll explore a wide range of topics, including workplace etiquette, worker productivity and strategies to get your career heading in the right direction. We'll also look to get your feedback and invite you to ask your career questions, which we'll pose to experts. So stayed tuned.

In this inaugural column, we take a look at social media and how it's becoming a powerful tool for finding work in an increasingly crowded job market.

No one needs to tell anyone who has lost a job recently that finding a new one in this economy is difficult. The good news is job seekers today have many more tools at their disposal than they did even five years ago. Beyond online job boards and resume submission, social media Web sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are playing an increasingly important role in helping unemployed workers and job-changers find someone they can connect with at virtually any company or organization.

Comments (2)Permalink

Existing home sales jump 10.1% in October

By Joseph Lazzaro | Nov 23rd 2009, 12:00PM EST Filed Under: Economy

The nearly year-long positive trend in the U.S. housing sector is continuing. Existing home sales surged 10.1% in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.1 million units, the National Association of Realtors announced Monday. That's the highest level for existing home sales in more than two years.

The consensus of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had been for October existing home sales to come in at a 5.7 million unit annualized rate. The annualized existing sales number for September was revised to a 5.54 million units, and for August to 5.1 million units. Existing home sales are also up 23.5% in the past 12 months.

Comments (17)Permalink