The Business and Venture Capital Web Log

Music Industry News

2008-01-22T15:28:00.001-08:00

the Motorola Corporation has bought the relatively high profile digital music company known as Soundbuzz, which provides the systems and content behind a lot of the mobile music stores offered by telco carriers. And yet while the Motorola corporations’ musical plans are largely built on tracks being distributed through carriers, the Finnish firm the Nokia Corp. has gone a step even further than that by committing to launching their own music store in

Australia sometime during the first six months of this year. Meanwhile, the JBL Corporation has unveiled the On Stage Micro. An AC adapter powers the On Stage Micro or it also has the capability to be powered by four AAA batteries, making it easy to take anyplace. When running on battery power it has up to twenty-four hours of playing time. These docks are also manufactured in colors that vivid and enhance any surroundings.

This is an iPod dock that has a mini jack connection that enables it to connect to other devices such as MP3 and CD players, along with desktop and laptop computers or satellite radio.

Inside of the JBL On Stage Micro there are two Odyssey transducers and an IR remote, which emits clean and crisp sound and the bass could not be better.

The best part of the JBL On Stage Micro is the size, with two types of power, terrific bass and sound as clear and crisp as this offers, the size makes it even better. This iPod dock is so compact that it can fit in one hand, and close to the palm in size, which will make it one of the most popular docking stations with high quality audio sound.

More Bad Mortgage News

2007-09-06T13:26:00.001-07:00

Wow this one really hurts...According to a news story reported by the Associated Press,
The number of house owners receiving foreclosure notices reached an all-time high this spring,
being particularly propelled by issues regarding the now infamous subprime loans.
All in all, The Mortgage Bankers Association or MBA stated today that mortgage-holders beginning the
foreclosure process in the spring quarter this year reached 0.65 percent, which is, shockingly,
the 3rd straight quarter that this quantity has set an all-time high.
Unfortunately, the delinquency rate was likewise up substantially during this same period,
rising to some 5.12 percent of all the loans, up nearly 3/4 of a percentage point from the same period last year.
Obviously, that could mean yet another record setting foreclosure rate for the next quarter.
This poor performance has been apparently driven by 2 major factors — major job losses in the states of Ohio, Michigan & Indiana
as well as the collapse of the formerly booming real estate markets in such states as California and Arizona.
Sadly enouph, The Midwest in particular has been severely affected by a loss of jobs in manufacturing, such as in automobiles.

Home Market crises deepening

2007-08-21T14:39:00.000-07:00

According to an August story in the Reuters News network, the sinking (too strong a word?) United States housing market has caused an major surge in job losses at the country's financial services firms,
and the end is nowhere to be seen, sadly enouph.
Of 2007's cuts, a whopping 41% were connected to housing market woes, particularly the risky (and now extinct) subprime mortgage market. Employment cuts by real estate and construction firms were in excess of twenty thousand.
This figure is more than double that for the entire previous year.
Just in the past week alone, for instance, investment bank Bear Stearns Co's, credit card issuer Capital One Financial Corporation
as well as mortgage lenders Countrywide Financial Corporation and First Magnus Financial Corporation have announced well over eight thousand mortgage-related employment cuts.
There seems to be a certain pattern in effect here: employment cuts are increasing as credit losses deepen.
And while all of this is going on, home foreclosure filings surged ahead over ninety percent last month from a year earlier and rose nine percent from June, to 179,599, according to the Reuters news network and their sources.
It should be noted that it is only natural for mortgage workers to feel whipsawed. Nationwide, for instance, cut some five hundred positions just last week after having added nearly seven thousand positions from January to July, with increases in every single month.
Let's hope we finally get some good news after all of these soemwhat sad statistics.

Real Estate Investor News out of Hawaii

2007-08-09T11:49:00.000-07:00

According to a report in the 'Star Bulletin' newspaper,
a sort of high-level real estate market is flourishing in the Pacific State of Hawaii.
Luxury homes attract investors
A high-end real estate market is thriving in Hawaii
Even though this state has been popular for a very long time as a place to purchase a luxury second home as well as a resort market, various upgrades in transportation including the upcoming light rail system as well as technological advancements have combined to make it more viable for high-level buyers, who basically see it it as good price compared to certain other destinations, according to the newspaper story.
Other luxury real estate industry professionals in this tate have stated that they are also bullish on this market which is booming despite of various reports of declining inventory and ever higher interest rates on the larger loans. The luxury real estate professionals here report that showing activity and sales are actually ahead of the previous year. Continued renovation and reinvestment in the market will probably continue push the market higher according to many experts.

Quartery Forecasts for investors

2007-07-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

These are some primary United States economic statistics and indicators that are scheduled to be released within a few days, as the week is shortened by the July 4 National holiday. Thomson IFR Markets has generously and capably provided the median forecasts.
Their work is appreciated, and they are excellent as usual. According to AFX News and also Forbes magazine, and based on reports from the capital,
there has been a mild trend towards higher weekly jobless claims. They are predicted to rise about two thousand to 315,000 for the week ending on the 29th of June.
Apparently, this ‘is a sign that the so far firm US labor market may be softening a bit,’ states Roger Kubarych at HVB.
Mike Moran of Daiwa Securities relates that the increase in economic activity in the second quarter appears to be focused on manufacturing.
This particular uptick should become apparent in the June ISM manufacturing index. The median forecast is 55.4, marginally up from 55.0 in May. Global Insight economists Bryan Bethune and Nigel Gault state that particularly strong showings in the regional Fed manufacturing indexes ’suggest that manufacturing
continued to surf the inventory replenishment wave a little higher’ in month 6 of this year.
In other statistics, June’s non-farm payroll report is the big number for the markets this week. The higher weekly unemployment claims numbers are ‘why we do not expect the June number to be quite as strong as May’s 157,000 result,’ states Jacqui Douglas at TD Bank. The median forecast is for some 130,000 new jobs to be created and a substantial 4.5 pct unemployment rate.
Stay tune for more information and forecasts from the folks over at Thomson IFR Markets.

The latest employment data

2007-06-17T22:06:00.000-07:00

According to statistics made available by the OECD,
the number of unfilled job vacancies percentage in the United States for quarter one of 2007 was 37.2.
The leading & short term indicators, numbers and projections found here are compiled for several reasons, including data to help investors make
accurate predictions about the overall state of the national economy.
Additional investing, venture capital and general finance news at
The Finance and investment blog

This was the result of a statistical survey of the Dataset of Registered Unempemployment & general Job Vacancies.
Ipenet reports that varying sets of employment numbers paint the same picture: Slow job growth
There are 2 surveys used to measure employment numbers: the payroll survey and the household survey. The payroll survey is perhaps more ideal when it comes to tracking the varying levels & categories of employment as whole, and the household survey measures unemployment and employment-to-population ratios.
According to information from the US Fed News Service,
the number of job gains from opening & expanding private sector establishments was just over eight million, while the number of job losses from closing & contracting establishments. Additional labor dat may be obtained over at The Labor Statistics blog

Business Employment Dynamics (BED) data series include gross job gains and gross job losses at the establishment level by primary industry sector, plus gross job gains and gross job losses at the company echelon by employer size class

Mixed Economic Signals

2007-05-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

Mixed Real Estate Market Signals?

According to a recent article by renowned Associated Press writer Martin Crutsinger, the real estate market in general and the house market in particular
has been giving off a lot of confusing mixed signals as of late.......

For example, sales of new house increased last month (o4) by the largest amount in some fourteen odd years, and yet the median price of a new house actually dropped by the most sizeable amount on record. These rather odd indicators
have seemingly left no clear picture as to whether or not the the country's housing slump is finished. Real estae sellers and buyers a like are still quite wary
in this unpredictable atmosphere....
This is due to the fact that while sales of new one-family houses increased by some 16.2 percent in April,
the actual average price of a new house sold last month fell to $229,100, a record 11.1 percent decrease from the prior month!
Sales fell particularly in the Midwest, which saw a substantial four percent drop-off rate.
The country's economy as whole cooled down in the first quarter of 2007 to an annual adjusted growth rate of merely 1.3%, which is the weakest rate in 4 years, while the big slump in housing continued to weigh on the economy's overall performance.

Real Estate relasted news

2007-04-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

In a St.Petersburg Times editorial entitled 'The Real estate slowdown is coming home across area',
journalist CHUIN-WEI YAP stated in his April 16, 2007 article that, sadly, home sales are still down and the glut of unsold homes is way up, which is contradicting the optimists who predicted that the market would turn around by the spring 2007.

Only 2 years ago, 1 in 2 homes sold in any particular month. But today, the same period would see 1 in 20 sell.
He also reports that a new vocabulary is emerging in the real estate market, referring to terms such as "short sale," which means a seller getting less from his home sale than what he owes
in loans; and "home staging," which means the art of dressing up a home to look model-pretty just so a buyer might take another look at it.
...."Foreclosures have more than doubled," states one Linda Pichler, vice president of business development for Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Central Florida.
Let us hope that this recent trend of negative news does not continue for too much longer.

News

2005-12-13T16:13:00.000-08:00

Incidentally, I will also be sprinkling in financial/business news reports as well articles.

Welcome

2005-12-13T00:21:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone, welcome to the Business and Venture Capital Blog where you will find a comprehensive collection of data, articles and other pertinent information that pertains to the world of high finance, business opportunities, money and venture capital. Stay tuned for updates and new article postings on a continual basis. You are also welcome to post your own comments relating to business and venture capital.