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The NASDAQ Internet Index is up 46% in April 2014 over the past year, even though it was down 12% in March-April 2014 as investors grew wary over high price rises for stocks in the "cloud," "big data" and "social" fields. Investors turned to old tech stocks such as Microsoft which were seen as value stocks because of lower price and valuations. Gallagher suggests watching the IPO market for signals of where this market is headed. In the 1st quarter 2014 companies raised $10.6 billion in the U.S., the busiest quarter since 2000. 103 companies submitted initial IPO filings in the same quarter. Venture Capital has invested $29.4 billion in 2013, an increase of 7% from 2012, according to MoneyTree Report. Even though the NASDAQ Composite Index is down 5% over the last 30 days, Gallagher points out that the NASDAQ has witnessed 4 drops of about 10% since 2010.

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Slowing car sales are expected for Detroit auto manufacturers as Japanese sales recover after the tsunami and earthquake. A major reason for higher sales was pentup demand. Sales reached an annualized 14 million level for 2012. Research firm Polk says the average time a new car was owned went up to 71.4 months, and used cars 49.9 months, in Feb 2012. This is 23% above the level of the third quarter of 2008.

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Earnings of the typical American man working full-time year round declined in 2010, and is now in inflation adjusted terms below the level in 1978, according to the U.S. Census Department. The income of a typical Ameircan family has declined for three consecutive years and is now at $49,445 for 2010. This is the level reached in inflation adjusted terms in 1996. 15.1% of the American people lived below the poverty line in 2010, and 22% of children lived below the poverty line. The poverty line is set at $22,314 for a family of four in 2010. Statisics from the U.S. Census Department.

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Kraft reaches an agreement to acquire Cadbury at 830 British pence per share in a meeting between Ms. Rosenfeld, Kraft CEO, and Cadbury CEO, Mr. Carr. This is about 50% premium over the price of Cadbury shares in Sept, 2009. Cadbury CEO Carr was opposed to the merger of the two companies and stated he saw "no strategic, operational, managerial or financial reason" for the two companies to merge. Cadbury described the Kraft management as one that had unattractive categories and which "under-delivers." In the end Carr was pushed into the deal because hedge funds had acquired about 30% of Cadbury shares in hopes of making gains, creating the danger that Cadbury could end up with a lower offer. The acrimony is likely to make a merger of the two companies difficult and costly. Kraft coveted Cadbury for its penetration of emerging markets, but lacks the experience and talent in this area of its own to carry out a smooth merger of vastly different companies with different focus.

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Its hard to miss $1 billion in cash. This is what Price Waterhouse and Coopers, the outside auditor for Satyam Computer's books missed in its audit of Satyam. Price Waterhouse has been the outside auditor for 5 years, with the audits handled by a partner in India. This fictitious cash balance could lead to stricter standards and reporting in India.

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Pizza chain, Pizza Patron, which sells mostly to Hispanic customers, with stores in the south and southwest where there are many Hispanics. Started in 1986, in a Dallas Hispanic neighborhood, the chain is now adapting to marketing to abicultural second generation of young Hispanic people. It uses the Spanish slogan- bueno, bonito y barato (good, pretty and low priced) to let Spanish speaking customers know that Pizza Patron gets it and has specialty pizzas for Mexican holidays.

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Aldi store name comes from the store name Albrecht's Discount for stores opened by 1961 in Germany by the Albrecht brothers. The brothers worked at their mother's grocery store in Essen Germany, following their father's disability and not being able to work in the mines. After serving in the war the two brothers expanded the small family grocery store into a chain of about 15 stores. By 1955 this chain had expanded to about 100 stores, and in 1961 the chain took on the Aldi name. The brothers separated their business in later years with Karl taking on the Aldi Sud stores in southern Germany and expanding into UK, Australia and the U.S. Theo, the younger brother, ran the Aldi Nord stores in northern Germany, of what was then West Germany. Aldi Nord expanded in Europe and acquired Trader's Joe in 1979. The two brothers agreed to stay out of each others territory in this unique arrangement. The Albrechts felt strongly in the post war conditions in Germany that "customers with very limited income should be able to eat and drink quality food," according to a statement by Aldi Sud. Karl Albrecht saw this as his calling- to find creative ways to do this. One way was to get rid of other unnecessary expenses such as display and advertising that could be passed on as savings to customers. In this sense Aldi laid the ground for American retailer Wal-Mart. By 1955 Aldi had 100 stores in West Germany. Expansion thereafter made Aldi a household name in most parts of Europe and the U.S. Karl and Theo remained reclusive throughout their life, more so after Theo's kidnapping in Essen in 1971 for a ransom of 7 million deutsche marks. Karl operated the Aldi Sud stores till he was 75 and passed away in 2014 at the age of 94. Ikea founder from Sweden also has a similiar history in being very private, frugal, and living in a small town in Switzerland, providing direction to the company well past his eightieth year. He pioneered the concept of well designed quality furniture at affordable prices that passes on savings to customers. The same concept and vision inspired Ikea founder- that people of average means and younger families starting a home, should be able to afford furniture quality and design in their homes....

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U.S. auto sales in May 2012 increased by 26% over the prior year. Toyota sales were up 87% to 203,000 bringing its market share up by 5 percentage points to 15.2%. Honda's sales were up 48% to 134,000, according to Autodata. Overall seasonally adjusted sales were up from the 11.7 million vehicles in 2011 to 13.8 million vehicles in May 2012. Ford's sales were up to 216,000, with a 30% increase in sales of F-series pickup trucks. A cause for concern for Ford would be the 35% of sales in May to rental companies and fleet buyers.

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There appears to be a conscious deliberate decision by the Chinese government and policymakers to shift the economy from low-end technologically unsophisticated and polluting industry, that pays low wages with little worker protections, towards technologically sophisticated, environment respecting, and higher wage industry. This does not mean textiles are out, but textile companies that are larger better managed, able to introduce newer technologies and produce higher quality product- that command higher prices in the world market and therefore also able to sustain decent wages and worker protection- are in. Phasing out the smaller shops and the poorly run or deliberately polluting and labor exploiting companies run from Hong Kong or elsewhere. The general shift is to be a leader in products which are value added either by technology or human capital, such as better trained more knowledgeable workers. This is similiar to the shift Japan made after the sixties, as it moved from a rural to a urbanized society and textile companies like Kanebo became technologically sophisticated, while small shops withered out, and Japan gradually shifted into automobiles, electronics and chip making. The noticeable difference is that Japan with a prewar industrial base and a smaller market protected its home market for Japanese companies, whereas China lacking this prewar industrial base let foreign investment and companies overseas bring in equipment and use low cost Chinese labor to supply western markets. And it turned a blind eye to labor protections, at least till it had built up its own industrial base and knowhow with policy requiring Chinese partners in industry and technology transfer. Economic winds are also doing the job. Inflation, Chinese goods prices increased by 4.6% in May according to the U.S. Commerce Department. This is a result of the Chinese government requiring worker protections and decent wages and stricter pollution enforcement resulting in increased energy costs. For years the U.S. and other countries depended on China for low cost goods and the demand for low cost goods depressed margins which resulted in legitmate costs such as pollution control technology, worker protection and decent wages, being ignored. China is now left with heavy environmental cleanup costs, and a bad image internationally as a heavy polluter. The huge external trade surpluses China has built up exceeding a trillion dollars have pushed up the value of the yuan making Chinese goods costlier in world markets, and apparel and shoe makers in developed countries seeing Vietnam as a better lowcost alternative. The story of this phase of Chinese industrial development can be seen in a town like Honghe, a 90 minute drive from Shanghai, which has half of its 100,000 residents working in 100 factories and 8000 shops that knit, dye, package and ship some 200 million sweaters a year, bringing in according to local government estimates $650 million a year. Now many of these shops are idle and mirant workers are returning home. To see the subtler signs of the Chinese policymakers hand note that even visa policies have been tightened to make it harder for foreign buyers to visit Chineses factories and trade shows. Also the Chinese government has raised the minimum age for workers in these factories from 16 to age 18 and so on. And the impact is being felt in places like Honghe near Shanghai, Shengzhou another city near Shanghai which makes one third of the world's neckties, and in Dongguan in Guangdong where its toy, shoes shops close. The change also shows how quickly things can change in the world economy. Only 3 years earlier in 2005, Jiaxing Yishangmei Fashion Company, a family owned company was booming and had just landed Walmart Stores as a customer. Now Walmart no longer sources from this company. Analysts say that the Chinese sweater industry was probably overbuilt, with about 6 cities in China claiming to produce more than 100 million sweaters annually. A wave of consolidation could boost efficiency, and bring pressures to innovate rater than compete only on price. And many Chinese economists, and policymakers think China has relied too much on cost-cutting and simple production models to increase exports. A researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences thinks such a high dependence on foreign trade is not good for China. For the US and Japan this researcher says that trade is equivalent to 20% of gross national product and by contrast for China trade is equivalent to an extreme of 75% of GNP. ...

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The slowdown in China, the collapse of oil prices, and depreciation in emerging market currencies, suggest that low inflation in the U.S is likely to continue in 2016. This will make it harder for the U.S. Federal Reserve under Yellen to increase interest rates in 2016.

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Binyamin Applebaum cites different experts on how U.S. Fed policy could play out in 2017-2019. He cites Fed governor Dudley that there is increased uncertainty under the Trump administration, and other economists who say that aging population, lack of innovation, and steady growth under the Obama administration with falling unemployment, make it unlikely that growth will jump well above 2%. The Fed's own forecasts are for for under 2% growth in 2017 and 2018, and Applebaum says this is not expected to change by much. Janet Yellen does not see a huge stimulus as a positive, says Applebaum, because it would increase the deficit at the wrong time. He cites Yellen who prefers to see more fiscal space now that unemployment is down to 4.6%. Steady growth in the view of Fed officials has taken up much of the backlog of people looking for work since the 2008 crisis. Yellen sees some fiscal space as desirable with high debt to GDP ratio at 77 percent, so that the government could respond to some adverse event in the future. A Republican Congress is also averse to sudden increases in the deficit. See the link to views about the uncertainty of how things can play out in a separate article by Neil Irwin of NYT. ...

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GM's operating income in European operations since January 2010 is a negative $2.34 billion. The continuing loss in European operations comes at a time when GM's performance is weakening in the U.S. GM is facing more competition from Japanese makers as they recover from the effects of the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011. GM had 82 selling days of Chevy Cruzes and 109 selling days of Malibus in dealer inventory in Jan 2012. Analysts estimate lower earnings of 42 cents per share for the last quarter of 2011. GM is freezing the salaries of 26,000 salaried employees and addressing a shortfall in its pension fund by switching to 401(K) contributions to reduce the risk.

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The oil sands project by the Syncrude consortium which includes 12% ownership by Petro-Canada came in at twice the the original US$4.1 billion estimate. Petro -Canada faces similiar problems in its own project to produce 280,000 barrels a day by 2014. The project is expected to cost US $24.8 billion. Cost are rapidly escalating for oil sands projects and it require very good project execution skills. Oil price below $60 could change the viability of these projects.

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The engineering changes in the design of the 787 Boeing Dreamliner provide an experience in humidity levels, altitude levels, turbulence, and roominess that is not dramaically different but enough to provide a noticeably better experience. Nobumi Matsuda, who runs an eye clinic in Japan and is studying the eye health of pilots, says he expected more, that humidity levels were not enough. Boeing used the construction of the body of the jet using super strong plastics instead of aluminium, to create a small increase in humidity levels. The humidity level inside the Dreamlier is 10-15% compared to 4-7% in other airplanes. By pressurizing the cabin to lower altitudes there is a 6% increase in oxygen absorbed at the 6000 feet level at which it is set than the 8000 feet level, according to Boeing. Michael Grepo, a computer systems expert taking the Tokyo to Frankfurt flight on ANA, says he experienced an improvement in breathing, dryness of the nose and contact lens, but it was not a huge difference. Thorsten Hoffmann, a German sales executive says he did not notice till he got off the flight, when he realized that he felt good, had slept better. Othe changes are big overhead bins. The large windows are supposed to reduce motion sickness and provide great views on takeoff and landing. Boeing says "while it can be argued that the passenger comfort improvements are incremetal, the combination of so many improvements in one airplane is revolutionary in our opinion." At the customer level these are proving less revolutinary and more of a subtle type that add up to a noticeable improvement. Boeing now has on its hands a remarkable sales success, with 870 Dreamliners ordered by 59 of the world's airlines. A big factor from the airlines point of view is high fuel prices. The 787 is 20% more fuel efficient than the comparable size Boeing 767....

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Sacramento is the first city going through an amazing transformation from a city with urban sprawl to a city with its own plan that is trying to bring residents closer without sprawl, and planning the layout from scratch so that residents can live without the long commutes and can bike to work or use other transportation. It has a socalled Blueprint which was developed by a coalition of ordinary citizens, politicians, developers and environmentalists. Behind this Blueprint is the dedication, the insight, ability at effective persuasion of Mr. McKeever Sacramento leading advocate for the Blueprint, using a model which showed what Sacramento would look like un the future and the impact on traffic, job growth and pollution depending on which way the houses were built, nearer jobs or distant from jobs. McKeever took this database, software and computer to townhall type get togethers in which people tweaked the models to see what impact it would have on pollution and traffic, even letting them play with it all day in a kind of display of grassroots democracy at work. He also showed how this would help developers by providing additional business of a different type than their typical lots and typical urban sprawl type construction of individual homes. By spreading their business they would do better if one type of housing suffered. This is what has happened in the current downturn and the housing demand and values of housing have done much better where they followed the Blueprint as this took account of higher gasoline prices and the bad effects of urban sprawl. Now neighbors can talk to each other walk down to where the community places like restaurants, library etc are. It has a feeling of community. Between 2003 and 2007 the number of projects with apartments condominiums and townhouses for sale in the region increased by 533%, while the number of subdivisions with homes on lots bigger than 5500 square feet fell by 21%, according to housing-research firm Hanley Wood Market Intelligence....

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Harry Markovitz who invented Portfolio Theory and won the Nobel Prize in 1990 on the economic crisis and solutions. His idea in portfolio theory is that you reduce risk by creating a portfolio of uncorrelated assets. Owning GM and Ford together is more risky because they are correlated. The securities owned by banks were not not portfolio type with uncorrelated risk, they were all of one type in the mortgage securties industry. He goes to the heart of the problem saying until all these securities are scrutinized and underlying mortgagesare scrutinized, sorted out down to the individual zip code level, and this is not as complicated as it seems given the amount of resources that can be thrown at this problem, and given what is at stake, and they are striped of their lack of transparency, the country and the global economies that are intertwined with America's problems cannot see a solution to this problem. And this is true for the banks like Bank of America and Chase and the government run banks like the FDIC Indymac bank, where only a small fraction of homeowners can be helped with loan modifications to make monthly payments affordable, as a big part of the mortgage loans they hold or service are in the form of mortgage securtities where they don't make the decisions. Unless mortgage securities are sorted out to restore transparency and the government steps in with help and mandates a direction, the foreclosure process will lead to dropping property prices and further deterioration and economic stagnation similiar to the experience of Japan. Markovitz says it could take a year to do this. He says "the valuation process will take as long as takes, but it is the primary step toward effectively utilizing the very controversial bailout and avoiding the structural problem of a stagnant economy." Writes Gordon Crovitz of WSJ, "to put the issue in probability terms, the odds are very remote and nonexistent that the economy can recover until these basic steps are taken."...

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With unemployment at 11% and inflation at 9%, public finances in Rio de Janeiro state dire to the point of delaying payments to public servants,including police and teachers, and corruption scandals affecting most politicians and parties, the mood in Brazil at the time of the Olympics is one of anger and indifference. Ordinary Brazilians feel that the $12 billion spent on the Olympics could have been better spent on education, health care and improving basic public services such as the bus system. The decision to host the Olympics was made by the Lula government at the height of the commodities boom. With the collapse of commodities prices and the debt run up by the federal and local government Brazil faces a contracting economy- a 3.8% drop in GDP in 2015- and rising unemployment, increasing inflation, the climate is very different in 2016.

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Ford's ways to boost fuel economy in the immediate short run. Putting Eco-Boost engines, reducing weight, using aerodynamic materials, power assisted steering, and doing this on the Ford Explorer.

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Ford plans to reduce the weight of its F-150 pickup truck by about 700 pounds, a 15% reduction in weight, by switching parts of the body from steel to aluminium. The new F-150 pickup truck is designed to be introduced in 2014 and capable of meeting new fuel efficiency standards through 2020. This would enable a 25% increase in fuel efficiency and help meet the Obama administration fuel efficiency standards of 2011, which require the U.S. vehicle fleet to average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.