The demand for oil in China declined by 4% in December. That is the steepest monthly demand decline in the last 10 years and second monthly demand decline in a row.
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From the monthly archives:
January 2009
Panasonic, the world’s largest maker of plasma TVs in the world, reported its first quarterly loss in six years. The problem? Slumping global demand for electronics goods and a strong yen.
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I absolutely love sushi, but I think I’ll stay far away from this particular sushi delicacy.
A bumbling Japanese chef put seven customers in hospital by serving them toxic blowfih testicles.
Blowfish, although extremely poisonous if not prepared properly, is considered a delicacy in Japan and is prepared by specially-licensed chefs for consumption by thrill-seeking gourmets.
The seven [...]
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Inflation in Australia dropped by the most in 11 years in the Q4 of 2008, falling by -0.3%.
Consumer confidence fell in January, business sentiment was negative for a 12th straight month in December and the unemployment rate hit a two-year high.
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IBM (IBM: 126.96 -0.58 -0.45%) announced another round of layoffs last week. This time 2,800 people.
IBM did say that the slowdown was confirmed to North America and Europe, and went on to crow out how strong its business in Brazil, India, and China still is.
“We had very, very good growth in Brazil, at growth of [...]
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Chinese solar power company, Sunteach Power, raised its Q4 and full-year 2008 revenue guidance from $1.85 to $1.87 billion to $1.91 to $1.93 billion.That’s good, right?
At the same time, Suntech (STP: 15.18 -0.81 -5.07%) announced that it would lay off 800 (8% of workforce) of its employees.
Chopping staff is an odd move for a company [...]
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Research company comScore (SCOR: 16.04 -0.23 -1.41%) reported that the number of people using the internet hit 1 billion for the first time in December.
It also says that 18% of those users are from China. A whopping 41% of that 1 billion users were from Asia.
North America only produced 18% of those users.
The future of [...]
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Tens of thousands of Chinese factories have been shut down.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, six million workers in China have returned to their rural interior homes after losing their jobs in the costal cities.
“Out of the migrant workers that have returned home, about 20 percent have done so because the plant where they [...]
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One of the reasons that Chinese save so much money is that China’s health care coverage is so bad. Chinese families have had to either save money or go without life saving surgeries.
The Chinese government announced a new $124 billion health care initiative that will provide health care to 90% of its citizens.
The hope is [...]
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Portable GPS maker TomTom said that its Q4 sales would fall 1 million units short of previous forecasts. That is the second time in 2008 that TomTom was forced to lower its forecast.
That begs the question of how Garmin (GRMN: 30.86 -0.64 -2.03%) is doing. Garmin says that business is still strong, but I am [...]
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