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Nike's new marketing mojo

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:21:01 EST

Few outsiders have visited the third floor of the Jerry Rice Building at Nike's headquarters. Even most Nike employees know little about just what the staffers working here, on the north side of the company's 192-acre campus in Beaverton, Ore., actually do. A sign on the main entrance reads RESTRICTED AREA: WE HEAR YOU KNOCKING, WE CAN'T LET YOU IN, and it's only partly in jest. Inside, clusters of five or six employees huddle in side conference rooms where equations cover whiteboard walls. There are engineers and scientists with pedigrees from MIT and Apple. Leaks are tightly controlled; a public relations man jumps in front of a visitor who gazes at the computer screens for a little too long.

Mitt Romney's poor private equity memory

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:20:28 EST

Mitt Romney is straight out of GOP central casting for presidential candidates: a tall, confident family man whose greatest professional accomplishments were in the private sector rather than in government. Too bad he keeps flubbing his lines. Romney comes from the world of private equity, where investors are expected to develop investment theses -- easily digestible explanations for why a target company is underperforming, the specific steps required to turn it around, and why this particular group of investors is best qualified to do it.

Pinterest quietly profits off its users' links

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:36:34 EST

The social networking field's buzziest startup is under fire this week for not being completely transparent with its users.

Google's new 'entertainment device' is coming

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:14:48 EST

The tech world is all abuzz about Google's mysterious new "entertainment device."

FarmVille-opoly? Hasbro inks deal to make Zynga games

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:36:17 EST

Can't get enough of those virtual cows and crops from FarmVille? Good news, agrarians: Zynga toys and games are coming this fall.

Have big bank stocks finally turned a corner?

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:25:53 EST

Five big banks are forking over $26 billion to states and consumers to settle the robosigning foreclosure mess. You'd think that would be bad news for the four publicly traded banks that were part of the deal.

Fisker Auto's bad Karma

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:14:47 EST

The Fisker Karma is rolling onto the world automotive stage as car writers in the U.S. and Europe examine the car in person for the first time and take their initial laps behind the wheel. They could certainly be excused for seeing the car and its creator through rose-colored glasses. Both have been the recipient of more advance publicity than a Donald Trump presidential endorsement.

Big banks' bloated mortgage tab

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:15:37 EST

Not to be outdone by the U.S. attorneys general, four other federal agencies were quick to lay claim to $2.2 billion of the massive mortgage settlement reached Thursday with five of the nation's biggest mortgage lenders.

Kodak ditches digital camera business

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:59:17 EST

Kodak is exiting the digital camera business and it will instead license its brand name to other camera manufacturers, the company announced Thursday.

PepsiCo to cut 8,700 jobs

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:46:58 EST

PepsiCo announced plans on Thursday to cut about 8,700 jobs as part of an effort to save some $1.5 billion in costs.

'Ethical iPhone' protests hit Apple stores

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:38:16 EST

Protesters visited a half-dozen Apple stores around the world on Thursday to deliver petitions calling for reforms in the working conditions at factories run by Apple's suppliers in China and other overseas locations.

First Premier's $400-a-year credit card

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 09:38:01 EST

Would you pay $400 a year to own a credit card?

Nuts! Diamond Foods boots CEO. Stock plunges.

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:33:38 EST

Diamond Foods replaced its chief executive officer and chief financial officer and will have to restate its finances for the last two fiscal years because of bad accounting over payments to walnut farmers, the snack purveyor said on Wednesday.

Akio Toyoda: Toyota's comeback kid

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:47:40 EST

When the final tally was made for 2011, Toyota Motor, formerly the world's largest automaker, slipped to third place in production behind General Motors and Volkswagen. It's not surprising: Toyota has endured a string of calamities over the past three years -- natural and man-made -- that would make even the company's famous paranoia seem like sunny optimism. The latest is endaka, the strong yen that causes everything that Toyota manufactures in Japan to be more expensive and undermines its profitability. A November issue of Automotive News predicted "more misery" for Toyota as "sales slip, floods delay, shoppers stray."

Groupon stock plunges on net loss

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:05:11 EST

Welcome to the big leagues, Groupon. Shareholders punished the stock in after-hours trading Wednesday after the daily deals site posted a surprise loss for its first quarter as a public company.

Sprint sells 1.8 million iPhones but posts huge loss

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:34:42 EST

With the iPhone, Sprint is learning that it should be careful what it wishes for.

Caesar's stock soars 98% in debut

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:00:36 EST

Shares of Caesar's Entertainment spiked 98% in the casino operator's public debut Wednesday.

Trump moves in four blocks from the White House

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:20:31 EST

The Donald won't be moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But he is taking over an historic building four blocks away.

Bob Rodriguez: The best advice I ever got

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:24:57 EST

"In the fall of 1974 I was in graduate school at USC taking a portfolio-management investment course. The financial markets were in difficulty, and I didn't understand how securities were being sold at such depressed levels. I had only recently discovered Security Analysis by Graham and Dodd when we had a guest lecturer come in named Charlie Munger, who went on about this idea of value investing. After the class was over, I walked up to Charlie and asked him if there was one thing that I could do that would make me a better investment professional. His answer was, 'Read history, read history, read history.' And so I became a good historian, reading both economic and financial history as well as general history.

McDonald's shamrock shake goes nationwide

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:58:15 EST

McDonald's extreme-green shamrock shake is going nationwide for the first time, the fast food franchise revealed on Wednesday.