Market Updates – Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Citigroup (NYSE:C), General Electric (NYSE:GE), Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS)
The Labor Department announced that consumer prices have remained unchanged through February, indicating that consumers aren’t anticipating inflation despite the zero interest rate that has been set by the Fed and the expanding economy. With the Fed’s most recent announcement that interest rates will continue at zero, this is good news for investors.
Some more good news is that initial jobless claims have declined to a seasonally adjusted 457,000 this week, according to the Labor Department. The four-week average for initial claims has also declined, to a seasonally adjusted 471,250. In global news, Greece appears to be preparing to ask the International Monetary Fund and the Eurozone for a monetary bailout. The European nations debt ratio has gotten out of control recently, and riots have been the result of their efforts to reduce government programs.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has had a good week, and has seen it’s shares get a nice price bump from positive news reports on its anticipated Windows Phone 7 Series line of cell-phones. According to American Banking News, Citigroup (NYSE:C) has maintained it’s ‘buy’ rating for Microsoft Corporation and raised the company’s price target up a dollar, to $32.00. The American bank also anticipates Microsoft to report earnings per share of $2.05, four cents above the consensus approximation of $2.01, for this year and $2.26, four cents above the consensus estimate for 2011.
General Electric (NYSE:GE) is apparently betting on solar technologies for the future. According to reports, G.E. is focusing a large amount of its research and development from four of its largest separate research branches on thin solar panels called “photovoltaic” (PV) technologies. Danielle Merfeld, G.E’s lead solar R&D leader, is quoted as saying “After having completed an exhaustive survey of the PV landscape, we determined that thin films were the optimum path for GE… GE researchers are innovating across our four global research centers—literally around the clock—to deliver a breakthrough product to market.”
The world’s most profitable securities firm, Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS), has appointed a head to its Chinese equity markets branch. Thomas Deng has been picked by GS to arrange more equity fundraising by Chinese companies. Deng has been GS’ chief China strategist and a managing director of their Hong Kong branch since 2007. Chinese companies raised approximately 13% of global share sales underwritten by banks in 2009, and their percentage is continuing to grow.
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