MID-DAY UPDATE: All that glitters is silver, Ford reports best quarter since 1998
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Here are today’s top headlines from the Marketplace Morning Report and from around the web.
The Federal Reserve meets today to talk monetary policy as the Fed is expected to start scaling back on some of the extraordinary measures it took during the financial crisis. Speculation over the meeting has pushed the dollar down this morning. Meanwhile, gold has been rising for weeks — and silver has also reached record highs.
Oil prices at current levels will not derail the global economic recovery, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Tuesday.
And Ford said this morning it made $2.6 billion last quarter. That’s the company’s best first quarter showing since 1998. It appears Ford has not been hurt yet by supply disruptions in Japan.
3M is raising its earnings expectations for the year, saying higher sales around the globe will offset the disruption to its business in Japan from the earthquake there.
Valero Energy reported a quarterly profit on Tuesday as the largest independent refining company benefited from processing cheaper grades of crude at its Midwest plants.
Delta Air Lines says raising fares should allow it to make up for the higher fuel prices that drove a $318 million loss in the first quarter.
Coach reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit as sales at its North American stores soared, but the upscale handbag maker warned that the disasters in Japan would dent results.
Facebook will launch a daily deals program in five cities today to compete with companies like Groupon and LivingSocial.
Archie is going international. The popular comic is going to start selling Spanish language titles on iTunes and smartphones. Veronica, Betty, Jughead will all be there. The company says the gags translate well. Apparently complaining about homework and shamelessly juggling girlfriends are universal.
Books are getting in on the product placement game. The Wall Street Journal reports for his upcoming travel memoir author Harry Hurt got freebies from companies like camping gear company Coleman and talked up the products in the narrative. I’m all for capitalism, but ads in the text? What’s next? What, a piece of work is a Big Mac? Do not go gently into that good Macy’s. This is the way the world ends — not with a bang, but a Pepsi.
To bumper cars. It seems only natural that you would use them to bump into the other bumper cars. Well not so — anymore — at one resort in the U.K. which has banned bumping for fear of being sued since the cars don’t have airbags. The resort says riders can have plenty of fun trying to dodge other people instead of running into them. It calls its bumper cars “dodgems.”
You can read the rest of today’s stories from the Marketplace Morning Report here.
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