Posted by Katharine Crnko
For Marketplace Morning Report, Thursday July 21, 2011
Here are today’s top headlines from the Marketplace Morning Report and from around the web.
Well here in the U.S. with 12 days to go before a potential default there’s no real news when it comes to raising the federal debt ceiling. Except it’s looking increasingly possible that there will be a short term increase in the nation’s credit limit to give Congress and the President more time to reach a deal.
The ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said Thursday there was a 50-50 chance it would lower the long-term U.S. credit rating within the next three months, according to Market News International.
Now let’s get to what observers are calling a critical make-or-break meeting in Brussels. European leaders are poised to sign off on a second bailout for Greece to try and stop the spread of the European debt crisis. The package being worked out is likely to send Greece into what’s called a selective default.
More people applied for first time jobless benefits last week according to the Labor Department. Meaning layoffs are on the rise, and the job market’s weak.
AT&T said this morning its subscriber growth slowed down last quarter after rival Verizon launched a version of the iPhone in February.
Here in this country this morning Express Scripts and Medco Health Solutions say they want to get together in a $29 billion deal. Both companies manage drug benefits for health insurers and the government.
Whirlpool is reporting a second-quarter loss largely due to the settlement of Brazilian collection dispute, but its adjusted results topped Wall Street’s
expectations.
PepsiCo reported higher quarterly earnings Thursday, helped by a 10 percent increase in snack sales and its acquisition of a Russian beverage company.
Morgan Stanley reported a second-quarter loss of 38 cents per share on Thursday, beating expectations.
Eli Lilly reported lower second-quarter earnings due to competition from generic forms of its Gemzar cancer drug, but overall company sales beat Wall Street forecasts.
Chinese video streaming site Xunlei said today it’s gonna postpone its initial public offering on the NASDAQ because of what it calls difficult market conditions.
Shares of the real estate website Zillow more than doubled after going public yesterday.
A British jewelry designer says he’s created the world’s most expensive yacht. Stuart Hughes claims the 98-foot boat is worth $4.5 billion. The yacht’s exterior, dining room, rails, anchor and sleeping quarters are all made of thousands of pounds of gold and platinum. There’s even a liquor bottle made from a rare 18.5 karat diamond. But some yachting enthusiasts say the boat is way overpriced. Because it’s missing something the previous most expensive yacht had its own missile defense system.
To a job advertisement in the UK that asked for applicants who wanted to be a nail technician. Previous nail experience was preferable but not essential. But the company that placed the ad knew something was wrong when several beauticians applied for the job. They didn’t mean those kind of nails. The job was with a construction company.
You can read the rest of today’s stories from the Marketplace Morning Report here.
Here are the songs we played:
- Lead the Way — Szjerdene Buy
- SKalypso Vamp (Nickodemus Remix) — Jeremy Sole’s MusaicsBuy
- Little Man — Little DragonBuy
- You are the Ocean — Phantogram Buy
- The Baghdad Sun — Apollo BrownBuy
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