the traders blog

Sesame Street and PNC Bank have launched a new campaign to help kids learn the value of money and to learn how to save and share. Elmo talked to The New York Times about the project. In one of the new Sesame Street episodes Elmo has the learn the value of waiting and the concept of deferred gratification when he wants to buy a Stupendous Ball. Understanding the value of money is crucial in today’s economy.

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thats funny

Federal Reserve Chairman will offer the Fed’s first press conference next Wednesday. It is a historical, unprecedented move by the Fed to offer a news conference. MarketWatch’s Greg Robb says the Fed is expected to stop its current bond-buying program in June. Robb says people will be listening to Bernanke very closely, especially with the economy stumbling and inflation concerns rising. Take a look:

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New data released by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that home sales climbed 11% in March, 2011 when compared to last month. Last month set a record low number of homes sold at 270,000. 300,000 new single-family homes were sold in March, 2011. It is good to see a bump over February’s figures, unfortunately, March 2011′s new home sales were still 10.3% below the March 2010 estimate of 384,000.

The Census Bureau also says the median sales price of new houses sold in March 2011 was $213,800. The average sales price was $246,800. The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of March was 183,000.

CNN/Money has a chart here showing the new home sales since 1963. The chart makes it obvious that the current level of new home sales is not good. At its peak, 1.4 million new homes were sold in a single month in July, 2005.

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can believe what i am reading, so unfair

Amazon.com, Inc. announced financial results for its first quarter, which ended March 31, 2011. Net sales increased 38% to $9.86 billion in the first quarter, compared with $7.13 billion in first quarter 2010. Net income decreased 33% to $201 million in the first quarter, or $0.44 per diluted share, compared with net income of $299 million, or $0.66 per diluted share, in first quarter 2010.

The results were weaker than expected. CNET says analysts were expecting earnings of $0.61 per share and Amazon only delivered $0.44 per share.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, reeled off the company’s numerous product launches over the past three months in a prepared statement. Bezos said, “In the last 90 days, we announced Kindle with Special Offers, Kindle Library Lending, Audible audiobooks on Kindle, Appstore for Android, Amazon for Windows Phone 7, Checkout by Amazon in both Germany and the U.K., a Kindle Store in Germany, Cloud Drive, Cloud Player, and Prime Instant Video – just to call out a few of the things we’ve been working on. We love inventing on behalf of customers and have never been more excited about the long-term opportunities.”

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thats funny

The UK’s GDP returned to modest growth in the 1st quarter of 2011. The UK GDP was up 0.5%. It is small growth, but it was certainly much better news than the shock contraction in the UK GDP during the last quarter of 2010.

Joe Grice, Chief Executive of the ONS, made the announcement. Take a look:

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does anyone know the real story

LinkedIn has released LinkedInsights data that reveals dateabout the top names of CEOs. The LinkedInsights data also found that CEOs in the United States often have four letter names (like Jack and Fred). Howard was the top CEO name in the U.S.

According to the LinkedInsights data, the top five names for male CEOs globally are:

Peter
Bob
Jack
Bruce
Fred

The top five names for female CEOs globally are:

Deborah
Sally
Debra
Cynthia
Carolyn

LinkedIn also found that ales professionals tend to have short names, around four letters (like Chip, Todd and Trey), while engineers tend to have longer names, around six letters (like Rajesh, Jeremy and Andrew). U.S. professionals in the food and restaurant industry tend to have longer French names (like Thierry, Philippe and Laurent).

Dr. Frank Nuessel, the editor of Names: A Journal of Onomastics and a professor of classical and modern languages at the University of Louisville, says, “It’s possible that sales professionals in the U.S. and male CEOs around the world use these shortened versions of their name as a way to be more approachable and accessible to potential clients. Interestingly enough, female CEOs appear to prefer to use their full names and not nicknames, which could signify that they want to be taken more seriously and want co-workers to think of them in a more professional light.”

Image: LinkedIn

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Rome wasnt built in a day!

U.S. GDP rose a meager 1.8% in the first quarter of 2011. This was a slowdown from the 3.1% growth in Q1 of 2010. CNN has a chart of GDP here that shows the past three years.

David “Danny” Blanchflower, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College, says the U.S. GDP does suggest slowing growth. He thought Bernanke’s press conference yesterday was a good idea even though Bernanke did not share a lot of information. Take a look:

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maybe this will change things

Bloomberg is reporting that silver climbed 28% in April – its biggest monthly game in 28 years. Silver was helped by a tumbling dollar.

There is debate about where silver goes from here. An article here says a 4,500-year-old ratio will enable silver to soar as the gold to silver ratio stabilizes. Meanwhile, Motley Fool warns silver will fall by 66%.

Silver climbed 4% on Thursday alone on the tumbling dollar. Reuters has rounded up some comments from analysts. One analyst says silver has the possibility to be “more aggressive and outperform gold.”

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I like this:)

Reuters report that there was a weird trade in Apple shares yesterday. A trade of just 100 shares was executed at $321.87, which was 7.5% lower than the closing price for Apple shares on Tuesday. Reuters says there were also unusual Apple trades on February, 2010 when Apple shares suddenly dipped 2% and then recovered minutes later.

The freaky trading in Apple shares is reminiscent of the May 6 flash crash last year. Like the flash crash, this could be a glitch or it could be market manipulation. Either way it is disturbing.

Seeking Alpha reports that there was also a flash crash in Jazz Pharmaceuticals on April 27.

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Starbucks is now the third largest restaurant chain according to Technomic’s annual listing of the top 500 U.S. restaurant chains in total U.S. sales. McDonald’s is #1 and Subway is #2. Starbucks jumped past Burger King and Wendy’s to grab the #3 slot.

The report also indicates that Five Guys Burgers and Fries is the fadtest growing chain in restaurant chains will sales over $200 million. Five Guys achieved torrid sales growth of 38% in 2010 vs. 2009.

Here is the Top 5 List of Top U.S. Restaurant Chains.

McDonald’s
Subway
Starbucks
Burger King
Wendy’s

Photo: Starbucks Corporation

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maybe this will change things