Bits & Pieces

Clash of the titans

The weakness of the US based car manufacturers was displayed when Toyota overtook GM the world's top car seller earlier this year. GM has not been giving up and noted higher sales attributed to its strong presence in Latin America and Asia. Meanwhile, it seems that customers in North America seem to associate Toyota with high quality and fuel efficiency (and rightly so), making up for the weaker sales on its domestic market. Toyota is expected to beat GM in annual sales for 2007. GM has to either take away Toyota's competitive advantages (superior quality etc.), or refocus their own core competencies (more on this story: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118491895284472882.html?mod=home_whats_news_us ).

Dow 14000

Yesterday, DJIA broke yet another thousand of points, springing doubts that it is just too high...

The importance of expectations

... and promptly fell 150 points today, as blue chips were releasing disappointing Q2 earnings data. Google's shares went down 5.2% despite quarterly profit grow of 28%, Microsoft also fell despite growing profit... just shows once again, that the markets expectations are the most important (See: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118493115406772925.html?mod=home_whats_news_us ).