Online Real Estate Sector Update

The U.S. housing market is still struggling despite the lowest mortgage interest rates in nearly 60 years, with average 30-year fixed rate loan interests bottoming at 4.21% in October. But while the interest rates have eased, credit norms have become tougher. During the third quarter, 13% of bank loan officers surveyed by the Federal Reserve reported that

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Blue Nile, WebMD Seeing Success With Mobile Apps

According to Forrester, online retail sales in the United States will increase 16% over the year to $52 billion this holiday season. In a survey of 4,700 U.S. online consumers surveyed for the report, 37%said they expect to make holiday purchases on the Web this year, compared with 30% in 2009. Mobile phones are also

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Oracle’s Shopping List

Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) reported strong results last week driven by its Sun acquisition. With the acquisition, Oracle is competing aggressively against HP and IBM in addition to its age-old rivalry with SAP. Let’s take a closer look.

RIM’s International Footprint Widening

Research in Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM) last week reported strong third quarter results that beat all estimates. On the other hand, research firms and analysts have been reporting on dismal performance of its BlackBerry phones compared to that of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android phones. Let’s dig deeper.

Governments Meddling In Microfinance

Earlier last week, the Andhra Pradesh state government passed a bill restricting the interest rates and debt collection methods followed by the microfinance industry. To control collection measures, the bill restricts recovery agents to collecting debts only at the district government office. The bill also restricts the frequency of debt collection to once a month

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Havoc In The For-Profit University Sector

For-profit educational institutions are under tighter scrutiny with Senate and House committees examining their admission process, which seems to mislead applicants, targets veterans and registers student default rates at least double those of traditional universities. According to a Congressional report released earlier this month, for-profit colleges have high dropout rates, poor results, and high loan

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Leapfrog Continues To Execute

According to market researcher The NPD Group, traditional toy sales in the U.S. remained relatively flat during the first half of 2010 with total sales of $7.771 billion compared with $7.748 billion a year ago. In Europe’s five largest toy markets, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K., revenue increased 5% over the year led

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EDA Players At Annual Highs

Gartner forecasts worldwide semiconductor revenue for 2010 to increase 31.5% over the year to $300 billion. In 2011, growth is expected to slow significantly to 4.6% to $314 billion. During the year, the memory segment is expected to post the strongest growth, with revenues increasing 49.8%. According to the report, smartphones, mobile PCs, and media

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