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• Disappointing Black Friday – Will Cyber Monday Save the Day? - 30 November 2009

American consumers are still hard-pressed for cash, and are likely to remain so for some time to come, but retailers were nonetheless hopeful that Black Friday would coax shoppers to use credit cards and dip into the household budget to stock up for the festive season. Certainly, shoppers turned out in their thousands to take advantage of Black Friday specials, with many retailers opening at midnight on Thanksgiving in an effort to have first claim on consumer dollars. However, when the dust and excitement settled, it was revealed that Black Friday had been disappointing as shoppers had spent less on average than they did a year ago.

• Ethical Consumerism - 23 November 2009

With it being an accepted fact that consumer spending is a driving force behind the US economy, as we head into the festive season, retailers are no doubt hopeful that consumers will ease the negative impact of the economic crisis that has held the country in its grip all year. However, as consumers continue to grapple with job losses and pay cuts, which have led many to lose their homes and other assets, they have been forced to trim down their shopping lists and redefine what they may have viewed as necessities in the past. This redefining may very well also have a negative impact on ethical consumerism, a practice which is also referred to as ethical purchasing, ethical consumption, green consumerism and moral purchasing.

• Russell Indexes: Tracking Investment Manager Performance - 19 November 2009

Launched in 1984 by Russell Investments as a tool to measure distinct market sectors and track the performance of US investment managers, the Russell Indexes are widely respected in investment circles. This is evidenced by the fact that in November 2009 a total of $4.3 trillion in investment assets were benchmarked to Russell Indexes, accounting for 63.3 percent of all assets benchmarked by institutional investors. Russell Indexes consist of the broad-market based Russell 3000 Index, along with a number of sub-components such as the Russell 2500 Index, Russell 2000 Index and Russell 1000 Index.

• Consumer Activity under the Spotlight in Coming Weeks - 16 November 2009

With the famed Black Friday less than two weeks away, and consumers suffering from what has been coined as "frugal fatigue", the US consumer is under the spotlight as Wall Street investors look for signs that the US economy may, in fact, be on the road to recovery, spurred on by consumers who are tired of economizing and may throw caution to the winds for their festive season shopping. With Thanksgiving in the US taking place on the fourth Thursday of November each year, the Friday following Thanksgiving is the unofficial beginning of a festive season shopping season which has been known to continue into the New Year. Referred to as "Black Friday" because the annual consumer spending spree drags a lot of retailers out of the red and into the black financially speaking, many consumers take the day off work, descending on retail stores in their hordes to spend some quality time with their credit cards. While this may sound like a nightmare to many people, Black Friday devotees insist that it is well worth the effort, as competition is stiff and prices are often reduced to cost or below for a predetermined number of items to lure buyers into stores - the trick is to be there first.

• Diversifying in Detroit - 12 November 2009

With one in three wage-earners in Detroit currently unemployed, primarily due to the crisis the in the auto industry, this once thriving city has been hard hit by the economic downturn in the United States. Many of the city's talented younger generation are leaving Detroit to search for job opportunities elsewhere, which experts believe is a cause for concern and could spell disaster for the future of the city. But amidst all the doom and gloom, there are optimistic entrepreneurs who are determined to put a positive spin on the changes taking place in Detroit, by introducing and developing new industries, the majority of which are totally unrelated to the auto industry.

• The Role of a Greensheet in IPO Investing - 9 November 2009

Just as in any type of trading on the stock market, investing in Initial Public Offerings is not without risks. Weighing the pros and cons of an IPO investment can be greatly assisted by checking out the S-1 form lodged with the Securities and Exchange Commission as a requirement for going public. By doing this investors not only get a good idea of the future prospects of the company, but also of what would be a fair price to pay for the stock.

• Investing in IPOs - 5 November 2009

The price of any financial asset traded on the stock market is determined by the age-old forces of supply and demand. Regarding initial public offerings (IPO) that have no trading history the question may arise as to how an analyst may value an IPO share price. There are at least two schools of thought regarding investing in IPOs, one being that the lack of historical information on share price performance provides a buying opportunity, and the other being that because IPOs have not yet been tested on the market, they present a higher risk factor.

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