For more details (source): http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/02/how-gm-avoided-a-30-billion-loss-with-a-little-juggling/
GM has demonstrated once again how to guggle with numbers to avoid showing a huge loss on their financial statements under GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). By having intangible asset as their biggest non-current asset, it protected GM from having a negative equity of $6.3 billion. Under GAAP, adjustments must be made to goodwill which in turns reduce incomes; their income for 2012 would have been higher if they did not choose to writedown. The reason why GM still ended up with a huge profit was due to another intangible entry by booking tax benefit, which put GM back into good standing. For more details (source): http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/02/how-gm-avoided-a-30-billion-loss-with-a-little-juggling/ "It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price" Last week, Statistic Canada published new employment numbers. Paid employment declined by 46000. Total employment (include self employed) fell by 22000. Yet the unemployment rate fell to 7%, lowest level since 2008. Why is that? Unemployment rate only includes individuals who are in active job search. For those who have given up will no longer be included in the labour force, hence the unemployment rate decreased. The decline in participation corresponds to the disappearance of 355,000 Canadian workers. If putting 355,000 workers back into labour force, they would add $38 billion to GDP, which is close to $15 billion of government revenue. Article: http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/02/ canadians-giving-world-work/ Last Friday, LinkedIn hit record high with an increase of 20% in stock price. Their quarterly showed strong growth and went over Wall Street expectations. Its longstanding recruiting business was one of the major contributors, in which providing data to corporate headhunters had grew 90%. Advertising of career advise and other professional content had also increased sale by 68%.
RBC Wealth Management and The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) published a study analyzing the increasing trend of young professionals export their expertise and wealth to a different country. The EIU surveyed 300 internationally mobile wealthy individuals (IMWIs) who live, work or spend their time outside their home country and have asset over US$1million. "Whether you see yourself as risk averse or more of a risk taker is really a function of your capacity to understand the risks that you're taking" United States' GDP unexpectedly dropped in the fourth quarter due to:
Economists expect GDP bounce back in the first quarter of 2013 meanwhile USD will remain attractive because of:
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