• Boeing's (NYSE:BA) new head of its commercial aircraft division, Jim Albaugh, said the long-awaited Dreamliner test will happen by yearend

• Citigroup (NYSE:C) plans to sell Bellsystem 24, a Japanese telemarketing company, to Bain Capital for $1 billion, bringing to $10.8 billion the dollar amount Citi has raised from sales of Japanese assets

• Hedge fund Paulson & Co. reported in a September 30 filing Citigroup (NYSE:C) holdings of 300 million shares, valued at $1.45 billion

• Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) raised its bid for Tandberg ASA to $3.4 billion, or about an 11% increase, and extended its offer to December 1

• According to a Bloomberg report, Mitsubishi UFJ has hired JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) to manage an $11 billion secondary offering, Japan's largest ever. The company plans to sell about 2.5 billion common shares

• Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) said it plans to spin off its 83% stake in Mead Johnson Nutrition

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At the G20 finance summit in St Andrews, the problem of unemployment was raised as well as 'uneven growth'; Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has said that 'exit strategies' will have to be considered.  Kudrin apparently believes that a second wave of crisis is unlikely.  Goldman Sachs will not become the key adviser to Rusal on its intended $30 billion stock-market listing, a decision which is 'mutual'; the Bank of America Merrill Lynch will take its place.  Apparently Goldman Sachs may have been deterred by Rusal owner Oleg Deripaska's problems in the US, fueled by allegations that he is involved with organized crime.  The government has nearly completed the initial development of an agency designed to help provide subsidies for exports loans and regulate export tariffs.  Mitsubishi has acquired a 40% stake in Russia's Rolf Import.  ...

Daimler (DAI) has revealed its optimism about the U.S. truck market stating that the market has bottomed. The company has predicted that the North American truck market sales would rise 10% in 2010. Citing possible improvement in consumer and housing markets in the U.S. due to government stimulus, Andreas Renschler – a member of Daimler's board – has commented that demand for trucks carrying consumer goods or construction materials would revive.  In line with this expectation, the company has reversed its decision to close the Oregon truck plant last month. Last year, the company had slashed capacity by closing plants in Ontario and Oregon , aiming to improve annual earnings by $900 million within 2011. Nevertheless, Daimler believed that the global sales would not return to such peak levels in the near future.  The company anticipated demand for medium- and heavy-duty trucks to fall 50%–60% in ...

MWW Automotive Group [[MWWC.OB]], a full-service global design, engineering and manufacturing firm providing customized accessories for leading international vehicle manufacturers, recently announced that the company’s wholly owned subsidiary, Modelworxx GmbH, in Munich, Germany has entered into an agreement with ABT Sportsline GmbH for worldwide distribution of its Volkswagen and Audi products.

Modelworxx has developed and is manufacturing a diverse line of innovative high-tech running boards for a variety of automobiles, including Audi, KIA, Mercedes, Mitsubishi, Opel, Toyota and Volkswagen. As a leading supplier of customized OE accessories for the global automotive industry, ABT Sportsline GmbH is one of the world’s largest distributors of Volkswagen accessories and performance tuning of Volkswagen vehicles. Under the terms of the agreement, ABT Sportsline will carry the entire Modelworxx product line and also select U.S. -designed and manufactured products for worldwide distribution.

Gerold Haas, chief executive officer of Modelworxx, stated, “We are happy to have

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Leave it to the government. It’s proposing a “tax and cap” regime for energy producers which will require fossil-fuel generating plants to pay extra.  The idea is to encourage clean fuels and discourage dirty ones. That’s fine in theory. But instead of helping our future energy situation, it’s going to make it a lot worse.The price of oil has already doubled in the past six months to over $60 per barrel. But it’s just the beginning of oil’s next gigantic price surge. If you thought that oil was ridiculously expensive last summer, you haven’t seen anything yet.

It doesn’t matter whether you believe in “Peak Oil” because this isn’t about Peak Oil coming to fruition. Peak Oil believes that oil discoveries have peaked leading to oil production’s inevitable decline.

This crisis will be strictly man-made. Governments and oil companies have already planted the seeds of the next great energy crisis. And there’s

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Plug-In Electric Vehicles: In Search of the Mass-Produced Hybrid

by David Fessler, Advisory Panelist

We found out that Tesla Motors joined the growing list of automakers receiving federal funds this week. It locked up $465 million to develop and produce battery-powered vehicles.

But as we know too well, large government checks are hardly ever the answer to our problems. And one of the biggest right now is that we’re seeing gas prices climb slowly higher.

While $147-a-barrel oil served as a wake-up call for the car-driving consumer, it was also the catalyst that shifted the plug-in electric vehicles industry into high gear (pun intended).

I’ve talked about Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) before, and I’ve heard a lot of reader comments on the hybrids on the market right now. So let’s take a look at some of the major car companies’ efforts so far, as well as what lies ahead for consumers

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MWW Automotive Group (MWWC.OB) Enters into Distribution Contract with “ABT Sportsline GmbH” for Worldwide Distribution

MWW Automotive Group (MWWC.OB), a full-service global design, engineering and manufacturing firm providing customized accessories for leading international vehicle manufacturers, recently announced that the company’s wholly owned subsidiary, Modelworxx GmbH, in Munich, Germany has entered into an agreement with ABT Sportsline GmbH for worldwide distribution of its Volkswagen and Audi products.

Modelworxx has developed and is manufacturing a diverse line of innovative high-tech running boards for a variety of automobiles, including Audi, KIA, Mercedes, Mitsubishi, Opel, Toyota and Volkswagen. As a leading supplier of customized OE accessories for the global automotive industry, ABT Sportsline GmbH is one of the world’s largest distributors of Volkswagen accessories and performance tuning of Volkswagen vehicles. Under the terms of the agreement, ABT Sportsline will carry the entire Modelworxx product line and also select U.S. -designed and manufactured products for worldwide

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A trillion here and a trillion there...pretty soon, you're talking about real money!

Boeing (BA) just released its latest "Current Market Outlook" (CMO), which analyzes the past and future demand for commercial jet aircraft with 30 seats or more. One of the first things you find as you flip through the pages is that Boeing didn't agree with Airbus (imagine that)!

According to Boeing, its 2000 forecast indicated that the demand for aircraft through 2019 would be split -- 4% Large, 25% Twin-aisle and 71% Single-aisle, while Airbus believed it would be 9% Large (hence the A-380), 35% Twin-aisle and 55% Single-Aisle. So far the actual demand (according to Boeing) has been 2% Large, 23% Twin-aisle and 75% Single-aisle.

For the aforementioned forecast period -- 2000 through 2019 -- Boeing believed that demand would total 17,318 units, while Airbus -- with more larger aircraft in

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div style="text-align: justify;"span style="font-weight: bold;"TARP repayment will drive hit to earnings for common/spanbr /Merrill Lynch /BAM notes that when TARP pfds were issued in Oct, related warrants caused a portion of the investment to be allocated to paid-in-capital (“PIC”) with this balance set to slowly accrete to preferred stock over 20 quarters. Repayment of TARP by GS, JPM and MS will force a reversal of remaining warrant value (through pfd dividend line).br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Warrant repay will drive Equity hit, but likely 3Q event/spanbr /They also expect each Co. will pay the government to extinguish attached warrants, but uncertainty remains as to valuation (e.g. what volatility will be used in valuing?). Whatever the value, they expect it to be a hit to common equity (without going through the Pamp;L) sometime in 3Q. The numbers are significant (anywhere from $700mn to $1bn+, by our calculation), but given the strong capital ...

Aaron’s Inc. is a NYSE-listed company, founded in 1955 in Atlanta, GA, formerly known as Aaron Rents, that operates 1,053 and franchises 504 consumer electronics, appliance, and residential/office furniture sales/lease stores in the U.S.A. and Canada. Some of the items AAN offers include widescreen, LCD televisions, computers; upholstered living-room furniture like sofas, sofa beds, chairs, modular sofas; bedroom furniture like bedding, mattresses, and box springs; dining room furniture; washers, dryers, refrigerators, lawn tractors; office furniture like desk, credenzas, conference tables, bookcases, and chairs. These items come from brands such as JVC, Mitsubishi, Philips, LG, Sony, Dell, HP, Simmons, Frigidaire, GE, and Sharp.

It is obvious by just looking at the business that Aaron’s Inc. is in that you do not need a Master’s degree in Computer Science to fully understand what this company is doing. While that is good …