American Axle (AXL) posted a net loss of 18 cents before special items in the third quarter of the year. This is better than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 37 cents per share. Net sales dipped 22% to $409.6 million. However, in absolute terms, it is the highest quarterly sales of the year. The lower sales were on the back of a 18% decline in customer production volumes for the North American light truck and sport utility vehicle (SUV) programs that American Axle currently supports for GM and Chrysler. American Axle’s content-per-vehicle (measured by the dollar value of its product sales supporting GM's North American light truck and SUV programs and Chrysler's Heavy Duty Dodge Ram pickup trucks) fell to $1,396 from $1,453 in the third quarter of 2008. Non-GM sales constituted 18.3% of total sales in the reported quarter. The company’s non-GM ...

Oct. 14, 2009 (Business Wire) — Green Star Alternative Energy, Inc. (Pink Sheets: GSAE; “GSAE” or the “Company”) (http://www.greenstarae.com) is pleased to announce that an analysis of the Veliko Gradiste zone demonstrates the potential for 50MW of wind energy development. As per the agreement with the municipality, Green Star is exploring the economic viability of the region’s wind resources to determine whether to exercise the right to develop wind power and supply the area with green electricity.

The Company’s wind resource engineer, MSc. Nikola Vasiljevic, has sited three separate micro locations in his report: two in Ram and one in Deliblatska Pescara. Plans to erect one of the Company’s wind sensors at the Ram site are underway. The Municipality of Veliko Gradiste is located in north-east Serbia approximately 100 km east of the capital, Belgrade. Its territory encompasses 344 square km on the right bank of the

...

Ambient Corp. and Itron Inc. (Nasdaq: ITRI) today jointly announced the development of a module designed to eliminate the need for drive-by utility meter reading. The Ambient® EDC module is a more advanced option to smart metering over legacy automatic meter reading using encoder receiver transmitter (ERT) modules.

“The possibility of leaving assets stranded without a clear road map or without a viable option for incorporating such assets into a smart grid platform has prevented many utilities from deploying smart grid technology. The new EDC module, developed with cooperation from Itron, gives utilities a critical migration path linking their legacy meters to newer advanced communications systems without stranding recently deployed assets,” John J. Joyce, president and CEO of Ambient stated in the press release. “With greater than 60 million ERT meters in the U.S. alone, the market potential is very significant.”

The EDC module can be integrated into Ambient’s smart grid

...

Cummins (CMI) has revealed that it will recall about 270 production employees at its Columbus Midrange Engine Plant (CMEP) in Walesboro, Indiana. A temporary increase in orders for the Dodge Ram turbo diesel pickup truck engines made at the plant has led to the recall. The workers had been laid off or transferred to other Cummins facilities over the last year. Dodge Ram pickup – manufactured by Chrysler – is powered by Cummins’ 6.7-liter turbo diesel engine. The orders have increased as Chrysler seeks to build inventory for its 2010 Dodge Ram pickup. Consequently, Cummins plans to temporarily add a second production shift at CMEP on Oct. 19 that is expected to operate through the end of 2009. The recall will boost the plant’s workforce to 600 hourly workers. The company began production of the 2010 Dodge Ram engines in mid-September with approximately 340 production employees ...

DrStockPick.com Stock Report!

Thursday August 20, 2009

**************************************************************

Benihana Inc. (NASDAQ: BNHNA; BNHN), operator of the nation’s largest chain of Japanese theme and sushi restaurants, today formally announced its Benihana Teppanyaki Renewal Program at its 2009 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. The 2009 Annual Meeting of Stockholders was held at the Marriott Doral Golf Resort and Spa, 4400 NW 87th Avenue, Miami, Florida 33178 at 10:00 a.m. ET this morning.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) generated attention in the options pits on Wednesday, as traders responded to a mixed bag of news surrounding the firm. On the one hand, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning letter regarding JNJ’s antibiotic

...

Green Star Alternative Energy, Inc. (Pink Sheets: GSAE; “GSAE” or the “Company”) (http://www.greenstarae.com) is pleased to announce the signing of an agreement between the Green Star/Notos JV and the Municipality of Veliko Gradiste. The arrangement allows Green Star to explore the economic viability of the regional wind resources; and upon evaluation, the right to develop wind power and supply the area with green electricity.

The Municipality of Veliko Gradiste is located in north-east Serbia approximately 100 km east of the capital, Belgrade. Its territory encompasses 344 square km on the right bank of the Danube River and left bank of the Pek River. The initial micro location for placement of the Company’s wind sensors has been identified in the settlement of Ram, and the Municipality has allotted 200 hectares of land towards this endeavour.

Miodrag Andric, CEO of Green Star Alternative Energy, stated: “The Company will continue to

...

To compete with large vendors in the rising netbook PC market, Sony (SNE) plans to launch its new VAIO W series laptop, currently meant for the Japanese market. The new netbook is expected to hit stores in August with a selling price of around ¥60,000 ($629), according to some sources.

Sony has declined to comment on the product and has not provided any specific pricing details or expected sales for the new netbook model. It expects to increase VAIO PC sales from 5.8 million units in fiscal 2008 to 6.2 million units in fiscal 2010.

The new Sony netbook is built on Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows XP operating system and based on Intel’s (INTC) Atom processor. In comparison to 1,024-by-600-pixel displays that are used in other netbooks, the new VAIO series features an LCD display with a resolution of 1,366-by-768 pixels. It also consists of 1GB of

...

Columbus, Indiana-based Cummins Inc. (CMI) is a leading worldwide designer, manufacturer and distributor of diesel and natural gas engines, electric power generation systems, and engine-related components, fuel systems, controls and air handling systems.

The company is temporarily resuming production at its MidRange Engine Plant in Columbus with one shift from July 13. The plant makes engines for Dodge Ram pick-up trucks.

The company had shut down the plant in May 2009 after Chrysler abandoned vehicle production during its bankruptcy proceedings. The company is also recalling 400 workers out of the 720 employees it laid off in May. Cummins has eliminated nearly 3,000 workers, mostly in Columbus, since the recession began.

The plant would produce engines for the 2009 Ram Model through mid-August. However, Cummins noted that the facility would again be closed after that, until Chrysler starts building its 2010 truck model in October 2009. Cummins would recall

...

As James Morley has pointed out, often a sharp economic downturn is followed by an equally sharp economic recovery. One reason for that is the liquidation of inventories that accompanies any recession and restocking that takes place in recovery. What should we expect this time?

The graph below shows inventory investment as a percentage of U.S. GDP since 1947. There's been an improvement over time in inventory management, which I captured with a downward-sloping linear time trend. [Incidentally, this graph and many of the calculations that follow are constructed using the original nominal magnitudes. You can make mistakes looking at a number like the ratio of real inventory investment to real GDP since the respective deflators are different, whereas the ratio of two nominal magnitudes is always in correct natural real units, namely, percent of GDP.]

Black line: 100 times the ratio ...

As you may have figured out, these Taipan Daily missives are (usually) written the day before. That way they can hit your inbox in time for a read with the morning coffee.

With the old “drinking from the fire hose” routine being extra intense as of late, and Tuesday being a rare travel day for yours truly, I haven’t had time to digest the finer points and nuances of Tim Geithner’s new bank plan just yet. I’ve got my stack of stuff printed out, though, and should have a proper state of fulmination worked up by Friday.

Here’s my quick take: Clearly the market liked the plan, based on Monday’s action – or maybe the market just liked ANY semblance of a plan – and just as clearly a number of commentators did not. Paul

...