Investment News Briefs

By , Money Morning •

With our investment news briefs, Money Morning provides investors with a quick overview of the most important investing news stories from all around the world.

Krugman: U.S. in Danger of Lost Decade; Trichet Sees First Signs of Recovery; Plavix Could Have Serious Competitor; Intel Could Face Record Antitrust Fine; GM Open to Leaving Detroit; Microsoft in First Bond Offering; Dish Network Beats Expectations; Nortel Blows a Fuse 

  • Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said the United States needs to take aggressive economy-stimulating action or risk facing a lost decade of growth a la Japan in the 1990s. "We're doing half-measures that help the economy limp along without fully recovering, and we're having measures that help the banks survive without really thriving," Krugman told reporters in Beijing, Reuters reported. "We're doing what the Japanese did in the 90s."
  • European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said he and fellow policy makers are seeing the first signs of economy recovery. Recent reports are "encouraging, but it's no time for complacency," Trichet said at a meeting of global banks, Bloomberg reported.
  • AstraZeneca plc's (NYSE ADR: AZN) heart drug Brilinta beat blockbuster drug Plavix - of Sanofi-Aventis SA (NYSE ADR: SNY) and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co's (NYSE: BMY) - in one of the largest comparative head-to-head drug studies, Reuters reported. Plavix alone nets about $8 billion and if approved, Brilinta would take a large portion of that.
  • Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) may have to pay an antitrust fine of more than 1 billion euros ($1.36 billion) and stop giving discounts to computer sellers. The company faces awaits the decision of the European Commission on charges that it has been muscling competitors out of the European market, Bloomberg reported.
  • General Motors Corp (GM) is open to moving its headquarters from Detroit. The company also may sell some of its U.S. plants and renegotiate its restructuring plan with unions as it heads toward probable bankruptcy, GM Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson said yesterday (Monday), according to Reuters. Henderson it was more likely that GM was headed for bankruptcy by June 1 - the U.S. government-imposed deadline for the automaker to restructure. 
  • Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) plans to sell $3.75 billion of debt in its first bond offering, taking advantage of its top credit ratings to help fund a share buyback and technology investments.  The world's largest software maker, whose shares have declined 34% in the past year, is seizing on a credit-market rally to help fund a $40 billion stock repurchase program. The company is also investing in data centers to compete against Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) in Internet search, Bloomberg reported.
  • Dish Network Corp (NASDAQ: DISH) posted better-than-expected profits on Monday and lost fewer subscribers than most Wall Street analysts had forecast, sending its shares soaring, Reutersreported. U.S. satellite TV provider Shares rose as much as 21.5 percent in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq on the lower customer losses and indications that the company had started to get control over a long-standing problem with piracy with its set-top box software. 
  • Nortel Networks Corp (OTC: NRTLQ), North America's biggest maker of telephone equipment, said yesterday (Monday) its quarterly loss widened as the global recession contributed to a 37% drop in revenue, Reuters reported.  Nortel, which filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year, also said it is completing plans to decentralize some functions at each of its four main businesses to give it more flexibility as it decides which divisions to sell.