Apple Faces Boycott Over Worker Abuses In China. It's Not Crazy Talk. - Forbes

Fair-labor organizers, Change.org and SumOfUs.org, delivered 250,000 signatures to Apple stores in six cities around the world on Thursday in protest of the company’s working conditions in China, according to a report in Mashable.

Last month, an excellent New York Times exposé ripped at Apple’s core, building on previous concerns about abuses at firms that Apple uses to make its bestselling iPhones, iPads and Mac computers.

The claims should be familiar by now as Foxconn in southern China, one of Apple’s primary suppliers, has repeatedly been the subject of accusations of worker mistreatment and unsafe working conditions. From Mashable:

Foxconn has been accused of making laborers work long hours without breaks, use dangerous chemicals that have caused severe health problems and exposing workers to dangerous conditions. The repetitive work and spartan living conditions have also been to blame for suicides at the factory.

Charlotte Hill, communications manager at Change.org, pleaded with Apple to use its creativity to “think ethically” and create an iPhone without using factories that have harsh working conditions.

“No iPhone is worth that cost,” she said.

At the same time, Apple has also generated billions of dollars in profits, in part due to the cheapness of Chinese labor. (Revenue last quarter surged 74 percent to a record US$46.3 billion and profit more than doubled to US$13.1 billion, blowing away Wall Street‘s expectations as Apple sold more stuff than in any quarter in its history.)

The Mashable report comes as rumors point to Siri, the much lauded iPhone 4S intelligent personal assistant, adding Mandarin Chinese support next month.

For perspective, read “The Apple Boycott: People Are Spouting Nonsense about Chinese Manufacturing.”

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Sprint Nextel May Purchase More Clearwire Debt; Clearwire Chairman Departs - Forbes

Sprint Nextel , the country's third largest mobile provider, will likely purchase $200 million worth of Clearwire debt so that it is able to maintain its 50 percent stake in the company, according to a Kaufman Bros analyst.

Sprint ( S - news - people ) shares are higher by about one percent.

Also, Clearwire ( CLWR - news - people ) said that Chairman Craig McCaw intends to leave the company. McCaw informed Clearwire on December 29 about his departure, and the company emphasized that the departure was not the result of a disagreement.

Clearwire shares are lower by about 1.5 percent.

Market News Video produces and distributes online videos about stocks and investing.

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Yahoo! Just Not Good Enough - Forbes

Yahoo! reported earnings Tuesday after the bell that blew past forecasts but the performance failed to boost the Web portal's stock price in after hours trading.

Yahoo! ( YHOO - news - people ) doubled earnings to 29 cents per share thanks to one-time events, far surpassing the 15 cents in EPS expected by analysts. The problem was on the top line. The company grew revenue by 2% to $1.6 billion for its third quarter, but after taking out commissions to partners, net revenue came in at $1.12 billion, below the $1.13 billion expected by analysts. Earnings were boosted more than 120% by profits made from the company's sale of HotJobs to Monster.com for $225 million.

The company also points to gains in display advertising revenue, up 18%. "We've made substantial progress this year toward executing our strategies for enhancing profitability and resuming revenue growth," says CEO Carol Bartz,. "We've disposed of non-core assets while making strategic acquisitions."

The acquisitions include Associated Content and Citizen Sports, both content websites that Yahoo! acquired early this year. The company projects fourth quarter revenue to be in the range of $1,125 million and $1,225 million. Analysts are looking for a less conservative $1,257 million in the fourth quarter.

Stocks slid Tuesday as earnings season pressed on, even though many companies were topping profit forecasts. This is particularly true in the tech sector, where IBM ( IBM - news - people ), Google ( GOOG - news - people ), Apple ( AAPL - news - people ) and now Yahoo! have reported better than expected earnings, in some cases by hefty margins, and investors have responded by selling the stocks, sending the Nasdaq index down 45 points and the Dow down 171 points in day trading.

Yahoo! stock rallied last week, gaining 12% on news of a possible buyout by AOL. Rumors began circulating about a take-over backed by private equity firms and the smaller internet company, when the Wall Street Journal reported it using unnamed sources on October 13. Of material importance in the rumors is Yahoo's 39% stake in the Chinese internet company Alibaba, which adds uncertain value to Yahoo's holdings.

Yahoo! shares have declined by 7% since the company turned down Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people )'s buyout offer in May of 2008.

Competitively Yahoo! still has the numbers. According to the latest data released by comScore, in August Yahoo! had 179 million unique visitors, compared with Google's 178.8 million.

Yahoo's stock declined after hours on the announcement, after trading in a downward slump during the day, along with most of the market. It closed at $15.49 Tuesday and lost 12 cents after the bell.

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Fed Minutes Point Toward Quantiative Easing - Forbes

The release of the minutes from the September 21 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee is the latest in a long series of debates about the possibility and effectiveness of a further round of asset-purchases by the Central Bank. The minutes show that a majority of the members of the FOMC are ready to "provide additional monetary policy accommodation" if the economic recovery doesn't spur employment growth and appropriate inflation.

The minutes from September's meeting were released Tuesday in the midst of mixed market feelings about quantitative easing. After the jobs report was released last week, some analysts and investors explained that the markets had "already priced in QE 2" and that the policy was necessary at a large scale to keep the status quo. The facts seemed to support this as the mediocre jobs report, with a deceleration in most indicators, had little negative impact on the equity market.

In the September meeting, most members of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy committee were cautious about the future, and "saw merit in accumulating further information before reaching a decision about providing additional monetary stimulus." Some members were unwilling to engage in further QE unless the outlook worsened. It also becomes apparent that the purchase of longer-term Treasury securities is essentially the only policy possibility the Fed is looking into. The lack of any substantial improvement in the September job report may be the final nudge to galvanize Fed action.

Kansas City Fed president Thomas Hoenig dissented from the FOMC's statement in September, and remains opposed to the central bank's stance. Hoenig blames the high unemployment rate on "exceptionally low rates earlier in the decade that contributed to the housing bubble and subsequent collapse and recession." Hoenig advocates raising rates to "approach 1%" and to allow the Fed balance sheet to shrink as debt holdings mature.

The next FOMC meeting takes place on November 2 or 3. It is expected that the institution headed by Ben Bernanke will further its asset-purchase program while keeping rates between 0 and 0.25%. Bernanke is looking to solve the problem via demand stimulation and inflation expectations, he has the support of most of the Federal Open Market Committee, the market remains expectant.

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Intel Results Come In Above Expectations - Forbes

Intel posted earnings after the bell on Tuesday, posting revenue and operating income of $11.1 billion and $4.1 billion respectively. The chipmaker beat analysts' profit expectations by two cents, reporting earnings per share of $0.52.

Paul Otelli, president and CEO of Intel ( INTC - news - people ), explained that Q3 results were "driven by solid demand from corporate customers, sales of our leadership products and continued growth in emerging markets." The $11.1 billion in revenue represent an 18% jump from 2009's Q3 results topping analysts' forecasts, while the $0.52 EPS represents an increase of 58% over 2009's Q3 EPS of $0.33.

Net profit stood at $3 billion, up 59.2% from $1.9 billion. Interestingly, the Asia-Pacific region generated 58% of Intel's revenue, or $6.4 billion, compared to the 20% or 2.2 billion generated by the Americas region.

"Looking forward, we continue to see healthy worldwide demand for computing products of all types and are particularly excited about our next generation processor, codenamed Sandy Bridge," explained Otelli, who also praised the new Atom processor, Intel's move into netbooks, tablets, and even the new Google ( GOOG - news - people ) TV.

The chipmaker released its Q4 forecast, forecasting revenues of about $11.4 billion and spending on research and development and M&A for approximately $3.2 billion.

As the largest chipmaker, Intel is sometimes taken to be representative of the computer and technology industries. With the increasing relevance of mobile and tablet devices, Intel is seen as lagging behind competitors such as Qualcomm ( QCOM - news - people ) and ARM Holdings ( ARMH - news - people ) how have come to be protagonists in this new market for chips.

Intel's closing price on Tuesday was $19.77, and it gained %0.20 or 1.01% to 19.97 in after hours trading.

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