Gamestop recieves first access to new tablet

Gamestop has received exclusive rights to sell the new Asus Eee Pad. The Eee pad will be the first tablet ever to use the tegra 3 chip. The chip suppose to enhance gaming and take it to the next level. Gamestop already started the presale and announced the Dec 19. launch date. Also you will be able to trade in you old apple products to receive in-store credit towards the tablet.

BBY:$27.60
GME:$23.22
WHR:$49.45

Best Buy to recall iPhone battery cases.

Best Buy is recalling Rocketfish battery cases made for the Iphone. They are reports are saying that the cases are overheating and causing burns and property damage. In all 32,000 of the cases are being recalled all of them are in the United States except 1,000 which are in Canada. The cases were reported to be made in China.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/01/bestbuy-recall-idUSN1E7B00LU20111201?type=companyNews&feedType=RSS&feedName=companyNews&rpc=43

Black Friday

As the Black Friday shopping results reveal that electronics was the most purchased items over the Thanksgiving weekend. Almost over half of all purchases that weekend were electronics. A recent survey revealed that there was $52.4 billion on Black Friday weekend which is a 16 percent increase from last years $45 billion. The most type of electronics that were sold were gaming consoles.



http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2011/11/28/video-game-consoles-among-top-sellers-black-friday-through-cyber-monday/?partner=yahootix

Tax Free Cyber Monday Shopping

According to a recent survey 106.9 million Americans plan to shop on cyber Monday. This one day of shopping is planed to bring in over $1 Billion. Most of these online purchases will be tax free, that said is it fair? With Amazon leading the group in pushing to avoid collecting sales tax on the state level by lobbying.

 BBY:$25.63
GME:$21.51
WHR:$46.05



http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2011/11/26/cyber-monday-sales-tax-free-for-many-but-for-how-long/?partner=yahootix

Best Buy Automated Kiosks

Best Buy has been reported to be expanding into the automated kiosk dvd rental and hardware machine business. Best Buy now has 45 disc rental spots In Canada. Also they  domestic kiosks that sell hardware and electronics, these are found on college compasses.



http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/morning_roundup/2011/11/best-buy-edging-into-redbox-dvd-rental.html?ana=yfcpc

RadioShack Add Robert E. Abernathy To Board Of Directors

Robert E. Abernathy has been elected to the board of directors. The 57 year old is the consumer products group president for Kimberly-Clark Corp. Mr Abernathy has been the group president since early 2008.
Daniel R. Feehan ,chairman of the board of RadioShack Corp, said "Robert's significant and wide-ranging experience managing businesses in the global consumer products sector will provide a highly relevant perspective to our Board. We are very pleased he is joining us, and look forward to his contribution."

Radio Shack Dividend

Radio Shack share holders will get their annual dividend next month. Radio Shack share holder will be getting a $0.50 dividend next month on the 15th. The dividend plans to be $4.15% of stock prices.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dividendchannel/2011/11/18/cash-dividend-on-the-way-from-radioshack/?partner=yahootix

BBY:$27.06
GME:$22.46
WHR:$50.68

Office Max sells mobile products with Radio Shack

Office Max says they will start selling cell phones and prepaid wireless products/accessories by January 2012. So far the only stores that will be introduced to it will be in the San Fransisco area. President and Chief Executive Officer Ravi Saligram stated that, "We are evaluating a range of strategic retail partnership arrangements that will improve store productivity and make our stores a highly attractive destination to our customers".

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/OfficeMax-Announces-Mobile-prnews-2160688786.html?x=0&l=1

*Originally Due Oct 29* Hhgregg Announces New Store in OH

Hhgregg is yet announcing another store opening in Ohio. This store will be located in St. Clairsville, the addition of this store will not make a total of 33 stores in Ohio. Jeff Pearson the senior vice president of marketing stated “ Ohio is a very important State for hhgregg and a key part of our Midwest expansion”. To celebrate the opening of the new store they will have a giant grand opening with a big sale and door prizes.

BBY:26:50
GME:26.20
WHR:51.80

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hhgregg-Announces-New-Store-bw-1603709466.html?x=0&l=1

*Originally Due Oct 27* Best Buy and Citi team up

Best Buy and Citit Bank team up to create a new app. The app will be available for free  for iPhones, iPod Touch and Android devices. The app will let citi rewards program users to spend there points on Best Buy products and search what items they can us it on. They can also scan bar codes and type them in to instantly get rewards points.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Best-Buy-and-Citi-team-up-on-apf-435355706.html?x=0&.v=1

Facebook Check In For Charity

Best Buy says that they will donate $2 for every person who checks into Best Buy through Facebook to Boys & Girls Club of America. The program will be Nov. 18 through Nov. 27. Best Buy has stated they will donate up to $250,000 to the nonprofit. I think it was a great move by Best Buy to help charity but Im sure there going to get a lot more traffic in there stores and there probably going to get a small cut in the traffic revenue from face book. 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Best-Buy-Encourages-Holiday-thomsonreuters-2231439224.html?x=0&l=1

Best Buy Mobile and the GRAMMY Foundation Team Up.

Best Buy Mobile and the GRAMMY Foundation team up to make a donation to Centennial High School in Franklin, TN. The donation as to help save the school music program. Also they had the band Rascal Flatts to come surprise the students and talk about the importance of music education.

WHR:$54.59
GME:$25.17
BBY:$28.09

Best Buy Pays $1.3 Billion for Cellphone Business

Best Buy paid their partner,Carphone Warehouse Group, for full ownership of their "Best Buy Mobile" Stores. Best Buy bought their stake for $1.3 Billion. Best Buy is also planning to stop expanding and Europe and actually shut down all 11 big box stores that are open now. Best Buy is planning on expanding their mobile phone stores in emerging  markets in China and Mexico.



http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/best-buys-pays-1-3-billion-for-cellphone-business/

Best Buys MindShift for $167 million.

Best Buy has bought MindShift a cloud service company for $167 million. This will provide IT services to small and mid sized businesses. Best Buy sayes that they estimate that there is $40 billion in this market. With Best Buys distribution capabilities, they deffently will have a competitive edge on the market now.

http://www.forbes.com/2011/11/07/best-buy-acquires-cloud-services-company-mindshift-marketnewsvideo.html?partner=yahootix

GameStop to Open More Than 4,400 U.S. Stores for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Launch

More then 4,400 Gamestops will be open for the midnight release of Call of Duty MW3. Door will open for the midnight release party at 8:00pm. Fans will be able to play the game while waiting for the release of the game.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Stock-Pile-the-Energy-bw-3412227280.html?x=0&.v=1

WHR:51.64
GME:25.69
BBY:27:31

High Tech Holiday Gift Recommendations

Hhgregg has published a list of new tech recommended for this holiday season.  A few of the items on the list kinda of surprised me that they were on there.  One of those items was the camcorder, since the camcorder is kind of a dead technology because now we have phones and tablets that record hd video, I was reading a article on wired.com and they said that camcorders are expected to be replaced within the next 5 years. An item I expected to be on the list is a item we talked about in class, is the Sony wifi streamer player, which streams movies, games and pictures to you.

Whirlpool planing to cut 5,000 jobs.

Whirlpool is facing a high cost for materials and a soft demand, as a result they are planing to cut 5,000 jobs in North America and Europe. Whirlpool has tried raising price to combat higher costs but demand for a big ticket item is low. Whirlpool plans to cut 1,200 jobs here in the United States and completely close down a plant in Fort Smith Ark. They also plan to move a dishwasher production plant from Germany to Poland, the estimated cost of moving is projected to be around $500 million.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Whirlpool-to-cut-5000-jobs-to-apf-3248783307.html?x=0&.v=7

PlayJam

PlayJam who operates a global TV games platform just secured a $5 million "series A" funding. Consumers who want to use PlayJam can access it with just a click of there remote control. PlayJam who is owned by Gamestop believes that they will have over a billion devices with PlayJam on them by 2015.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/PlayJam-Secures-5-Million-bw-4062911516.html?x=0&.v=1

Whirlpool Corporation Is In The Top 500 U.S Green Companies.

   This has been the third year in a row that Whirlpool has been in the top 500 US green companies. This year they have ranked 285 overall. Whirlpool in 2011 will save consumers over $11 billion in operating costs over the life of those products when compared to old products being replaced.


WHR:57.40
GME:25.04
BBY:26.08





http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Whirlpool-Corporation-Named-prnews-3830663129.html?x=0&.v=1

Apple Relesing A 7in Tablet?

Rumors have been circulating around the web about Apple releasing a 7in version of the Ipad. If Apple would release it, it would be competing against the new Kindle Fire tablet by Amazon which is also only 7in. Although due to a recent study only 9% of consumers are looking for a 7in tablet compares to the 9.7in. I feel like Apple will not release an smaller version of the Ipad because Apple does not fallow trends they set them.

Spotify hitting 250,000 paying customers in the US

Spotify has over 250,000 people paying for its digital music subscription service. All together the company says they have over 2 million paying subscribers.You can access these songs by streaming songs over computers, mobile devices and more recently in cars. Also driving momentum for Spotify is its integration with Facebook. With the new music tap on Facebook you are automatically diverted to Spotify. Spotify is backed by Sean Parker who was the former founder of Napster and a backer of Facebook when it was in its early stages and still holds a stake in the company.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Exclusive-Spotify-now-has-rb-2628720562.html?x=0&.v=1

Best Buy Exiting UK?

Its been reported in the UK Times that Best Buy may close there 11 large stores in the UK Best Buy has not confirmed or denied the reports.

http://www.forbes.com/2011/10/17/best-buy-may-exit-uk-business-marketnewsvideo.html?partner=yahootix




WHR: 57.91
GME: 25.16
BBY: 25.66

Buffett eyeing Whirlpool?

Warren Buffet has been rumored that he might buy a large stake of Whirlpool or just buy the company all together. Whether those rumors are true only time will tell but im sure its going to cause a spike in demand for these shares.



 http://www.cnbc.com/id/44880668?__source=yahoo%7Cheadline%7Cquote%7Ctext%7C&par=yahoo

It Gets Better

Whirlpool Corporation and the The movement It Gets Better are teaming up to prevent teen suicide. Whirlpool hops to help teens that are being bullied and harassed. The movement collects video submissions from individuals and organizations with a common theme "It gets better". Whirlpool and the movement just want to support and help provide a safe environment for teens.


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Whirlpool-Corporation-Joins-prnews-1791912809.html?x=0&.v=1

Toys R Us expands layaway program

Toys R Us plans to expand their layaway program for the upcoming holiday. Toys R Us's layaway program started in 2009 with big items such as swing sets and sand boxes, then expanded in 2010 with smaller expensive items such as video game consoles. Now they plan on having all the products in the store available to put on layaway.



WHR: $53.54
GME :$24.33
BBY: $24.77


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Toys-R-Us-expands-layaway-apf-199202871.html?x=0&.v=1

Best Buys Mistake and Gamestop gets ready for Call Of Duty MW3

   A few days ago I posted how Best Buy lowered there HTC Flyer price from $499 to $299 well somehow down the line the price got mixed up and Best Buy was selling the tablet pc for only $99.
Call of duty fans are getting ready for the release of Modern Warfare 3 while Gamestop is having tons of prizes. Prizes include a 2012 Jeep Wrangler Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 Special Edition, a trip around the world, Xbox Ultimate Gaming Bunker, Zero-G experience and $10,000 in cold, hard cash.

http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/story/11270762/1/best-buy-goofs-htc-flyer-price.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Lock-in-Your-Perks-and-Load-bw-1304195888.html?x=0&.v=1

Best Buy sells Napster

Rhapsody has made a deal with Buy Buy to buy Napster. Rhapsody currently has over 800,000 subscribers who pay $10-15 a month for the catalog of songs. It is unsure how many subscribers they will gain out of this deal because Best Buy has not published how many subscribers they have had since 2008 when they have bought the company for $121 million and had around 700,000 paying customers.  Rhapsody claims they will  phase out the Napster name and logo and after the deal is done and then they will publish how many paying subscribers they have gained from the deal.

Best Buy fights Fire with Flyer

Best Buy is to sell the Flyer, the HTC tablet pc with google android os, at a steal.Price was cut from $499 to $299. All tablet pc sales have gone down in sales and price lately as Amazon comes out with their new $199 Kindle Fire. As stocks came to a close Friday Bestbuy fell 3.8% and Amazon fell 2.8%

BBY:23.30
GME:23.10
WHR:49.91

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Best-Buy-fights-Fire-Flyer-ibd-2495114850.html?x=0&.v=1

Gamestops new buyback program...

Gamestop started a new buyback program to accept old Apple products, in return you would get  store credit. Analysts believe that the product will be sold for high profit margins. With Apples release of the Iphone 5 in mid October I feel that alot of people are going to start exchanging their old phones. I also believe that their stock prices will rise once this program gets off the ground

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44718875?__source=yahoo|headline|quote|text|&par=yahoo

Best Buy Makes Cuts

Best Buy plans to makes some cuts this holiday season. It will plan to cut the number of seasonal staff it hires this year and have the full time staff work more hours. It will also promote more under $100 deals this season .For the holidays the company said it will hire 15,000 workers, 48 percent less than the 29,000 it hired last year .


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Best-Buy-to-cut-seasonal-apf-1886911443.html?x=0&.v=2

Best Buy Mobile Stores Expand

Best Buy is expanding their mobile stores in Michigan. They will be opening in  Flint, Saginaw, Okemos, Portage, Troy, Auburn Hills, Midland, Westland and Dearborn. For the celebration of their expantion Best Buy Mobile and  the Magic Johnson Enterprises with Earvin “Magic” Johnson surprising the students at his alma mater Everett High School in Lansing and persenting them with a $5000 dollar donation.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Best-Buy-Mobile-Celebrates-bw-88536442.html?x=0&.v=1

BBY:24:18
GME:22.51
WHR:50.00

Cricket Products to be sold at Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile Locations

Cricket Communications a cell provider will start selling in 1,300 Best Buy stores nation wide. These new products, will be available beginning Sunday, September 25. Both companies are viewing it as a win win. Cricket will have two different plans for all phones one set for $25 and and $35 a month for unlimited everything except minutes.

hhgregg Opens in Chicago

While Best Buy is making some cut backs its competition Hhgregg is opening in the Chicago area. Hhgregg will be opening up 14  new stores this month in Chicago this month. Customers who attend the grand opening will have a chance to win prizes. Each store employes around 50 people.


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hhgregg-Opens-for-Business-in-bw-712556530.html?x=0&.v=1

Go Commando Day

GameStop has declared that Sept. 19. 2011, this Monday will be National “Go Commando Day”to celebrate the launch of the new "Gears of War 3". With midnight event festivities at more then 4000 of its stores. So if there is alot of kids missing from class Monday this is probably why.

BBY: 25:43
GME: 24.89
WHR: 53.60

Is Best Buy Doomed?

 In my last post I talked about how Best Buys sales had dropped for a five consecutive quarters, its latest sales hit has been a 30% drop. In the article listed below its talks about Best Buys biggest competition, Amazon and other online retailers. The article says that we are in a different era now were people are always looking for the best price no mater where it is, people just use Best Buy stores to check out the items before they buy online from a different retailer. The consumer has mostly been paying Best Buys price for convince so they have it that day, but with Amazon giving free next day shipping its kinda hard to compete with. I feel that Best Buy has to make a change quick, before they end up like Boarders....


http://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2011/09/15/best-buy-gets-amazoned-is-it-doomed/?partner=yahootix

Best Buys Profits Drop 30%

 My industry electric stores is down 2.70% while Best Buys profit has fallen more then 30%.  People are cutting back and like how it says in the article listed below people would rather go on vacation then spend over $500 dollars on a brand new tablet pc or other device. In other news Best Buy has launched a buyback program for all video games and video game consoles, so for gamers not trying to break the bank on a new game they can buy a used one or trade in a game. I feel like this program will bring up their stock but hurt GameStops stock  in the process in the near future



http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-13/best-buy-profit-trails-analysts-estimates-as-television-sales-decline.html?cmpid=yhoo