The Week: Most Recent from Sergio Hernandez

Why a bidding war over Hulu is heating up

The Week — Fri, 24 May 2013 16:04:00 -0400

Everyone wants a piece of Hulu. The popular video-streaming site has reportedly attracted competing bids from a bevy of suitors, as media and internet companies scramble to snap up properties that could constitute the future of the entertainment industry.

Yahoo executives recently met with Hulu "for a get-to-know-you," reports Peter Kafka at AllThingsD. And the Internet portal has now officially submitted a bid to buy the streaming site, fresh on the heels of Yahoo's $1.1 billion Tumblr purchase.

The Internet giant isn't the only firm hoping to snap up Hulu. Rival bidders include Time Warner...

Making money: Shopping for disability insurance, and more

The Week — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:22:00 -0400

Retirement for the self-employed
It isn't as easy for the self-employed to save for retirement, says Farnoosh Torabi at Yahoo, but it's no less important. To amass a nest egg that will carry you through your senior years, consider these three tax-deductible investment tools. The first is an IRA — if you're planning to save less than $5,000 per year, this is the easiest option. If you're putting aside more, consider a Simplified Employee Pension IRA. A SEP IRA allows you to contribute a quarter of your income each year, up to a maximum $51,000 in 2013. And if you want to defer even more, consider...

Bloomberg's spying scandal: Is stalking part of the company's culture?

The Week — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:38:00 -0400

Move aside, News Corp., says Adam Penenberg at PandoDaily. Now it's media giant Bloomberg's turn to be embroiled in a spying scandal. Last week, we learned that for years Bloomberg reporters have been monitoring how subscribers use their Bloomberg terminals, the ubiquitous computer system financial players rely on to "execute trades with vast sums of money at stake." All the reporters had to do was "hit the 'Z' function" to see which employees of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase — or government officials like Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke — had logged on, and even how often "they checked...

Making money: Getting a piece of the start-up pie, and more

The Week — Mon, 13 May 2013 07:58:00 -0400

Getting a piece of the start-up pie
Buying shares in your employer before it launches an IPO is meant to be a temptation, says Matt Krantz at USA Today. Start-ups often offer pre-IPO shares at bargain prices to lure or retain talent, but "not all pre-IPO companies work out so well." Many never go public after all, and those that do are usually subject to "lockup periods that bar employees from selling for three or more months." So if your employer offers you a chance to buy shares in the company, "approach this decision like you would any stock purchase." Consider the price soberly. "It's possible...

Why a weaker yen is a double-edged sword

The Week — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:51:00 -0400

The dollar just rose above ¥100 for the first time since April 2009, thanks to Japan's efforts — dubbed "Abenomics" for new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — to combat deflation.

That means "one Japanese yen is now worth less than a penny," says Business Insider's Matthew Boesler. "That's a key psychological level for" a government that has taken an aggressive approach to help its sagging economy, including doubling the supply of yen by effectively printing more money. The goal has been "to weaken the currency in hopes that a lower yen will help the country lift itself out of a...

Making money: When to collect Social Security, and more

The Week — Mon, 06 May 2013 06:23:00 -0400

Play now but retire later
There are ways to have fun while you're still of working age "without blowing through the resources" you'll need for retirement, said Linda Stern at Reuters. First, "don't quit your day job." Giving up income and benefits "will set you back, so plan to keep working if you can." You can try, though, to scale back the amount of time you spend working. See if your employer will let you work part time. If not, "maybe you can at least squeeze an extra week or two of vacation" out of the boss or take some unpaid leave. Instead of saving up all of your adventures for some...

How Twitter fueled a market swoon

The Week — Fri, 03 May 2013 07:22:00 -0400

A single tweet can be enough to cause a stock market crisis, says Christopher Matthews at TIME. We learned that last week, when hackers posted a fake report on the Associated Press Twitter feed claiming that Barack Obama had been injured in an explosion at the White House. The AP quickly flagged the tweet as fake, but not before it "sent shock waves through the market," causing the S&P 500 to drop 0.9 percent and temporarily wiping out $136 billion in stock value. The real culprit behind this latest "flash crash" isn't a hacker — it's "the proliferation of high-frequency trading...

Fat taxes, $10 boarding passes, and other absurd airline fees

The Week — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:28:00 -0400

The age of low-cost flying is officially over. Budget carrier Frontier Airlines has announced that it, too, will begin charging extra fees for in-flight amenities like coffee, soda, and carry-on bags, says Joshua Freed at the Associated Press.

The airline says it will charge $2 for coffee or soda, "although its announcement on Wednesday did say that passengers will get to keep the whole can," says Freed. Passengers who claim a carry-on in advance will only pay $25 for baggage, but $100 if they wait to pay at the gate. Those who buy tickets on the airline's website won't have to pay at all.

Of...

Making money: How to pay for child care, and more

The Week — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 07:13:00 -0400

If you're late filing taxes
Did you miss the tax deadline? asks Ann Carrns in The New York Times. If you did, "it's time for damage control." The Internal Revenue Service says you won't be charged a penalty for filing late if you are owed a refund, but if you owe taxes, get moving. The IRS generally won't waive interest on owed taxes, "but it will consider abating penalties if you can show a 'reasonable cause' for filing late." If you file late, the IRS will typically send you a notice of penalty, giving you (or your tax preparer) a chance to ask for an abatement. Significant illness, a serious...

The tanking economy: Is a spreadsheet error to blame?

The Week — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 06:25:00 -0400

"Did an Excel coding error destroy the economies of the Western world?" asks Paul Krugman in The New York Times. It looks possible since last week, when University of Massachusetts researchers announced that they'd discovered a simple spreadsheet error and highly questionable statistical procedures in "the most influential economic analysis of recent years." The 2010 paper by Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff made what many thought was an airtight case for government austerity. It asserted that national economies with debt exceeding 90 percent of gross domestic product don't...

Why Apple is purposely going into debt

The Week — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:48:00 -0400

Apple may be sitting on mountains of cash, but its credit rating got dinged this week after executives announced that the company would borrow money to finance its multi-billion dollar shareholder payout plan.

The iPhone maker released its second-quarter earnings report on Tuesday, announcing profit declines for the first time in a decade and an "eye-popping" $60 billion stock buyback program, said Michael J. de la Merced at The New York Times.

The stock buybacks will certainly make investors happy. They've been clamoring for Apple to spread its wealth — the company reportedly has...

Making money: Getting a grasp on student loans, and more

The Week — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:28:00 -0400

How to beat an all-cash bid
House-buying rules have changed since the market has heated up again, says Beth Braverman at CNN. "The days when you could scoop up a house for 20 percent less than its list price are long gone," so "don't waste time with a lowball offer." In fact, don't bother coming in more than 2 or 3 percent below the asking price. If you wind up in a bidding war, it helps "to move quickly, since today's sellers don't want multiple go-rounds." To outsmart professional investors who "count on nabbing properties at a big discount" with all-cash deals, show a prequalification...

Blackstone ditches its bid for Dell: What's next for the struggling PC-maker?

The Week — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:15:00 -0400

The Blackstone Group has abandoned its bid for Dell. That's good news for namesake founder and CEO Michael Dell, who's been jockeying to take the company private for months. But it might not bode well for the troubled firm. Blackstone had been inspecting Dell's books to decide whether it would offer $14.25 a share for control of a publicly traded Dell, said Andrew Ross Sorkin and Jeffrey Crane in The New York Times.

But in a letter to Dell's board, the private equity firm backed away from its offer, citing "an unprecedented" drop in PC volume that was "inconsistent with management's projections...

Silicon Valley's take on immigration

The Week — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 07:55:00 -0400

U.S. immigration policy is "unfit for today's world," said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in The Washington Post. In our knowledge economy, the "most important resources are the talented people we educate and attract to our country." Yet our current system squanders them. After we educate the non-citizens who make up more than 40 percent of our math and science graduate students, we kick them out. Instead of encouraging gifted foreigners to come and create jobs, we offer so few H-1B visas for talented specialists that "the supply runs out within days of becoming available each year." To lead the...

Why is Starbucks cutting coffee prices?

The Week — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:15:00 -0400

The ubiquitous coffee chain is slashing prices on its packaged coffee by 10 percent — from $9.99 for 12 ounces to $8.99 a bag.

Starbucks raked in $380 million from non-café sales last quarter — with a profit of about $2.55 per bag, says Kyle Stock at Bloomberg Businessweek. "Take away $1 per, and Starbucks would have to sell 65 percent more bags to book the same amount of profit."

That doesn't sound easy. So what's behind the drastic price cut?

"The firm could be betting on widening income inequality," Stock said. "The theory is: major retail growth has been — and will...

Is Foursquare a dud?

The Week — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:30:00 -0400

Geosocial startup Foursquare was an immediate hit when it debuted at South by Southwest in 2009. Fast forward four years, and "for many users, the novelty of telling friends they've 'checked in' to a store or restaurant, earning real discounts and virtual badges, has worn off," says Sarah Fried in Bloomberg Businessweek.

In November, the Wall Street Journal said the company "claims more than 25 million registered users, but only about 8 million of them use the app at least once a month."

As a result, Foursquare reportedly raked in just $2 million in revenue last year. "To put these...