Dow and S&P at Record High

The Dow added more than 85 points to end above 15,000 for the first time. The S&P 500 gained 0.5% for another record WOW!.

Fortune 500 List - Wal-Mart Made to Top

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., with a 2012 revenue of $469.2 billion , has made it to the top ranking in the Fortune 500 ranking of the largest U.S. companies by revenue.

Exxon Mobil is now  No. 2. Chevron, Phillips 66 and Berkshire Hathaway made out the top five. Interestingly and much as expected, Facebook has made it to the list  for the first time, finding its place No. 482.

Some Interesting Highlights

• 21 Companies from New Jersey and 53 from New York have made it to the list. 
• 7 Companies from Information Technology Services have made in to Fortune 500 list.
• Exxon Mobil has the highest profit 
• HP is at the lowest in profit (negative)
• Spectrum Group International has lowest number of employees of 190
• Wal-Mart has largest employees' strength with 2.2 million employees

Here is the top 50  full list:

• Rank
• Company Name
• Revenues ($b)
• Profits ($mm)

• 1Wal-Mart Stores469.216,999
• 2Exxon Mobil449.944,880
• 3Chevron233.926,179
• 4Phillips 66169.64,124
• 5Berkshire Hathaway162.514,824
• 6Apple156.541,733
• 7General Motors152.36,188
• 8General Electric146.913,641
• 9Valero Energy138.32,083
• 10Ford Motor134.35,665
• 11AT&T127.47,264
• 12Fannie Mae127.217,220
• 13CVS Caremark123.13,876.9
• 14McKesson122.71,403
• 15Hewlett-Packard120.4-12,650
• 16Verizon Communications115.8875
• 17UnitedHealth Group110.65,526
• 18J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.108.221,284
• 19Cardinal Health107.61,069
• 20International Business Machines104.516,604
• 21Bank of America Corp.100.14,188
• 22Costco Wholesale99.11,709
• 23Kroger96.81,496.5
• 24Express Scripts Holding94.41,312.9
• 25Wells Fargo91.218,897
• 26Citigroup90.87,541
• 27Archer Daniels Midland891,223
• 28Procter & Gamble85.110,756
• 29Prudential Financial84.8469
• 30Boeing81.73,900
• 31Freddie Mac80.610,982
• 32AmerisourceBergen79.7719
• 33Marathon Petroleum76.83,389
• 34Home Depot74.84,535
• 35Microsoft73.716,978
• 36Target73.32,999
• 37Walgreen71.62,127
• 38American International Group70.13,438
• 39INTL FCStone69.315
• 40MetLife68.21,324
• 41Johnson & Johnson67.210,853
• 42Caterpillar65.95,681
• 43PepsiCo65.56,178
• 44State Farm Insurance Cos.65.33,159.2
• 45ConocoPhillips63.48,428
• 46Comcast62.66,203
• 47WellPoint61.72,655.5
• 48Pfizer61.214,570
• 49Amazon.com61.1-39
• 50United Technologies59.85,130

Syndicated Article. Courtesy CNN Money 

Hotmail is Over. Outlook is in !

It is most unlikely that you don't have a Hotmail email address! The reason is it is one of the most popular email service flagship from Microsoft.

The news is that Hotmail is officially over. New look Outlook is in.  It has over 400 million active users as per Microsoft.  It took great efforts to migrate Hotmail users to Outlook.

In addition to an updated mail interface, the new Outlook.com offers a more modern Calendar program as well as improved interoperability with Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud,  a new two-stage user authentication system, an updated app for Android devices and a preview of Outlook's upcoming integration with Skype.

To illustrate just how huge a task the switch was - Microsoft says they moved 150 petabytes of information to the new service in just six weeks. How large is a petabyte? It stands for 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes. The progression goes byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte, petabyte - each 1,000 times larger than the previous amount.

For the end user, the switch should be seamless. Microsoft assures everyone that they will still be able to use their Hotmail address with the new Outlook.com system. 

New Outlook for Microsoft email services looks great with this revamp and uplifting!










Syndicated News Item

Looking for New Mortgage / Refinance? Best time is here.

Are you looking for a new home mortgage or refinance in the US? The best time is here. 15 year mortgage rate has fallen down to 2.56% and 30 year mortgage rate is at 3.35% now.  Rate has been falling all through 2012 and continuing in 2013 also so far.

Experts suggest that it may be a best time to look at 15 year mortgage model right now.

The low rates have been engineered as a stimulus to the economy by the Federal Reserve. The Fed announced Wednesday it would hold steady on the rock-bottom rates by continuing its "quantitative easing" program of buying $85 billion of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities each month.

Freddie Mac asks lenders each Monday through Wednesday about the terms they are offering to borrowers with down payments of 20% or more, solid credit scores and the capacity to repay their debts.

The borrowers in the latest survey would have paid an average of 0.7% of the loan amount in fees and points to the lender.

LinkedIn Says Don't Just Say, Display It !

Popular professional networking site LinkedIn enhanced its profile features for the its users with the addition of visual display medium. Great feature indeed!  

A LinkedIn user can include photo, video, presentations and the like to their profiles to showcase the capabilities and background. I have been noticing the changes LinkedIn has been making in the past few months to improve their front end appeal. 

"From the analyst who makes annual predictions on tech trends to the 3D animator who is looking to fund a new short film, the opportunities are limitless for how professionals can now use the LinkedIn profile to help showcase these unique stories in a visual way," LinkedIn product manager Udi Milo wrote.

To get started, select "edit" on the profile page, then follow prompts in the "Summary," "Experience," and "Education" sections. Content can be uploaded from your own computer or from other websites.

In an effort to keep up with the social aspect of LinkedIn, members are encouraged to "like" and discuss each other's work. The new visual content feature is currently rolling out to users in English-speaking countries.

Here is more information on these new features from LinkedIn Product Manager Udi Milo wrote in their blog post.