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As Hostess Brands, Inc. – the 80-plus-year-old baker of such iconic brands as Twinkies, HoHos, Hostess CupCakes, DingDongs and Wonder Bread – enters into liquidation and probable acquisition, the online price of the sugar-filled delicacies is soaring. As soon as Hostess announced the end of production, Twinkie lovers started scrambling to buy every Twinkie they […]

Black Friday holiday sales set a record in 2012 with 247 million shoppers visiting the malls or shopping online. That’s 21 million more people than in 2011.  Total sales topped $59.1 billion.  The typical holiday shopper spent $423 over the weekend, a $25 increase over the $398 recorded last year.  The National Retail Federation (NRF) […]

The October employment report won’t blow anyone out of the water, but showed a modest improvement that caused many to breathe a sigh of relief.  According to the Department of Labor, 171,000 jobs were added in October – the highest number since February.  Retailing (up 36,000); healthcare (up 31,000) and business services (up 51,000) showed […]

With its recent acquisition of Lucasfilm, Ltd., the Walt Disney Company has wagered $4.05 billion that it can increase the worth of the formidable “Star Wars” franchise.  Included in the sale are the copyrights for “Star Wars”, producer shares in the “Indiana Jones” movies, as well as Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), an awards-winning […]

If history repeats itself, QE3 will be good for commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS). The Fed’s third round of quantitative easing – which is purchasing $40 billion of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) each month from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – will free up money for the commercial real estate market and lure investors away from […]

Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong has been banned for life from cycling and stripped of his titles, with all 14 years of his meteoric career officially expunged from the records.  According to International Cycling Union (known by its French acronym of UCI) president Pat McQuaid, “Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling.”  Armstrong […]

The nation’s unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent in September, the lowest level reported since January of 2009.  That is a 0.4 percent decline from the 8.1 percent reported for the previous month, yet represents a slight hiring slowdown after the Department of Labor revised the July and August numbers upwards by 86,000.  A total […]

For his new book, Brokers Who Dominate, Rod Santomassimo, founder and president of The Massimo Group, spent two years interviewing the young guns, dominators and game changers who have shaped the commercial real estate industry.  In an exclusive interview with the AlterNow Podcasts, Rod tells us about these superstar brokers and their tales of ambition, […]

Will the real 47 percent please stand up?  Although Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in a now famously leaked video suggested that nearly half of Americans believe that they are victims for relying on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, etc., we thought it might be helpful to look at who benefits the most from […]

There was a quick turnaround in the NFL referee lockout after a replacement referee botched a call that turned a Green Bay Packers’ Hail Mary interception into a touchdown for the Seattle Seahawks during a pivotal “Monday Night Football” game.  Thanks to the national uproar that resulted, the NFL and the NFL Referees Association (NFLRA) […]