S ki resort operator Intrawest ULC’s debt-laden owner is reported to have been granted another week of Olympic advertising before the assets are auctioned off as the Games’ final skiers race down its flagship Whistler Blackcomb slopes. Intrawest, owned by New York-based Fortress Investment, was slated for auction Friday after creditors posted a notice in newspapers last month saying that a foreclosure process was to begin. But a report by Bloomberg News cited sources familiar with the process as suggesting that the auction has been postponed to Feb. 26. The extension would have the Whistler resort owner on the auction block as women’s alpine skiers slalom down the hill and two days before the Olympic closing ceremonies. James Brander, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, said the delay will give Whistler time to recoup its image after a week of gloomy weather overshadowed…

T he Federal Reserve on Thursday announced it would raise the discount rate at which commercial banks borrow from the central bank as part of a move to withdraw emergency support to the financial system. The discount rate will be increased on Friday from 0.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent, moving the spread over the main federal funds rate to a more normal level. The length of loans will also be shortened to a maximum of overnight. As the Fed fought the incipient financial crisis in August 2007, it cut the discount rate in one of its first moves to help liquidity in the financial system and lengthened the loan maturity to a maximum of 30 days. The Fed stressed on Thursday that the ”modifications are not expected to lead to tighter financial conditions for households and businesses and do not signal any change in the outlook for the economy or…

D ell Inc. DELL-Q said Thursday its net income fell 6 per cent in the last quarter despite early signs that businesses may be starting to buy new computers again. Consumers snapped up low-cost laptops and smaller netbooks over the holidays, pushing Dell’s PC shipments up 29 per cent. Those products are less lucrative, though, and Dell’s revenue and profit in the consumer PC division grew much more slowly. Dell’s profit margin was below expectations, and its shares fell more than 4 per cent in after-hours trading. Revenue from businesses, which makes up about half of Dell’s total, grew 9 per cent from last year. During a conference call, Dell’s chief financial officer, Brian Gladden, said many corporations were buying servers, a trend that also appeared in recent reports from Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ-N and Intel Corp. INTC-Q But he added that companies were also starting to buy new…

Setting Realistic Trading Goals One of the issues that many beginning traders struggle with is the matter of setting trading goals. Perhaps someone has been attracted to trading by tales of fortunes to be made, and has unrealistic expectations. On the other hand, some traders have no idea just how much they should expect to make each day. Any good trading course will allow the beginner to put together a trading plan which will set out what to look for, and when to enter and exit the market. Relating this to expected cash flows takes more application. A trading education must include detailed money management techniques, otherwise the trader is doomed to fail, and it is necessary to build on these concepts to see what is realistic. There are two aspects to what makes a realistic goal. The first is an assessment of the trading strategy, including back testing, from…

When trading any security, especially penny stocks you really need to do your homework. If you do not, and the price per share drops, you have no one to blame but yourself. Stock picking sites and bulletin boards often allow a trader the benefit of finding many emerging companies. These are great places to start but you must always do your own “due diligence”. If you are unsure you should try personal finance training or speak with a stock broker before investing. There are many different types and styles of pick sites. Most are not very good, a little shady, or sometimes even completely illegal. Just recently I saw a site pick a penny stock on one day, but post that it picked the stock 2 days earlier. These types of practices are “shady” to say the least. The SEC investigates these companies as “pump and dump” scams and has many…

T he Canadian Association of Broadcasters says it is planning to shut down after reaching an impasse with some of its members. Chairman Elmer Hildebrand says the organization, which represents Canadian radio and television broadcasters, has decided close this June. Mr. Hildebrand has been trying since December to help the CAB find common ground between broadcasters and cable operators, who have been forcing increasingly different views on the industry. Cable companies like Rogers Communications Inc. RCI.B-T and Shaw Communications SJR.B-T hold televisions assets themselves — Citytv and Corus’ specialty channels respectively — but they also have diverging views from local TV giants CTV and Canwest. After reviewing its strategy, the organization concluded that local TV operators wouldn’t be able to find a common ground with the cable companies. Both CanWest and CTV have been pushing for a tax on cable operators like Rogers for carrying over…

With fourth-quarter earnings winding down, I’ve been running a screen with an interesting concept: to find companies that have just recently shown their first quarterly profit within the last year. The idea is to find companies that have not shown a profit for at least the previous 4 quarters but have just recently produced their first profit. Some of these companies will be relatively new and this recent profit may be the only profit in the company’s history – so far. Others may have a long history of profitability, but have seen a contraction over the last year as the recession raged on – but have finally returned to profitability. The reason I like this concept is because if the trend has been one of improvement, there’s a good chance that trend will continue. This is true whether you’ve been profitable or are just getting profitable. But some (like…