Paul Ausick

Recent Articles

McDonald’s MCD Earnings Up Despite Weak U.S. Economy

By Paul Ausick

All signs to the contrary, U.S. consumers are still feeling the pinch of high unemployment, stagnant wages, rising health care costs, and rising gasoline prices. What makes a difference to people still struggling with the effects of the near collapse of the financial system is cheap stuff, like the $2.99 meal at McDonald's (MCD) or lower prices on 10,000 items at Walmart (WMT).

Nokia NOK Earnings Miss and OS Launch a Double Whammy

By Paul Ausick

CenturyTel, Inc. (CTL), which is re-branding itself as CenturyLink, has offered $10.6 billion in CenturyTel stock to acquire Qwest Communications (Q). Under terms of the deal, CenturyTel will also assume $11.8 billion of Qwest's outstanding debt, valuing the acquisition at $22.4 billion, or about $6.02/share of Qwest stock. The merger is expected to close in the first half of 2011, and current CenturyTel shareholders will own approximately 50.5% the merged company.

CenturyTel and Qwest Build Telecom Bridge to Nowhere – CTL, Q, T, VZ, S

By Paul Ausick

CenturyTel, Inc. (CTL), which is re-branding itself as CenturyLink, has offered $10.6 billion in CenturyTel stock to acquire Qwest Communications (Q). Under terms of the deal, CenturyTel will also assume $11.8 billion of Qwest's outstanding debt, valuing the acquisition at $22.4 billion, or about $6.02/share of Qwest stock. The merger is expected to close in the first half of 2011, and current CenturyTel shareholders will own approximately 50.5% the merged company.

Computing Stocks Look to the Clouds – GOOG, MSFT, EMC, STX, WDC, VMW

By Paul Ausick

What's the best way to store computer data? More and more often the answer to that question includes the word "cloud." For most of us, the cloud refers to the large public off-site storage sites offered by Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG), and Microsoft (MSFT) but also Seagate Technology (STX), Western Digital (WDC) and VMware (VMW).

China Telecom Stocks CHL, CHU and CHA Fight for Mobile Phone Market

By Paul Ausick

China's largest mobile phone operator, China Mobile Ltd. (CHL), saw its revenues rise 7.7% year-over-year, but it's profit was able to manage just a bump of 1.1%. Competition is coming from two other big players in the Chinese mobile market, China Unicom (CHU) and China Telecom (CHA). Together the three claim 766 million customers.

Load More