Latest Financial News That Effect The Markets

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Here are a couple of the latest news stories that can effect the stock market. The GDP revision shows the third quarter was worse than previously thought.  No surprise there really.

Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell moves on to GM.  I’m not sure there is much he can do to save the giant, but time will tell.

Commerce Department GDP Revision Shows Q3 Was Awful

The Commerce Department revised GDP growth for the third quarter of this year down, again.

The latest number is an increase of 2.2%. A month ago the number was dropped to 2.8% from the government’s original figure of 3.5%.

The data shows that the American economy is barely growing and the the sharp rebound that economists have been describing recently is a mirage.

Consumer activity in the period from July 1 to September 30 was much less robust than expected. It is almost certain that unemployment, which was still rising very rapidly during the quarter, undercut both individual and corporate spending.

The numbers are particularly bad for the federal government which is expecting a sharp move up in GDP in the current quarter and in 2010 to increase tax revenue. That would allow the Treasury to begin to narrow the size of deficits and decrease the growth rate of the national debt.    –more

GM woos CFO Chris Liddell away from Microsoft

As you may or may not have heard, Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell announced that he was leaving the company late last month, but neither he nor Microsoft was doing much talking at the time about what he would be doing next — other than that he would be “looking at a number of opportunities that will expand his career beyond being a CFO.” Well, it looks like he will still be a CFO after all — this time at General Motors. That move was just made official today, and follows news earlier this month that GM’s current CFO, Ray Young, would be transferring to China.    –more

Related financial articles

• Zachary Karabell: The ‘Global Imbalances’ Myth (online.wsj.com)
• GM repays part of U.S., Canadian government loans (seattletimes.nwsource.com)