Many of America's best-known retailers, including Walmart, Home Depot and JCPenney, will be stepping into the earnings spotlight this week. Their reports come on the heels of disappointing January retail sales numbers from the Commerce Department.
The company makes an innovative, free smartphone app that taps collective driving behavior to create turn-by-turn driving instructions and even real-time traffic alerts, all powered by information gathered from its roving users. Venture capitalists sure are buying it.
Consumers will start to see prices rising at the stores -- and soon, as the costs of commodities like cotton, sugar, and coffee are surging to record highs.
Navigation devices are poised to decline because of competition from GPS-enabled smartphones, according to a report from Berg Insight. About a quarter of navigation users access turn-by-turn directions from their cell phones instead of a stand-alone device.
Beyond the next series of economic indicators, what really matters now is a strong holiday selling season. If it materializes, that could pole-vault the market to new highs, making 12,000 on the Dow by year-end well within reach. [Video]
Faced with intense competition from GPS-enabled smartphones with free navigation software, TomTom, the popular Dutch developer of portable navigation systems, announced Wednesday it is seeking to broaden its revenue base. But the announcement didn't offer much in the way of specifics.
