Blog Posts by Chris Nichols

Europe, we know, has been a very uneven place to be for many businesses and investors in the past three years. One American company operating there that's seen mixed numbers in that time reported earnings Tuesday -- Coca-Cola (KO).

Volume in Europe was up 1% in the third quarter, rising in all units despite the economic worries that continue to plague the region. Now that's not robust growth, but it's not a negative number, either. Overall, earnings for the quarter rose and were in line with estimates, while sales didn't quite reach the consensus forecast, edging up 1% from a year earlier to $12.34 billion.

Europe was more than 10% of operating revenue in the most recent quarter, totaling around $1.29 billion. That's an 8% drop from last year, though foreign exchange rates did hurt the results, and not by a small amount. Excluding currency effects and poor pricing, revenue would have been even. But again, the actual number did show that decline.

As the chart above shows, Europe hasn't

Wal-Mart's (WMT) not the only retailer that's had about enough of Amazon.com (AMZN). Now Best Buy (BBY) is fighting back against the Jeff Bezos-run merchandising juggernaut.

The Minnesota-based electronics and games seller, apparently tired of hearing how its stores are serving as a physical testing ground for goods that later will be purchased online, is planning to match the prices on items sold by the ever-growing Amazon empire and other Web-based under-cutters in the weeks ahead.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal Friday, the pricing plan -- details can be found here -- will take place during the holidays. Best Buy is also aiming to provide free home delivery for products that aren't currently stocked in stores. It's doing so, the WSJ points out, even as new CEO Hubert Joly contends the "showrooming" idea isn't as big of a deal as Best Buy's doubters would have you believe.

Consumers and Shareholders

It's a daring move by Best Buy, which has been going through a

Sprint Nextel (S) might have found a solution to its problems, and it doesn't even involve the telecom company spending billions of dollars on a deal.

Multiple reports Thursday said the company is in talks to sell most or all of itself to Softbank of Japan, which is making a giant push into the U.S. if so. Shares of Sprint have been languishing under $6 since October 2008, but they were doing their best to get through that mark. In premarket trading, the stock was up 18.9% to $5.99, though once the regular session opened the gain fell back to 13.7%, putting Sprint at $5.72.

Meanwhile, CNBC was reporting that for good measure Softbank was angling to involve broadband network owner Clearwire (CLWR), a company where Sprint owns a large stake, in its dealings as well. Shares of Clearwire were jumping 26% to $1.64.

The Sprint-Softbank reports, appearing in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Bloomberg, come just days after a new set of rumors emerged about Sprint's future that

Chevron (CVX) was having a rough session Wednesday following its profit warning after the prior close, but investors in the rest of the sector didn't appear particularly overwrought.

That's probably because Chevron's warning had some Chevron-specific elements, but also because there's little good reason to think panic should ensue. While there's room for caution about the petroleum industry, if you're just sitting on the outside wondering, don't interpret the Chevron news as an alarm bell on the whole of Big Oil's future as a profit center.

Late Tuesday, Chevron said it expected third-quarter earnings to be "substantially lower" than the second quarter, when it made $3.56 a share. What happened? Production and refining had some stumbles during the last couple of months, with Hurricane Isaac in the Gulf of Mexico, a fire at the company's Richmond, Calif., refinery, which will probably keep the crude unit closed for the rest of the year, and other maintenance needs. Oil selling

The idea of the housing recovery being real -- finally this time -- isn't brand new. Neither is the argument that it's all a Federal Reserve-driven sham that's doomed to collapse.

Either way you think, being on the long side of housing has been right for a while, and that's not up for debate. Now, it's easy to point out what's already happened and say "if only you'd bought it then." The question is whether any money is left to be made from here. One trader with significant capital appears to believe there is, at least for a few more weeks, if a big, bullish bet on home-improvement goods seller Lowe's (LOW) is any indication.

OptionMonster, the options market watcher started by Jon and Pete Najarian, noted that a sizable purchase went through Monday for the November 32 calls in Lowe's. The site says the trader sold around 10,000 October 29 calls for an average of $2.54 and bought a like number of November 32 calls for about 72 cents each. In this case, OptionMonster says the trader was

Though Dave & Buster's pulled its planned initial public offering after the close Thursday, and a number of prominent new companies -- namely Facebook (FB) -- have been busts, the overall market for new issues has been fairly upbeat this year.

So far in 2012, the U.S. has seen 105 IPOs priced, a count that's ahead of the 96 at the same time last year, according to data from IPO researcher Renaissance Capital. Those initial offerings have raised $36.1 billion, a 23.4% increase from 2011.

In all, 50 IPOs have been called off since the start of the year, but that's right on pace with the prior year. Through the 2011 third quarter, 49 offerings got canceled, data from Greenwich, Conn.-based Renaissance show. Still, the year might exceed the average of the past nine years, when in a typical year just under 55 IPOs were withdrawn. The high was 2008, with 103. Sure, it could be stronger. But on the whole, in terms of the number of offerings getting pulled, there doesn't seem to be a

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is viewed as having been much stronger than President Obama in Wednesday night's debate, but as to which candidate would be better for the economy, it's unquestionably more of a toss-up that can be measured along party lines.

If you're a Republican, you probably prefer Romney's approach. If you're a Democrat, you likely endorse Obama's plans. But what about people whose job is economics? Very likely, it's much the same as the general population. The Economist has a new survey out this week, which it emailed Thursday morning, that turns up the following: Economists are divided as to who would be better, but neither the president nor the challenger garnered sterling ratings across the board.

However, looking at the totality of the findings, The Economist judged that Obama ultimately fared better in its questionnaire. That said, he certainly hasn't won over every group of economists. [The Economist's survey: Get more details here.]

"Although the

Almost a year to the day after his death, Apple (AAPL) co-founder Steve Jobs is making headlines for a speech he gave nearly three decades ago. Not just any speech, either, but one in which he did a pretty impressive job of describing the gadget-mad world we now live in.

The 1983 talk, which Jobs, then 28, gave in Aspen, Colo., was posted on the blog Life, Liberty, and Technology, and it provides a fascinating look at how he envisioned technology evolving in the years ahead. Parts of the speech came to light earlier this year -- see AppleInsider.com for more -- but now we're getting access to the question and answer session that followed his remarks, for what's said to be the first time since he actually gave them.

In addition to making it clear that Jobs, even at young age, was well spoken, confident and passionate about consumer technology, the remarks stand as something of a time capsule, serving as a reminder of the days long before Facebook (FB), before multiple computers were in