Is there a 'retail funk'?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The Container Store (TCS) is struggling. People aren't buying as many closet organizers as they used to or, at least, they aren't buying them at Container Stores.

"We've come to realize it's more than weather and calendar. Consistent with so many of our fellow retailers, we are experiencing a retail 'funk,'" the company wrote in a press release Tuesday evening.

Sales at existing stores -- a key measure of whether a retailer is doing well or not -- were down almost 1%. Costs were also up and margins shrunk.

Investors didn't like the news at all. The stock plummeted over 8% in trading Wednesday.

It's been a rough go for The Container Store since it went public in November. The stock debuted at $35 a share. It now trades below $25.

Wall Street wasn't buying the "retail funk" excuse. While early 2014 was tough on many retailers, a few rose to the top. It's just The Container Store wasn't one of them.

"U.S. retail sales have improved in the latest quarter... So for these guys to come out and go from slightly positive [sales] to a decrease of almost 1% is really kind of a head scratcher," says Michael Montani, a retail analyst at ISI Group.

Related: The 1% is spending. Luxury stocks soar

Some winners among retail chains include higher-end fashion group Michael Kors (KORS), sports brand Under Armour (UA) and even discount store chain Costco (COST).

"The retail funk is partially being created because there is all sorts of new competition for consumer dollars," says Brian Sozzi of Belus Capital Advisors. "Under Armour continues to win because the merchandise is innovative and enhances a person's daily life."

The Container Store's plan is to double down on higher-end offerings like custom solid drawers and shelving units. They are aiming for people who can spend over $2,000 on a luxury closet organization system.

They're also opening more stores. Right now they have 66 stores in 24 states, but they intend to add five more by the end of the year.

At the moment, investors don't think it's enough to lift the stock out of its funk.

First Published: July 9, 2014: 5:37 PM ET

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Yes, the economy is getting better

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

In the case of the Federal Reserve's unprecedented stimulus program that has been a big driver of the five-year stock rally, the end is finally near.

In minutes released from its June meeting, the central bank said that if the economy improves as it expects, its massive bond buying program will fully wind down following its meeting in October.

The Fed's intention to pull back, or "taper," its stimulus is a sign that it believes the economy is on the right track. That's the good news.

Related: Happy to have a #newjob

The bond purchases are only one measure helping to boost the economy, but the curtailment is being watched closely as a sign of when the Fed could raise interest rates. The Fed intends to be very clear and give plenty of signals about rate hikes, according to the minutes.

The Fed is currently buying $25 billion in monthly bonds, down from $85 billion last year.

The minutes indicate some of the top economists in America believe that activity will pick up in the second half of the year. The Fed did revise its GDP forecast for 2014 down from 2.3% to 2.1%, but many economists have pinned the decline on unusually severe winter weather.

The main question among Fed watchers is when the committee will raise its key federal funds rate, which currently stands between 0% and 0.25%. The minutes didn't give any solid dates, although the Fed tried to reassure the world that it will give a lot of signals well in advance of any rate hike.

"The June unemployment numbers were strong, but not strong enough to abandon course," says Ernest Cecilia, chief investment officer of Bryn Mawr Trust. "Janet Yellen wants to stay on message and be really clear. Any flip flopping will lead to a perception that the Fed doesn't have its act together."

Related: Mortgage rates drop to near 4%

In addition to its massive bond buying program, the Fed's low interest rate policy has been widely credited with driving investors into stocks and reviving the housing market by sending mortgage rates to historic lows.

After the June jobs report, many strategists began forecasting a rate increase sooner than later. Economists at Goldman Sachs (GS), JP Morgan (JPM), Bank of America, (BAC) Citigroup (C), and Capital Economics all moved up their predictions on rate hike timing.

If the market misreads the Fed's timing, it might be bad for stocks as investors flee to safer assets.

But the Fed has been insistent that it plans to keep rates low for some time -- well beyond the end of its bond buying. Its latest "dot plot," poll from its June meeting showed all Fed members except one (there's always one) believe interest rates will remain the same through the end of 2014.

The median prediction for the end of 2015, however, is interest rates above 1%.

Stocks popped after the Fed minutes came out Wednesday afternoon.

First Published: July 9, 2014: 3:25 PM ET

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Tickets for the World Cup final between Argentina and Germany could fetch more than $20,000

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

FIFA, soccer's world governing body, has long sold out of tickets for Sunday's game in Maracana Stadium, but fans are still bidding big bucks in secondary markets.

Ticket prices for the game between Argentina and Germany range from $5,000 to $20,000 each, according to various ticket resellers.

eBay has tickets for between $3,000 and $12,000 as of Wednesday. Many of those have received hundreds of bids, and prices could climb even higher as the game day approaches.

Ticketbis, another ticket reseller, is offering them for as much as $6,500, while Viagogo, the global market for ticket resales, had them listed for between $5,000 and $20,000 earlier this month.

Related: The World Cup's most marketable stars

Tickets to Sunday's game have a face value of between $440 and $990, depending on seating location, and FIFA says that demand for Sunday's game is ten times that of capacity.

Maracana holds up to 75,000 fans.

But jacking up the price of tickets on the secondary market is illegal in Brazil.

That country has a long-standing law against scalping. Known as "the Fan Statute," it's a criminal offense to supply a ticket for more than its face value.

Fans are being warned of risks for buyers of scalped tickets, such as ending up with fake tickets or not getting their tickets at all. FIFA is even warning that it won't honor scalped tickets at the gate.

A lot of the demand for World Cup soccer tickets has come from an unusual place this year -- the United States.

While the sport still lags behind baseball and the NFL in popularity, more Yanks are following soccer -- or football -- as it's known in most places.

According to Viagogo, the United States has been the second-largest market for ticket sales for this year's games. The company attributes that largely to the proximity between the U.S. and Brazil and to soccer's increasing popularity in the United States.

In fact, ticket purchases by Americans have outpaced those in several countries where football is by far the most popular sport, including Argentina, Mexico, Portugal, France and Italy.

First Published: July 9, 2014: 7:37 PM ET

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Ford recalls 100,000 vehicles

The Ford Flex is one of the vehicles being recalled.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The biggest recall was for 92,000 cars that have an axle problem that can either prevent the car from starting or essentially shift the car into neutral when it's on the road. Stopped cars can also roll if the parking brake isn't engaged.

Affected models include the Taurus, the Interceptor, the Flex and the Edge from model years from 2012 to 2014.

Related: GM fights brake recall

In addition, 200 2014 Ford Fiestas were recalled for a potential gas tank leaks that could cause a fire.

The auto industry has recalled a record number of U.S. cars and trucks so far this year. General Motors (GM) alone has recalled 25.7 million autos in 2014, while Ford Motor (F) has recalled about 3 million vehicles so far.

First Published: July 8, 2014: 3:54 PM ET

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Tesla vs. trademark troll in China

A Tesla showroom in China. The electric car company is facing a legal challenge to its trademark in China.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Reports say businessman Zhan Baosheng has sued to stop the maker of electric cars from selling cars in China. He claims to have filed for the Chinese copyrights of the Tesla name in 2006.

But Tesla says its claim to the name has already been upheld by other Chinese authorities and that the lawsuit is without merit. It said its Chinese operations have not been affected by the suit.

Tesla is "confident that Mr. Zhan's appeals from those decisions will be unsuccessful," a company spokeswoman said.

Tesla started deliveries of its Model S luxury electric car in China earlier this year.

Related: Tesla Model X due in early '15

China drivers now buy more cars than those in any other country and the market is a key for luxury car sales. It is seen as a key to Tesla meeting its forecasts of continued increases in sales.

"It's the largest luxury vehicle market in the world, and it's no secret that is where some of the premium European brands make all their money," said Craig Irwin, analyst for Wedbush Securities. "So how Tesla sales are taking shape in China is very important."

Tesla entered the Chinese market this year. Sales in China are helped by a subsidy of between $5,780 to $9,900 for buyers of electric cars.

First Published: July 8, 2014: 3:48 PM ET

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Rajaratnam brother cleared of insider trading

Rengan Rajaratnam (left) was acquitted Tuesday of insider trading charges connected with his work at his older brother's hedge fund.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The younger Rajaratnam was cleared Tuesday of insider trading charges connected with his work at his brother's hedge fund, Galleon Group.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has led a crackdown on insider trading, bringing a number of high-profile cases in recent years. The defeat on Tuesday is his first after 85 other defendants have either been convicted or pleaded guilty.

That list includes Michael Steinberg, a former trader at Steve Cohen's SAC Capital, who was sentenced in May to more than three years in prison.

Related: 5 famous insider trading cases

Bharara issued a statement that said he is disappointed with Tuesday's verdict but that his office will "continue to seek justice in the investigation and prosecution of those who violate the securities laws of the United States."

Raj Rajaratnam, the older brother, was convicted on 14 counts of insider trading in May 2011, accused of reaping $64 million in ill-gotten gains. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison, a record for insider trading, and fined nearly $93 million.

First Published: July 8, 2014: 5:23 PM ET

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Uber cheaper than New York City taxi - for now

Hailing Uber is cheaper than using a traditional yellow cab, at least temporarily.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The company is temporarily cutting rates by 20% in the Big Apple, making it cheaper to get a ride from Uber than from a yellow cab, the company said Monday in a blog post.

While the rate cut is an experiment, it could become permanent if demand goes up, said Josh Mohrer, general manager for Uber in New York City.

Uber lets customers request a car with a smartphone app. Using your phone's GPS, Uber sends its closest driver to your location. The fare is charged directly to your credit card once the ride is complete.

The rate cut applies to UberX, the company's lower-end service, but not to UberBlack, which sends a higher-end vehicle, or UberSUV.

An UberX ride from Grand Central Station to the Financial District, for example, will now cost about $22, down from about $28. The same ride in a city cab will cost between $24 and $28, depending on the time it takes to get there, said a spokesman for the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission.

Related: Uber CEO says growth is unprecedented

Tip is already included in the Uber rate, unlike the traditional cab's fare.

But Uber rates depend on traffic and other variables, too. The company's dynamic pricing model leads to fares that grow by as much as eight fold during periods of extreme demand, like winter snow storms and New Year's Eve.

The NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission is "committed to maintaining high standards for safety and consumer protection," said chair Meera Joshi in a statement.

"As long as services meet those standards, the consumer can choose which service best serves their needs, whether that's based on price, vehicle type, base location, or something else entirely," she said.

Uber is a four-year old company that operates in 140 cities and 40 countries. Its latest round of funding valued the company at $18.2 billion.

Uber is slashing fares in other cities, too. Rates in Atlanta and San Francisco have already been cut 25% this summer. Demand went up after Uber slashed rates in cities like Boston and Chicago, Uber's Mohrer said. He is expecting the same result in New York and other cities.

While the company is growing rapidly, it has also drawn criticism. Most recently, European taxi drivers in cities such as London, Paris, Berlin and Milan protested against Uber. They say the way Uber charges clients break local rules on the use of taxi meters.

But the protests backfired, serving as free publicity for Uber and a surge in demand for its service.

First Published: July 7, 2014: 5:50 PM ET

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Isis mobile wallet rebrands to avoid confusion with Isis terrorist group

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Isis CEO Michael Abbott said Monday that the firm is changing its name to avoid association with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the terror group frequently referred to by the acronym ISIS.

"However coincidental, we have no interest in sharing a name with a group whose name has become synonymous with violence and our hearts go out to those who are suffering," Abbott said in a statement.

The new name has yet to be announced.

ISIS the militant group is responsible for the conflict that's spilled over from the civil war in Syria to plunge Iraq into unrest. ISIS fighters took control of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, in early June following a quick campaign that saw Iraqi security forces quickly fold under their assault.

Related: You can now watch pirated movies on Google Chromecast

As for Isis the mobile wallet, a forced rebranding might not be such a bad thing.

AT&T (T, Tech30), Verizon (VZ, Tech30) and T-Mobile (TMUS) founded it in 2010 with the goal of developing a smartphone-based service to store payment cards, loyalty programs and merchant offers.

Despite gaining powerful backers like American Express (AXP) and JPMorgan (JPM), the service has failed to catch on, and it faces competition from the likes of Google Wallet, PayPal, Square, Venmo and many others.

It's not the only "Isis" that isn't enjoying the name confusion. One of the world's leading centers for physics and life sciences research is located in the U.K. and also called Isis. It hasn't announced a rebranding yet, but it has made the British press.

First Published: July 7, 2014: 4:51 PM ET

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More companies bail on U.S. for lower taxes

In the past 10 years, 47 companies have relocated overseas for lower tax rates. That compares to only 29 in the previous 20 years.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

A new analysis found 47 companies have relocated to home bases overseas to take advantage of lower rates in the past 10 years through a merger process known as inversion.

To qualify for the lower taxes, a company must do more than simply set up shop overseas and change its address. It must first merge with a company in the lower-tax country and then either do at least a quarter of its business overseas or give the owners of the foreign company at least one-fifth ownership of the newly merged company.

Only 29 companies used the inversion process during the previous two decades, according to the Congressional Research Service analysis.

Related: Firms warned not to leave U.S. for lower rates

Lawmakers and regulators have tightened the requirements over the years after high-profile companies like Fruit of the Loom, Seagate and Tyco shifted some or all of their business to places like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.

But with the trend seemingly on the rise, some say it is time for yet more stringent requirements. Among them is Rep. Sander Levin, a senior Democrat whose office distributed the CMS report.

Inversion can yield significant tax savings. One of the most recent deals, for example, shifts medical device giant Medtronic (MDT) from Minneapolis to Ireland, where it acquired rival Covidien. Ireland's corporate tax rate of 12.5% is significantly lower than the top U.S. rate of 35%. Pfizer (PFE) recently pursued a similar deal with its British pharmaceutical rival AstraZeneca (AZN).

First Published: July 7, 2014: 6:25 PM ET

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How a librarian taught herself to invest and retired early

Diane Bronson can smile now, but the librarian was really worry when she pulled her money out of stocks in 2008.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

At least, she thought it was a bad move. She yanked all her money from the stock market and put it in cash.

"I decided to sell in a panic," she says. "That was in January 2008 before everything went to hell."

It went against every investment instinct the former librarian had developed over the years. She was a "buy and hold" kind of investor who prided herself on patience and a long-term focus. For decades, she put her money into growth-oriented mutual funds.

But her hunch paid off.

She avoided the worst of the downturn when Lehman Brothers fell in September 2008. She later got back into the market and has since enjoyed one heck of a bull run the past five years. Her portfolio now provides a quarter of her retirement income and allowed her to retire early in 2012.

"All my life, I've been a 100% stock-invested, buy-and-hold kinda gal, but after watching my life savings drop by nearly half from 2000 to 2002 and take another three years to get back to their 1999 level, I just wasn't able to see that close to a 500-point drop without my stomach dropping as well," she wrote in an e-mail, referring to the wobbles in the market in January 2008.

Related: What's a mutual fund?

Before she had always stayed put, remaining in the market even after the dot-com crash in 2000. In fact, her portfolio only recovered from that downturn in 2005, so it was scary for her to abandon everything in a gamble to save her funds.

She ended up parking her savings in money market funds, which were experiencing their own turbulence, though not quite as bad as the stock market.

"I didn't have another five years to waste getting nothing out of my money," she said

Bronson never considered herself much of an investor. In the early days of her career, she had little to play around with.

Then she began to take her retirement and savings funds more seriously. A librarian for more than two decades, it figures that her introduction to the world of investing started with a reference book on mutual funds.

She goes through four or five books per week, and many of them have been investing books over the years. She's forgotten the name of that first one, but one favorite, is the value investing classic "A Random Walk Down Wall Street."

"Tell everyone to go to their 332s," she said, referencing the section of the Dewey Decimal System covering financial economics.

She still uses her local library's resources to better understand the markets, including taking advantage of a MorningStar subscription available there. She also checks the market daily, reads a lot and looks over research notes from Vanguard, which operates the funds she uses.

Related: Tell CNNMoney about your investing experience

Mutual funds are still her preferred form of investing, because she doesn't like trying to time the market. She dabbled a bit early on by trying to pick individual stocks, but her returns were underwhelming.

"Bulls make money and bears make money, but pigs get slaughtered," she said. "I was a pig, and I got slaughtered."

Since the financial crisis, it's been a bit of an adjustment for her to diversify. Sometimes she compares investing notes with her father, and she gets envious that he's kept all his money in cash and stocks.

"I would never buy bonds before, and I never understood why people make any money in bonds," she said. But now she has a quarter of her money in bonds. She's also moved into larger-cap stocks in a quest for stability.

She counts herself fortunate that her gambit allowed her to retire two years early. Her investments have provided a nice supplement to her pension. Had she not had that safety net, she would have been a lot more fearful during the downturn.

She's not as worried about timing the top of the market this time. All she wants is peace, calm and steady returns to carry her through her golden years.

"I don't know what I'll do the next time the market seriously dives," she said. "I can't expect to be this lucky twice in a lifetime."

First Published: July 5, 2014: 7:31 AM ET

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