TheStreet Search RSS Feed: Marek Fuchs

Target: Loving Every Second of Missoni Crash

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:19:39 EDT

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY (TheStreet) -- Beware: this article is so popular that it might crash the website. Does that sound like a bit of a hype job? It should, as "so popular it crashed the website," has stood as a transparent public relations ploy since the Internet bubble days of the 1990s.

Enter Target.

During Fashion Week, when all eyes are upon the latest word in design, Target released a limited edition line by Missoni, normally a high-end designer, who is slumming it for Target's customers. Demand for the line crashed Target's website, which the media saw as an unadulterated disaster for Target. The New York Times called it "an unusual fumble for the large retailer," terming the company "unprepared" and "amateurish." ...

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Investors Take Too Big a Bite Out of Apple

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 11:57:51 EST

Jitters over Jobs' health bypassed the more likely reasons for his absence from MacWorld.

Read the entire article at TheStreet.com

Banks Post Worst Earnings in 17 Years

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:15:05 EDT

As the mortgage crisis unfolds, many of the largest banks and thrifts have been making ever-higher provisions for loan-loss reserves.

While some of the largest banks continued making significant quarterly writedowns of mortgage-related securities, the elevated reserving activity in the fourth quarter caused the industry to post its worst quarterly earnings performance since the fourth quarter of 1991.

U.S. banks and savings and loans reported combined net income of $5.1 billion for the fourth quarter of 2007, or an annualized return on average assets of just 0.15%, and a return on average equity of 1.46%. This compares with quarterly net income of $40.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2006, with average returns on assets and equity of 1.30% and 12.53%. ...

The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 06:11:10 EST

1. Deadwood Logic From the Dead Tree Press Is Wall Street plugging its ears to the great prospects of newspapers? Keep in mind, the dead tree press has even longtime investors like Warren Buffett cracking wise that every time he goes to a funeral, he knows papers have lost a customer they won't replace.

Yet Mary Junck, Lee Enterprises chairman and president, claimed with smiling serenity this week, "There is a profound misunderstanding on Wall Street about the strengths and future of our business."

Do tell, Mary. I love newspapers. I get paid by them, after all. And I certainly know Wall Street has missed a lot in terms of new developments, so I'm prone to fall for even a shakily stated premise about unrecognized upside. So what's the bull's take on papers? Eyeballs. ...

Wal-Mart: The Real Story's Unfolding Overseas

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 10:35:04 EST

From its detractors' polemics over its destruction of Main Street to its continuing status as a false bellwether for an entire nation's retail health, Wal-Mart has undisputedly been one thing: an American story.

That notion, though, is obsolete. As Tom Petty sang: "After all it was a great big world/With lots of places to run to..." And somebody better clue the business media in to the fact that Wal-Mart ain't an American girl anymore.

Wal-Mart reported its fourth quarter Tuesday and much of the business media saw fit to lead with a number of different factors. Some led with the sexy thought that Wal-Mart became the first retailer to report $100 billion in quarterly sales. Others led with chat of performance vs. expectations, the effects of discounting at Wal-Mart or the wider impact of stateside consumer spending. ...

The Maven's Literary Canon of 2007

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 06:12:15 EST

The Business Press Maven expanded his brand this year, from a man who tears the business media limb from limb to one who also rends business books' spines.

My modest goal was to provide a place where business books could be torn apart, a practice sorely needed as newspapers spent the better part of 2007 cutting back on book reviews in one of many attempts to outrun their financial demons.

Almost as soon as I started, readers began to email me (you are always welcome, I will always respond) to ask for my all-time favorite business books, not just my favorites for this year. Great Facilitator that I am, I eventually published a Business Press Maven literary canon, a basket of books that, if read together, could inform anyone interested on Wall Street, from beginner to old hand. ...

Media Again Fail to Meet Expectations

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:41:24 EDT

It is the Business Press Maven's ever-shattered dream to wake up one morning and find no loathsome effort by the business media to write about. I dream of a world in which investors are forever informed by the business media, instead of frequently misled.

Well, as they say, if you don't have dreams, you got nightmares.

Today's horror: I am profoundly troubled trying to even figure out where to start, and I'm going to have to hop from topic to topic more than unusual. Hold on to your wig. ...

iPhone Sales: Your Guess Is as Good as Anyone's

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:05:21 EDT

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The Business Press Maven is writing this from a small rocky island off the long rocky coast of Maine, where yesterday he bore witness to an island-wide fish face competition. Islanders made fish faces, some quite convincing, for prizes and -- of course -- bragging rights.

I tell you this because purposeful goofiness has a rightful place in life, but misplaced goofiness -- like the kind we saw earlier this month when Apple released the iPhone and the professionals in the business media could not even agree on what expectations were for sales, let alone what the sales themselves were -- should not. Well, come this Wednesday, when Apple reports, we'll finally know how many iPhones sold in those first days after they hit the shelves. ...

Blasting Holiday Stock Announcements

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:55:19 EDT

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Ever the working class hero, The Business Press Maven spent the July 4 market holiday hard at work, searching for bad news that had been purposefully released the day before the holiday in the hope that it would be lost in the lull of the holiday news cycle. No one but me reads by the light of fireworks.

I passed around a collection plate July 3, asking readers to donate (by email) any interesting press release that seemed timed to have been ignored. ...

Book Reviews: Know When to Quit, Know Thyself

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 13:53:19 EDT

I hope you are catching on to this drill. The Business Press Maven, the nation's No. 1 business journalism critic, got steamed under the collar because newspapers, in their dotage, started to cut back on book reviews. Stepping into the void, I now review business books, slapping a "Help" label on ones that will prove useful to investors and a "Hindrance" label on ones that will do the reverse.

Readers and authors are welcome to contact me. Same goes for you famously lethargic publishing house public relations folks, if you can wake up from that desk nap long enough to type me an email.

Topic A this week is the fine art of the quit, which is perhaps the most undeveloped in business and life. As someone who quit both college (for a time) and later Wall Street, I have been a lifelong practitioner. And I'm a better man for it. But from a larger perspective, becoming a master in the art of the quit is essential to good financial performance. In other words: Making a decision to buy something, or take a job, is not too tricky or complicated. It is easier than you think to find a decent stock, gig or parcel of real estate. ...

Maven: Growth in GDP Coverage

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 13:12:47 EDT

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Hell hath no fury like a Business Press Maven spurned, but heaven hath -- uh, well, look: When you do as The Business Press Maven says, I wipe little tears of joy from my eyes. So let's get right down to business, a tissue in one hand and brass tacks in the other. Reporting of the Commerce Department's gross domestic product, my arch nemesis, came our way Friday morning.

The first stab at the first-quarter GDP came out at 1.3%. But Business Press Maven readers and now an impressively growing share of the business media know that this number has to be looked at with caution. It is due to be revised twice and might end up 50% higher or even lower. ...

Maven: Cat's Too-Loud Meow

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 08:52:30 EDT

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First off, The Business Press Maven is filing for an extension. I've spent several days reviewing Conde Nast's new business magazine, Portfolio. But I need a little bit more time to read through the thick and splashy tome to officially rule that it lacks a single actionable insight.

Several days deep into the search, it does not look promising. But I will, in service to my readers, courageously forge on. ...

Maven: Holes in Gap Coverage

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 12:22:37 EDT

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You know that children's song, "Little Bunny Foo-Foo," about the rabbit committing genocide on a population of field mice? The Business Press Maven sings it to his three children every night and it always gets him thinking, "If I could go around boppin' something on the head with the heedless energy of a sociopath, just what would it be?"

The answer usually comes as one of the small Mavens is shouting at me that I forgot to turn off the light: I would bop the concept, so prevalent in the business media and seen all around us today in writing about Gap, that revenue numbers are all that matters in retailing. ...

Maven: No Power to GM's Wonder Car

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 11:35:14 EST

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Did you hear the big news? General Motors is reinventing the automobile as we know it by making one that runs on hydrogen. It's sounding like a nearly a done deal -- the fuel-cell technology, the car that can turn and essentially brake by itself, emission of nothing more toxic than water vapor.

Wait a minute. The Business Press Maven begs your pardon. Right when I was about to invest my entire three-figure family fortune on the hydrogen car concept being heavily pushed by General Motors and getting overly kind publicity in our nation's media, I realized that hydrogen was what the company was putting out there for public (relations) consumption a couple of years ago. ...

Maven: Press Stays Even-Handed on Decker

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 13:00:40 EST

After saying for the better part of the past week that the business media were writing with washrags over their eyes when it came to Pfizer, I feel a peculiar responsibility to give the fatheads a supporting lift.

Well, the fatheads made it easy, at least in the early portion of this morning, by writing about Yahoo!'s deck-reshuffling with some uncharacteristic restraint and perspective.

Normally, as you know, The Business Press Maven believes the business media do a special disservice to investors when they get too excited about a management change or single prominent person entering a business' picture, even when that business is as purportedly cutting-edge as satellite radio and the person is the renowned Fartman. ...