Consumer

BJ's (BJ) reported falling comparable sales, yet held it's guidance for the all important fourth quarter. Comparable sales fell only 2.5% nevertheless, and actually a weaker economy continues to help BJ's given that strapped consumers are flocking to it's discount pricing over other retail options. The company is a great example of a business that has performed remarkably well through the U.S. economic downturn and could be interesting given that earnings, which were never hit that bad too begin with, could now be on the upswing. Meanwhile the stock remains well below 2008 highs despite the fact that it has been able to use this downturn to its advantage.

(The author does not own BJ shares)

Check out the full thing here.

Black Box warnings are the most severe type of warning that the FDA can require for a pharmaceutical. They can indicate a wide range of potential risks, with varying degrees of probability, but one thing is for sure. The the term Black Box is downright scary and it frequently highlights a serious, though perhaps very improbable, health risk such as, well, death.

Still, to be fair, it could be simply telling me about a suicide risk that has 1/100th the probability of me similarly dying when I get behind the wheel of a car. And given the dark name, I'm far less inclined to risk the Black Box warning than to drive to the corner store. So perhaps this is a problem, that the term Black Box is too scary even if it does warn of some pretty unfortunate risks.

It appears the FDA has recognized this since they are beginning to phase-out the term with some better word choice. Is it fair if we call this a re-branding of the Black Box?

On the FDA conference call with reporters this afternoon to discuss the new warnings, two agency officials told the news media to use the phrase "Boxed warning" instead of "Black box warning." Why? As one of them put it, "Black box carries the implication, 'Don't you dare use this'." The other official added, "We don't want to scare people off (from trying to quit smoking). We just want them to be carefully monitored."

Apple and Intel have been increasing their stakes in London-listed Imagination Technologies (IMG.L). Why? It appears that IMG's technology is currently at the center of the hi-tech world. It's Power VR technology has been used to both power Apple's 3G iPhone and Intel's Atom processer for netbooks. Imagination seems to be nicely capturing some of the fastest growing areas of tech right now.

The battle over Imagination has been an escalating battle between Apple and Intel since December of last year when Apple took a 3.6% stake in Imagination. Back then, Intel then quickly followed suit and bought 3%, but let expanded this beachhead to a whopping 16% just earlier this week. Within days, Apple came in againe and upped their stake to 9.5% in response.

Take a look at this chart of Imagination below. Shares have recently spiked on the news, obviously, but it should be noted that Apple's latest purchase price averaged only 142.75 pence, pretty close to where the shares now trade. (142 pence as per the LSE)