Randomly Noted

Hewlett-Packard reported earnings today and while the numbers for the quarter ended January 31 were generally good, investors focused on the tepid outlook. Initial analysis of the results zeroed in on soft PC sales for the recent quarter and the question raised by the company of whether consumers were really opening their wallets. The stock fell 12% in after-hours trading.

There’s another longer-term trend investors should consider when looking at companies that have a lot of exposure to the printer business – will the introduction of tablets like the iPad make printing documents less necessary? Combine that with the green movement and it could spell troubles for companies that make printers.

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In the fast-paced financial market world, history gets started more quickly all the time.

Feb. 10. Twelve days ago. History.

So while enthusiasts for the growth of the U.S. economy surely want to take heart from the data on U.S. consumer confidence delivered earlier today by the Conference Board, the chilling reality is that date – Feb. 10. The Conference Board tells us in a press release: “The cutoff date for February’s preliminary results was Feb. 10, 2011.”

That means that the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index, reported today at 70.4 for February, up from 64.8 in January, can’t take into account a particular lack of confidence expressed today through the price action in certain U.S. financial markets.

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To those fretting about the very real budget problems of U.S. cities and states, their difficulty in fulfilling  financial promises they made and the implications of all that for the market in tax-free bonds, here’s a number that might offer a measure of reassurance. 72. Or, if you like, 77.

These numbers represent the percentages, respectively, of the number of polled New Yorkers who support the tough budget proposal of the state’s new Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, and the percentage who have a favorable view of him. (The source is the Siena Research Institute.)

That’s New York, the fabled liberal state. Across the river in New Jersey, the controversial Republican governor, Chris Christie, is lighting into government worker benefit and retirement plans that threaten the state’s fiscal future.

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Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, is concerned about a name. So is a Congressman from Florida. But they’ve got it wrong. Whether a name is kept or not, the world it represented already is gone.

Schumer and Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., and no doubt other U.S. politicians yet to be heard from are hell-bent that if a merger between Deutsche Borse and NYSE Euronext takes place, as expected, the New York Stock Exchange name be preserved.

Schumer even went so far Sunday as to say the New York Stock Exchange name has to come first in the combined and so far undeclared title of the new entity, which would be the planet’s largest exchange. This despite the fact that Deutsche Borse shareholders would have 60% of the new entity.

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Some good quotes from Robert Khuzami, head of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division, as he laid out how people associated with an “expert networking” or “matchmaking” firm allegedly shared inside information about some of the big companies that employed them with hedge fund employees.

Said Khuzami in a statement issued today: “Today we pull back the curtain and reveal that the only matching that was going on here was to match theft with greed.”

And lest anyone not understand what’s allegedly involved, Khuzami employed analogy to good use. He said: “These trusted employees chose to steal information that belonged not to them, but to the company and its shareholders. They lined their pockets with tens of thousands of dollars by trafficking in that stolen information in a manner that is not unlike an employee who drives to the loading dock late at night and fills the trunk of his car with valuable office equipment and sells it to his neighbor.”

Here’s yet another sign that the economy is showing some strength: In it’s first quarter earnings report released a short while ago, Walt Disney Co. showed a couple of examples of being able to raise prices, something that has been nearly unheard of for the past couple of years in just about any business.

In its cable networks division, sales were higher in part on stronger advertising growth. The drivers? More ads but also, higher rates. Again, in the ad-challenged media business, the idea of raising rates over the past few years was certainly unheard of.

And in the parks and resorts division, sales were higher because attendance levels were up. But also because the company raised ticket prices.

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Bromide of the day: nothing is simple.

Exhibit A: There is a corporate governance tussle going on between the nation’s largest public pension fund and what is perhaps the country’s most admired company, Apple Inc. It is about a fundamental issue: the meaning of elections.

At first glance, you might think the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, better known as CalPERS, wins this argument hands down. It wants Apple to make sure a director who runs uncontested for election receives more ‘for’ votes than ‘withhold’ (the equivalent of no) votes.

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The U.S.’s largest public pension funds reports further progress in its useful quest to get more publicly traded companies to adopt majority voting for directors.

Simply put, majority voting requires a director in an uncontested election to receive more “for” votes from shareholders than “withhold” votes to continue to serve on the board of directors.

The 58 companies targeted in March 2010 by The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) were holding onto the plurality system. Under that system, a single “for” vote could re-elect a director.

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You normally wouldn’t think it’s good news that consumers are taking on more debt, especially when that debt comes in the form of credit cards, which can be very costly debt. But today’s report from the Federal Reserve that showed the first increase in credit-card debt since the month before Lehman Brothers failed is being viewed as just that – a positive sign about the economy.

In December,  credit-card debt rose $2.3 billion to $800.5 billion – the first monthly increase since August 2008. This, combined with a recent Fed survey that found banks were becoming more willing to make installment loans, has some wondering: Has the consumer stopped de-leveraging?

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There are facts. There is political reality. As those two clash, it won’t come out well for the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC’s chairman, Mary L. Schapiro, marshalled facts in a speech today, hitting hard that the watchdog agency needs more money to modernize to fulfill its role, especially in light of the additional responsibilities handed the SEC by the Dodd-Frank Act.

The reality is the SEC had better review all its operations, set its priorities and stop some things so it can do others well. The top priorities should be enforcement and watching ever-more-sophisticated stock market patterns.  Other functions, such as investor education, will have to fall by the wayside.

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