Housing production was reported at 654.000 units in March. 

“April’s increase in housing production comes on top of strong upward revisions to the previous month’s data, and is an encouraging sign that we are returning to a gradual, upward trend that should continue in the year ahead as builders respond to improving demand for new homes in certain markets,” said Barry Rutenberg, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). 

“Unfortunately, overly restrictive lending conditions for builders and buyers are slowing the pace of this trend considerably.” 

The latest reports indicated that building permit declined last month from a 3 1/2 year high to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 715,000. Permits for single-family homes rose about 2 percent.

Related posts

• No related posts.

Oracle is seeking up to $1billion in damages on copyright claims.

The jury also found that Google infringed on Oracle‘s copyright on nine lines of Java code that is in Android.

Google could pay from $200-$150,000 for those damaged, according to sources.

Oracle Corp. is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing computer hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems. 

Related posts

• YouTube Is Testing A New Look (0)
• Works, it works, unlocking Android Facial Recognition Ice Cream Sandwich (0)
• Will Online Television and Video Sharing Really Change the Industry? (0)
• Web 2.0 for Every One of Us (0)
• Various Online Marketing Methods (0)

Company said net income increased to $682 million in first quarter, or $5.36 a share, from $562 million, or $4.29 a share in the same period a year ago. 

“We had a good start to the year with solid first quarter results driven by an increase in processed transactions, the highest quarterly growth rate since our IPO, as well as positive volume growth in all regions as consumers continue to adopt electronic payments,” said Ajay Banga, MasterCard President and Chief Executive Officer. 

“We are leveraging opportunities around the world. In the U.S., we have significantly improved our position in debit and now have the capability to process transactions on about half of all U.S. debit cards. Outside of the U.S., the acquisitions of DataCash and Access Prepaid Worldwide are delivering growth, both showing roughly 25% operational increases.” 

Related posts

• No related posts.

However, the sale of new-home was revised up to 353,000 from an original reading of 313,000. The median sales price was $234,500 in March, down 1 percent from the February price. 

On Thursday, the National Association of Realtors said that home resales declined in March but prices rose slightly from a year earlier. The S&P/Case Shiller index showed U.S. single-family home prices rose for the first time in 10 months in February. 

Meanwhile, pending home sales increased 4.1 percent from February and is now 12.8 percent higher than March of 2011, according to National Association of Realtors.

Related posts

• No related posts.

According to Google spokeswoman, Google Drive will be available for some user today and it will roll out worldwide in the next few weeks. 

Users will now be able to upload pictures or spreadsheets to Google Drive and share them with a link, instead of sending a bulky file. They can also access their files from an app available on Android phones and tablets. A version for Apple’s (AAPL) iOS is in the works, as well, according to sources. 

“Drive is built to work seamlessly with your overall Google experience,” Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome and Apps for Google, wrote in a blog post. 

“You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+, and soon you’ll be able to attach stuff from Drive directly to emails in Gmail. Drive is also an open platform, so we’re working with many third-party developers so you can do things like send faxes, edit videos and create website mockups directly from Drive.”

Related posts

• Apple and Indie Labels Only A Matter of Time for iTunes In The Cloud (0)
• Will Online Television and Video Sharing Really Change the Industry? (0)
• On the Future of Computing (0)
• Nook vs. Fire: Which Device Should You Buy? (0)
• My Maps Becomes My Places (0)

The company’s net income fell to $5.11 billion, or $0.60 per share, from $5.23 billion, or $0.61 per share, a year ago. 

In 2011′s fourth quarter, Windows revenue was down 6% compared to the year before. 

Most of Microsoft’s businesses posted solid sales growth compared with last year: 14% for the server and tools division; 9% for the business sector, which includes Office; 6% for online services; and 4% for Windows. 

“We saw great demand from enterprises this quarter,” said Microsoft investor relations director Lisa Nelson. 

Related posts

• Should Businesses Do Social Media or Social Media Marketing? (0)
• ONLINE BUSINESSES YOU CAN START TODAY, PART ONE – WEB DESIGN (0)
• Microsoft Solutions To Virus Issues (0)
• Microsoft collects license fees on 50% of Android devices, tells Google to “wake up” (0)
• Microsoft Black Friday Deals: Grab A Kinect For $99 (0)

Housing starts to fell slightly 5.8 percent to 654,000 units last month from 694,000 in February.

Market expectations were for an increase to 705,000. The decline in housing starts in March was primarily the result of a 16.9% decrease in the volatile multiples component to an annualized pace of 192,000 from 231,000 last month, according to reports.

“From a trend perspective, it is still on a rising path. Tentative is the best we could say about this,” said chief economist Gregory Miller of Suntrust.

March’s decline in housing starts was the biggest percentage drop since April of last year, although most of the fall was in the volatile multi-unit category, which declined 16.9 percent.

Building permit increased by 4.5 percent to 747,000 units last month.

“The rise in permits kind of offsets the disappointing data,” said Omer Esiner, a market analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange in Washington.

Construction of single-family homes also, which made up71% of housing starts in March, dropped by 0.2 percent, according to sources. Meanwhile, multifamily homes posted a 16.9% loss.

Related posts

• No related posts.

According to sources, the bank’s revenue fell 1.7 percent from a year earlier but increased 13 percent from the previous quarter.

Citi also reported an increase in capital, which is important because the bank’s request to raise its dividend or to buy back stock was rebuffed after the Federal Reserve’s most recent stress test.

Citi’s loan book grew 12 percent from a year earlier, to $514 billion.

“We have roughly 26% of our balance sheet right now tied up in either cash or highly liquid securities,” said John Gerspach, Citi’s chief financial officer.

“We would love to put our cash to work in loans, but we just don’t see that level of demand at this point of time.”

Gerspach said that loan demand “is picking up” in the emerging markets.

Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said in a statement, “While the operating environment improved in the first quarter, there is still much macro uncertainty and we will continue to manage risk carefully.”

Related posts

• No related posts.

“I’m excited to share the news that we’ve agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a statement. 

“Now, we’ll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.” 

According to sources, Instagram was founded in 2010 by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom and became the most popular free photo sharing application on the iPhone. Instagram released a version of its application for Google’s Android operating system last week. 

Instagram lets users take pictures with smartphones, retouch them with borders and filters, and then post the images on social networks.  

“This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all,” said Zuckerberg. 

“But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together.”

Related posts

• YouTube Is Testing A New Look (0)
• Works, it works, unlocking Android Facial Recognition Ice Cream Sandwich (0)
• Will Online Television and Video Sharing Really Change the Industry? (0)
• Web 2.0 for Every One of Us (0)
• Various Online Marketing Methods (0)

Avon said Andrea Jung, who was the company’s chief executive for 12 years, will remain as chairman after McCoy takes over later this month.  

Ms. Jung came under fire for failing to stem the company’s declines and wrap up a bribery investigation. 

David H. McConnell founded Avon in 1886. The company became a fixture in households across the country as its legions of “Avon ladies” went door to door selling makeup to family, friends and acquaintances. Its brands include Avon Color, Skin-So-Soft and mark. 

The company markets its products in more than 100 countries through about 6.4 million independent sales representatives. Its annual revenue is more than $11 billion. 

Avon’s shares dropped 3.4 percent to $22.65 on Monday. Last week, the company’s shares were about 26 percent from its 52-week high of $31.60 last May. 

Related posts

• No related posts.