Randomly Noted

It’s been nearly a decade since Pepsico bought Quaker Oats. So, Dow Jones Newswires reporter Anjali Cordeiro decided to take a look back at how successful the acquisition has been. Her verdict – the oat cereal business for Pepsi has been soggy at best.

Part of what has hurt the business, she reports, is that during the recession, consumers went for lower costing brands. But also, the company has acknowledged that it has under-invested in the business.

I have a simple solution for Pepsi – buy the rights to the recipe for Post Fortified  Oak Flakes from Post Foods LLC, the company that is the latest iteration of original Postum Foods. Somewhere along the line, a decision was made to discontinue the Post Fortified Oat Flakes. In this bloggers view, that was a huge mistake. These oat flakes were the tastiest cereal ever made. And healthy at that. So, Pepsi, an easy way to get a hit back on your hands is to resurrect this wonderful, old cereal!

And apparently others feel the same way about Post Fortified Oat Flakes. It comes in number 9 in a survey of the top 100 all-time favorite cereals. Click here to see the other cereals on that list.

One of the reasons the Euro was weaker versus the dollar on Wednesday was concern and rumors that the Chinese government, a huge global investor,  had decided to stop buying sovereign debt of European governments. In other words, they didn’t want to be exposed to potential losses that could arise if Spain or other countries couldn’t get their financial houses in order.

So, here’s the what the Chinese said, according to a Dow Jones Newswires report:

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The lead paragraph on a Dow Jones Newswires story today sums it up  nicely: Greek 10-year bond yields are higher than they’ve been in a decade, the stock market there fell and the Euro continues under pressure.

The very casual observer has to ask: wait a second, didn’t the European Union brethren of Greece agree that they would back up that nation’s troubled financials?

Wasn’t Greece in the most simplified, financial markets-only sense ‘fixed’?

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The finances of many state and local governments are just a mess. Huge budget gaps, hard decisions about what programs to cut, threats of higher taxes and municipal layoffs. You would think investors wouldn’t want to touch municipals  with a ten-foot clipped coupon.

But as Newswires reporter Stan Rosenberg reported today, pent up demand and an appetite for still decent yielding maturities led to the strong sales today of $4 billion in new securities. Another reason – investors who missed out on the 14% gains in munis last year – the best in the fixed-income world – did’t want to miss another chance. The pros are forecasting new issuance could reach $450 billion this year. But buyers should be very selective. Yes, very few municipal issuers have ever defaulted. But municipalities will feel the brunt of the financial crisis much later than other sectors. And there is more pain to be felt on that front.

Dow Jones Newswires Managing Editor Neal Lipschutz discusses the latest Dow Jones Economic Sentiment Indicator on Fox Business News. Click on the picture above to view the video.