Jennifer Lynn's  Instablog

The warmer weather in May has contributed to increased sales, setting a good fiscal tone and encouraging confidence for U.S. shoppers. The Thomson Reuters Same Store Sales Index forecast for May 2013 reports a 3.7% expected increase in sales in stores. Excluding the drugstore sector, the SSS growth rate increased to 4.7%, above the 3.8% result recorded May 2012. The Thomson Reuters SSS index actual for April 2013 was 2.2%, and 4.3% Ex-drug.

Shorts, T-shirts and swimwear were among the hottest selling merchandise purchases for May as people look to spend more time outdoors. The recent weakness in consumer spending resulted from the unusually cold weather lasting into the start of spring. Global mall trends have been strong, once again showing positive year-over-year retail traffic trends. Recently, more traffic at shopping malls also helped with the increase in merchandise purchases for Memorial Day and summer...

Read the full article at Alpha Now - Thomson Reuters

thomsonreuters.com/2013/06/warmer-weather-expected-to-boost-may-same-store

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is moving aggressively to offer new cloud solutions, create proactive and personalized customer experiences by establishing essential infrastructure and services Asia-Pacific region in Japan and Singapore. Oracle announced last month it will offer customers a full range of Cloud Solutions including sales force automation, human resources, social networking, databases, and Java as part of the Oracle Public Cloud. Organizations can also now benefit from Oracle RightNow Cloud Service securely delivered via Oracle's latest data center's in Japan and Singapore. Investors should look for Cloud and Big Data to drive M&A in 2013...

benzinga.com/markets/13/04/3524430/oracles-data-centers-in-asia

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) investors understand that R&D spending means more growth returns than they pay for. Intel's Pharmaceutical R&D is capitalizing on research. Intel announced a deal last month to make "field-programmable gate arrays" for Altera (ALTR). Intel and Altera will be collaborating to transition into developing high-end high performance next-generation of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chips. Intel expects to have Altera gain a significant advantage over its rivals in the FPGA market. The next-generation products target ultra high-performance systems for military, wireline communications, cloud networking, and compute and storage applications. Intel claims by offering access to its patented tri-gate transistor technology benefits can significantly boost performance or reduce power consumption...

benzinga.com/news/13/04/3504235/intel-expands-its-pharmaceutical

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.