What's Important In The Financial World (11/12/2011) Olympus Scandal, Wii Sales

Japan has a corporate scandal all of its own, proof the larceny and bad management are without borders. An investigation into hundreds of million of dollars in concealed losses at Olympus has caused one of its largest shareholders to desert it. Funds from M&A were used to hide the losses. Reuters reports that Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund sold its entire position in the consumer electronics company.

The Congressional super committee is unlikely to come to any decision about budget cuts. It has less than two weeks–until November 23–to chop $1.2 trillion to be spread over the next ten years. Democrats remain set on $1.3 trillion in taxes and have proposed $1 trillion in lower expenditure. The automatic cuts set if the committee makes no decision are by far the most likely results.

Nintendo continued to lose ground to Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Sony (NASDAQ: SNE) in the video console business according to research firm NPD. Nintendo’s share prices has been battered as demand for its Wii product continue to be weak. The Japanese company sold only 250,000 in the month. This compares to Xbox sales of 360,000. Total sales of gaming hardware and software in the US rose 3% to $1.05 billion in October.

Douglas A. McIntyre