What’s New in the Financial World (8/14/2012)

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Aug 14, 6:54AM EDT

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Americans should avoid a number of high-end cars, if their primary interest is passenger safety. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reported that “only 3 of 11 midsize luxury and near-luxury cars evaluated earn good or acceptable ratings.”

The Acura TL and Volvo S60 earn good ratings, while the Infiniti G earns acceptable. The Acura TSX, BMW 3 series, Lincoln MKZ and Volkswagen CC earn marginal ratings. The Mercedes-Benz C-Class, Lexus IS 250/350, Audi A4 and Lexus ES 350 earn poor. All of these cars are 2012 models.

The data is particularly surprising since the best-selling luxury cars did the worst. Honda Motor Co. Ltd.’s (NYSE: HMC) Acura sales fall well below those of BMW, Mercedes and Audi. And Volvo sells barely any cars in the United States. On the other hand, the Mercedes C-Class is its best-selling model. Audi and Lexus occupy the annual luxury sales volume slots in the U.S. just below Mercedes and BMW. All of these luxury cars are supposed to be among the best engineered in the world. It looks like that assumption is a fantasy.

Apple Puts Pressure on Samsung

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) tried to increase the pressure on rival Samsung as a patent legal case draws to a close in court. The U.S. company said that a quarter of the $30.4 billion in sales of Samsung tablets and smartphones are based on Apple technology. According to the Guardian:

Accountant Terry Musika, citing Samsung records and testifying as an Apple expert witness, estimated that $8.16bn in revenue, or 22.7m of those total unit sales over that two-year period, came from products that infringed Apple patents, such as the first Galaxy S smartphone in July 2010.

Apple is only seeking $2.75 billion in damages. Based on the new testimony and evidence, that figure might go higher.

AT&T Readies for iPhone 5 Launch

BGR (Boy Genius Report) posted an exclusive that says that AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) has begun a period of strenuous training for its retail employees as its clears out inventory of current iPhones to prepare for the arrival of the iPhone 5. The target date for the launch has been pinned down to the third or fourth week of September.

BGR reports:

According to a trusted AT&T (T) source, the carrier is currently planning to launch Apple’s (AAPL) next-generation iPhone during the third or fourth week of September, with an all-hands-on-deck policy in place for employees that will extend through to the middle of October. A second AT&T source confirms that a large training event for regional employees has been rescheduled from the first week of October due to a conflict with a “huge announcement.” Apple is expected to introduce the “iPhone 5″ alongside other new iOS devices at a press conference on September 12th.

Douglas A. McIntyre

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.