Segments From This Episode

• Profits, for now, fuel bank stocks

  by Stacey Vanek Smith

  

  As earnings season begins, banks are predicted to post the strongest growth this year. But revenues are sluggish, so how do profits keep soaring?

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• Red Lobster building huge aquafarm in Malaysia

  by Elizabeth Wynne Johnson

  The parent company of Red Lobster will create a 35-square-mile aquafarm to help keep its restaurants from running out of lobster.

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• Missouri’s low cigarette tax under fire

  by Maria Altman

  A ballot initiative could raise the tax rate on a pack of smokes in Missouri, which is 8x lower than the national average.

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• Is Facebook’s big Instagram purchase worth it?

  by Eve Troeh

  Facebook is making its biggest purchase yet as it prepares to go public. The company is buying the photo-sharing app Instagram for a billion dollars.

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• Insta-billion: The price tag on Instagram

  by David Brancaccio

  A wee little program that lets you send photos from your cell phone to your pals is worth a billion U.S. dollars. That’s the price the social networking company Facebook is paying to snap up Instagram, an app that also lets the sender mess with the photos before sending them.

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• Greek police officers, vehicles for rent

  by Mark Lowen

  The new scheme could help the police force raise money and stop the taxpayer from footing the bill.

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• The Titanic: Now a source of pride for Belfast

  After decades of wariness about having built the ship that came to a tragic end, Belfast is now trying to cash in on the Titanic connection.

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• The motivation behind Facebook’s Instagram buy

  by John Moe

  Facebook is making its biggest purchase yet as it prepares to go public. The company is buying the photo-sharing app Instagram for a billion dollars. Is it worth the price tag?

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• Government’s new plan to end growing cell phone theft

  by Marketplace Staff

  There’s word today the federal government is moving to render those stolen cell phones a lot less valuable. The plan is to make phone companies keep a registry of specific phones as opposed to phone numbers.

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• PODCAST: Big banks need more capital, a new Oval Office

  by Mary Dooe

  

  It's been more than four years since the giant investment bank Bear Stearns collapsed, and the banking system is still in trouble — but bank stocks have been soaring recently. Facebook is making its biggest purchase yet, as it gears up to go public. This Sunday is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and Belfast, Northern Ireland is hoping to become the center of Titanic tourism.

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• Hybrid car buyers aren’t the most loyal

  by David Brancaccio and Jeremy Hobson

  Turns out, many Americans who purchase a hybrid car end up going back to a non-hybrid the next time they hit the car lot.

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• What we can expect from earnings season

  by Juli Niemann

  With some tough economic news in the last week or so with the jobs report, and today some evidence of a slowdown in China, Wall Street is anticipating modest reports from corporations.

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• Instagram could struggle to turn a profit

  by Eve Troeh

  Facebook is buying the mobile app company Instagram for $1 billion. But when many similar image-based companies have failed to make a profit, will Instagram be any different?

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• Brewing companies look to up their game in China

  by David Brancaccio

  Bloomberg News reports that local beer in China tends go for the equivalent of about 30 cents a can, so there's the push is on for super fancy high end beer like… Budweiser.

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