Summer of Easy Money Marches on; Russia’s Largest Food Retailer to Close Stores; When Ad Worlds Collide

Summer of Easy Money Marches on (Reuters)

These days, Federal Reserve meetings seem to be getting as much play as the next Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) card. But that’s what happens when you continue to control the world’s purse strings through easy-money policies. And, it appears we’ll be getting more of the same when the Fed meets later this week.  Even though the debate on how to prepare the markets for the inevitable reduction of stimulus is getting more heated, that reduction is still a little ways away — October, maybe even September —  if you can believe the rumblings from the Hill.  We should know more Wednesday at 2:00 pm Eastern when the Fed announces its latest move. Investors can expect near-zero interest rates and stimulus dollars through the summer.

Russia’s Largest Food Retailer to Close Stores (Bloomberg)

The Russian market dropped on news that the country’s largest food retailer, OAO Magnit, may be closing the doors to a number of its Moscow-based stores.  Although actual store closures wouldn’t financially impact the company much, the reason for the closures could cause worsen damage. Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has called for health inspectors, police and the migration service to investigate the stores, and “take measures to close them.” The negative sentiment could cause further slides. The benchmark Micex Index was off by .2 percent at the time of this writing and could be heading lower as another Russian stalwart, OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel (the world’s largest nickel producer), was down almost a percent as well. Investors looking to make a quick ruble may want to rethink that position.

When Ad Worlds Collide (YahooFinance)

Sunday’s announcement of the merger of two of the leading advertisers, Omnicom and Publicis, will create the largest ad company in the world. It also announces to the world that Big Data — the collection and selling of consumer information online — is the inevitable next step to monumental revenues in the industry. The combined revenue of Omnicom and Publicis would have been $22 billion last year… far and away the largest amount in the advertising industry. But, more importantly, the total is less than half of what Google — at $50 billion — made last year largely from its ad business. And soon, that online revenue will surpass television’s slot as leader of the ad money pack. According to eMarketer, TV ad revenue will hit $66 billion in 2013. As the online ad industry increases data crunching, and message personalization, investors should heed the call, if they want to increase their own revenues.