Cupcake Shop Crumbs Shuttering All Its Stores

rumbs says it is shuttering all its stores, a week after the struggling cupcake shop operator was delisted from the Nasdaq.

The New York City-based company said all employees were notified of the closures Monday. A representative for Crumbs could not immediately say how many workers were affected or how many stores it had remaining on its last day.

"Regrettably Crumbs has been forced to cease operations and is immediately attending to the dislocation of its employees while it evaluates its limited remaining options," the company said in an emailed statement. That will include filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation.

A press release from its website in March listed 65 locations in 12 states and Washington, D.C. The website had not been updated with notification of the closures late Monday.

Crumbs was founded in 2003 and went public in 2011, selling giant cupcakes in flavors including Cookie Dough and Girl Scouts Thin Mints. More recently, however, it had been suffering from a steep decline in sales. For the three months ending March 31, Crumbs Bake Shop Inc. reported a loss of $3.8 million, steeper than the loss of $2 million from the same period a year ago.

The company had warned in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission this past May that it "may be forced to curtail or cease its activities" if its operations didn't generate enough cash flow.

As of the end of last year, Crumbs listed about 165 full-time employees and about 655 part-time hourly employees working in its stores.

Source:

abcnews.go.com

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Dollar falls against yen, Fed minutes in focus

A money changer holds stacks of US dollar notes in Jakarta, August 29, 2013.

The dollar weakened on Monday against the Japanese yen as investors continued to digest last week’s strong U.S. employment report and speculated about when the Federal Reserve is likely to begin raising U.S. interest rates.

The yen gained as long-dated U.S. Treasuries rallied, stemming a week-long bond selloff heading into Thursday's employment report, which showed nonfarm payrolls increased by 288,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 6.1 percent from 6.3 percent in May.

The next major focus will be the release on Wednesday of minutes from the Fed’s June meeting, which will be scoured for signs about when central bank members see an interest rate increase as likely.

“The discussion won’t reflect the strong bounce in nonfarm payrolls, but will serve as a reference as to what the internal debate is in the FOMC regarding the first rate hike,” said Martin Schwerdtfeger, a foreign exchange strategist at TD Securities in Toronto.

Goldman Sachs economists on Monday brought forward their expectations of the first rate increase to the third quarter of 2015 from the first quarter of 2016, following similar actions from some other banks last week.

The dollar fell 0.27 percent against the yen to 101.84 yen, down from 102.10 yen late on Friday.

The dollar also slipped 0.01 percent against the euro to $1.3604. It had strengthened to $1.3577 earlier on Monday after data showed German industrial output fell 1.8 percent on the month in May, its biggest drop in more than two years.

The weak German data kept alive expectations the European Central Bank may need to loosen monetary policy further in coming months in the face of disinflationary pressures and subdued economic growth.

The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a broad basket of currencies, was unchanged at 80.220, down from an earlier high of 80.359, the highest in a week-and-a-half.

Source:

www.reuters.com

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German industrial output posts surprise slump in May

Rolls of wire are seen at the plant of German steel company Arcelor Mittal in Duisburg April 19, 2013.

Germany's industrial output fell 1.8 percent on the month in May, its biggest drop in more than two years, as holiday days ate into working hours, construction slumped and geopolitics weighed, casting a shadow on its role as euro zone motor.

The drop was a surprise and sent the euro weaker - the consensus forecast in a Reuters poll was for industrial output to be unchanged. The economy ministry also slightly downwardly revised April data to -0.3 percent from a previous -0.2 percent.

The disappointing data added to mounting signs of a weaker second quarter in Europe's largest economy, after it enjoyed quarterly growth of 0.8 percent in the first three months of the year, its fastest growth rate in three years.

 

The figures also fanned expectations that the European Central Bank (ECB) may have to loosen monetary policy further in coming months in the face of disinflationary pressures and subdued growth.

"After a strong first quarter, industry output weakened over the last months. Besides the effect of the bridge (holiday) days in May and weakness in construction, which was to be expected after the mild winter, geopolitical factors may also have played a part," the ministry said in a statement.

"However sentiment indicators and general economic conditions suggests that output will rise again in the rest of the year after a weaker second quarter," it said.

The ministry did not specify which geopolitical areas were of concern but economists such as the influential Munich-based Ifo think-tank say business is worried about the Ukraine crisis and the impact on oil prices of the insurgency in Iraq.

"The second quarter is gradually turning into a massive disappointment. So far, May has brought disappointing retail sales, falling industry orders and now a significant fall in production," Dekabank economist Andreas Scheuerle said.

"Even if some of this is down to missing days at work because of the bridge days, and might be recovered later, there was simply not the momentum in the second quarter. That said, the general state of the German economy is not in question. The third quarter should be strong again," he said.

The German government forecasts growth of 1.8 percent for the year as a whole on the back of strong domestic demand and a healthy jobs market. However, expectations of a disappointing second quarter are now widespread.

"It is likely that German growth will at best come in flat in the second quarter, which suggests the other euro countries and the ECB should not pin their hopes on the German engine of growth for the time being," Commerzbank economists wrote in a research note.

Output in the construction sector fell 4.9 percent in May, after an exceptionally mild winter allowed much more building work to take place in the first months of the year. Output in intermediate goods slipped 3.0 percent on the quarter.

Source:

www.reuters.com

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