(WisBusiness) MON News Summary — 20 July 2009

— Both the Dow Jones and the WisBusiness index of Wisconsin stocks open the week significantly higher after strong performances last week.

The Dow opens at 8,743, nearly 600 points higher than last week’s open of 8,146.

And the WisBusiness index of 70 state stocks opens at 1,525, up more than 100 points from last week’s open of 1,417.

The strong week for the WisBusiness index was helped along by Milwaukee manufacturer A.O. Smith, which saw its stock price rise nearly 10 percent on Friday alone after outperforming analyst expectations with a quarterly net income of nearly 24 million dollars.

— The week ahead is a slow one for national economic indicator reports, but earnings season is in full swing, as more than a dozen companies with state ties are due to announce their quarterly results this week.

The reports start today with Sensient Technologies and Johnson Controls.

Other big names with releases this week: CNH Global on Tuesday, U.S. Bank on Wednesday, and Manpower and Kimberly-Clark on Thursday.

See the WisBusiness Stock Tracker page for a full list of earnings releases: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=140042

— No one knows how deadly the H1N1 flu pandemic will be – if and when it spreads this fall and winter. It has killed 200 nationwide and five in Wisconsin so far. The federal Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization have warned it could be exceedlingly dangerous.

“It’s spreading fast,” says Paul Radspinner, president and CEO of FluGen, a fledgling Madison company.

Though Radspinner’s company does not yet have any products on the market, he hopes that within a few years, it will be able to play a major role in combating flu outbreaks.

His firm is focused, he said, on the development, the production and the delivery of flu vaccines. Down the road, FluGen hopes to expand into other anti-infective products.

Read more about the outlook for FluGen in a new WisBusiness interview: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=164889

— Through the end of June, state tax revenue collections were down seven percent, or about $838 million dollars, compared to the same point in 2008, according to figures released by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.

Individual income tax collections for the month of June, when adjusted for late payments, fell by 9 percent and sales tax collections were down 11 percent, but corporate tax collections rose by more than 30 percent.

Looking just at June, overall collections were down 6 percent compared to the previous year.

See the Dept. of Revenue release http://wispolitics.com/1006/090717_DOR_June09.pd

— The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Research Foundation announced the award of $500,000 in new catalyst grants with support from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

The funding will seed seven new research projects ranging from new tools to aid in drug discovery, to a method of water monitoring using fiber optics, to models for more accurate short-term prediction of wind speed, which could be used to advance wind-generated power.

See details: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=164870

— A UW-Milwaukee survey shows widespread support in the Milwaukee area for a ban on Bisphenol A among those who have heard of the chemical.

Several studies suggest the FDA-approved chemical, used in a variety of plastic products, poses health risks, particularly in young children. Sen. Julie Lassa, D-Stevens Point, and Rep. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, have sponsored legislation to ban BPA from baby bottles and children’s cups.

The survey of 946 adults in the four-county metropolitan Milwaukee area found that 63 percent of respondents had heard “a lot” or “a little” about BPA, and of those, 67 percent said they supported banning its use in household products. Eighty-one percent of those who heard of the chemical supported banning its use in baby bottles, while 77 percent supported banning it from children’s toys.

See more: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=164887

— The state’s flagship campus is is compiling a census of the state’s UW-Madison-related startups.

The campus-based project is soliciting university colleagues and experts across Wisconsin to contribute to refining and building the list of business start-ups – now numbered at more than 250 – founded by university faculty, students and staff.

The new census can be found at http://www.bus.wisc.edu/insite/census.

See details: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=164858

— An agreement with a Spanish train manufacturer to buy two passenger train sets is expected to create 80 jobs in Wisconsin and possibly more if passenger rail blooms in the United States, Gov. Jim Doyle said.

The agreement with train manufacturer Talgo includes the $47 million purchase of two 14-car trains to replace the aging cars currently used in the Amtrak Hiawatha line between Milwaukee and Chicago. Doyle said $120 million in bonding authority to purchase trains has been set aside over the last several budgets. The first two sets will be ready in two years.

See the WisBusiness story for more: http://www.wisbusiness.com/index.iml?Article=164802

TOP STORIES
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1,300 workers back on job at Patrick Cudahy: About 1,300 of the 1,800-person work force at Patrick Cudahy Inc.’s meat processing plant are back on the job, less than two weeks after a massive fire damaged a portion of the facility.
http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2009/07/13/daily80.html