Weekly Wrap

I don't know if you remember last week's market wrap, but I was whining about barely having enough time to open my laptop much less cover the market week. What was I talking about?? I had no idea what "busy" was, until this week. I traveled from San Francisco to Phoenix to Salt Lake City to Calgary to Minneapolis to Amsterdam and finally arrived here today in Cologne, Germany. The Chicks were booked with seminars, interviews and live videoconferences around the U.S. Before taking off for Europe, I flew up to Calgary to pick up our kids, and then whisked them off to Germany to see my husband. He's playing in the World Championships of Hockey this month. (And if I may, he's the captain of Team U.S.A.) But to help gauge the extent of my packed week, I missed Survivor. I'm probably the ONLY person in the whole U.S.A. who missed the show. I still don't know who won, so don't tell me. I'm going to cross my fingers for Tina, but we all know how likely that would be.

The most startling news of the week, the Chicks made the Wall Street Journal!! (Thursday May 3rd, Page A25). Chick Jana even got calls asking how people in "the industry" were treating us differently now that we've made The Journal. Funny thing is, we don't know anyone in "the industry" and the friends that we do have find it more exciting that we were in Glamour. I made sure to point it out to everyone on the long flight over the Atlantic. I pretended they all understood English and were jumping for joy. My kids hid in the bathroom.

I'm very excited to be in Germany as I'm going to be on the hunt for McDonald's (MCD) new McCafe's. This past week they opened their first in the U.S., but have over 300 across Europe. Looks like Ronald wants to get his hands into the coffee market that is dominated by Starbucks (SBUX). I'm not sure how American's are going to embrace the idea of an upscale coffee shop associated with a drive-thru burger joint, but Chicago residents are going to be the first to sample the idea. For more on the McCafe concept, check out this article at fool.com.

Who knows, maybe McDonald's had visions of thousands of Americans being laid off and needing someplace to hang out where they could actually afford the coffee. It looks like Dell might be sending another one to three thousand their way. This past week they announced that they would probably be RIF-fing (Reduction In Force) in order to cut costs in the coming months.

Charles Schwab (SCH) also Riffed more than 600 workers in the Phoenix area on its way to eliminating more than 3,000 jobs nationwide. By the end of this year they plan to have cut 13% of their workforce, which is the exact percentage that @Home (ATHM) plans on cutting during the same time period. Thirteen seems to be the universal number. The superstitious aren't that crazy after all.

Looks like those McCafe's might catch on. Speaking of, Phil just came back from practice and would like to head out and get something to drink. Stay tuned. (Although, I can't promise it'll be a coffee as my body is still in the happy hour time zone.)

Until next week... from Cologne Germany,

Chick Karin

For extra credit today...
Check out Chick Susie's post on a little corporate helping hand gossip and Chick Kristin's commercial summary of Survivor.

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