The SJC 25 Stock Report, Feb. 19, 2012

Editor's note  – In this feature, we check on the health of the Fortune 500 companies that have a presence in San Juan Capistrano.

It's been an OK week on Wall Street. Apparently, my presence did not make much of an impression! I'll try to spend more next time and dispense wisdom from the SJC Patch 25, which is still beating the Dow Jones by 2 percent in the last three months and by even more impressive numbers at the six- and 12-month marks.

However, Marketwatch says the bull market it starting to stray. Click on the story if you get like to get hypnotized by the charts.

One sector that's moving is retail. Both Dollar Tree and The TJX Cos., parent owner of Marshall's, will report their fourth-quarter earnings this week. And both moved up this week. 

Some Business Briefs for You:

OK, all you former mortgage industry types, here's one for you. Four years after the sector crashed and brought down a nation's economy with it, Citibank is still making bad loans and falsifying the underwriting. Read the gory details at Bloomberg News.

On the other hand, investors are rewarding Wells Fargo for its perceived creditworthiness.

Bank of America Corp. is freezing its top dog's salary and offering no bonus this year, according to Bloomberg News. Future pay will be tied to performance. BofA, the second-biggest U.S. lender, plunged 58 percent in New York trading last year as CEO Brian T. Moynihan sold $33 billion in assets and announced 30,000 job cuts amid stagnant revenue and rising costs from defective mortgages. This year, however, its stock is up 44 percent.

So I get my business news from such sources as Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business News and other "street-oriented" online services. They pop up at the side of performance charts at Google Finance. It's not often I see a Patch story there, but I found one connected to Costco this week. A resident's group in Yorktown is opposing bringing a Costco to its town and has written a detailed report it calls, "The True Costs of Costco." While I beg to differ, I gotta admire the gung-ho attitude and organizaiton of the opposition.

A victory of some sorts for animal-rights activists. McDonald's is demanding its pork suppliers provide bigger pens for pregnant pigs, GlobalAnimal.org reports.

Environmentalists may like this one. Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas & Electric, California’s third-biggest utility, agreed to buy 300 megawatts of wind and solar power from projects under development by Spain’s Iberdrola SA and 8minutenergy Renewables LLC.

 Ticker 

  % Change

 on the Week 

   -0.62

– Financial data provided by Google Finance