Fast food joints are scrambling to find alternate sources for one of America's favorite sandwich toppings after a winter freeze took a huge bite out of Florida's tomato harvest. Due to unusually cold winter weather, 60% to 70% of Florida's tomato crop was destroyed, said Terence McElroy, a spokesman at the Florida Department of Agriculture. And because the sunshine state produces about 75% of U.S. tomatoes, prices across the country have spiked.

A 25-pound box of tomatoes from south Florida is selling for $30, up more than 300% from a year ago, when a box of tomatoes cost about $6.50 to $7, said Reggie Brown, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange.

Because ingredients make up about 30% of the price of a typical fast food meal and tomatoes go into nearly every sandwich or burger, a price spike could chew up profits in no time. [Read the full article]

Small-cap stocks, which are generally considered to be companies with a market value of under $2 billion, have been outperforming their larger peers since the market bottomed. And the trend is picking up this year.

The Russell 2000 and S&P SmallCap 600, two of the most widely watched barometers of small stocks, have each shot up about 8% this year. The S&P 500, by comparison, has gained just 3%.

That could be a good sign. Typically, the corporate equivalents of David will do better than the market's Goliaths at the beginning of an economic upturn.

Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist for Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Fla., pointed out that smaller companies have been reporting better profits so far this year.

Many of the earnings surprises have been centered on smaller companies instead of large caps. The troops are rallying while the generals are stalling," he said.

That makes sense. [Read the full article]

The net worth of American households increased slightly during the final three months of 2009, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.

Household net worth, the difference between assets and liabilities, rose to $54.2 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2009, up from $53.5 trillion in the third quarter.

It was the third consecutive quarterly increase, but the figure remains well below the highs of just two years ago. In the second quarter of 2007, net worth peaked at $65.3 trillion.

For 2009 as a whole, household net rose $2.8 trillion, compared with a decline of $11.2 trillion in all of 2008, according to the Federal Reserve's flow of funds report.

The report showed that household debt fell at an annual rate of 1.2%, marking the nearly two years of declines. But the drop came after Americans pared debt at a more aggressive 2.6% rate in the third quarter. [Read the full article]

Now that Citigroup and AIG are rolling in the bucks, GMAC is looking like the most egregious zombie bank of them all.

A report released Thursday questions the wisdom of the government's decision to spend $17 billion propping up the money-losing maker of car and home loans.

The report, released by the Congressional Oversight Panel, noted that the White House thinks taxpayers will lose at least $6 billion on the GMAC bailout. Two members of the panel projected that losses could reach $10 billion, based on the expected cost of the bailouts of GM and Chrysler.

But that's not the worst of it. Thanks to Treasury's decision to avoid a comprehensive restructuring of the company, pre-bailout shareholders in GMAC -- including private equity firm Cerberus -- could still profit on their investments, the report said. [Read the full article]