Money Minute: Target Takes Aim at New Card Technology

Target moves to a new technology to protect consumers from having their personal information stolen again.

Target (TGT) is still trying to recover from the loss of consumer confidence after the security breach last year that affected about 100 million customers. It will become the first major American retailer to adopt a credit card technology that's popular in Europe. Turn over your credit or debit card and look at the magnetic strip along the back. Well, that's going away. It will be replaced next year by a chip and PIN system considered far more secure. The chip makes it harder to make counterfeits and the PIN makes it more difficult for a thief to use your card. Target is also switching to MasterCard (MA) from Visa (V).

%VIRTUAL-article-sponsoredlinks%Target's main rival, Walmart Stores (WMT), is also making news. It's going into the car insurance business -– teaming up with the website AutoInsurance.com, which allows consumers to comparison shop among six insurance carriers. This is Walmart's second foray into financial services this month. It also plans to offer store-to-store money transfers.

Sprint (S) and a group of partners are working on a new product to appeal to audiophiles who are unhappy with the sound quality of the music they get from their Apple (AAPL) iPods and other music players. HTC makes the smartphone and audio equipment company Harmon restores the highs and lows lost when music is compressed on current devices. And the new HTC One will come pre-loaded with Spotify's music streaming service.

Here on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI) rose 86 points Tuesday, the Standard & Poor's 500 index (^GPSC) added 9, and the Nasdaq composite (^IXIC) gained 29 points. Both the Dow and S&P are within 1 percent of their all-time highs.

Watch shares of Twitter (TWTR) today. The little blue bird is likely to get crushed after the company reported disappointing growth in the number of people using the messaging service, and when you're supposed to be a growth company, that's trouble. Twitter shares are far below where they began trading back in November.

-Produced by Drew Trachtenberg.