According to Angela Ahrendts, the CEO of the British luxury group Burberry, the company plans to accelerate its expansion in China and to increase the number of its franchised stores in the country to 100 over the next few years. Ahrendts said during a press conference held in Burberry's London headquarters that the company will enhance [...]

Dr Stock Pick HOT News & Alerts!

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FREE Daily Stock Alerts From DrStockPick.com

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Sunday November 22, 2009

DrStockPick.com Stock Report!

CVAT, PWRM, HZHI, HCEI, PSFT, TAXS, CSRH, AQNM

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HCEI, Healthy Coffee International Inc., HCEI.PK

HCEI is well positioned in the market place at the intersection of three mega-billion dollar industries: coffee, wellness and energy drinks, and has quickly established offices in 9 countries and distributors in 29 other countries through its marketing subsidiary Healthy Coffee USA, Inc. (www.HealthyCoffee.com) which uses a simple and unique Internet-driven international business model that allows the average person to own and operate a local, national, or international coffee distribution or coffee house

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UCSD Ph.D. candidate Sam Dastrup has completed a very interesting study with his advisor Professor Richard Carson of what accounts for differences across U.S. communities in the magnitude of the decline in real estate prices that we've seen over the last several years.

Although many commentators write as if there were a national housing market, there have been huge differences in the experience across communities. Dastrup and Carson examine the OFHEO matched-sale data for house prices as calculated separately for 358 U.S. standard metropolitan statistical areas. As seen in the map below, the magnitude of the price decline has differed greatly across U.S. communities, with the biggest drops in the southwest, Florida, and Michigan.

Magnitude of house price declines for 358 SMSAs. Source: Carson and Dastrup (2009).

Dastrup and Carson look at how the magnitudes of the price

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Stock markets succumbed to a bout of profit-taking last week, sparked by concerns that the rally has overshot the pace of economic recovery. Riskier assets were showing signs of fatigue as the US dollar - the catalyst of many recent moves - stabilized and was perceived to be near its trough (if only short-term in the books of ardent dollar bears).

The greenback, usually the remit of the US Treasury, received support from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke in a speech. He noted that the Fed was “attentive to the implications of changes in the value of the dollar and will continue to formulate policy to guard against risks to our dual mandate to foster both maximum employment and price stability. Our commitment to our dual objectives, together with the underlying strengths of the US economy, will help ensure that the dollar is strong and a source of global financial

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Apropos the post on evaluating the impact of the stimulus, here is graphical depiction of what IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers, and Moody's predicted under the counterfactual of no stimulus against the w/stimulus outlook (from NYT).

Source: J. Calmes and M. Cooper, "New Consensus Sees Stimulus Package as Worthy Step," NYT (Nov. 21, 2009).

It’s a lot more action on Capital Hill than on Wall Street friday. The stock market slides in to a weak ending with a light headwind from the dollar, as the investors park their portfolios in safe havens. But in Washington it’s full storm around treasury secretary Timothy Geithner and his FED-friends, while senator Ted Kaufman [...]

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This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Jim Jubak (MSN Money): 3-step strategy for a twitchy market, November 19, 2009. Many investors are deeply suspicious of the 60% run-up in stocks this year and are itching to sell. But then what? Here’s how to take some gains now while setting up a profitable 2010.

• Randall Forsyth (Barron’s): Treasury yield plunge sends warning, November 20, 2009. Collapse in note yields suggests economic distress will keep Fed on hold well into 2010 or beyond.

• Gordon Chang (Forbes): When in doubt, blame Bernanke, November 19, 2009. According to Liu Mingkang, China’s chief bank regulator, low American interest rates and the falling dollar have “seriously affected global asset prices, fueled speculation in stock and property markets

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This podcast features an excellent interview by FT’s David Stevenson with Dylan Grice, strategist of Société Générale. Dylan, who has been described as “the Robin to Albert Edward’s Batman”, discusses stock market bubbles, China and geo-politics.

Click here for the interview (but be warned that the running time is 44 minutes).

Source: David Stevenson, Financial Times, November 6, 2009.

Did you enjoy this post? If so, click here to subscribe to updates to Investment Postcards from Cape Town by e-mail.

Bill Gross, co-founder and co-CIO of PIMCO, is to my mind one of the shrewdest money men around. His monthly newsletter, this month entitled “Anything but .01%”, therefore always makes for thought-provoking reading.

The following are a few excerpts from the report:

“Almost all money market accounts - totaling over $4 trillion dollars, yield close to nothing, so close to nothing that I mistakenly did a double take when reviewing my monthly portfolio statement. “Yield on cash”, read the buried line on page 15 of the report, “.01%”.

“Well now, I say to myself, this is very interesting from a number of different angles. If I was hoping to double my money, it would take approximately 6,932 years to get there at that rate! Secondly, being a savvy professional investor and all, I knew that money market funds actually earned 20 basis points or so

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