Stock Market News & Stocks to Watch from StraightStocks » Denver

Slow Down . . . or Else

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:07:23 +0000

pstrongSlow Down#8230; or Else/strongbr / By David Galland, Managing Editor, stronga href="http://www.caseyresearch.com/crpmkt/crpSolo.php?id=168#038;ppref=CTP168ED1109B"The Casey Report/a/strong /p pOn a whim following our Denver Summit #8211; and despite truly abysmal weather #8211; Casey Research CEO Olivier Garret and I cabbed it down to a local public golf course for a quick nine holes. Afterwards we were returning to the hotel through a neighborhood best described as poor, but not disreputable. While our cab made its way down a side street, a radar gun-wielding policeman leaped out of the bushes down the block, pulled the trigger, and waved our immigrant cab driver to the curb. The offense, we soon learned, was going five miles an hour over the speed limit in a school zone#8230; well after school was out#8230;/p

What could be worse than a housing bust?

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:18:09 +0000

pIf You Thought the Housing Meltdown Was Bad…br / Doug Hornig, Senior Editor, (a href="http://www.caseyresearch.com/crpmkt/crpSolo.php?id=168#038;ppref=CTP168ED1109A"Casey Research/a):/p p…wait until you see what’s in the cards for commercial real estate./p pThat’s right, the next train wreck will be in commercial real estate. Couldn’t be worse than last year’s residential market crash? That remains to be seen. But it’s coming soon, probably as early as the second quarter of next year, and there’s nothing that can prevent it. The government will intervene, trying desperately to delay the day of reckoning, and may even succeed. For a while. But make no mistake about it, that train is going off the tracks no matter what./p pEvery part of the sector – from multifamily apartment buildings to retail shopping centers, suburban office#8230;/p

Housing Prices Up Again – Analyst Blog

Dirk Van Dijk — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:47:33 +0000

Helped by the "first-time home buyer" tax credit and other forms of government assistance, home prices -- as measured by the Case Schiller Composite 20 index -- rose for the third straight month, up 0.97%, but still down 11.36% on a year-over-year basis, and off 29.89% from its May 2006 peak (note below when I reference peak levels they are from May 2006, not from the individual city peaks, which might have been a few months before or after the national peak).

Since home prices do exhibit a fair amount of seasonality, I am working with the seasonally adjusted numbers. Most of the press has a habit of tracking the unadjusted numbers, which I feel is a mistake. So realize that the numbers presented here might be different from what you read in the newspaper tomorrow.

A total of 16 of the 20 cities registered price increases, so the gains were widespread. The older Composite 10 index registered a similar 1.03% gain for the month and is down 10.67% on a year-over-year basis, and off 30.85% from the peak.

The first graph below (from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/) shows the history of both the Composite 10 and the Composite 20 indexes. The first-time homebuyer tax credit provides up to $8,000 to buyers of houses, but is scheduled to expire at the end of November. To claim the credit, the closing must be by that date, so any house that is going to qualify pretty much had to be under contract by now, and even in August (the data is released with a 2-month delay) people were scrambling to make the deals in time to qualify.

When a subsidy is given for a purchase, it is very much of an open question as to how much of that subsidy goes to the buyer, and how much goes to the seller. To the extent any of it goes to the seller, then what the Federal government is doing is using tax dollars to prop up housing asset values.

One would expect that a large portion of the subsidy ended up in the hands of the sellers. The acid test will be what happens to housing prices once that subsidy is removed. The Fed is also helping by its purchase of $1.25 Trillion in Fannie Mae (FNM)- and Freddie Mac (FRE)-backed mortgages, which is artificially holding down mortgage rates.

What happens to mortgage rates when they stop in March? Or will they continue to just keep the printing presses turned on and continue to buy every mortgage out there? The HAMP mortgage modification program is helping to keep the number of foreclosures down, even as delinquency rates continue to skyrocket. This keeps the supply of distressed houses for sale down. However, many of these mortgage modifications are likely to eventually fail, especially if the principal left on the mortgage remains higher than the value of the house. It is a game of "extend and pretend."

Geographically, some of the best gains came from California, which has been among the states hardest hit by the collapse of the housing bubble. San Fransciso saw prices rise by 2.59% for the month, although prices are still down 12.49% on a year-over-year basis and off 40.00% from the peak. San Diego rose 1.52% for the month and is now down just 8.86% for the year and down 39.33% from the peak. Los Angeles saw a 1.27% rise for the month, bringing the decline since last year to 12.00% and is 39.70% below peak levels.

There were also two winners in the Midwest, with Minneapolis seeing a 2.32% gain for the month, but down 13.83% year-over-year and down 30.00% from the peak, and Chicago saw a 1.22% monthly gain. Windy City housing prices are down 12.72% from a year ago and off 22.74% from the peak.

The second graph has a somewhat different way of presenting the city performance information. It shows the declines through different dates on a cumulative basis. Thus, if the final red bar is shorter on the down side than the yellow middle bar it means that prices in that city are actually up year-to-date. It shows that many of the cities that were hit hardest early in the downturn (large blue bars) continued to suffer even bigger declines in 2008, and are for the most part still suffering declines on a year-to-date basis.

Meanwhile, cities that largely sidestepped the bubble on the way up, and which held up well as the national housing market started to turn south, such as Dallas and Denver, suffered only minor losses in 2008 and have already started to see housing prices rebound on a year-to-date basis.

While enormously expensive, the government support of the housing market is working. If housing prices continue to fall, it means more and more people will end up underwater on their homes, and being underwater is the single best predictor if a house will end up being foreclosed upon. This is already a huge problem as illustrated by an analysis by First American Core Logic.

"More than 15.2 million U.S. mortgages, or 32.2 percent of all mortgaged properties, were in negative equity position as of June 30, 2009... June’s negative equity share was slightly lower than the 32.5 percent as of the end of March 2009 and it reflects the recent flattening of monthly home price changes. As of June 2009, there were an additional 2.5 million mortgaged properties that were approaching negative equity. Negative equity and near negative equity mortgages combined account for nearly 38 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide."

As housing prices rebound, it means that some people who were underwater are able to catch a breath, and many who were on the cusp of going underwater will stay above the waves -- at least for now. The actions have served to slow the trainwreck, and that is a good thing since it gives people time to adjust and for banks to try to earn their way out of the mess (the extremely steep yield curve that is a consequence of the Fed Funds rate near zero is a very big part of that).

However, I am not convinced that the housing market has turned for real, that it will not start to fall again after the supports are removed. Prices are still above normal when measured relative to both incomes and rents, although not nearly as out of whack as they were a few years ago.

But rents are now falling, which will put additional pressure on the price to rent ratio, and with the official (U-3) unemployment rate at 9.8% and rising, with the underemployment rate (U-6) at 17.0% the income side of the price to income ratio is not looking so hot either.

Still, this is a welcome report, I just worry that it will not be sustained. I hope I am wrong about that.
Read the full analyst report on "FNM"
Read the full analyst report on "FRE"
Zacks Investment Research

Equinix, Inc. (EQIX) Acquires Switch and Data (SDXC) in $689 Million Deal

QualityStocks — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:17:16 +0000

Equinix, Inc., provider of global data center services, reported yesterday that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Switch & Data Facilities Company, Inc. (NASDAQ: SDXC), a leading provider of data center and Internet exchange services, for approximately $689 million in cash and stock. The acquisition represents a significant market expansion for Equinix and [...]

Legal Charges Hit Janus Capital – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:33:00 +0000

Janus Capital Group, Inc. (JNS) reported third-quarter 2009 revenues of $227.6 million, up 13.7% sequentially but down 17.3% year over year.

The sequential improvement in revenues was driven by higher average assets under management, primarily due to improving global markets.

Operating margin declined significantly to 13.0% in the quarter from 23.5% in the previous quarter and 33.9% in the year-ago quarter. The decline in operating margin was primarily due to a 29% sequential increase in operating expenses as a result of severance charges and higher revenue-based expenses. The company paid $20.5 million of legal settlement charges in the third quarter, mainly related to compensation matters with former employees.

Earnings per share of 5 cents were significantly short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate at 14 cents.

As of Sep 30, 2009, the company's total assets under management were $151.8 billion, compared with $132.6 billion on Jun 30, 2009 and $160.5 billion on Sep 30, 2008. The increase in firmwide assets during the third quarter primarily reflects $20.0 billion of market appreciation, partially offset by long-term net outflows of $0.6 billion.

During the reported quarter, the company raised approximately $382 million of capital through a public offering of 20.9 million shares and $170 million of convertible senior notes due 2014. The combined proceeds of the offerings were used to repurchase approximately $443 million of senior notes of different maturity. As a result, total long-term debt was reduced by approximately $316 million. At the end of the quarter, the company had cash and equivalents of $337 million and debt of $790 million.

Based in Denver, Colorado, Janus Capital Group, Inc. is a publicly-owned asset management holding company that provides retirement planning, investment planning, tax planning, investment for college, and tax planning services to its clients.

Global markets declined significantly during 2008, causing a significant decline in the company's total assets under management, revenues, operating margin and net income. In response, management reduced its workforce by approximately 9% during the fourth quarter 2008 and reduced other discretionary administrative, marketing and advertising costs.

All these actions have helped the company retain profitability, but top-line expansion is the key to growth in the long-run. Significant expansion in assets is not expected before mid 2010. Nevertheless, with the improvement of market scenario, we expect the company to post solid performance with an increase in revenues and efficient cost management.

Read the full analyst report on "JNS"
Zacks Investment Research

Novo Energies Corp. (NVNC.OB) Executes 10-Year Supply Agreement for Tire Feedstock

QualityStocks — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:22:43 +0000

Novo Energies Corp., through its wholly-owned subsidiary WTL Renewable Energy, plans to build, own and operate renewable energy plants throughout North America. Using a novel technology, these plants will transform residual plastics and tires into valuable liquid low carbon fuels such as diesel, gasoline and fuel additives. The company announced today that it has executed a [...]

Synergy Resources Corp. (SYRG.OB) Announces Completion of Drilling for Seven Wells Program

QualityStocks — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:46:49 +0000

Synergy Resources Corporation has completed its drilling program in Weld County, Colorado, announcing finalization of the initial seven wells. Synergy, whose corporate offices are in Platteville, Colorado, is an up-and-coming exploration and production company for domestic oil and natural gas. The majority of the company’s footprint consists of the Denver-Julesburg Basin, which includes the 7th [...]

DrStockPick.com Stock Report! 10/15/09, PWRM, SOA, DGLY, AWH, TOD, PAS

Dr. Stock Pick — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:57:49 +0000

Dr Stock Pick HOT News & Alerts! _______________________________________ FREE Daily Stock Alerts From DrStockPick.com _______________________________________ Thursday October 15, 2009 DrStockPick.com Stock Report! ************************************************************** Power3 Medical Products, Inc. (OTCBB: PWRM), a leader in neurodegenerative disease and cancer biomarkers and diagnostic tests, announces further international recognition of validity as the company’s President and CSO, Dr. Ira Goldknopf, will deliver an invited [...]

Barrick Raises Debt – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:28:38 +0000

The world’s largest gold producer, Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) and its wholly owned subsidiary, Barrick Australia Finance Pty Ltd., are planning to issue $1.25 billion in debt securities comprised of $400 million of 4.95% notes due 2020 and $850 million of 5.95% notes due 2039. The offering is expected to close on Oct 16. Barrick plans to use the net proceeds from the offering to further reduce the liability related to its floating spot price (fully participating) gold contracts.

In September this year, Barrick had raised about $3 billion representing 81.2 million common shares at a price of $36.95 per share as a part of its plan to eliminate gold hedges. Barrick’s gold sales contracts -- which comprise gold hedges and floating contracts -- totaled 9.5 million ounces with a mark-to-market position of negative $5.6 billion. Barrick Gold intends to use $1.9 billion of the net proceeds to eliminate all of its fixed priced gold contracts within the next 12 months and about $1.0 billion to offload a portion of its floating spot price. The company expects a $5.6 billion charge to earnings in the third quarter due to a change in accounting treatment for the contracts.

Gold hedges are futures contracts that obligate a company to sell the metal at pre-agreed prices. Although these hedges guarantee certain cash flows, they often commit metals producer to ship the gold at prices lower than the current spot prices.

Barrick's decision to pay off its hedges is based on a bullish outlook for gold, prices of which have risen beyond $1,000 per ounce, highest in the last seven months. The weak U.S. dollar, continuing low interest rates and inflation have dampened returns on holding cash and other liquid investments, driving investors to gold as an alternative source of investment. This in turn has fueled the rise in gold prices. For 2009, Barrick expects gold production to be 7.2 to 7.6 million ounces at net cash costs of $360 to $385 per ounce or total cash costs of $450 to $475 per ounce. It expects gold production in 2010 to grow to 7.7 to 8.1 million ounces at lower total cash costs than 2009.

Last year, Newmont Mining (NEM), the Denver-based gold company, eliminated its entire 1.85 million-ounce gold hedge position foreseeing a rise in gold prices. The company issued new equity and divested its non-core merchant banking business to eliminate the hedges. To get maximum exposure to spot gold prices, another gold producer, AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (AU) also undertook an extensive restructuring of its hedge book in July this year, reducing its overall commitment by about 1.4 million ounces.

We maintain our Neutral recommendation on Barrick Gold.

Read the full analyst report on "ABX"
Read the full analyst report on "NEM"
Read the full analyst report on "AU"
Zacks Investment Research

China Wi-Max Communications, Inc. (CHWM.OB) Spearheads Broadband Initiative

QualityStocks — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:50:58 +0000

China Wi-Max Communications, Inc., a Denver, Colorado-based telecommunications company formed to exploit the booming Chinese broadband market, has announced a comprehensive strategy to leverage its network foothold in Beijing. The Founder and Chairman, Dr. Allan Rabinoff, said he was pleased to announce this offering of wireless broadband to customers in Beijing and that the initiative [...]

DrStockPick.com Stock Report! 10/06/09, FDML, TXN, GLOB, EMC, FCSC, CICI

Dr. Stock Pick — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:27:46 +0000

Dr Stock Pick HOT News & Alerts! _______________________________________ FREE Daily Stock Alerts From DrStockPick.com _______________________________________ Tuesday October 6, 2009 DrStockPick.com Stock Report! ************************************************************** The first aluminum diesel piston rolled off the line today at Federal-Mogul Corporation’s (Nasdaq: FDML) joint venture with KAMAZ, the leading manufacturer of heavy-duty trucks in Russia. The 50/50 JV, called Federal-Mogul Naberezhnye Chelny, located [...]

DrStockPick.com Stock Report! 10/02/09, WU, TRET, LNN, JAGH, CVG, SLRK

Dr. Stock Pick — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:51:57 +0000

Dr Stock Pick HOT News & Alerts! _______________________________________ FREE Daily Stock Alerts From DrStockPick.com _______________________________________ Friday October 2, 2009 DrStockPick.com Stock Report! ************************************************************** The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU), a leader in the money transfer segment of global payments, announced today that President and CEO Christina Gold will host a webcast and conference call to discuss third quarter results [...]

Earnings Preview for Oct 5 – 9 – Earnings Preview

Charles Rotblut — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Third-quarter earnings season officially starts on Wednesday afternoon with Alcoa's (AA) report. The aluminum maker is expected to announce revenues of $4.5 billion and a loss of 11 cents per share. The results will look awful compared to last year because the commodity bubble peaked in Q308.

Joining AA will be 6 other S&P 500 members: Costco (COST), Family Dollar (FDO), Marriott (MAR), Monsanto (MON), Pepsi Bottling (PBG), PepsiCo (PEP) and Yum! Brands (YUM). We have confirmed scheduled reports from a total of 24 companies.

Economic data will largely take a backseat to the earnings news. There is comparatively little on the calendar, with the most newsworthy release being the September ISM services index. The weekly energy and mortgage applications reports could still influence trading, however.

Monday: September ISM services survey
Wednesday: August consumer credit, September treasury budget, weekly crude inventories, weekly mortgage applications
Thursday: August wholesale inventories, weekly initial jobless claims, weekly natural gas inventories
Friday: August trade balance

The Fed will hold a conference in Washington D.C. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will provide an update of the Fed's balance sheet on Tuesday evening. Vice Chairman Donald L. Kohn will talk about the Fed's response to the financial crisis on Thursday at 12:15 p.m.

Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig will make 2 speeches this week. On Tuesday evening, he will appear at an economic forum in Denver. On Thursday evening, he will speak at a similar forum in Oklahoma City.

A 10-year TIPS auction will be held on Monday, a 10-year Treasury note auction will be held on Wednesday and a 30-year Treasury bond auction will be held on Thursday. Overall, the Treasury Department will sell $78 billion in securities this week. Recent auctions have been oversubscribed, signaling strong demand.

After this week's pullback, the markets will be seeking direction. The Dow was trading near the first line of support on Friday morning, though further downside is a possibility. How revenues, earnings and guidance fare relative to expectations will play a role in influencing market direction.

Keep in mind that the majority of earnings reports won't be released until the latter part of the month.

Third-Quarter Earnings

The median S&P 500 company is forecast to report a 15% drop in profits and a 6.9% drop in revenues. (On an average company basis, EPS should drop 36.2% and revenues should fall 9.4%. The average numbers look worse due to the influence of outliers, or companies projected to report very large year-over-year drops.)

Companies That Could Issue Positive Earnings Surprises

PepsiCo (PEP) has topped expectations for 2 consecutive quarters by an average margin of 3 cents per share. Though the third-quarter Zacks Consensus Estimate is unchanged at $1.03 per share, a recent revision by 1 brokerage analyst has resulted in a most accurate estimate of $1.04 per share. PepsiCo is scheduled to report on Thursday, Oct 8, before the start of trading.

Companies That Could Issue Negative Earnings Surprises

Concerns about lower demand for fertilizer prompted 3 analysts to cut their fiscal first-quarter profit projections on Mosaic (MOS) in recent weeks. The downward revisions have pushed the Zacks Consensus Estimate 4 cents lower to 33 cents per share. The most accurate estimate is more bearish at 22 cents per share. MOS has missed expectations twice in the past 4 quarters. Mosaic is scheduled to report on Monday, Oct 5, after the close of trading.

Charles Rotblut, CFA is the senior market analyst for Zacks.com.

Earnings Calendar

Here is a list of companies that we have confirmed will report during the week of Oct 5 - 9. Prices are as of Thursday's, Oct 1, market close.

Company	Stock	Zacks Estimate	Year Ago EPS	Last Qtr Surprise	Date	Time	Price
Mosaic Co/The	MOS	$0.33	$2.65	230.0%	10/5	AMC	$46.43
Robbins & Myers	RBN	$0.20	$0.74	4.0%	10/5	AMC	$23.01
Rpm Intl Inc	RPM	$0.44	$0.54	(2.3%)	10/5	BTO	$17.88
Team Inc	TISI	$0.11	$0.25	31.8%	10/5	AMC	$16.80
Angiodynamics	ANGO	$0.08	$0.09	(6.7%)	10/6	AMC	$13.75
Chattem Inc	CHTT	$1.21	$1.08	4.1%	10/6	BTO	$64.90
Pepsi Bottling	PBG	$1.08	$1.06	6.8%	10/6	BTO	$36.49
Yum! Brands Inc	YUM	$0.59	$0.58	16.28%	10/6	AMC	$33.13
Acuity Brands	AYI	$0.57	$1.02	(5.3%)	10/7	BTO	$31.16
Alcoa Inc	AA	($0.11)	$0.37	31.6%	10/7	AMC	$12.92
Costco Whole Cp	COST	$0.76	$0.92	(3.7%)	10/7	BTO	$55.69
Family Dollar	FDO	$0.41	$0.38	5.1%	10/7	BTO	$26.84
Helen Of Troy	HELE	$0.39	$0.34	34.3%	10/7	BTO	$18.70
Kayne Andsn Egy	KED	$0.22	N/A	N/A	10/7	AMC	$13.22
Monsanto Co-New	MON	$0.01	($0.03)	6.8%	10/7	BTO	$75.11
Richardson Elec	RELL	$0.04	$0.20	(90.9%)	10/7	AMC	$5.00
Ruby Tuesday	RT	$0.10	$0.01	40.0%	10/7	AMC	$7.76
Wolverine World	WWW	$0.55	$0.62	3.8%	10/7	BTO	$24.21
Infosys Tec-Adr	INFY	$0.50	$0.56	17.0%	10/8	AMC	$47.25
Intl Speedway	ISCA	$0.38	$0.73	12.9%	10/8	BTO	$27.25
Marriott Intl-A	MAR	$0.13	$0.34	9.5%	10/8	BTO	$26.36
Nu Horizons Ele	NUHC	($0.01)	$0.01	50.0%	10/8	AMC	$3.96
PepsiCo Inc	PEP	$1.03	$1.06	2.0%	10/8	BTO	$58.46
Tortoise Cap Rs	TTO	($0.01)	($0.04)	(81.3%)	10/9	N/A	$6.56

BTO = Before The Market Open, AMC = After The Market Close

Zacks Investment Research

Comcast Extremely Fast Now – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:15:22 +0000

Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) has installed its residential “Extreme" tier DOCSIS 3.0 network in Colorado offering 50 Mbps downstream and 10 Mbps upstream speed for a price of $99.95 per month. The company is aggressively deploying the DOCSIS 3.0 (also called Wideband) technology to upgrade its existing customers to high-speed network. Management predicted that 80% of its residential networks will be upgraded to DOCSIS 3.0 by the end of 2009 and the rest by mid 2010.

With the introduction of the super fast Extreme package, Comcast can now compete head-on with Denver-based Quest Communications International Inc (Q) that provides VDSL-2 services offering a package of 40 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream speeds for a price of $109.99 per month. Comcast can offer a much cheaper package because implementation of the wideband network has also improved Comcast’s bottom-line. For most of its installations, the company is using denser cable modem termination system blades that reduce downstream port costs by more than 50%. The company has also undertaken a project to reclaim 40 to 50 of its existing analog channels to free up spectrum for DOCSIS 3.0.

As residential VoIP and HDTV services continue to grow, communications service providers are dealing with increased network traffic driven by strong demand for video download and file sharing. This massive requirement for data transport has encouraged cable operators seeking to improve their transport offerings. Furthermore, Cable MSOs are facing fierce competition from telecom service providers. Telecom operators are quickly gaining market share from cable MSOs by offering Mobile TV and other high-speed broadband services to subscribers.

Recently, Comcast launched its first commercial wideband network in the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul offering a downstream speed of 100 Mbps and upstream speeds of 15 Mbps for a price of $369.95 per month. This package is bundled with Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT) Communications Service and Mcafee Inc’s (MFE) PC Security Suite. The company is targeting DOCSIS 3.0 at small and medium size enterprises primarily, a potential market size of $15 billion.
Read the full analyst report on "CMCSA"
Read the full analyst report on "Q"
Read the full analyst report on "MSFT"
Read the full analyst report on "MFE"
Zacks Investment Research

Taubman Writes Down Asset Values – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:12:22 +0000

Taubman Centers Inc. (TCO) recently said it would record impairment charges of $161 million to $169 million in the third quarter. The real estate investment trust is writing down book values of its The Pier Shops at Caesars asset in New Jersey and Regency Square in Virginia to fair values due to the continued economic downturn.

The Pier Shops at Caesars is a 282,000 square feet shopping center in which Taubman owns a 77.5% stake. The company considers net operating income from the property to be insufficient to repay its $135 million non-recourse mortgage debt. Thus, it will write down book value of the asset by $106 million to $111 million, out of which Taubman has a share of about $100 million to $105 million.

Regency Square is an 820,000 square feet shopping center housing leading fashion retailers like Macy’s Inc. (M), J. C. Penney Co. Inc. (JCP) and Sears Holding Corp. (SHLD). Taubman anticipates cash flow from the property to be hurt by the decline in its net operating income and necessary capital expenditures. It is accordingly writing down book value of the asset by $55 million to $58 million to approximately $30 million.

Taubman owns, develops, acquires and operates regional and super-regional shopping centers throughout the U.S. and Asia. Retail shopping centers spanning over 400,000 square feet of gross leaseable area (GLA) are generally referred to as regional shopping centers, while those with GLA in excess of 800,000 square feet are called super-regional shopping centers. A large number of these shopping centers are strategically located in major metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Detroit, Phoenix, Miami, Dallas, Tampa, Orlando and Washington DC.

Read the full analyst report on "TCO"
Read the full analyst report on "M"
Read the full analyst report on "JCP"
Read the full analyst report on "SHLD"
Zacks Investment Research

PRKR, FORC, PWRM, DrStockPick.com Watch List! for Monday September 21, 2009, Parkervision Inc., Force Energy Corp., FORC.OB and Power 3 Medical Products Inc, PWRM.OB

Dr. Stock Pick — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:28:50 +0000

Dr Stock Pick HOT News & Alerts! _______________________________________ FREE Daily Stock Alerts From DrStockPick.com _______________________________________ DrStockPick.com Watch List! My Picks for Monday September 21, 2009, are: ************************************************************** PRKR, Parkervision Inc. PRKR designs, develops and sells its proprietary RF technologies which enable advanced wireless communications for current and next generation mobile communications networks. Its solutions for wireless transfer of radio frequency (RF) waveforms enable significant [...]

DrStockPick.com Stock Report! 9/15/09, PCAR, CBR, CHH, GR, KBH, ISIL

Dr. Stock Pick — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:42:17 +0000

DrStockPick.com Stock Report! Tuesday September 15, 2009 ************************************************************** PACCAR’s (NASDAQ:PCAR) Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend in the amount of nine cents ($.09) per share, payable December 7, 2009 to stockholders of record at the close of business on November 19, 2009, according to Mark C. Pigott, PACCAR chairman and chief [...]

Colorado Goldfields Inc. (CGFIA.OB) Announces Company Executives’ Interview on “The Big Biz Show”

QualityStocks — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:14:27 +0000

Colorado Goldfields Inc. announced that their Company Executives were interviewed on “The Big Biz Show” with Russ and Sully on September 9, 2009. The Denver-based junior exploration and mining company is known primarily for exploring gold and silver and is noted in their industry for having a seasoned management team which is led by Lee [...]

Barrick Gold to Remove Hedges – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:18:17 +0000

On September 8th, the world’s largest gold producer, Barrick Gold Corporation (ABX), announced its plans to raise $3 billion from a share offering and use the proceeds to pay off its gold hedges. As of September 7, 2009, Barrick’s gold sales contracts -- which comprise gold hedges and floating contracts -- totaled 9.5 million ounces with a mark-to-market position of negative $5.6 billion.

To pay off the hedges, Barrick Gold has entered into an agreement with a syndicate of underwriters for a bought deal public offering for gross proceeds of about $3.0 billion, representing 81.2 million common shares at a price of $36.95 per share.

Barrick Gold intends to use $1.9 billion of the net proceeds to eliminate all of its fixed priced gold contracts within the next 12 months and about $1.0 billion to offload a portion of its floating spot price. The company expects a $5.6 billion charge to earnings in the third quarter due to a change in accounting treatment for the contracts.

Gold hedges are futures contracts that obligate a company to sell the metal at pre-agreed prices. Although these hedges guarantee certain cash flows, they often commit metals producer to ship the gold at prices lower than the current spot price.

Barrick's decision to pay off its hedges is based on a bullish outlook for gold, prices of which rose to above $1,000 per ounce, highest in the last seven months. The weak US dollar, continuing low interest rates and inflation have dampened returns on holding cash and other liquid investments, driving investors to gold as an alternative source of investment. This in turn has fueled the rise in gold prices.

Last year, Newmont Mining (NEM), the Denver-based gold company, had eliminated its entire 1.85 million-ounce gold hedge position foreseeing a rise in gold prices. The company had issued new equity and divested its non-core merchant banking business to eliminate the hedges.

To get maximum exposure to spot gold prices, another gold producer, AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (AU) also undertook an extensive restructuring of its hedge book in July this year, reducing its overall commitment by about 1.4 million ounces.

We maintain our Neutral recommendation on Barrick Gold.
Read the full analyst report on "ABX"
Read the full analyst report on "NEM"
Read the full analyst report on "AU"
Zacks Investment Research

MarkWest Sells Hydrogen Plant – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:36:21 +0000

This week, natural gas pipeline operator MarkWest Energy Partners LP (MWE) completed the sale of its under-construction hydrogen facility in Texas to Air Products and Chemicals Inc. (APD), a leading global hydrogen provider.

Air Products agreed to pay approximately $73.1 million for the steam methane reformer (SMR) hydrogen facility currently being constructed at MarkWest’s Javelina processing facility in Corpus Christi, Texas. As per the terms of the deal, Air Products will complete the construction of the SMR, which is expected to start operations in March 2010.

In addition to the purchase and sale agreement, the companies entered into a long-term supply contract whereby Air Products will provide hydrogen and steam to MarkWest. MarkWest will take hydrogen produced by the SMR facility (expected to be over 30 million cubic feet per day), combine it with the partnership’s existing production capabilities at the Javelina plant and then deliver high-purity hydrogen to local refinery customers.

MarkWest intends to use the sale proceeds to repay the amounts outstanding under its revolving credit facility and to support growth capital projects. We believe that the transaction will not only improve the partnership’s financial position but also help it to maintain current distribution levels.

Denver, CO-based MarkWest Energy Partners LP, a master limited partnership (MLP), is engaged in the gathering, processing and transmission of natural gas, transportation, fractionation and storage of natural gas liquids (NGLs), and the gathering and transportation of crude oil. The partnership is one of the largest processors of natural gas in the Appalachian region and has a significant presence in the other prolific natural gas producing basins of the U.S. MarkWest’s customers include major oil and gas companies, large and small independent energy companies, and oil refineries.

We currently rate MarkWest units as Neutral.
Read the full analyst report on "MWE"
Read the full analyst report on "APD"
Zacks Investment Research

The U.S. Housing Market’s False Dawn

Martin Hutchinson — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:10:43 +0000

Why Did These Companies Cream the S&P 500? Is the U.S. housing market truly at a turning point, as investors seem to increasingly believe? Or is this actually a false dawn, meaning that there are problems and pain ahead for those who turned bullish too soon? New home sales jumped almost 10% in July, while the Case-Shiller [...]

Lockheed Martin’s New Arm – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:00:38 +0000

Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., a Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) subsidiary, recently set up a new Missile Defense Systems operating unit. The new unit, which is part of the Lockheed Martin's Strategic and Missile Defense Systems division, includes program management, engineering and production facilities in Huntsville and Courtland, Alabama, and program operations in Denver, Colorado, and Sunnyvale, California. Retired Army Major General John W. Holly will head the unit.

The new operating unit will provide support to Lockheed Martin's various projects. These include the tri-national medium extended air defense system (MEADS) program led by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, the land environment air picture provision (LEAPP) air defense program led by Lockheed Martin U.K and the targets and countermeasures program of the Missile Defense Agency. It will also be in charge of the Battle Management Technology Center at North Alabama and the ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) operations and sustainment contract.

Shares of Lockheed Martin closed at $74.43 on Tuesday, trading at 9.9X trailing-12 month EPS. We presently have Neutral recommendation for the company.

Read the full analyst report on "LMT"
Zacks Investment Research

Scripps Restructures Management – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:55:54 +0000

E.W. Scripps Company (SSP), a diverse media company, restructured its newspaper division management in order to improve its advertising sales and local news content.

The changes announced will include the setting up of an operating committee comprised of two new national positions, responsible for sales and content, as well as four other positions with responsibility for operations, finance, information technology and human resources.

Bruce Hartmann, the President and Publisher of the News Sentinel in Knoxville, TN, will become the Vice President of Sales (print and interactive) and will be responsible for all advertising and circulation revenue across the division, and all Scripps advertising and circulation sales directors will report to him.
Rusty Coats, the Vice President of Interactive for the newspaper division, will be responsible for all content and marketing areas, and interactive operations and strategic third-party relationships such as with Yahoo! (YHOO) and other national interactive brands.
Frank Wolfe, the Director of Operations, will become Vice President of Operations for the newspaper division, and will have national responsibility for production and circulation operations.
Robin Davis, the division's Vice President of Finance and Administration, will continue in her role.
Jim York, Director of Information Technology for the newspaper division, will become the Vice President of Information Technology, and will be responsible for the standardization and rationalization of the IT function within the division.
Mary Minser, the division's Vice President of Human Resources, will continue in her role.

The restructuring was primarily done so as to ensure that its 13 daily newspapers put increased emphasis on community-changing local news content and peak-performing advertising sales. Further, the change is also expected to enable sharing of best practices, standardization of business processes and more efficient utilization of resources.

E.W. Scripps, like many other publishing houses, has been finding it difficult to keep advertising sales up. This is primarily because readers are rapidly shifting to online reading and moreover, the recession has hurt advertising sales both on and off line.

Newspaper revenue in the second quarter had declined 22.1% year-over-year to $113 million. This was due to lower local and classified advertising sales, particularly weak automotive, financial services and retail category advertising. Online revenue was also down 25% to $7.3 million due to softness in print classified advertising.

During the first half of fiscal 2009, advertisement sales of the company declined 29% to $165 million. Further, earlier this year, unable to cope up with the severe recession, management had decided to divest its Denver-based daily newspaper, The Rocky Mountain News.

Read the full analyst report on "SSP"
Read the full analyst report on "YHOO"
Zacks Investment Research

DrStockPick.com Stock Report! 8/25/09, PCSV, USNA, MASI, IGNT, HILL, TDC

Dr. Stock Pick — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:59:56 +0000

DrStockPick.com Stock Report! Tuesday August 25, 2009 ************************************************************** PCS Edventures!.com (OTCBB: PCSV) today announced that The Brain, its proprietary robotic micro-controller, has been successfully deployed in hundreds of sites throughout the United States and worldwide including Singapore, Thailand, Korea, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, and Germany. Following a soft launch this spring, combined [...]

House Prices Actually RISING – Analyst Blog

Dirk Van Dijk — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:10:55 +0000

The Case-Schiller composite index of housing prices in 20 major metropolitan areas rose 0.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis in June, following an essentially unchanged reading in May. The not-seasonally-adjusted numbers were even better (and what most of the press coverage were initially focused on). However, there is a distinct seasonal pattern to housing prices, so it is better to focus on the seasonally adjusted numbers.

The increase in prices was widespread, with 15 of the 20 areas seeing an increase -- better than expected, and extremely good news. In May, nine of the 20 cities were up. The news is still tentative, with much of the good news coming from a reduction in supply as banks have been letting the foreclosure pipeline build, and an increase in demand from the first-time homebuyer tax credit, which expires at the end of November.

On a year-over-year basis, the composite 20 index was down 15.5%. The Composite 10 index, which has a longer history, was down 15.1% (also up 0.7% on a monthly basis).

All 20 metro areas are down on a year-over-year basis. Of course, the housing bubble did not pop a year ago -- the decline has been going on a lot longer than that. The peak in both of the composite indexes was in May 2006. Since that time, the composite 20 index is down 31.5% and the composite 10 index is down 32.6%.

This has destroyed the wealth of most of the middle class and resulted in millions of people being underwater in their homes. When people are underwater on their homes, they are far more likely to stop paying on their mortgages than if they have equity in their homes. This, in turn, has led to massive (and still partially hidden due to very lax accounting rules) losses at the banks. This has depleted their capital and made it much more difficult to lend.

The collapse in housing values is probably the single most important factor in causing the world-wide economic decline. Signs that it is reversing are thus extremely important.

Not all areas have been equally affected by the bursting of the housing bubble. In two markets, Phoenix (-54.1%) and Las Vegas (-54.5%), prices have been more than cut in half since May 2006. In six other markets, Las Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Miami, Tampa and Detroit, prices are down by more than 40%. On the other hand, three markets, Dallas (-3.8%), Charlotte (-4.2%) and Denver (-9.4%) are down by less than 10%, and five more are down less than 20% from the nationwide peak (individual peaks varied by a few months).

Similarly, the increases over the last month have been very uneven. Five markets, surprisingly lead by Cleveland (3.3%) reported seasonally adjusted increases of 2.0% or more. The others were San Francisco (3.1%), Portland (2.9%), D.C. (2.2%) and Minneapolis (2.0%).

The big warning signs that we were in a housing bubble were that housing prices were getting out of line with rents and with median incomes. The slide in prices over the last three years has brought us back to more normal levels. This can be seen in the two graphs below (from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/).

Most of the adjustment in home prices is behind us, but I am not totally sure we are out of the woods. With the soft economy and rising unemployment, median incomes are not going up and are probably falling.

Major apartment REITs like Equity Residential (EQR) and Apartment Investors (AIV) have been reporting that they have had to lower stated rents recently and effective rents even more (i.e. throwing in a few free months of rent when you sign a lease). This means that rents are most likely going down nationwide, although it has not yet shown up in Owners Equivalent Rents, which is how the government tracks housing for calculating inflation. Declining rents and incomes will put more pressure on housing prices.

This will be particularly true once the artificial prop of the first-time home-buy tax credit expires. The other major prop to the market has been the Federal Reserve, which has turned into the mortgage buyer of first and last resort as it is in the process of buying $1.25 trillion in Fannie (FNM) and Freddie (FRE) backed securities. Eventually the Fed will have to reverse those actions (or inflation will spiral out of control), and when it does, the mortgage market is likely to get much, much tighter.

Still, it is abundantly clear from the charts that we are much closer to the bottom than we are from the top. We are unlikely to see a major rise in home prices going forward, but just stopping the freefall is very good news indeed. It does not repair the very significant damage that has already been done, but it does mean that things are not getting materially worse.

Read the full analyst report on "EQR"
Read the full analyst report on "AIV"
Read the full analyst report on "FNM"
Read the full analyst report on "FRE"
Zacks Investment Research

Qwest to Quit Wireless – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:05:42 +0000

Qwest Communications (Q) announced yesterday the discountinuation of its wireless operation (Qwest Wireless) effective October 31, 2009. The Denver-based telecom operator has reportedly started to circulate a 60-day notice to its susbsribers to migrate to alternative service providers. Customers can switch networks without paying any contract termination fees while retaining there existing contact numbers.

Since 2004, Qwest has been marketing Sprint Nextel’s (S) products and services under its own brand by operating as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) on Sprint’s CDMA wireless network and recognized revenue on gross basis.

However, the company ended its partnership with Sprint (effective February 2009) and entered into a five-year agreement with Verizon (VZ) in May 2008. Under this new arrangement, Qwest started reselling Verizon Wireless’s products and services (under the Verizon brand) from the third-quarter 2008 and books revenue on net basis.

The company is currently in the process of transferring its wireless subscriber base to Verizon Wireless. At the end of the second quarter 2009, Qwest has switched 75% of its customers to Verizon’s network platform.

Qwest’s transition from an MVNO to wireless reseller has resulted in fewer cellular subscribers as well as lower wireless revenue as the company does not register subscriber fees as revenue. Qwest recognizes revenue on every customer switch to Verizon’s network.

Qwest is one of the existing three regional bell operating companies (RBOCs), commonly known as “Baby Bells." The company remains more challenged than the other Baby Bells, Verizon and AT&T (T), given the lack of its own wireless and satellite TV networks. This has prevented Qwest from achieving meaningful penetration in these lucrative markets while its bigger peers continue to gain market share.

The company’s traditional local phone operation remains under pressure due to the growing presence of competitive offerings. In addition to cable competition, Qwest contends with the ongoing fixed-to-wireless substitution coupled with other alternative services such as the Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP). Access line losses continue to impact the company’s mass market segment and represent the base reason for a persistent decline in overall revenues.

While we are encouraged by Qwest’s aggressive bundled service strategy -- combining DirectTV (DTV) video with Internet and voice -- to fend off cable competition, our primary concern remains the significant debt burden which impedes the company’s ability to invest in growth initiatives.

Read the full analyst report on "Q"
Read the full analyst report on "S"
Read the full analyst report on "VZ"
Read the full analyst report on "T"
Zacks Investment Research

PennyOmega.com Stock Report! 8/17/09, MTN, LMT, ITT, TKTM, NDAQ, WYE

PennyOmega.com — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:35:52 +0000

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Hot Stocks: With an Emerging Markets Foray, Molson and SABMiller Quench Their Thirst For Global Growth

Jason Simpkins — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:24:09 +0000

Obscure Law Forces Companies to Come Clean on Gold Mandatory government filing NI 43-101 required gold mining companies in Canada to disclose how much gold they really have. This one company’s filing just revealed that it’s sitting on the 7th largest gold strike in North American history. Few know about this yet. And for [...]

With an Emerging Markets Foray, Molson and SABMiller Quench Their Thirst for Global Growth

Contrarian Profits — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:30:30 +0000

pWith sales volume plunging in Western markets, Molson Coors Brewing Co. (NYSE: a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=tap" target="_blank"TAP/a) and SABMiller PLC (OTC ADR: a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=OTC%3ASBMRY" target="_blank"SBMRY/a) are tapping into emerging markets for refreshing growth./p pSABMiller, for instance, saw beer sales slump 7% in Europe and 0.8% in the United States, while Africa and Asia combined for 11% sales growth. Sales in China alone soared 17% in the quarter./p p“a href="http://www.sabmiller.com/files/reports/ar2009/2009_annual_report.pdf" target="_blank"While demand in Europe has dropped sharply/a, countries in emerging markets such as Africa and Asia have fared relatively well despite falling back from the high - one might say unsustainable rates of growth of recent years,” said SABMiller Chairman Meyer Kahn./p pAs a percentage of commercially produced alcohol, beer now accounts for 49.0% of the market in Africa and 32.8% in#8230;/p

DrStockPick.com Stock Report! 8/10/09, ICE, SWSI, PTNR, MIL, GTXI, ACTG

Dr. Stock Pick — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:40:28 +0000

DrStockPick.com Stock Report! Monday August 10, 2009 ************************************************************** IntercontinentalExchange((R)) (NYSE: ICE), a leading operator of regulated global futures exchanges, clearing houses and over-the-counter (OTC) markets, today announced ICE Clear Europe((R)) cleared 699 transactions totaling euro 31.9 billion ($45.2 billion) in credit default swap (CDS) indexes during the week of August 3. Open interest reached [...]

The Brewer’s Art: Beer Companies Quench Their Thirst For Growth by Tapping Into Emerging Markets

Jason Simpkins — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:17:57 +0000

1,100 People Just Learned How To Collect $4,000 In One Month No tricks or “catches” were involved. No fancy investment “plays” either. In fact, the $4,000 was guaranteed. No ifs, ands, or buts. All these people had to do to get this money was take a few simple steps every investor knows how to do [...]

PennyOmega.com Stock Report! 8/06/09, VPHM, MNTX, EMKR, LMAT, SPAN, FXEN

PennyOmega.com — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:29:53 +0000

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DrStockPick.com Stock Report! 8/05/09, APC, TRA, RADS, NCOC, PPO, SLG

Dr. Stock Pick — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:00:14 +0000

DrStockPick.com Stock Report! Wednesday August 5, 2009 ************************************************************** Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:APC) today announced that Jim Kleckner, Vice President, Operations, will present at the 2009 EnerCom Oil & Gas Conference in Denver, Colo. on Thursday, Aug. 13 at 10:30 a.m. MDT. A link to the webcast presentation will be available at www.anadarko.com. The [...]

PennyOmega.com Stock Report! 8/03/09, GOK, AVT, UMPQ, ADEP, VTIV, IHR

PennyOmega.com — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:24:15 +0000

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MFN, FRNTQ, PennyOmega.com Watch List ! for Friday July 31, 2009, Minefinders Corp. Ltd. and Frontier Airlines Holdings Inc, FRNTQ.PK

PennyOmega.com — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:02:21 +0000

MFN, Minefinders Corp. Ltd. FRNTQ, Frontier Airlines Holdings Inc, FRNTQ.PK PennyOmega.com Watch List! PennyOmega.com Watch List ! for Friday July 31, 2009 Our Picks at PennyOmega.com for Friday July 31, 2009 are: ************************************************************** MFN, Minefinders Corp. Ltd. MFN engages in the mining, exploration, and development of precious metal properties primarily in Mexico and the United States. MFN principal property includes Dolores Mine, an [...]

Housing Price Declines Slow – Analyst Blog

Dirk Van Dijk — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:50:29 +0000

The Case Schiller home price data looks to be much better than I expected. The data is for May, and relative to April the composite 10 index rose by 0.41%, while the composite 20 index was up 0.45% -- on a not-seasonally adjusted basis!

There is some seasonality to the data, however, and when the seasonal adjustments come into play the C-10 fell by 0.21% and the C-20 was down by 0.16%. Still, this is a substantial decline in the pace of deterioration, with the C-10 down at an annualized rate of just 2.5% for the month and the C-20 falling at just a 1.7% rate. Compare this to the year-over-year rate of decline (including the May data) showing a 16.8% decline for the C-10 and a 17.1% decline for the C-20.

Some of the individual city data was interesting, and since the season affects all cities at the same time, the relative numbers are not likely to be affected. The graph below (from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/) shows each of the 20 cities ranked by the declines from their individual peak levels based on the non seasonally adjusted data. By color it shows when the declines took place.

Not-seasonally adjusted, for the month, 14 cities were up and only six were down. However, on a year over year basis all 20 cities are showing lower prices. Seasonally adjusted, the numbers were 12 cities down and eight cities up.

The two cities (all city data discussed is seasonally adjusted) that have held up best since the top did pretty well in May -- prices in Dallas rose by 1.13% while Denver was up 0.3% for the month. On a year over year basis they are down just 4.1% and 4.6%, respectively. Given that both cities are heavily influenced by the energy industry, this is somewhat surprising with the price of oil and natural gas off as much as it is over the last year. On a year to date basis, Dallas is effectively unchanged and Denver is down just 1.8%.

However, the real winner for the month was Cleveland, where prices leapt by 2.78% for the month, leaving its year-over-year decline at just 6.2%. Cleveland was never much affected by the bubble on the way up, but was an early poster child for the declining rustbelt form of housing decline.

The resilience of Cleveland is very good news for the banks with big exposures to Ohio, like KeyCorp (KEY) and PNC Financial (PNC), which recently bought National City, as well as Fifth Third (FITB).

The cities that were most "bubbly" on the way up have been the hardest hit on the way down. The desert cities of Phoenix and Las Vegas have both seen prices more than cut in half and continue to have trouble, with Phoenix down 1.73% and Las Vegas down 3.08% on the month. This is bad news for the regional banks like Zions (ZION) that are focused on the desert Southwest. On a year over year basis they are down 34.2% and 32.0%, respectively.

Thus it does not seem like there is a leveling of the housing price declines, with cities that held up well early catching up with the early decliners. Rather, the pattern seems to be more of the poor getting poorer. There are some exceptions to this. The decline so far in 2009 for San Diego is relatively small (-4.7%), even though since the peak, it is a member of the -40% club.

Yes, the overall direction of housing prices is still down, especially if you account for the seasonality. However, the rate of decline is slowing pretty dramatically. This will in turn slow the number of people becoming underwater on their mortgages and will limit the depth for those that do slip below the waves. This is significant since most people will not walk away from the house (or simply stop paying and live there for a year or more until the sheriff shows up) if they are just a few thousand bucks underwater.

There is still some residual stigma to doing this in society, and it does hurt your credit rating. Plus, it often means pulling the kids out of school, etc. However, when it gets to the point when it looks like the value of the home will never again get to the level of the mortgage -- or if the homeowner runs into cash flow problems while the house is under water (i.e. gets laid off or his hours cut) -- that is the point the mortgage checks stop being written.

The slowing pace of decline brings the housing prices well within the “more adverse" scenario in the banks stress tests. Earlier this year, it looked as if they were tracking right along it while the unemployment rate was well above, calling into question if the "more adverse" was adverse enough. With the current data it looks as if it was tough enough (the bases case was WAY to optimistic) and is turning into a reasonably accurate forecast.

While far from ready to break into a chorus of “Happy Days Are Here Again," I have to put this report into the plus column, along with the new and existing home sales reports.

Read the full analyst report on "KEY"
Read the full analyst report on "PNC"
Read the full analyst report on "FITB"
Zacks Investment Research

Harley-Davidson (NYSE:HOG): Positive comments following Analyst meeting

Notable Calls — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:35:00 +0000

div style="text-align: justify;"Somewhat surprisingly we have several firms out positive on span style="font-weight: bold;"Harley-Davidson (NYSE:HOG)/span following Analyst meeting:br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"- Baird is raising their target to $28 (prev. $21) and reiterating Outperform rating after the firm talked with management/dealers in meetings in Denver. /spanThey believe the turnaround story is building momentum led by a credible CEO with impressive credentials. Beyond the standard Harley noise – they advise investors to focus on the strength of the brand, opportunities to lower structural cost, and ideas to finance HDFS in better ways. Details were limited, but Baird believes the turnaround story will attract investment.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Summary. /spanThe presentation lacked tangible goals or meaningful metrics, leaving investors to overweight intangible clues – which were bullish. Firm notes they like that management is addressing structural cost, cutting dealer inventory, boosting residual values, refining the dealer network, exploring options for HDFS, and offering investors a more credible outlook. As the turnaround unfolds, they expect investors to demand more tangible metrics – but initial impression is favorable.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Brand./span Dealers tell the firm more bikes are selling below MSRP, which diminishes the value of the brand. Management acknowledged this problem and vowed to protect the brand at all costs, starting with plans to slash production announced in earlier this month. Baird expects days inventory to drop to 75-90 days from 90-110 days, potentially creating short waiting lists again. Naturally, residual values should improve – which has favorable implications for HDFS.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Cost. /spanThe Harley-Davidson brand is among the best on the planet, but its operations fall short of world-class. CEO Keith Wandell brings impressive operational credentials to Harley, understands its shortcomings, and has the mandate to make the tough decisions. They expect the York negotiations to set the tone.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"HDFS. /spanManagement considers HDFS a strategic asset, but acknowledges the need to lower its cost of capital. We'd like to see HDFS partner with third-party underwriters to drive fee income without capital risk (CarMax model). The topic of HDFS remains an insurmountable hurdle for some investors that otherwise might buy the stock – but believe the issue is diminishing.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"- Deutsche Bank is raising their target to $26 (prev. $21) /spannoting that although management did not convey any optimism regarding the near term outlook for motorcycle demand, they came away more confident in HOG's ability to maintain recent market share gains and return the business to historic margin levels. Firm maintains their Buy recommendation based on valuation and HOG's additional cost savings potential.br /br /Management conveyed a number of data points which suggest that the company's recent market share gains could be more durable than we perceived (HOG appears to have made significant progress in improving its brand's positioning with young adults). The firm was also pleased to hear management reiterate their commitment to supporting prices and residuals, by aggressively curtailing production. Maintains Buy rating.br /br /span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"Notablecalls: /spanIt's quite odd to see so many positive things being said about HOG. Yet, the short interest still stands close to 20% in the name. The chart looks like it wants new highs in the $24 range. Won't get there today but I suspect there is upside in the name today. span style="font-weight: bold;"S/spanspan style="font-weight: bold;"ay..3-5% or a full 1 pt if you will. /span/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/29297569-5310205413631953646?l=notablecalls.blogspot.com'//div

PennyOmega.com Stock Report! 7/24/09, IRIS, KCAP, MTW, BBX, GMET, MFLI

PennyOmega.com — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 18:27:44 +0000

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SGCA, OOIL, CBIS, NECO Stock-PR OTC.OB Stock Report

Stock-PR — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:26:46 +0000

Today’s announcement by Strategic American Oil Corporation (OTCBB:SGCA) — an exploration and production company with operations in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Illinois, continues the company’s dynamic exploration plans for the lucrative oil fields of Illinois The CEO Radio Network is pleased to announce that it has posted an interview with Riggs Eckleberry, Chief Executive Officer of [...]

Natural Gas Not Influencing Washington

Michael E. Brisky — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:39:00 +0000

When it comes to power generation, there is a big battle is between coal and natural gas. Most of the new debate is due to massive energy policy coming soon. Realizing that natural gas is a cleaner burning fuel than coal, and considering we have plenty of it, you'd think natural gas would be getting a little more support. But a href="http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/07/13/13greenwire-at-center-ring-in-senate-climate-debate-coal-v-32201.html?pagewanted=1"this piece in the NY Times/a picks up on why that isn't happening.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"-Saying they failed to protect their interests as a landmark bill came together and passed the House last month, natural gas executives are forming a strategy to influence rewrites in the Senate./spanbr /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"-"There are a lot of people in the industry who are scrambling their forces right now," said Fred Julander, founder and chairman of the Rocky Mountain Natural Gas Strategy Conference, an annual event that drew 1,800 industry people to Denver last week. "Whether we can learn and get up to speed -- and it's a steep learning curve -- is the question."/spanbr /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"-Coal lobbyists have been talking to senators and aides for months, with their contacts becoming more frequent since the House bill passed. Coal lobbyists want to slow down the pace of the House measure's plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions and make businesses buy allowances for those emissions./spanbr /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"-Natural gas also will have to compete against the utility industry, which has been lobbying heavily on energy legislation. While they represent natural gas and coal, utilities have big reasons to favor coal./spanbr /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"-Electric utilities used coal for 59 percent of their power generation in 2007, while natural gas was used 13 percent of the time, according to the Energy Information Administration. Coal has been less expensive, making it more profitable for utilities to use as a fuel source./spanbr /br /So the bottom line here is that coal is cheaper for utilities, and the utilities are very organized and a powerful group of lobbyists. br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"-Lobbying by utility interests so far has dwarfed competitors. In the first quarter of this year, utilities spent $35.1 million on lobbying. The natural gas industry spent less than a tenth of that, $3.3 million. Of the top 10 industries with a stake in climate legislation, natural gas put the least money into lobbying in the first quarter, according to a recent Eamp;E analysis."As a whole, we're not very sophisticated in terms of public relations, and we need to be," Julander said. "We need to grow up and get in this game. No one is going to give us anything, even though we're the best for the environment."/spanbr /br /Although both coal and natural gas are abundant in the United States, you'd think this administration would take a major stand as climate change was supposed to be one of their major issues. Although natural gas still throws off emissions, its certainly cleaner than coal. It sure seems like it could provide us with an excellent bridge into the next generation of energy policy. We have a fuel we can use right now to generate electricity and power vehicles while we give technology time to develop alternative sources.br /br /It all comes down to lobbying and power in Washington; it doesn't really matter what party is running things, or at least it seems. And right now coal is winning.br /br /Disclosure: Long UNGdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/819581243324579563-3752372210508557946?l=briskycapital.blogspot.com'//div

Forest Oil Makes Progress – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:14:19 +0000

Denver-based Forest Oil Corp. (FST) – an independent oil and gas company – started production from its second horizontal Haynesville Shale well early today. Forest owns 100% stake in the Driver 13 – 1H well, located in Red River Parish, Louisiana. The initial production rate is 20.3 million cubic feet equivalent per day (MMcfe/d).

Forest Oil described this as a tremendous success as the initial production from this second well is significantly higher than the first well. Besides, the well was drilled and completed for a total cost of $9 million, which we believe is not too high a price to pay for such a prolific horizontal well.

Forest had announced its first horizontal Haynesville Shale well in February 2009. Located in the East Texas/North Louisiana region, the well had an initial production rate of 14 MMcfe/d only.

Though Forest wants to maintain a single-rig drilling program in 2009 in the Red River Parish area, it intends to allocate another rig in future to exploit its acreage position. The company holds nearly 11,050 net acres in the Louisiana prospective for the Haynesville Shale and has identified additional 110 potential horizontal locations on this acreage.

In addition, Forest also released its projected net sales volume for the second quarter. The company expects sales volume to be approximately 520 MMcfe/d in the quarter, up from 505 MMcfe/d in the year-ago period but down from 550 MMcfe/d sequentially. A significantly lower rig count was the main reason behind the quarter-over-quarter negative comparison.

Forest Oil shares have been the worst performers in our coverage universe in the current macro environment primarily due to the company’s relatively weak financial profile. It has the most debt-heavy balance sheet in our coverage, reflecting its debt-funded asset acquisitions in this cycle.

Moreover, organic production growth and drill-bit reserve growth continue to remain weak areas for the company, although recent numbers reflect some signs of improvement. However, we prefer to stay on the sidelines for now and keep our Hold recommendation unchanged.

Read the full analyst report on "FST"
Zacks Investment Research

Taubman Finally Loses Oyster Bay – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:42:10 +0000

Taubman Centers Inc. (TCO), a leading real estate investment trust (REIT), suffered a major setback recently as an unfavorable court ruling barred it from continuing construction of a proposed shopping mall in Oyster Bay, New York.

After 15 years of litigation, The New York State Court of Appeals – the highest court in the state – ruled against Taubman and upheld the plea of local activists on environmental grounds. In view of the court ruling, the company would probably have to write off over $150 million invested in the project.

The recent court order forbids Taubman to develop a high-end mall at the site and leaves it with three options – a) accepting defeat and selling the land; b) contemplating a mixed-use development; or c) re-appealing against the court order. A spokesperson said that the company is currently evaluating all options before taking a final call on the decision.

Taubman owns, develops, acquires and operates regional shopping centers throughout the US. A large number of these shopping centers are strategically located in major metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Detroit, Phoenix, Miami, Dallas, Tampa, Orlando and Washington DC.

The Oyster Bay project had been a continuous drag on the company’s earnings. During the fourth quarter of 2008, Taubman recorded $116 million as impairment charges for the project due to continued delay and uncertainty regarding completion of the project.

Taubman has a high quality roster of high-end and specialty retailers at its malls and commands some of the highest rents in its sector. High-end and specialty retailers have been the hit hardest in the current recession and this trend will continue through at least the end of this year.

The recent spate of unfavorable court rulings would also add to the woes of the company. However, we think Taubman is better positioned than many peers due to its clean balance sheet and minimal debt maturities. We reiterate our Hold rating of the company.

Read the full analyst report on "TCO"
Zacks Investment Research

Don’t Miss FSX’s Next Conference!

QualityStocks — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:07:54 +0000

From July 16th through the 18th, investors will be meeting with CEO’s to learn about incredible investment opportunities at the upcoming “Connect for Success” conference hosted in Denver, Colorado. Participants will also listen to financial industry experts as they speak about market strategies. The conference will take place at the Grand Hyatt Denver Hotel where guests [...]

Enhance Skin Products Inc. (EHSK.OB) is “One to Watch”

QualityStocks — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:45:52 +0000

Enhance Skin Products, Inc. develops and sells cosmeceutical products. Trading on the OTCBB, the Company has their headquarters in Toronto, Ontario and offices in Denver, Colorado. They are part of the Personal Products industry in the Consumer Goods sector. Founded in 1992, Enhance Skin Products Inc. sells their products under the Visible Youth™ trademark. Enhance Skin [...]

Basic Earth Science Systems Inc. (BSIC.OB) Announces Completion of North Dakota Well in Bakken Formation

QualityStocks — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:28:28 +0000

Independent oil and gas exploration and production company Basic Earth Science Systems Inc. recently updated shareholders on its Roscoe 2H-8 well in the Banks Prospect in eastern McKenzie County, N.D. The company announced the well went into production in early May 2009, testing at a rate of 543 barrels of oil, 1,185 thousand cubic feet [...]

Qwest Misses to Score – Zacks Tale of the Tape

Zacks Market Commentaries — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:15:05 +0000

Qwest Communications International Inc. (Q) ended efforts to sell its long-distance network on Monday after an auction failed to get satisfactory bids for those assets.

The sale of its struggling wholesale business would have helped the Denver-based company to trim its debt load of $13.3 billion and ease investor concerns. Industry insiders were expecting Level 3 Communications Inc. (LVLT) to be a potential buyer.

However, in spite of drawing "significant interest" from prospective buyers, the bid could not find an offer in excess of the $2 billion that Qwest was expecting. In the end, Qwest concluded that the long-distance network assets held far more strategic value for shareholders and customers than it would be able to raise through a sale.

Shares of the company were down more than 5% to $3.93 at noon as investors were disappointed after Qwest missed this opportunity to alleviate its debt pressures.

"Q" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?
Zacks Investment Research

Safeguard Business Unit to Provide Security Services to Granite Properties

Stuart T. Smith — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:21:16 +0000

Safeguard Security Holdings, Inc. (PINK SHEETS: SSHS), a provider of corporate and industrial security systems and personnel, announces that its subsidiary, SGI Protective Services, has entered into a two year contract to provide security services for Granite Properties in Dallas, Texas. Services that will be provided include security staffing services, and foot patrols, security concierge [...]

Did U.S. Export Over 5443 tons of Gold?

Alex Stanczyk — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:31:36 +0000

By Patrick A. Heller, Market Update June 01, 2009 Other News #38; Articles Lincoln Cent Made Denver Debut in 1911 Cent Substitute Gets Nod Collectors: Rich Market or Mints#8217; Last Stop? The United States Geological Survey (USGS) publishes monthly Mineral Industry Surveys with one series that focuses on gold production, imports and exports. These reports include information from the U.S. Census [...]div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=WOYXdCadxvw:MHSTtrELZK8:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=WOYXdCadxvw:MHSTtrELZK8:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?i=WOYXdCadxvw:MHSTtrELZK8:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=WOYXdCadxvw:MHSTtrELZK8:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=WOYXdCadxvw:MHSTtrELZK8:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?i=WOYXdCadxvw:MHSTtrELZK8:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=WOYXdCadxvw:MHSTtrELZK8:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=WOYXdCadxvw:MHSTtrELZK8:l6gmwiTKsz0"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=WOYXdCadxvw:MHSTtrELZK8:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?i=WOYXdCadxvw:MHSTtrELZK8:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /div

Heavy Oil Becomes More Appealing As Light, Sweet Crude Runs Out

Byron King — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:01:36 +0000

pWhen most people think of oil, they think of light, sweet crude that comes up out of little holes in the ground. You describe oil by its API gravity. For example, oil like Brent crude or West Texas Intermediate has an API gravity of 38-40. The oil that Col. Drake pulled from the ground at Titusville, Pa., in 1859 had API gravity near 60. These types of oil are relatively easy to pump from a reservoir, lift to the surface and transport via pipeline to the refinery./p p style="text-align: center;"strongThe Shift to Heavy Oil, with an “Energy Microsoft” at the Forefront/strong/p pBut a significant portion of the world’s oil is much lower quality than the light, sweet stuff. Indeed, most oil that’s found in#8230;/p

“Hyper-local” Stats Show Housing Market Has Bottomed

Don Miller — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:37:25 +0000

pPerhaps the mishmash of numbers floating around the housing market have you confused. For those who follow the market closely, the daily news seems to bring a never-ending stream of contradictory data. /p pHere are just a few statistics in the news lately from respected market mavens like the a href="http://www2.standardandpoors.com/portal/site/sp/en/us/page.topic/indices_csmahp/0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,0,0.html" target="_blank"S#38;P/Case-Shiller Indices/a and the a href="http://www.realtor.org/" target="_blank"National Association of Realtors/a:/p ul listrongThe “average” price of homes in the U.S. is down almost 35% from the record highs of 2006. /strong/li /ul ul listrong“Median” housing prices are down 19% in 90% of the major markets in the United States. /strong/li /ul ul listrongBuilding permits were up 4% in April from last year, and homebuilder confidence increased from 16 to 18./strong/li /ul pSo what do these numbers mean to you?/p pProbably nothing./p p“It’s like a weatherman who combines conditions#8230;/p

Housing Prices Still Falling – Analyst Blog

Dirk Van Dijk — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:24:29 +0000

Highlights include Equity Residential (EQR), Mid-America Apartments (MAA) and Apartment Investment & Management Co. (AIV).

The best measure of housing prices -- the Case Schiller index -- was released today, and it shows no let up in the pace of housing depreciation. The ten-city composite (C-10), which dates back to the start of 1987, peaked out in April of 2006 on a seasonally adjusted basis at 226.14, and is now down to 152.81. The 20-city composite (C-20) which only goes back to January 2000, peaked in May 2006 at 206.13 and is now down to 141.35. Thus, the C-10 index is 32.4% off its peak while the C-20 is down 31.4%, not a big difference.

One reason that the Case Schiller index is of interest is that it is one of the key factors in the bank stress tests (although on the not-seasonally-adjusted basis). Home prices are continuing to track much closer to the "more adverse" scenario than the baseline scenario (unadjusted actual of 151.41 vs. baseline of 154.42 and "adverse" of 149.96).

The good news is that it is not tracking below the more adverse, so if the banks can raise enough capital to handle the more adverse scenario (and so far they have made significant progress in doing so, even though it will result in very significant dilution to the initial shareholders) they should be able to make it through this downturn -- although not with a lot of room to spare.

The other two key factors in the stress tests were GDP growth and Unemployment. First quarter GDP was in line with the more adverse scenario, and unemployment appears to be tracking below the more adverse scenario.

Relative to a year ago, the C-10 index is off 18.6% while the C-20 is off 18.7%. For the month, prices were down 2.0% and 2.2%, respectively. Prices fell in all 20 cities in March, although the declines were very small (less than 0.3%) in Dallas, Charlotte and Denver. Interestingly, those are the cities that have declined the least since the peak, as shown in the first graph below (from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/). Note that the graph shows the declines since the C-10 peaked out -- the numbers that follow are based on the individual city peaks, seasonally adjusted. The housing markets that have already been battered took it on the chin again in March.

Six cities saw prices decline by more than 3.0% in March alone. Phoenix was down 4.4% on the month to bring its total decline from its peak to 52.4%. It certainly has ashes to rise from. Las Vegas crapped out again, falling 3.7% on the month to bring its cumulative total decline to 49.9%. Miami was off 3.2% for the month bringing its cumulative decline to 46.9%. Thus the three cities that have fallen the most from their peaks are still getting hit hard, while those that have been relatively unscathed so far continue to avoid the brunt of the declines. The three other cities that fell the most in March were Minneapolis (-5.4%), Detroit (-4.6%) and Chicago (-3.0).

The massive declines we have seen nationwide raise the question of how much further we have to go. The declines in even the strongest cities are comparable in scope to what generally has happened historically in sharp regional declines -- for example the peak-to-trough decline in San Diego in the early 1990's was 16.7%. The declines in the weaker cities are probably comparable to the worst seen in the Great Depression.

The two best metrics for judging if houses are cheap or expensive are the ratios of price to income and price to rent. Anyone who claimed that they could not see a bubble forming in housing (I'm looking at you, Mr. Greenspan) was clearly not paying attention to these metrics.

The first graph below (both are from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/) is set so that the level in the first quarter of 1987 is equal to 1.0, not the actual ratios, but they trace the movement of the ratios. They are based on the national numbers, but to be really relevant for someone looking to buy a home, numbers based on the local area would be much more relevant.

On a housing-price-to-median-income basis, we are almost back to the 1.0 level of early 1987, and within the 0.92 to 1.08 range that prevailed from then until 2001. This is very much a hopeful sign that the decline could soon come to an end, or at least that over the long term, a buyer could feel fairly confident that he was getting a decent price. On the other hand, we still have lots of excess inventory, most of which is distressed. This means it is likely that housing prices will undershoot what will prove to be the long-term equilibrium.

The price-to-rent history tells much the same story as the price to income graph. Note that the 1.0 level in this graph is set at 1997, not 1987. The pattern though is almost identical, ranging between 1.0 and 1.2 until 2001 and then soaring to absurd heights only to come crashing back.

We are right in the middle of that "fair value" range at 1.1. However, rents have started to fall at the major Apartment REITS such as Equity Residential (EQR), Mid-America Apartments (MAA) and Apartment Investors (AIV) and that usually presages declines in the rent component of the Consumer Price index (one more reason to be more worried right now about deflation than inflation, but longer-term inflation will be the bigger threat).

This also suggests that there are still more price declines to come, but that the worst of it is now behind us. While much depends on what city you are in, housing prices are now reasonable, but not exactly cheap. We will probably undershoot "fair value," so if you can hold off buying a new house for a few more months, your patience is likely to be rewarded. On the other hand, if you are planning on staying in the house for the next 20 years, it will not make that much difference at this point (unlike the past few years).

Read the full analyst report on "EQR"
Read the full analyst report on "MAA"
Read the full analyst report on "AIV"
Zacks Investment Research

Real Estate Indexes Plunge Further

IndexUniverse Staff — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:03:48 +0000

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} The average home price in the nation is now down 32.2% from its peak in Q2 2006.

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes continued to set record declines in March 2009, according to new data released by S&P.

The S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index fell 19.1% in Q1 2009 over year-ago levels, the largest drop in the index's 21-years of back-tested data.

The more widely used 10-City and 20-City Composites dropped 18.6% and 18.7% respectively, according to S&P's statement about the latest figures for the indexes.

The average home price in the nation is now down 32.2% from its peak in Q2 2006, and home prices have retreated to levels last seen in Q4 2002.

Phoenix, Las Vegas and San Francisco posted the worst year-over-year returns, declining 36%, 21.2% and 30.1%, respectively. Denver did the best, falling just 5.5% year-over-year.

Home prices in Phoenix are now down 53% from peak levels in June 2006.

Three cities managed monthly gains in March, with prices rising in Charlotte (0.3%), Denver (0.1%) and Dallas (0.0%). Elsewhere, however, the pace of the decline was brutal, with home prices in Minneapolis dropping 6.1% in March alone; in Detroit, prices retreated 4.9%.

Each Real Estate Market’s Different – Analyst Blog

Dirk Van Dijk — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:32:06 +0000

Highlights include Citigroup, Inc. (C) and JPMorgan Chase & Co., Inc. (JPM), Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and Hudson City Bancorp (HCBK).

Realtors will tell you that every real estate market is different. While there is some truth to that, the decline we are seeing in housing prices is very broad-based.

The graph below (larger version available at http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/) shows the decline from peak levels in each of the 20 markets followed by the Case Schiller index. Every market is off by at least 10%, but it is clear that Dallas, Charlotte and Denver have been holding up the best so far. On the other hand, seven areas -- more than one third of the markets -- are down more than 40% from peak levels.

Phoenix is in ashes with a decline of more than 50%; time will tell if it can live up to its name and rise again. What is striking is that the three cities where Finance is the most prominent industry -- New York, Boston and Charlotte -- are all towards the least damaged end of the spectrum.

So is there anything we can tell from the pattern of price declines across these different markets? Was it a question of how big the bubble was in the first place? Perhaps -- Dallas was the second-least-bubbly market based on its peak CS index level of 126.47, and Charlotte was number four at 135.88 (all the indexes equaled 100 1/2000). Cleveland (123.24) Detroit (127.05) and Atlanta (136.47) round out the remainder of the non bubbly quartile, and only Detroit is down more than 40% from its peak.

A strong case can be made that given the troubles of the Auto industry that it is a special case. Cleveland and Atlanta have fared somewhat better than most cities, but not by a huge margin. On the other hand, the most bubbly markets are well represented in the biggest declines from peak group. Miami was the most bubbly with a peak index value of 280.87, followed by L.A. (273.94), Washington D.C. (251.07), San Diego (250.34) and Tampa (238.09). Three of those cities are in the down over 40% club and Tampa seems to be applying for membership.

In addition to the top five, four other cities had peak index values of over 200, and three of them are in the down 40% club (Phoenix, Las Vegas and San Francisco). New York is the one anomaly there. It is the one true bubble market that has not popped hard.

In general, the hardest-hit markets also hit their peaks earlier than the ones that have held up better. Four cities peaked out in late 2005, of which only Boston is holding up better than most. San Diego, San Francisco and Detroit were the other early peakers.

Five cities, on the other hand, did not hit their peak until the summer of 2007 -- Charlotte, Portland, Seattle, Dallas and Atlanta -- all of which are clustered towards the least affected end of the graph. Are they just behind the curve? I suspect that may be the case.

I suspect that the New York market is the most vulnerable at this point. The Pacific Time Zone cities have already seen most of the damage done. Dallas, Charlotte, Atlanta and Denver never got too out of hand on the upside. New York, and to a lesser extent Boston, did experience full-scale bubble pricing, but have yet to really feel the pain.

This would be very bad news to banks with big exposures to those two markets. Citibank (C) and J.P. Morgan (JPM) have very large presences in New York, and Bank of America (BAC) has a big share in Boston. However, perhaps the most vulnerable would be a smaller bank like Hudson City Bancorp (HCBK).

Read the full analyst report on "HCBK"
Zacks Investment Research

And Then There’s This…Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Contrarian Profits — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:01:09 +0000

pThere was a brief flurry of excitement in Globex trading on Sunday evening#8217;s New York open. Both gold and silver were up right out of the starting gate#8230;silver especially so./p pThe U.S. bullion banks [the only ones allowed to trade at that time of day] were either going long or covering shorts. This rally continued through the Sydney open in gold#8230;and into the beginning of trading in Hong Kong for silver. At those two points, a not-for-profit seller showed up#8230;or the buying/short covering stopped. Those were the highs of the day in both metals. It#8217;s quite unusual for the not-for-profit sellers/price cappers to hit the metals at two widely separated times like this. Almost without exception, they hit both metals at#8230;/p

Home Price Indexes Show Signs Of Improvement

IndexUniverse Staff — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:02:47 +0000

While not sterling, the latest readings of indexes tracking U.S. home prices showed signs of improvement in February.

Although the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price indexes kept dropping in February, some good signs did appear.

For the first time in 16 months, the benchmarks' fall didn't set new records, according to the latest monthly results released on Tuesday. That was seen as at least some sign of progress for the heavily depleted housing market.

Nearly all of the major metro areas followed by the index, which benchmarks existing single-family home prices across the country, showed improvement from January.

"We will certainly need a few more months of data before we can determine if home prices are finally turning around," said David Blitzer, chairman of S&P's index committee, in a statement.

All 20 metro areas covered by the indexing series produced a monthly decline in February. However, some 16 of the 20 metro areas saw an improvement in their monthly returns compared with January. "Furthermore, this is the first month since October 2007 where the 10- and 20-City composites [benchmarks] did not post a record annual decline," added Blitzer.

Still, average U.S. home prices are at similar levels to where they were in the third quarter of 2003. From the peak in mid-2006, the 10-City Composite Index was down 31.6% and the 20-City Composite was down 30.7% through February 2009.

From the U.S. housing market's peak through February 2009, Dallas has suffered the least. Average home prices in that metropolitan market were down 11.1% from peak levels in June 2007. Meanwhile, Phoenix was down 50.8% from its peak in June 2006.

Cleveland was the only metro area having a record monthly decline, returning -5.0%. Besides that metro area, home prices in Charlotte, New York and Washington were the only areas showing larger declines in February than the previous month.

But all 20 major metro areas remained steeped in double-digit declines from their peaks. In fact, 10 of those posted February declines of greater than 30% and seven of those—Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, San Francisco and San Diego—in excess of 40%.

On an annualized basis, three metro areas fared the best:

Dallas dropped 4.5% and turned in the best performance, returning -0.3%

Denver fell some 5.7%

Boston lost 7.2%

The three worst-performing cities continue to be from the Sunbelt, all reporting negative returns in excess of 30%:

Phoenix was down 35.2%

Las Vegas declined 31.7%

San Francisco fell 31%

Home Prices Indexes Show Signs Of Improvement

IndexUniverse Staff — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:02:47 +0000

While not sterling, the latest readings of indexes tracking U.S. home prices showed signs of improvement in February.

Although the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Prices indexes kept dropping in February, some good signs did appear.

Nearly all of the major metro areas followed by the index, which benchmarks existing single-family home prices across the country, showed improvement from January.

"We will certainly need a few more months of data before we can determine if home prices are finally turning around," said David Blitzer, chairman of S&P's index committee, in a statement.

All 20 metro areas covered by the indexing series produced a monthly decline in February. However, some 16 of the 20 metro areas saw an improvement in their monthly returns compared to January. "Furthermore, this is the first month since October 2007 where the 10- and 20-City composites (benchmarks) did not post a record annual decline," added Blitzer.

Still, average U.S. home prices are at similar levels to where they were in the third quarter of 2003. From the peak in mid-2006, the 10-city composite index was down 31.6% and the 20-city composite was down 30.7% through February 2009.

But all 20 major metro areas remained steeped in double-digit declines from their peaks. In fact, 10 of those posted February declines of greater than 30% and seven of those -- Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, San Francisco and San Diego -- in excess of 40%.

On an annualized basis, three metro areas fared the best on an annualized basis:

Dallas dropped 4.5% and turned in the best performance, returning -0.3%

Denver fell some 5.7%

Boston lost 7.2%

The three worst performing cities continue to be from the Sunbelt, all reporting negative returns in excess of 30%:

Phoenix was down 35.2%

Las Vegas declined 31.7%

San Francisco fell 31%

Apr 28: Consumer Confidence Surges – Economic Highlights

Zacks Market Commentaries — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:16:38 +0000

The S&P/Case-Shiller 10-City Home Price Index decreased by 2.1% in February, following a 2.6% drop in January, a 2.3% decline in December and a 2.2% drop in November, and fell 18.8% over the year, less than the 19.4% record annual decline observed in January, which is the first time in 16 months the annual decline did not set an annual record for the 10-city composite and the 20-city composite, which fell by 18.6% over the year. In March, the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Home Price Index declined by 2.2%, following a 2.8% reduction in January, 2.5% in December. This is the 31st consecutive month residential real estate has fallen, starting from August 2006, with home price reductions ubiquitous geographically where all 20 MSAs observed monthly and annual residential value declines. Cleveland was the only metro area having a record monthly decline, returning -5.0%. In terms of annual declines, the three worst performing cities continue to be from the Sunbelt fared worse with Phoenix down 35.2%, Las Vegas declined 31.7% and San Francisco fell 31.0%. Dallas, Denver and Boston faired the best in terms of annual declines down 4.5%, 5.7% and 7.2%, respectively. Dallas also had the least severe monthly decline, by -0.3%.

The Consumer Confidence Index showed optimism, which now stands at 39.2 in April, following 26.9 in March, and its record low of 25 in February. Consumers short term outlook improved and the employment situation became less pessimistic. The Present Situation Index increased to 23.7 from 21.9 in March, and the Expectations Index rose to 49.5 from 30.2 in March.

Upcoming Releases
GDP-Q1 Advance Estimate (04/29 at 8:30 AM EST)
FOMC Policy Statement (04/29 at 2:15 PM EST)
Initial Claims (04/30 at 8:30 AM EST)
Personal Spending (04/30 at 8:30 AM EST)
ISM Manufacturing Index (05/01 at 10:00 AM EST)

Zacks Investment Research

Michael Kosares: China turns IMF gold sales into a wet noodle

Alex Stanczyk — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:07:47 +0000

By Michael Kosares Centennial Precious Metals, Denver Saturday, April 25, 2009 http://www.usagold.com There may be some misunderstanding about the increase in Chinese gold reserves. The bulk of that gold has come from purchases of their own domestic production, not open-market purchases, so the impact on the price is indirect. But because China is the largest gold producer in the [...]div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=pPNCl3mqlj4:YeKtvT-fsuU:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=pPNCl3mqlj4:YeKtvT-fsuU:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?i=pPNCl3mqlj4:YeKtvT-fsuU:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=pPNCl3mqlj4:YeKtvT-fsuU:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=pPNCl3mqlj4:YeKtvT-fsuU:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?i=pPNCl3mqlj4:YeKtvT-fsuU:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=pPNCl3mqlj4:YeKtvT-fsuU:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=pPNCl3mqlj4:YeKtvT-fsuU:l6gmwiTKsz0"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=pPNCl3mqlj4:YeKtvT-fsuU:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?i=pPNCl3mqlj4:YeKtvT-fsuU:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /div

And Then There’s This…Friday, April 24th, 2009

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:11:17 +0000

pBoth gold and silver were comatose all night long in the Far East#8230;and all through European trading once again. However, the moment that the London p.m. fix was in, both metals#8217; prices went vertical. Silver got capped before it hit $13#8230;but gold managed to close above $900, and is now above $910 as I write this. As I said yesterday#8230;Friday is options expiry#8230;so be ready for anything. But even I wasn#8217;t expecting that. Today#8217;s New York price action should be enlightening./p pNeedless to say, Ted Butler and I had a discussion about yesterday#8217;s goings-on. His guess [and it's only a guess] is that the #8216;four or less#8217; traders in the Commercial category of the Commitment of Traders#8230;all bullion banks#8230;have covered all#8230;/p

Reovest Growth Research’s Recent Speculative Buy Rating on Sector 10, Inc. (SECT.OB)

QualityStocks — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:12:32 +0000

It’s one thing for a start-up company to send out a press release encouraging investors to purchase stock and another for an independent research company to release findings saying the same exact thing. Reovest Growth Research recently took a closer look at Sector 10, Inc. (SECT.OB) and published its findings in a 10-page report detailing [...]

Finding Opportunity in Liberty Media’s Complex Structure

Bullish Bankers — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:00:11 +0000

Liberty Media [LMDIA: 17.34, +0.15 (+0.87%)] has been in the news a lot lately, due to CEO John Malone’s recent bailout of Sirius XM Radio [SIRI: 0.2476, +0.0126 (+5.36%)]. This article is not about that deal, however. This article is an attempt to explain the structure of Liberty Media, which is sure to confuse most amateur [...]

Publishing Industry – Zacks Analyst Interviews

Zacks Market Commentaries — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Publishing Industry in Crisis - Business Model Lags Changing Times
The sinking economy is forcing many publishing houses to the life-support of bankruptcy after a long illness. The eight-year deceleration in print advertising, fueled by a secular migration of readers to the Internet, has gone into free fall.

Newspapers have fared far worse than magazines, as web-based news options have proliferated in recent years. Circulation of newspapers fell 2-3% on average each year from 2005 through 2007, and that has accelerated to the mid-single digits in recent months as the economy cratered. Ad revenue is falling between 15-20% or more at many publications. A portion of classified has moved to wider-spread, more targeted, lower-priced or free options, such as ebay or Craigslist, and will not likely return.

In an effort to offset declining print revenue and market share, publishers are scrambling to leverage their brands and build complimentary web-based publications. But the deepening recession has highlighted the flaw in the online ad-only business model -- without circulation to smooth revenue, cycle downswings are often deathblows.

Ultimately, the secular downturn in circulation will force a viable new business model for online news, one that relies on subscription or one-time user fees in addition to advertising revenue. In the meantime, publishers are scrambling to slash costs fast enough to meet falling revenues. Asset sales, even at trough valuations, have proven a less viable option in the midst of tight credit markets. Those that can't cut fixed operating and financial overhead are filing for bankruptcy or closing, including many of the country's largest and most respected newspapers.

What surprised many when the The Tribune Company, owner of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, filed for bankruptcy in January, now seems like a weekly event.

This week, Hearst Corp. announced that it will shut The Chronicle, the 12th-largest U.S. paper and Northern California's largest daily, if it does not find a buyer or work with unions to dramatically slash costs. The closing of the 144-year old San Francisco daily is an event that would have seemed unthinkable until recently.
Also this week, Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C., which owns The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com is filing for bankruptcy. The Journal Register, owner of 22 dailies in the East and upper Midwest, including The New Haven Register, succumbed under the weight of crushing debt, as well. E.W. Scripps (SSP) announced it would close The Rocky Mountain Register, the Pulitzer prize-winning 150-year old Denver institution, after failing to find a buyer. Just last week, Scripps shut down the The Albuquerque Tribune on February 23, 2008, after shopping it since August 2007.
Last month, The Star Tribune, owner of Minnesota's largest newspaper, and the tenth-largest Sunday paper, filed Chapter 11, as it attempts to cut financing and labor costs.
The Christian Science Monitor stopped publishing in print and is now online-only.

Publicly-traded publishers sowed the seeds of their current liquidity crunch by leveraging their balance sheets to buy back stock and increase dividends in an attempt to prop up shareholder returns as revenue growth decelerated over the last several years. Now those same companies are slashing dividends, negotiating with creditors, and deeply cutting their workforces in an attempt to forestall bankruptcy. The New York Times Company (NYT) suspended its dividend this month, after raising it 31% in 2007. Gannet slashed its dividend by 90%. Lee Enterprises (LEE) deferred payments on some of its debt until 2012.

Stock prices have tumbled with earnings. The Zacks' publishing index is down 80% from its 52-week high. A revitalized ad market requires an economic upturn, to which there is no visibility at this time. Until there is some visibility to stabilization, we would not recommend buying shares of any of the publishing companies in our coverage universe (remain underweight).

Our top Sell recommendation in the Publishing sector is McClatchy Company (MNI). As expected, McClatchy eliminated its dividend in January, shortly after a 50% cut in September proved insufficient.

We expect more pain ahead for McClatchy. One-third of MNI's revenues are in the hard-hit California and Florida markets. Circulation revenue is falling for the 3rd consecutive year, while ad revenue sinks disproportionately (down 21% in 4Q08). In our view, MNI can't shrink its costs fast enough, posing a risk of tripping bank covenants if the revenue decline should accelerate and thereby raise leverage. Given the continued downward trend in earnings and cash flow, coupled with the company's high debt-load (Debt/TTM EBITDA was 5.1x).Zacks Investment Research

Publishing Industry – Industry Outlook

Zacks Market Commentaries — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:17:01 +0000

Publishing Industry in Crisis - Business Model Lags Changing Times

The sinking economy is forcing many publishing houses to the life-support of bankruptcy after a long illness. The eight-year deceleration in print advertising, fueled by a secular migration of readers to the Internet, has gone into free fall.

What surprised many when the The Tribune Company, owner of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, filed for bankruptcy in January, now seems like a weekly event.

This week, Hearst Corp. announced that it will shut The Chronicle, the 12th-largest U.S. paper and Northern California's largest daily, if it does not find a buyer or work with unions to dramatically slash costs. The closing of the 144-year old San Francisco daily is an event that would have seemed unthinkable until recently.
Also this week, Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C., which owns The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com is filing for bankruptcy. The Journal Register, owner of 22 dailies in the East and upper Midwest, including The New Haven Register, succumbed under the weight of crushing debt, as well. E.W. Scripps (SSP) announced it would close The Rocky Mountain Register, the Pulitzer prize-winning 150-year old Denver institution, after failing to find a buyer. Just last week, Scripps shut down the The Albuquerque Tribune on February 23, 2008, after shopping it since August 2007.
Last month, The Star Tribune, owner of Minnesota's largest newspaper, and the tenth-largest Sunday paper, filed Chapter 11, as it attempts to cut financing and labor costs.
The Christian Science Monitor stopped publishing in print and is now online-only.

Publicly-traded publishers sowed the seeds of their current liquidity crunch by leveraging their balance sheets to buy back stock and increase dividends in an attempt to prop up shareholder returns as revenue growth decelerated over the last several years. Now those same companies are slashing dividends, negotiating with creditors, and deeply cutting their workforces in an attempt to forestall bankruptcy. The New York Times Company (NYT) suspended its dividend this month, after raising it 31% in 2007. Gannet slashed its dividend by 90%. Lee Enterprises (LEE) deferred payments on some of its debt until 2012.

Our top Sell recommendation in the Publishing sector is McClatchy Company (MNI). As expected, McClatchy eliminated its dividend in January, shortly after a 50% cut in September proved insufficient.

Zacks Investment Research

U.S. Home Prices Index Falls To 21-Year Low

IndexUniverse Staff — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:17:30 +0000

Home price indexes don't show many bright spots as 2008 ends up as the second-straight year of annual declines.

More ugly real estate news came out Tuesday as the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index in December showed its largest quarterly fall in the 21-year history of the indexing series.

The drop-off in the final quarter of 2008 by the benchmark – which covers all nine U.S. census divisions – represented an 18.2% decline from the same period a year ago. S&P reported that the 10-City and 20-City composite indexes also set new records, with annual declines of 19.2% and 18.5%, respectively.

With completed December data, S&P is now saying that domestic home prices have been falling nationwide for two straight years, covering 2007 and 2008.

"The broad downturn in the residential real estate market continues,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor’s, in a statement. “There are very few, if any, pockets of turnaround that one can see in the data."

The picture remained bleak in December as all of the 20 metro areas covered by the indexes were reporting annual declines. In fact, eight of those areas had negative rates exceeding 20%. And looking at annualized data, some 13 of the 20 metro areas have been reporting consecutive record declines since December 2007.

Breaking down the data on a monthly basis shows a similar trend. All of the metro areas had at least four consecutive months of negative returns in the past two years. As of December, the average U.S. home price was at a similar level as in the third quarter of 2003. From the housing market's peak in the second quarter of 2006, average home prices are down 26.7%.

Still, some bright spots did show up, although few and far between. Five metro areas -- Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego and Washington, D.C. -- saw some improvement. Those areas' rates of decline were less in December 2008 than in the previous December. Also, Detroit showed a slight improvement in monthly returns, but fell harder in 2008 on an annualized basis.

The most recent index data through December also reported that:

The seven worst-performing cities in terms of year-over-year declines continue to be from the sunbelt, reporting negative returns in excess of 20%. Phoenix was down 34.0%, Las Vegas reported -33.0% and San Francisco fell 31.2%.
Denver, Dallas, Cleveland and Boston faired the best in terms of annual declines down 4.0%, 4.3%, 6.1% and 7.0%, respectively.
Dallas was down just 8.6% from its peak in June 2007, while Phoenix is down 45.5% from its peak in June of 2006. Eighteen of the 20 metro areas were in double-digit declines from their peaks, with half of the metro areas posting declines of greater than 20% and four of those (Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix and San Francisco) in excess of 40%.

Home Prices Drop 26.7% From Peak In December

IndexUniverse Staff — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:17:30 +0000

Home price indexes don't show many bright spots as 2008 ends up as the second straight year of annual declines.

More ugly real estate news came out Tuesday as the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index in December showed its largest quarterly fall in the 21-year history of the indexing series.

The drop-off in the final quarter of 2008 by the benchmark—which covers all nine U.S. census divisions—represented an 18.2% decline from the same period a year ago. S&P reported that the 10-City and 20-City composite indexes also set new records, with annual declines of 19.2% and 18.5%, respectively.

With completed December data, S&P is now saying that domestic home prices have been falling nationwide for two straight years, covering 2007 and 2008.

Still, some bright spots did show up, although few and far between. Five metro areas—Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego and Washington, D.C.—saw some improvement. Those areas' rates of decline were less in December 2008 than in the previous December. Also, Detroit showed a slight improvement in monthly returns, but fell harder in 2008 on an annualized basis.

The most recent index data through December also reported that:

The seven worst-performing cities in terms of year-over-year declines continue to be from the sunbelt, reporting negative returns in excess of 20%. Phoenix was down 34.0%, Las Vegas reported -33.0% and San Francisco fell 31.2%.
Denver, Dallas, Cleveland and Boston fared the best in terms of annual declines, down 4.0%, 4.3%, 6.1% and 7.0%, respectively.
Dallas was down just 8.6% from its peak in June 2007, while Phoenix is down 45.5% from its peak in June of 2006. Eighteen of the 20 metro areas were in double-digit declines from their peaks, with half of the metro areas posting declines of greater than 20%, and four of those (Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix and San Francisco) in excess of 40%.

Home Prices Continue To Post Declines

Daniel Shepard — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:00:43 +0000

Tuesday February 24, 2009 Navivest Standard #38; Poor’s today released its Standard #38; Poor#8217;s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index for December and as expected, the numbers were not good. The index, which tracks home prices in twenty metropolitan areas, showed that prices for single-family homes fell 18.5% for the month on a year over year basis. On a month [...]

Global Recession Puts Golf Industry Deep in the Rough

Don Miller — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:00:08 +0000

pThe global economic meltdown has struck golf industry, dragging on tourism and travel, delaying golf course construction, and curbing club membership rolls./p pNow, even the crown jewels of the sport – the a href="http://www.pga.com/" target="_blank"Professional Golfers Association/a (PGA) and a href="http://www.lpga.com/" target="_blank"Ladies Professional Golfers Association/a (LPGA) – have been tarnished by financial scandal and sponsorship defections/p pThe most recent scandal to hit Wall Street had PGA Tour players concerned about more than just tournament highlights as they teed off Thursday at the a href="http://www.northerntrustopen.com/" target="_blank"Northern Trust Open/a at a href="http://www.therivieracountryclub.com/html/index.cfm" target="_blank"Riviera Country Club/a in Los Angeles./p pMany tour members at Riviera were struggling to comprehend the potential implications of the financial scandal involving tournament sponsor a href="http://www.stanfordfinancial.com/" target="_blank"Stanford Financial Group/a, and that company’s chairman, a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Stanford" target="_blank"Robert Allen Stanford/a./p pAs reported by strongemMoney Morning/em/strong on Friday, the a href="http://www.sec.gov/" target="_blank"U.S. Securities and Exchange#8230;/a/p

Vitaliy Katsenelson: The pain of mean reversion

Prieur du Plessis — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 05:40:52 +0000

"Despite the decline, the market is still not cheap. Sorry, we are not likely to embark on the new secular bull market anytime soon," argues Vitaliy Katsenelson in this guest contribution. Please visit my website (by clicking on the heading above) for...

Obama’s Stimulus Bill Becomes Law

Daniel Shepard — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:28:41 +0000

Tuesday February 17, 2009 Navivest President Obama’s stimulus bill has now become law after he signed the $787 billion bill at a ceremony in Denver, Colorado. The signing ceremony was at the Denver Museum of Nature #38; Science, which is partly powered by solar power, underscoring the President’s aim to stimulate renewable energy through the stimulus plan. Hoping [...]

Invest in Gold, 5 Ways to Play

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:58:33 +0000

pWith food prices on the rise, the price of gold will drive. Martin Hutchinson of a href="http://www.moneymorning.com" class="alinks_links"Money Morning/a says, #8220;As gold goes up, it gets more popular and investors start piling into it…” Here are five ways to play bottom-basement gold.This from Mike Cagesso:/p blockquotepGold hit two historic milestones in 2008. First, it hit its all-time high of $1,030 an ounce in early March./p pJust three months later, the price of gold for December delivery fell to $681 an ounce, a href="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jND4r3B-VBZu2Ogg2_yzjYnPIP8gD9413JL80"a 21-month low/a and 33.9% drop from its record high./p pMost gold bugs were equal parts heartbroken and puzzled. Global stock markets tanked alongside the world’s biggest economies. But so did gold, which is widely considered to be a safe haven investment when everything else in#8230;/p/blockquote

The Stimulus: As Good As It Gets

Eldon Mast — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:51:00 +0000

pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/1D0bfbPMuKJLpmnGAaXTVqBEOUU/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/1D0bfbPMuKJLpmnGAaXTVqBEOUU/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p"The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" will be signed into law on Tuesday by President Obama. It looks like he plans to get out of Washington and travel to Denver... an area that indeed has been hit hard economically in recent times. The Denver area will see job growth from this Act almost immediately.br /br /While many still question whether or not this government initiative is the right thing to do long term, let's highlight the positives of what will happen with this massive funding effort.br /br /span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"1. Upgrades to our Transportation Systems/spanbr /‐ $27.5B for highway investments.br /‐ $8.4B for public transportation.br /‐ $1.5B for additional state and local governments for transportation.br /‐ $1.3B for air transportation systems.br /‐ $9.3B for rail transportation.br /br /In the suburbs of Denver plans have long been in place to build out rail in all directions. Lack of funding has always hindered a href="http://www.rtd-fastracks.com/nm_104"those efforts./a Perhaps one of these days we'll understand why those in Europe prefer the rail to our single occupant cars and no doubt the public in suburban Denver will also.br /br /span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"2. Massive Energy Investments/spanbr /- $4.5B to repair fed buildings and increase energy efficiency.br /- $3.4B for Clean Fossil Fuel Ramp;D.br /- $11B for smart-electric grid and modernization related activities.br /- $2B to advance vehicle battery systems.br /- $6 billion in new loans for renewable energy projects such as wind or solar.br /br /You may recall reading about the City of LA's a href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/01/some-hopeful-shovel-ready-projects.html"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"shovel ready/span/a project, "a href="http://mayor.lacity.org/villaraigosaplan/EnergyandEnvironment/ClimateChange/LACITY_004983.htm"Solar LA/a," the largest solar project undertaken by any single city in the world. Tuesday will mark good news for LA's mayor whose office has long been championing this massive energy project.br /br /span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"3. Unprecedented Funding for State and Local Government Budgets/spanbr /-$53.6B for the a href="http://www.cbpp.org/2-4-09sfp.htm"State Fiscal Stabilization Fund/abr /-$39.5B to local school districts using existing state funding formulas to:br /span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;" /span+prevent school cutbacks,br /span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;" /span+prevent teacher layoffs,br /span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;" /span+modernize buildingsbr /-$8.8 billion to states for highest priority needs such as public safety system upgrades.br /br /This funding is great news for state legislatures grappling with a href="http://www.cbpp.org/9-8-08sfp.htm"severe budget gaps/a in fiscal 2009 and public safety officials struggling to meet the public's demand for better disaster continengcy plans and systems.br /br /span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"4. Broadband Internet Expansion/spanbr /$7.2B will be spent to increase broadband access and usage in unserved and under-served areas of our country. Not only will this better position us for economic growth and innovation, but broadband service provider firms (who already have geographic coverage strategies ready to implement), will begin hiring on those expansion blueprints this week.br /br /span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"5. Tax breaks/spanbr /- Most individuals will get a $400 tax credit, and most couples an $800 credit.br /- Many students will get a $2,500 tuition tax credit.br /- First-time home buyers may qualify for a tax credit of up to $8,000.br /- People who receive Social Security will get a one-time payment of $250.br /- In total, $212B will get passed onto individuals and small businesses.br /br /span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"6. And of course Jobs Creation (Directly and Indirectly)/spanbr /The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the plan all told will create between 1 million and 3 million jobs. Any opposition to that if it works out?br /br /So, the stimulus plan has a href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/02/stimulus-package-will-pass.html"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"now passed/span/a. On Tuesday the spending begins. And although a href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2009/01/making-astrology-look-respectable.html"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"economists will argue/span/a about its long term benefits to the US economy, it is highly likely that the vast a href="http://mast-economy.blogspot.com/2008/12/remembering-1975-majority-was-wrong.html"span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"majority of those pundits will be wrong/span/aspan class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"./spanbr /divspan class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"br //span/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"div/div No Gloom here. Only Good News. div/div a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416560610?ie=UTF8tag=thegooneweco-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=9325creativeASIN=1416560610"The Power of Positive Thinking/a div/div a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743243153?ie=UTF8tag=thegooneweco-20linkCode=as2camp=1789creative=390957creativeASIN=0743243153"The Road Less Traveled/a div/div/divdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=PSTfFT8i"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=DSrYftDZ"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=42" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=QV28IIFY"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=43" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=rwMQUEM2"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=rwMQUEM2" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=pdavuAhu"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=50" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=i8YONRyY"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=i8YONRyY" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=sFfyE59p"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=atoWntjd"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=atoWntjd" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=Mv747Cc5"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=54" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=FQWmhkYF"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?i=FQWmhkYF" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?a=YbOGXjSH"img src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~f/TheGoodNewsEconomist?d=129" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/~r/TheGoodNewsEconomist/~4/5xYe-gOBNFU" height="1" width="1"/

U.S. Unemployment May be a Bigger Problem Than Government Statistics Say

Money Morning — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 09:30:45 +0000

By Don Miller Associate Editor Money Morning The dismal U.S. unemployment numbers have gotten more airtime recently than Jerry Springer. And why not? The numbers are... Money Morning is here to help investors profit handsomely o...

Woes on Wall Street coincide with gold coin rush

Alex Stanczyk — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:49:23 +0000

Woes on Wall Street coincide with gold coin rush Wednesday December 24, 12:50 pm ET By Sandy Shore, AP Business Writer US Mint labors to meet demand as investors buy up assets they can hold in their hands DENVER (AP) — Investors who have forsaken shaky financial markets for the safety of gold must feel a little bit like [...]

A Far-East Fiasco?

Prieur du Plessis — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 06:42:01 +0000

"China is unlikely to escape the fate of developed countries, it faces rising unemployment. This raises a question – will it lead to political unrest?," asks quest contributor Vitaliy Katsenelson. But if the Chinese economy continues to deteriorate, ...

Five Ways to Play Gold’s Rebound to $1,500 an Ounce

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:44:53 +0000

pGold hit two historic milestones in 2008. First, in early March, the “yellow metal” hit its all-time high of $1,030 an ounce. Just three months later, the price of gold for December delivery had plummeted to $681 an ounce, a href="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jND4r3B-VBZu2Ogg2_yzjYnPIP8gD9413JL80" target="_blank"a 21-month low/a and 33.9% drop from its record high. Most gold bugs were equal parts puzzled and broken-hearted. /p pThe world’s stock markets tanked, as did some of its biggest economies. In such an environment, they thought, gold should have risen. After all, gold is widely considered to be a safe-haven investment when everything else is spiraling south./p pHowever, strongema href="http://www.moneymorning.com" class="alinks_links"Money Morning/a/em/strong Contributing Editor Martin Hutchinson – an investment banker with more than 25 years’ experience on Wall Street and a leading expert on the#8230;/p

Main cause of financial crisis remains depressed

Brian Gaynor — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 03:32:54 +0000

The United States housing market, which has been the main cause of the financial crisis, remains in the doldrums. Figures released in the US last night show that the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which is the most widely used measure of house prices, declined by a further 1.8% in September. The index, which measures prices in 20 [...]

How Shale Could Dent Clean Energy Hopes

Irwin Greenstein — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:34:22 +0000

pWhile no one was looking the Bush Administration quietly changed regulations that would allow oil companies to extract shale from public lands. The U.S. Department of the Interior made both a land grab and a regulatory grab for enormous swaths of shale that have previously been off limits./p pWe believe this is another body blow to the ailing green industry, as Washington taps a source of energy with huge potential returns. Moreover, president-elect Obama has hedged his bets on oil shale - perhaps surprising many green advocates./p pOn October 27, 2008, Obama told supporters in Denver…/p p#8220;When it comes to oil shale right now, I think we have to do more research and more science to discover whether or not the amount of#8230;/p

Home Prices Will Plummet Further

Matt Hougan — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:03:57 +0000

At least, that's what the futures say.

I spent some time looking at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's housing futures this week. The futures are tied to the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes, and are the only liquid way to bet on where house prices are heading.

Right now, the futures all agree: home prices are going lower.

The longest-dated contract available expires November 2012. Using that contract, I looked at the most recent sale to see where the market thinks home prices will be in four years. The data compare November 2012 vs. August 2008, because August 2008 is the last date for which we have index data available.

House Price Expectations Nov. 2012 vs. August 2008
City	Price Change
Boston	10.29%
Chicago	0.00%
Denver	12.55%
Las Vegas	12.97%
Los Angeles	17.22%
Miami	11.93%
New York	13.40%
San Diego	13.21%
San Francisco	12.57%
Washington, D.C.	15.32%
Composite	10.38%
Based on CME House Price Futures, as of Nov. 19, 2008.

Those numbers don't look too bad, until you realize a few things.

First, remember that most people buy their homes on margin. Suppose you're considering buying a $300,000 home in Los Angeles. You've put $60,000 down. Four years from now, you expect the home's value to decline $51,660 (17.22% of $300K). If the home price futures are right, you will lose 86% of your down payment.

No wonder homes aren't selling.

The second thing to understand is that home prices are already down big in all of these markets. The table below shows how far prices are down off their all-time highs today, and how much further they'll decline by November 2012 if the futures markets are right.

House Prices Peak-to-Trough Nov. 2008 and Nov. 2012
City	Actual % Change From High Through 11/08	Predicted % Change From High Through 11/12
Boston	-9.10%	-18.45%
Chicago	-11.31%	-11.31%
Denver	-5.44%%	-17.31%
Las Vegas	-35.89%	-44.20%
Los Angeles	-30.94%	-42.83%
Miami	-34.67%	-42.46%
New York	-10.65%	-22.62%
San Diego	-32.60%	-41.51%
San Francisco	-30.67%	-39.64%
Washington, D.C.	-22.39%	-34.28%
Composite	-21.96%	-29.29%
Based on CME House Price Futures, as of Nov. 19, 2008.

Those numbers are scary.

National home prices down 29%? It was just a few years ago when people said we would never have a nationwide home price.

And here's the thing people aren't remembering: These are real dollar prices, not inflation-adjusted values. National home prices hit their peak in September 2006, and based on the CPI, inflation has risen about 5% since then. Build that into the calculator, and national home prices are actually down about 25.67% from their peak.

It's worse if you carry it forward. Consumer inflation is running about 5% per year right now. If you run that through November 2012, national home prices will be down about 44.44% from their peak on a real-dollar basis. Las Vegas home prices will be down 56.19%.

Those are simply incredible figures.

The home price futures are thinly traded, so price discovery might not be perfect. There could be an opportunity here for someone to take the other side of the trade and bet that home prices will stabilize or even rise a little between now and 2012.

Any takers?

Barron’s Spotlight on American Express (AXP)

Stockmasters Staff — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 17:42:38 +0000

American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) shares are down 50% in the last 3 months and trading under $20 a share. Why care? First off, Berkshire Hathaway is its largest stockholder with 151 million, or 13%, of AXP shares. Barron's says "Berkshire's stake suggests the company's stock may be near a bottom".

Basic Earth Science Systems, Inc. (BSIC.OB) 2nd Quarter Results Show Upside of Higher Oil and Gas Prices

QualityStocks — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:30:29 +0000

Basic Earth Science Systems, Inc. today reported its operating results for the 2nd Quarter ending September 30, 2008. Basic Earth is an independent oil and gas exploration company. Benefitting from higher oil and gasoline prices earlier in 2008, net income rose to $946,000. Oil and gas revenue was $2,697,000. Compared to the [...]

A Currency Bounce

Contrarian Profits — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:38:11 +0000

U.S. stocks soar! Currencies rally! Consumer Confidence at an all-time low! Getting off the bench! And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Well… The trading theme remained in place yesterday, but this time it was reversed. For those of you new to class, or any of you who have been playing horse hooky, the trading theme that has gripped the markets since August is: The deeper, darker, and more dangerous the U.S. economy and financial meltdown, including the credit market’s locked status, the dollar gets bought… If there is any sign of light to all this mess, the dollar gets sold, for whenever the markets get their minds off the mess, they are reminded of awful fundamentals for the dollar.

So… Yesterday, the stock jockeys…

All that money youâ€™ve lostâ€¦ where did it go?

Alex Stanczyk — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:08:14 +0000

By ERIC CARVIN NEW YORK (AP) â€” Trillions in stock market value â€” gone. Trillions in retirement savings â€” gone. A huge chunk of the money you paid for your house, the money you’re saving for college, the money your boss needs to make payroll â€” gone, gone, gone. Whether you’re a stock broker or Joe Six-pack, [...]

New Technology Means Bright Future for Solar Power

Contrarian Profits — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:30:24 +0000

It's been a bumpy ride for solar stocks recently.

The industry received a boost when clean energy tax credits were added to the $700 bailout bill to help its passage from Congress. But fears of falling demand and oversupply have weighed on solar stocks. The Claymore/MAC Global Solar Index ETF (NYSE:TAN) fell 35% in the first eight trading days of October.

William Patalon III, however, says new mapping technology and advances that have made solar power more eco-friendly will boost solar stocks in the long run.

This from Money Morning:

The owners of homes and businesses in 25 US cities will soon be able to use a free website to determine their rooftop’s solar-energy potential – thanks to a new specialized mapping program that has the backing of the US Department of Energy.

Engineering giant CH2M Hill Cos. Ltd., an employee-owned firm with about $5 billion in annual revenue, has received a “small-but-noteworthy” contract of $6 million under the U.S. Solar America Initiative to provide raw data on solar-power potential, MarketWatch reported.

The contract will pay the expansion of the city of San Francisco’s recently posted solar energy map. It will use advanced 3-D modeling and aerial imagery and will be available for public access through a special web portal.

Punching an address into the city’s search engine pulls up data on the estimated amount of solar photovoltaic energy that could be installed on a specific roof. Additional available data includes the potential electricity-cost reduction and the potential reduction in dioxide/greenhouse gases, the company said.

The website also provides information on installing a photovoltaic system, including contact information for local solar installers.

David Herrmann, CH2M Hill’s director of client solutions, said the mapping program could potentially replace the current method of assessing solar energy potential.

“Right now, to get a solar assessment on a roof, you have to call up the solar installer, they bring their ladder, a guy wanders around on your roof, and two or three weeks later you get a report,” Herrmann told MarketWatch. “With this technology, you could do it accurately and quickly without having to roll a truck.”

Herrmann said the company’s solar maps use a format from Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Google Maps to display the data, but that CH2M Hill collects the images through its own proprietary process with Esri Inc. – A Redlands, Calif.-based company that’s recognized as a leader in geographic information systems (GIS) also supplying technology for the effort.

The solar map is also compatible with the Microsoft (NYSE:MSFT) Virtual Earth display, he said.

Herrmann said the Internet-mapping business remains healthy, with companies routinely paying for airplane flyovers to provide panoramic shots of streets and buildings all across the United States.

The 25 cities for which this service will be available will include: Denver, Houston, Philadelphia, San Jose, Calif.; Santa Rosa, Calif.; Seattle; Ann Arbor, Mich.; Austin, Tex.; Berkeley, Calif.; Boston, New Orleans, New York City and Tucson, Ariz.

Also, advances in technology have made solar cell production even more eco-friendly.

A recent study by the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., found that for each unit of energy produced by solar cells, the pollution that’s emitted during the cells’ manufacture is only 2% to 11% the amount produced by power plants in the United States and Europe.

In fact, newly developed solar cells can "pay back" the energy required for their production in just one to three years. And improvements in manufacturing efficiency could reduce emissions from solar power by another 50% in five to 10 years, according to a recent report by Money Morning.

There have been tremendous advances in the production and efficiency of solar technologies.

And those advances couldn’t have come at a better time. Political support for the industry is at an all-time high as oil prices and environmental awareness both continue to rise.

The Englewood, Colo.-based CH2M Hill has 23,000 employees and ranked 54 on Fortune magazine’s 11th annual “100 Best Companies to Work For” list, a ranking that was published in late January. It’s the third time the company has ranked among those top-tier companies. CH2M Hill has also been recognized as a “Most Admired Company” by Fortune for the past five years.

CH2M HILL has been repeatedly recognized for its competitive compensation-and-benefits packages, employee ownership, and reputation for landing challenging projects, some the most recent include:

Program management for the seven-year, $5 billion expansion of the Panama Canal.

Overseeing the design and construction of the venues and infrastructure for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games.

The engineering and construction of the Xcel Energy Inc.’s (XEL) 580-megawatt gas-fired High Bridge Power Plant near St. Paul, Minn.

Providing program management consulting services for the $2 billion improvement program for India’s Mumbai airport.

Engineering services for the Southern Seas Desalination Plant in Perth, Australia, which will use “green” energy to supply 20% of that city’s water needs.

Managing a $10 billion military-base-relocation program for the U.S. and South Korean governments

Alternative Energy Update: Can Your Rooftop Lower Your Electricity Bill?

Gold: Safe Haven or a False Idol? – Investment Ideas

Tracey Ryniec — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

As the financial crisis continues, investors are searching for safety anywhere they can get it. Real estate is obviously out. Equities are getting hit. The currency markets are roiling.

Throughout history, gold has acted as a safe haven in times of economic stress.

Should you be investing in it?

Investors around the world are flocking to the yellow metal. The South African Rand Refinery which manufactures the popular Krugerrand coin, is now operating its plant 7 days a week to keep up with demand for its gold coins. Similarly, the Austrian mint has added weekend production.

In Perth, Australia, the Perth Mint has hired more staff and has doubled its coin production. About 80% of its business is done outside of Australia in North America, Europe and Asia.

The U.S. Mint recently announced it was temporarily suspending all sales of the 24-karat American Buffalo gold coins due to increasing demand as the Mint's inventories were depleted.

A few weeks ago, it also suspended sales of the American Eagle coins, also due to strong demand. American Eagle sales resumed, but only to a select group of designated dealers. The Mint will also resume sales of the Buffalo coins shortly.

But buying coins is different from buying shares in gold mining companies. The price of gold does not always correlate with earnings of mining companies. Stocks of gold mining producers sometimes decline even when gold prices are soaring.

Should You Buy Gold Mining Stocks Now?

The price of gold has been volatile, with big swings in the last two weeks. Gold stocks have also seen big moves up and down. Neither is for the faint of heart.

There are two categories of gold mining stocks: the junior miners and the large miners. The large miners have a longer history of earnings and are usually believed to be less volatile. The junior miners are riskier but that risk can pay off big if gold prices soar.

I did a screen on Research Wizard to find gold mining stocks that were at least a Zacks Rank #3 and had earnings growth.

Barrick Gold (ABX) is one of the world's largest gold producers with 27 mines on five continents. ABX, headquartered in Toronto, is a Zacks #3 Rank stock. It has surprised on estimates 2 out of 4 quarters by an average of 1.45%. Analysts expect earnings growth of 10%.

Newmont Mining (NEM) is also one of the world's largest gold producers with mines on 5 continents. Newmont was founded in 1921 and is headquartered in Denver. The company is a Zacks #3 Rank stock. Analysts expect earnings growth of 14.3%.

Drdgold Limited (DROOY) is a South African medium-sized gold producer with mines in South Africa. Drdgold is a Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stock. Analysts expect earnings growth of 42.15%.

Gold Stocks Not the Only Bet

Individual gold stocks may be too risky for your investing style. You can invest directly into gold itself through an exchange traded fund, SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), which was launched in 2004. This ETF tracks gold prices as determined by the London PM fix and actually holds gold as a custodian.

Investors flocked to GLD in September, pouring in an additional $4 billion, on top of the $17.4 billion in assets the ETF had at the end of August.

Don't Get Blinded by Gold's Shine

A gold-focused investment may be a way to diversify a portfolio, but that's all it should be: diversification. Don't place all your bets on one sector or asset class. It was that singular emphasis, on real estate and before that on technology stocks, that has tripped up investors in the past.

Gold has shone brightly during dark times before but as quickly as it soared, it also lost its luster.

Look at gold, and gold stocks, for what they are, a safer haven in a time of uncertainty. Invest accordingly.

Additional Ways to Find Gold Stocks

Zacks Custom Screener - This is the place to start to create your own free screens where you can search by sector.

Zacks Equity Research - Find out detailed stock information from Zacks analysts.

Research Wizard - Create your own customized portfolios.

[The author of this article owns shares of SPDR Gold Shares.]
"ABXF" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?
"NEM" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?
"DURO" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?
"GLD3" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?
Zacks Investment Research

Home Prices Indexes Hit Record Declines In July

IndexUniverse Staff — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:56:27 +0000

Index isn't all negative, as rate of slowdown in home prices declines over the past three months.

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes' 10-City Composite and 20-City Composite reached new record annual declines of 17.5% and 16.3%, respectively, through the end of July, the most recent period tracked by S&P.

The 10-City Composite Index declined at a record level for the 10^th consecutive month. Taken together, these declines far surpass the record decline of 6.3% in a similar market trough between 1990-1992.

The news is not all bad, however. Overall declines have actually slowed in home prices in the most recent three-month period.

Cumulative home prices fell 2.2% for the three months ended July, whereas for the previous two consecutive three-month periods, the cumulative home price fall was more than triple that level, between 6-6.5%.

While the slowdown in home price declines is notable across metro areas, it does not necessarily mean a bottom has been reached in the market, and some metro markets continue to post outsized declines, S&P indicated.

All 20 major metro markets are still in negative territory year-over-year, and Las Vegas (-29.9%) and Phoenix (-29.3) had annual declines nearing 30%. The Sun Belt as a whole continued to be in the dark, with its seven major metro markets all posting declines of at least 20%. Don't make a bet on Vegas' home market, either: It continues to be the big loser at the table in terms of home price declines, followed by Phoenix and Miami (-28.2%).

Other major metro markets seem on the verge of a rebound, but S&P remains cautious on outlook.

Atlanta, Dallas, Minneapolis and Tampa all showed improvements in home pricing with the new monthly and annual data, but S&P indicated the markets remained too near recent lows to be demonstrating clear evidence of a turning tide. Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver and Minneapolis all had positive returns for the past three months through the end of July. The smallest dips for the annual period through July were Charlotte (-1.8); Dallas (-2.5%); and Denver (-4.7%)

U.S. Housing Prices Through July 2008
City	1-Year Change	July/June Change
Las Vegas	-29.9%	-2.8%
Phoenix	-29.3%	-2.7%
Miami	-28.2%	-1.6%
Los Angeles	-26.2%	-1.6%
San Diego	-25.0%	-1.8%
San Francisco	-24.8%	-1.8%
Tampa	-19.4%	0.0%
10-City Composite	-17.5%	-1.1%
Detroit	-16.7%	0.6%
20-City Composite	-16.3%	-0.9%
Washington	-15.8%	-1.1%
Minneapolis	-13.1%	1.3%
Chicago	-10.0%	-0.4%
Atlanta	-8.2%	0.4%
Seattle	-8.2%	-1.0%
Cleveland	-7.8%	-0.3%
New York	-7.4%	-0.8%
Portland	-6.6%	-0.5%
Boston	-5.4%	0.2%
Denver	-4.7%	0.8%
Dallas	-2.5%	0.6%
Charlotte	-1.8%	-0.2%

In the same 2007 annual period, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes fell 4.5% and 3.9%, respectively. The only five metropolitan areas last July to show positive one-year returns were Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Portland and Seattle (see story here).

Banneker, Inc. (BANI.PK) is “One to Watch”

QualityStocks — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:45:25 +0000

Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Banneker, Inc. is a manufacturer and distributor of quality watches and fine jewelry. Trading on the Pink Sheets, the company bases their products on the legend of Benjamin Banneker. Benjamin Banneker made the first fully assembled clock in America, entirely out of wood. In honor of him, Banneker Inc. makes all [...]

American Oil & Gas Inc. (AEZ) is Taking the Rocky Mountain Route

QualityStocks — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:42:42 +0000

American Oil & Gas Inc. is an independent oil and natural gas company headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Commencing operations in January of 2003, the company lists on the American Stock Exchange. They engage in the exploration, development, and production of hydrocarbon reserves, mainly in the Rocky Mountain region. American currently owns interests in three core project [...]

Colorado Goldfields, Inc. (CGFI.OB) Presents a Golden Opportunity

QualityStocks — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:38:43 +0000

Colorado Goldfields (CGFI.OB) is a Denver-based junior exploration and mining company primarily exploring for gold and silver. The company is focused on mining in the traditionally rich mining areas of Colorado. Colorado Goldfields has focused on a major gold project in the legendary Silverton Mining District of Colorado. The company has an option to earn an [...]

UNBELIEVABLE SALE by MDC CEO

CEO Blogger — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:25:45 +0000

This is the most pathetic sale yet……..DESPITE THE DIFFICULT ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT and number of homeowners who were taken advantage of by builders, mortgage companies, and i-banks, MDC Holding’s founder made the company’s largest out-of-pocket sale in five years. On Sept. 8 Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Larry Mizel sold 300,000 shares for $12.8 million, an average [...]

Whiting Petroleum Corp. – Momentum – Zacks Rank Buy

Michael Vodicka — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Whiting Petroleum Corp. (WLL) continues to reap big profits from higher energy prices. The company's recently reported second-quarter results were awesome, analysts are projecting strong earnings growth into the next-year period and its share price is trading at a big discount to the overall market.

Whiting Petroleum Corp. engages in the exploration and production of oil and gas in the United States. The company was founded in 1983, has a market cap of $3.57 billion and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

Industry Trend

Energy stocks have traded lower over the last 2 months in reaction to oil prices dropping from $147 a barrel to current prices around $110 a barrel. This has provided some much desired relief to consumers, but on a historical basis, oil prices are still incredibly high, and that continues to produce big-time earnings for oil companies. This dynamic was evident when Whiting reported record-setting second-quarter results on July 31.

Second-Quarter Results

Revenue was up 84% from the same period last year to $354.8 million. Net income totaled $80.4 million, an amazing increase of more than 200% from last year. This produced earnings of $1.90 per share, slightly below analyst estimates but still very impressive none-the-less.

In spite of the recent small miss, Whiting does have a strong history of surprising and beating analyst estimates. Over the last four quarters, Whiting has beaten by an average of 6 cents, or 7%.

Whiting noted that its impressive results were driven by increased production and higher selling prices.

Analyst Estimates

In response to a bullish energy environment, analysts have continued to raise their earnings projections for Whiting. The current-year estimate has advanced to $8.25 per share from $7.93 per share 30 days ago. The next-year estimate is bullish as well, pegged at $9.33 per share, a 13% earnings growth projection.

Based upon the current-year estimate, this stock looks seriously undervalued, carrying a forward P/E multiple of just 10X, a steep discount to the overall market.

The Chart

In spite of its recent pullback, this stock is still deep in the green on the year. A long-term trend line is currently being pressured and looks well positioned to provide support. Take a look at the chart below.

"WLL" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?
Zacks Investment Research

Coal not so cool today: Arch Coal, Peabody fall hard (ACI, BTU)

Ben Stevens — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:40:43 +0000

Coal is not King today, that crown goes to oil. Peabody (NYSE:BTU) is down 12% and Arch Coal (NYSE:ACI) down 14%. If these guys continue to drop, we may have to Buy on weakness.

Contradictory Economic Reports Whipsaw Investor Expectations

William Patalon lll — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:01:46 +0000

By William Patalon III Executive Editor Money Morning/The Money Map Report No wonder this economy is so hard to figure out: The economic reports are as volatile as the economy... Money Morning is here to help investors profit handsomely...

Candidates and the Credit Crisis

Jeffrey Miller — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:10:10 +0000

At "A Dash" we join many others in closely following David Merkel's work on The Aleph Blog, one of our featured sites since its inception. David covers a variety of interesting subjects. He is authoritative on some and inquisitive on others, and he knows the difference. Today he cites a Bloomberg article [...]

Either the Global Economy Is Heading Into Recession or Commodities Are About to Surge

Sean Brodrick — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:29:43 +0000

That's my take-away from what I've been reading around the web recently -- a real conflict of opinion. You know my opinion -- I believe we are in a long-term commodity supercycle. But let me show you the stories I've found and you can decide for yourselves.

First, I mentioned a couple days ago that Pakistan – a nuclear-armed power with a strong Taliban insurgency – seems to be melting down. They’ve gone from tragedy to comedy …

Pakistan Sets Floor on Stock Prices to Stop Plunge

Pakistan set a floor for stock prices on the benchmark exchange, moving to halt a plunge that has wiped out $36.9 billion of market value since April.
Securities can trade within their daily limit of 5 percent ``but not below the floor-price level'' of yesterday's close.

Yes! That’s what I’ve always wanted – a stock market that can only go up. Don’t tell Bush about this solution or we may see it enacted on Wall Street.

In other news, Bloomberg really knows how to bury the lead in this next story. Check out what I’ve highlighted …

Financial Crisis Is Absent From Agendas of Parties, Candidates

The U.S. is facing the worst financial crisis since the Depression. You would never know that from the Democrats' platform in Denver or its Republican counterpart, or from listening to Barack Obama or John McCain.

XX Sean’ note – Splutter! Excuse me while I a do a spit-take, Bloomberg, but did you say the U.S. is facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression? For Pete’s sake, don’t tell Larry Kudlow, at least when he’s walking by an open window.

The rest of that Bloomberg story is heavy on politics and light on economics. Seriously, I want a Bloomberg story detailing why they agree (with the folks at Weiss Research, who have been saying it for months) that the US is facing the worst crisis since the Depression.

South and South-East Asia in the Midst of a Global Recession

Trade and financial linkages with the G-7 countries mean that Asia is unlikely to remain unscathed. Asian economies dependent on exports to the US and Europe and having large current account surpluses (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and others) will suffer from the G-7 recession.

XX Sean's note -- unless, of course, the G-7 doesn't slide into recession. I only mention that because America's Q2 growth was revised much higher to 3.3%.

Riders on the Storm …

"Corn and soybeans have rebounded as reduced crop yields push U.S. stockpiles to near five-year lows. Oil has reversed on U.S.-Russian tensions. Nickel has turned after Xstrata Plc closed a Dominican Republic plant.

The worst rout in the history of commodities may be ending, signaling a replay of the 2006 tumble that preceded a doubling of prices in the next 17 months as measured by the Standard & Poor's GSCI index. Only this time, the driver is supply cuts rather than increasing demand. Supply constraints are "coming more and more to the fore'' and that "will separate the performance of individual commodities," said Alan Heap, global commodity analyst at Citigroup Inc. in Sydney. "We're still looking for higher prices next year and in some cases the year after."

XX Sean’s note – the same piece quotes a contrary view …

"The whole cycle that began around the turn of this century ended," said Michael Aronstein, chief investment strategist at Oscar Gruss & Son Inc. in New York, who returned 15 percent a year in the 1990s managing commodity investments. "Human ingenuity creates productivity, and the real price of almost everything that's extracted or manufactured goes down over time. That's the nature of human progress."

Lead Climbs to Three-Week High on Speculation of Rebound in China Demand Lead rose to the highest in three weeks in London on speculation demand improved in China, the world's largest consumer and producer of the metal.

Crude Oil Rises a Fourth Day as Tropical Storm May Threaten Gulf Platforms Crude oil and natural gas rose as Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc and ConocoPhillips evacuated drilling rigs before the arrival of Gustav, forecast to become the worst Gulf of Mexico hurricane since Katrina.

Australia's Mining Boom Drives Faster-Than-Forecast Business Investment Australian business investment rose more than twice as much as economists forecast in the second quarter as mining companies spent extra on machinery and equipment to meet demand from China.

Stumping the War at the DNC

Robert Amsterdam — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:34:08 +0000

Medvedev probably couldn't have picked a better day to bury the news of Russia's recognition of Georgia's breakaway territories, as the American media begins its long and often disappointingly selfish journey into solipsism with the elections season as the Democratic National Convention kicked off in Denver this week. However, like every other issue imaginable, the war lobbyists are busy on the sidelines attempting to convince the party to shape its line on the Russia-Georgia issue. An interesting bit on the "shadow struggle" from veteran correspondent Peter Baker in the New York Times:

The shadow struggle in Denver got under way with envoys from both Georgia and Russia seeking out influential players. â€œIt is important for us to meet the key politicians in this country to make sure they have the right sense of whatâ€™s happening in our country and the right sense of what happened,â€ David Bakradze, the chairman of the Georgian Parliament and a former foreign minister, said by telephone from Denver. Among those Mr. Bakradze and his compatriots met with on Monday were Madeleine K. Albright, former secretary of state; Richard C. Holbrooke, former ambassador to the United Nations; and Susan E. Rice, senior foreign policy adviser to Mr. Obama. (A session with Howard Dean, the party chairman, was postponed.) In all their discussions, the Georgians argued for bipartisan firmness against Moscow. â€œItâ€™s not about Georgia,â€ Mr. Bakradze said. â€œItâ€™s a much higher risk at stake. Itâ€™s about Russia forcefully changing the borders of the post-Soviet space.â€

Photo: a Convention attendee enjoys a hot dog, and is likely not concentrating on war in the Caucasus (Photo credit: Rick Wilking/Reuters, source).

Colorado Goldfields Inc. (CGFI.OB) – Exploring in a Legendary Mining Area

QualityStocks — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:05:51 +0000

Colorado Goldfields Inc. (CGFI.OB) is a Denver-based junior exploration and mining company primarily exploring for gold and silver in Colorado. The company’s business model provides an outstanding combination of former producing properties with excellent exploration and production potential and a currently inactive, modern 500 to 700 ton-per-day capacity mill to allow for an attractive, short-term [...]

Storm Cat Energy Corp. (SCU) is Striving to be the Cat’s Meow for Their Shareholders

QualityStocks — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:37:28 +0000

Storm Cat Energy is an independent oil and gas company. Trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol SCU and on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol SME, they focus on the exploration, production, and development of large, unconventional gas reserves. They look for these reserves primarily in fractured shales, coal beds, and tight sand [...]

U.S. mint suspends gold coin sales; futures price is a fiction

Alex Stanczyk — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:16:45 +0000

U.S. mint suspends gold coin sales; futures price is a fiction Submitted by cpowell on Fri, 2008-08-15 04:27. Section: Daily Dispatches12:25a ET Friday, August 15, 2008 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: The U.S. Mint has suspended sales of American eagle gold coins [...]

eDoorways Corp. (EDWY.PK) Identifies New Markets of Focus to Better Server Vendors and Generate Increased Sales

QualityStocks — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:32:48 +0000

eDoorways, a Web-based consumer portal and business-to-business center that unites consumers and vendors, is focused on building a database of vendors and wiki-based data in the following new markets: Automotive, Entertainment, Financial Services, Dining and Food and Beverage, Home Improvement and Technology. The corporate mission of Houston-based eDoorways has been to unite consumers with questions [...]