As the recession continues, hotel companies that are able to limit the degree to which room rates are discounted will be in the best position to benefit once the economic environment improves.

OUTLOOK

The lodging industry is facing significant challenges stemming from the economic recession, as both business and consumers are cutting back on travel expenditures. When evaluating hotel companies like Starwood Hotels (

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As the recession continues, hotel companies that are able to limit the degree to which room rates are discounted will be in the best position to benefit once the economic environment improves. OUTLOOKThe lodging industry is facing significant challenges stemming from the economic recession, as both business and consumers are cutting back on travel expenditures.  When evaluating hotel companies like Starwood Hotels (HOT) and Marriott International (MAR) during this down-cycle, we will be paying especially close attention to changes in average daily room rates as an indication of how quickly the sector may recover once the economy improves.A key operating metric in the lodging industry is RevPAR (revenue per available room). This metric is derived by multiplying the occupancy percentage of a hotel over a given period by the average daily room rate (ADR) over that same period. Changes in either ...

Pessimism about the U.S. economy and financial market is so thick right now you could cut it with a knife. I’ll be the first to admit that times are tough. But Americans have seen tough times before. And we have always prevailed.

Too many investment myths have gone unchallenged lately. Today I plan to refute them - and explain why financial markets are likely to perform much better than most investors believe in the year ahead.

Let’s begin by examining the four biggest investment myths circulating right now…

Investment Myth #1: The Era of Free Markets is Over

It’s true that many of the apostles of free-market economics have begged Congress for government intervention during the current credit crisis. But nobody is seriously arguing that Uncle Sam should nationalize the economy, set wages and prices, or establish production quotas.

The free market still constitutes the best means of securing

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The 4 Biggest Investment Myths of 2008

by Alexander Green, Chairman, Investment U Investment Director, The Oxford Club Monday, December 29, 2008: Issue #907

Pessimism about the U.S. economy and financial market is so thick right now you could cut it with a knife.

I’ll be the first to admit that times are tough. But Americans have seen tough times before. And we have always prevailed.

Too many investment myths have gone unchallenged lately. Today I plan to refute them - and explain why financial markets are likely to perform much better than most investors believe in the year ahead.

Let’s begin by examining the four biggest investment myths circulating right now…

Investment Myth #1: The Era of Free Markets is Over

It’s true that many of the apostles of free-market economics have begged Congress for government intervention during the current credit crisis. But nobody is seriously arguing that

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Nexia Holdings recently announced a new strategy for its real estate operations. The company has plans to grow its real estate portfolio and create value for its shareholders by utilizing a strategy called “real estate backed securities.” The plan was designed to capitalize on large portfolios of residential real estate held by banks, individuals, corporations or other entities as a result of subprime or other foreclosed loans.

The company’s management team recognizes the devaluation of these properties as a result of tight credit markets and other factors, and that the investor with cash is able to purchase large groups of properties for pennies on the dollar. However, even if an investor has the cash, he/she must use great effort to get his/her cash back as soon as possible and redeploy the cash as many times as possible while the discounted prices are available.

Through Nexia, investors are able

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Mainstream media is full of ‘Great Depression’ comparisons to today’s credit crisis. But Justice Litle says there are actually many similarities to be found a decade earlier. In 1919, there was a stock market crash, commodity slump, and a major bank bailout. But there is some hope: out of all that misery, the “roaring twenties” were born.

More from Justice in Taipan Daily:

The 1920s – widely known as “the roaring twenties” – were a time of great dynamism and change in the United States.

The decade earned its nickname and then some. Car ownership took off… movies and radio captivated the nation… and the stock market went through the roof.

The Dow went from a trough of 63.90 in 1921 to a peak of 381.17 in 1929. That’s just under a 500% gain in a

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As President-elect Obama's soaring rhetoric meets soaring deficits, I know which will win out. After the stunning incompetence of the Bush era, we can hope that the incoming administration will be as disciplined and skillful in governing as it has been in campaigning. However, the current euphoria reminds me of that surrounding the equally clever and fresh faced Clinton in 1993, who quickly discovered that while a President may propose, the bond market disposes. The Treasury has over $500bn of bonds to place before December to meet the funding needs of the various bail-out packages, and over $1trn more in 2009 and probably for several years thereafter. The question is: who are the buyers, particularly with yields at a 30 year low? Foreign central banks have been key purchasers of Treasuries in recent years, as they recycled their trade surpluses driven by record merchandise exports and commodity prices; that ...

As China’s stock markets take a nose dive, the government has embarked on a plan prop up the underpinning of its share-buying public.

Beijing is now focusing on helping homeowners buy and keep their properties in the face a global real-estate meltdown.

Whether or not this is enough to sustain some kind of rally on the Hang Seng Index (HSI:HKG), which has dropped 51.4% over the past 52 weeks, is truly doubtful.

Beijing’s maneuver comes at a time when Asian stocks slumped to their lowest since December 2004 on fears that government bailouts may not be enough to prevent a worldwide recession. And with China’s reliance on exports to the West, concerns run deep on the country’s ability to sustain its blistering rate of growth.

Despite worries, China’s commercial real-estate market sees no signs of letting up.

In July, Merrill Lynch raised China’s three-year infrastructure projections from $400 billion to $725 billion - an increase

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As we see Wall Street finally starting to bottom out, as many of our senior analysts had warned us on, we can’t help but be reminded that this all started with the housing crunch. How are real estate investment trusts [REITs] faring? We spoke with Greg Sukenik, senior REIT analyst for Zacks Equity Research, to find out.

Considering the uphill climb most REITS have undertaken this year, would you say the real estate cycle is basically where you thought it would be? Is it different for different types of REITs?

The REIT sell-off began in early 2007. After several years of good returns, REITs were trading at historically high and probably unsustainable valuations. We did expect commercial property REITs to be negatively affected by the problems in the credit markets which were brought on by the meltdown in residential real estate and a declining overall economy.

So to

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Capital City Energy Group Inc. (CETG.OB), a diversified oil and natural gas company, is pleased to announce that it has appointed David Tenwick to its Board of Directors. Tenwick brings about 15 years of experience in the energy sector, as he was a co-founder and director of Nucorp Energy, Inc. Currently, Tenwick serves as a chairman at Adcare Health Systems, Inc. (ADK), a long-term care, home care, and management company that he founded in 1991.

Tenwick attended the University of Cincinnati where he earned a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) and a Juris Doctor (JD) degree. He moved on to co-found the Ohio Assisted Living Association, which promotes high-quality assisted living throughout Ohio, and to become a member of the Ohio State Bar Association. In his early years, Tenwick served as an enforcement attorney for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

Between

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