New Home Sales Plummet; Mexico Staves off U.S. Slowdown; Monsanto Reaps Big Rewards; MasterCard Pays AmEx $1.8 Billion; Buffett Concerned About Stagflation; Reduced Damages for Exxon; Nike Strong in Asia; More Cuts for Penney’s As the Federal Reserve pondered interest rates yesterday, the Commerce Department released data showing that sales of new single-family homes fell 2.5% in May from April, and more than 40% year-over-year. In a separate report, new orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods were unchanged in May after two months of decline, Reuters reported. Unlike our northern neighbor, Mexico has been fairly able to stave off the effects of the U.S. slowdown. Agustin Carstens, Mexico’s finance minister, said that the Mexican economy grew more than 3% in the first half, Bloomberg reported.  For the medium to long term, the government may reevaluate its gasoline subsidy, he ...

Aaron Katsman IsraelNewsletter.com I posted yesterday about how a strengthening US Dollar could potentially benefit Israeli stocks that trade in the US. I was asked by some readers how come I think that the USD is poised for a rally? The answer…FIFO. FIFO is an accounting term that stands for ‘first in first out.’ With the global economy on the skids, the US was the first country to start having problems and with a vigilant Fed at the wheel, I think the US will return to normal growth in the next 6 months. After all, no recession occurred. The US has had no negative GDP growth quarters, and actually had a surprisingly good 0.9% GDP for Q1. Europe on the other hand, is just starting to show signs of a slowdown. I have heard analysts predicting a potential contraction of over 2% in European growth. That certainly ...

is the stock on WALLSTRIP stock today. There seems to be no slowdown in the price of the stock.

My latest column is up at RealMoney.

I think Rent-A-Center (RCII) can benefit from the slowdown in consumer spending and the tightening of credit standards.

If Rent-A-Center were to receive the same price-to-book multiple as Aaron Rents, it could trade above $28 per share today. While I don’t believe that will happen overnight, over the next five years Rent-A-Center could see high-single-digit earnings per share growth and also expand its price-to-book multiple to the 1.9 level. The combination of earnings growth and valuation expansion could generate annual returns averaging 15% or more.

Here’s how the company scores on the Stock Market Beat models:

Earnings momentum: Positive Earnings quality: Positive Price momentum: Neutral Free cash flow: Positive Return potential: Positive

Disclosure: At time of publication, William Trent has no financial position in the companies mentioned in this article.

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I believe in my earnings preview my exact quote was “I don’t own enough of this Chinese rocket ship”. Let me reiterate… I don’t own enough.

Sohu.com (SOHU) crushed estimates… $0.55 actual vs $0.37 estimate, and yet another guidance boost to boot (obviously). All the growth drivers continue to look rosy, and the gaming side of the business is simply growing exponential. My only fear has been some sort of slowdown post Olympics, but I suppose that is a matter for another day. I began this position in early February [Feb 5: Initiating Sohu.com "Starter" Position] near $46. Obviously with the stock now north of $71 (+54% in under 3 months), I (repeat all together) don’t own enough. At the time I wrote:…