Industry and Trade

Sub-categories

  • Feds Charge 11 in Massive Retail Hacking Case-

    PlusFeds Charge 11 in Massive Retail Hacking CaseFeds Charge 11 in Massive Retail Hacking CaseThe Associated PressThe Department of Justice announced Tuesday that it had charged 11 people in connection with the hacking of nine major U.S. retailers and the theft and sale of more than 41 million credit and debit card numbers. (Aug. 5)This video contains ONLY natural sound. No script is available.

  • Former Chairman Alan Greenspan on Housing- Greenspan Says Housing Prices Not Yet Near Bottom By Steve Matthews July 31 (Bloomberg) — Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said falling U.S. home prices are “nowhere near the bottom” and the resulting market turmoil isn’t showing signs of abating. While the odds of a recession are 50-50, achieving stable markets will “take a while,” Greenspan [...]
  • Green Planet Energy to invest $228 million in 14 biomass projects in Punjab- lign="right" />Green Planet Energy Private Limited announced today it will invest a sum of 9.6 billion rupees (US$228/€145 million) on setting up 14 biomass power projects in the Indian state of Punjab. The plan would add 147MW of renewable energy to the state's portfolio. The investment is part of the Punjabi government's ambitious plans to shift towards green energy sources. According to the Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA), bioenergy is the leading form of renewable energy for the 'green state', with a potential of more than 1.4 GW. Wind, solar and micro-hydro are also in the portfolio and are attracting (smaller) investments, all aimed at meeting a goal of generating 1500MW of 'non-conventional' power by 2012.
  • Economic Trends: Housing Prices Continue to Plunge- In order for the market to really find its footing, housing prices have to stabilize and bottom out. It doesn’t seem like that is happening quite yet as evidenced by data out today. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of 20 cities showed that home prices plunged 15.8% from last year in May. This was the biggest drop [...]
  • Setting a high mark for the next housing bubble- Still catching up on developments over the last few days when we were off in the high-country, one of the more shocking reports was the rise in foreclosure activity in California through the second quarter of the year. Not that rising foreclosures are any surprise, but already exceeding last year's total by a hefty margin after just six months (with no apparent slowdown in sight) makes you wonder just how big the total will eventually be for 2008 and what this chart might look like next year.

    When some of us were yelling "housing bubble" back in 2004 and 2005, many pollyannas would point to 1996 and say, "Pipe down - we're not even close to the levels of mortgage delinquency seen back then and that doesn't factor in the population growth".
  • Economic Trends: Housing Data Not Following Barrons’ Plan- This morning, The National Association of Realtors said that existing home sales fell 2.6% last month, which was more than twice the drop that analysts had expected. Currently, sales are over 15% lower than this time last year. To boot, the median price slid 6.1% to $215,100. Inventories stood at a 11.1 month supply, which [...]
  • Stock Market Trends: Airlines Going Into Outer Space- As we said earlier today, the airline sector has been hot and today’s action is continuing this scorching trend. Some of these stocks are trading like they are penny biotechs with just one potential drug in trials. Look at some of these numbers: AMR (+31.2%), LCC (+52%), and UAUA (+52.9%). This is just today! Obviously oil’s [...]
  • "Big Oil" Steering Profits to Investors-

    Today the AP had an article discussing how the largest oil companies are using most of their earnings to buyback shares and give cash dividends to investors. The article complains that these companies spend more on buybacks and dividends than they do on oil exploration. Uh... hello? There are only so many places these companies can legally explore for oil. World production of oil has most likely peaked or is relatively very close to doing so. How can you blame the company for rewarding its investors, the people who risk their money to invest in the businesses? Sure, gas prices are high. But oil companies only make 7%-9% on every dollar they bring in. Heck, the government makes twice as much money on gasoline than the oil companies. Oil companies do not have very high margins and are taxed and regulated a good amount by the government. I'm not saying that they deserve tax breaks or special treatment, but the costs of taxes and regulations are passed onto two

  • Add Mervyn's to Our Growing Litany of Retailers Headed to the Great Sunset- We've predicted the great demise of US retail for a long time in the blog; we simply have overbuild our consumer culture based on a national savings rate of zilch. I can't short individual REITs so I am stuck with Ultrashort Real Estate (SRS), but I would prefer to focus those REITs who focus on malls and strip centers.
  • Don't get too excited about the housing starts- There's probably going to be a lot of "clunking around at the bottom" in the home construction statistics, perhaps going on for years, and the June report on housing starts from the Census Bureau is a good example of how optimists (are there still housing optimists out there?) are being set up for many months of repeated disappointment.

    It's one thing to reach a bottom, which may now be forming in both the construction and sales statistics (certainly not in the price statistics), but it's an entirely different thing to make a substantive move up from the bottom.

    Due to an upcoming change to New York building codes that saw homebuilders rushing to file permits and start construction on multi-family homes, the 9.1 percent overall increase in housing starts shown below was not such a substantive move.
  • The Star joins the parade against the Brewers Retail-

    Our pals at The Toronto Star launched a two-part series yesterday titled “The real reason your beer costs more than it should“. They are understandably focused on the ownership situation at The Beer Store.

    According to a poll, 6 out of 10 customers believe that the Ontario Government owns these retail beer outlets, not three international brewing conglomerates. There’s also a piece on the strangeness that is the ban on corner store beer, unless you live in anywhere north of urban Ontario, such as the intersection of Highways 6 & 10, where beer is sold cheek by jowl with pop and chips at the Minimart.

  • PPI and Retail Sales-

    The reports reflect the reality of rising gas and food prices but don't change the economic outlook.

  • Another Retailer (Canary in Coal Mine) Down - Steve & Barry's- A few months ago we discussed the beginning bankruptcies - the first major retailer, Linen 'n Things, bit the bullet back then. [Apr 11: This Day in Bankruptcies - Another Airline and Our First Major Retailer] Now we have news of another major retailer, this one a major mall tenant - Steve & Barry's. This store has actually always amazed me - you walk in there and you can get a jacket for $9. I had no idea how they did it, but whatever they did, it was not working out. Sort of ironic since it was the type of store you would think would be thriving in the 'Pooring of America' scenario.
  • Adding Wood To Your Portfolio - No Kidding- Are you interested in generating returns that consistently on-average beat the S&P 500, have a low correlation with other assets, and have low volatility of returns? Looking to get into the commodity markets, but worried that crude oil, natural gas, coal, and the soft food commodities have gotten ahead of themselves? No need to worry. We have the prefect investment for you - wood. No kidding, wood. And when I say investment, I mean investment. Waiting around for trees to grow is not for active day traders.
  • Tough Market for Long Investors- Another tough week just ended (June 27, 2008) for the stock market as it tumbled 3% and 3.8% on the S&P and NASDAQ respectively. Declines were broad based as nine out of ten sectors fell, this on top of the 3% weekly loss from the prior week. Four out of the five trading days showed losses, but it was the action on Thursday that made up for the lion’s share of the weekly decline. The main catalysts remain surging oil prices, the struggling financial sector, and concern over a weak economy. Overall the market has lost 8% in June, and over 12% YTD, in a period of high volatility. Clearly this is a tough market for long investors trying to make money, most should be happy with just losing less than the market.
  • Nasdaq - Is it really that bad?- Yes, I realize that blood is running everywhere and daily charts look like bombed out cities. Very well respected analysts are calling it a bear market.
  • TrueBlue?- Come on JBLU... you can do this!
  • Steel (SLX) ETF Rides the Waves-

    Steel_slx_etf Many exchange traded funds (ETFs) have had wild rides and large drops lately, but the Market Vectors Steel ETF (Buying When Others Panic is a Prudent Strategy-

    On August 10th, in my post titled "Time to Start Buying ", I mentioned 4 stocks that people should buy in the carnage that ensued that week - Apple (AAPL), Research in Motion (RIMM), Crocs (CROX) and McDermott (MDR). At the time, these stocks had one thing in common. They had beaten earnings estimates in the preceding weeks and had soared only to be dragged down to pre-earnings levels during that week.
  • Cara’s Thursday Report, Aug. 23, 2007, 9:12 AM-

    Market Chat

    One of my biggest complaints is that the sell-side has the playing field tilted in their direction. After the close yesterday, Bank of America bought a $2 billion convertible preferred share stake in Countrywide Financial (CFC), which they say was a bid to bolster the confidence of creditors and investors in the mortgage lender, something I had advocated.