Weekend Linkfest: Week in Preview
Yesterday, we reviewed the week that was. This morning, we look at the week that will be. Our link emphasis is on future looking columns and articles.
We have a light week in terms of Economic data: Tuesday we will hear Same Store Sales, and New Housing Starts. On Thursday, its Jobless Claims, and Leading Economic Indicators in the morning; Philadelphia Fed Survey is at noon
Is it that time already? Yes, it seems that last earnings season just ended, and the new one is already about beginning. The next big broker to report is Morgan Stanley (Weds). Perhaps electronic retailers Best Buy (Tues) and Circuit City Stores (Weds) will shed some light on how the consumer is doing. FedEx reports results Wednesday -- International shipping is expected to be strong, domestic activity less so -- thought it should surpass last quarter's very soft numbers.
The Paris air show is this week, and Boeing will keep the pressure on arch rival Airbus. Expect major deal announcements to move the stock. Ford and GM will be trying, quite desperately, to extract some concessions from the UAW. (Your guess is as good as mine!)
Plenty of Fed speakers this week, but nothing scheduled from the big kahuna. I'm most curious as to what NY Fed President Timothy Geithner has to say about Asian financial markets.
Lastly, the WSJ reports that NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- still not announced for president -- "will go before Google employees next week in California for a question-and-answer session, as four presidential candidates have done. The search-engine company has invited all the major candidates to appear before employees at their Mountain View headquarters, and so far Democrats John Edwards, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson and Republican Sen. John McCain have participated."
Loosen up those wrists! Its clicking time:
INVESTING & TRADING
• Bull market may still be ahead: Yamada: "Near-term pullbacks are an important part of a bull market," Yamada, managing director at Louise Yamada Technical Research Advisors, said at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York. "I suspect there's some more selling to come, but the stock market doesn't have major structural problems yet." Yamada said strong global growth, most notably in developing nations, has been helping offset sluggish domestic economic performance. (Reuters) See also Bond bear market ahead? (Video)
• With sentiment towards the dollar almost universally bearish, its no wonder that the market appears to be setting up for a major rally in the greenback. Some fundamental factors that might be behind the move: Dollar Breakout?
• Rising rates threaten the buyout boom: Bond prices from Tokyo to Frankfurt to New York have sold off in recent weeks amid concerns that interest rates are marching higher worldwide. That's pushed up bond yields and fueled worries that it will be harder to borrow money. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions. "This is the end of the cheap money cycle," said Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald. (CNN Money)
• Handicapping chances for a summer rally: Despite the sudden hand-wringing over yields that have climbed to their highest levels in five years, as bond prices fall, the demand for bonds from international buyers -- particularly China -- remains as strong as ever. In fact, the increasingly attractive yields should serve to lure more institutional money into the market, at least in the short term. (Marketwatch)
• Why Bond Yields can be a Threat to Equities
• How to Hedge Wisely: For a stock investor, hedging against losses may involve any of several strategies in which he essentially bets against himself, using options contracts and other instruments. While some of these are quite complex, exchange-traded funds and even buying Treasury securities offer other possibilities. (free Wall Street Journal)
• Booyah Slide: Websites reproducing Jim Cramer's Mad Money Buys and Sells may be impacting his ratings. Also, Cramer's appearance on Conan (very funny).
• View from the future: In 2012, Blackstone proposes take themselves private at $15 per share.
• What Are China Stocks Worth? Singapore Shows 65% Less: China's benchmark CSI 300 Index would need to fall as much as 54 percent to come in line with the price-to-earnings ratio of Hong Kong's Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, which tracks shares of 41 mainland companies listed in the city. The CSI 300 would have to drop 65 percent to match the average multiple for Chinese shares traded in Singapore, according to calculations by Bloomberg.
• How to spot retirement hogwash: Some call it hogwash. Others call it B.S. No matter what it's called, those on the verge or already in retirement need to be on the lookout for it. Older Americans must have their "detector" up when it comes to the products and services being hawked by those in the so-called retirement industry. (Marketwatch)
ECONOMY
The Wall of worry continues to build:
• Jason Kottke points out that sushi has been added to the ever-growing list of everyday consumables as economic indicators: steak, Big Macs, Starbucks coffee, Coca-Cola, and cigarettes.
• Barron's notes that There's No Inflation -- Except for Necessities of daily sustenance as food, gasoline and The Wall Street Journal (which, in case you were too busy having a jolly time at the beach to notice when it was disclosed, next month will fetch $1.50 a copy rather than the current buck). But those are obviously exceptions that prove the point, for none constitutes a component of core inflation, so, in the larger economic scheme of things, how significant can any of them be? (If no Barron's, go here)
• Inflation? Food, energy costs' exclusion debated: When it comes to measuring inflation, consumers and economists often don't speak the same language. When consumers think of inflation, they often focus on prices of things they buy regularly, such as food and gasoline, which have been going up significantly in price this year. But when economists, including Federal Reserve officials, talk about inflation, they often focus on a measurement of price pressures called "core" inflation. Core inflation excludes costs of food and energy goods, the very items that are the most visible prices for most consumers. Many economists will be focusing on the core when the government releases its monthly producer price index and the closely watched consumer price index. (USA Today)
• Not Everyone Is in the Red on Trade With China: The great Chinese export machine is producing rising trade surpluses with the United States and soaring surpluses with Europe. But when it comes to the rest of the world, it is running a trade deficit. (New York Times)
HOUSING• Housing grows even less affordable: Home prices may have fallen this year, but a new study says housing has become more unaffordable. And if interest rates continue to rise, the balance could tip even further. According to the 2007 State of the Nation's Housing report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 17 million of American households in 2005 were putting more than half their income into paying for shelter - a rise of 1.2 million from the prior year, and a jump of 3.2 million from 2001. (CNNMoney)
• Dan Gross asks "What do Iraq and the U.S. housing market have in common? At first blush, not much. Iraq, which has taken the lives of thousands and ruined America's reputation abroad, is far more disastrous than the housing collapse, which has been merely financially devastating." How the housing collapse is like the Iraq war (Slate)
• Want to buy a home, but hampered by bad credit, an empty bank account or no job? No problem! That may sound like an exaggeration of a late-night infomercial. But it is, in effect, the pitch that a number of Web sites are making to consumers, saying insolvent home shoppers can be made to look more attractive to lenders. Web Help for Getting a Mortgage the Criminal Way. (New York Times)
WAR/MEDIA/POLITICS/ENERGY
• Solar Companies of All Sizes Race To Develop Cheap, Efficient Panels: Hampered by its high cost, solar power accounts for less than 1% of world-wide electricity generation. It costs 35 to 45 cents to produce a kilowatt hour of electricity from solar panels, compared with about three to five cents burning coal, according to the International Energy Agency. A different approach, known as concentrating solar power, uses huge arrays of mirrors or solar dishes to track the sun and collect its heat to make electricity. Yet even that costs nine to 12 cents to generate one kilowatt hour. (free Wall Street Journal)
• Arabs Fear Spread of Gaza Conflict Arab countries are eyeing the chaos in Iraq and Gaza with alarm, fearing that the Palestinian fighting could spread to the West Bank and further destabilize the region. The Arab League chief on Thursday called for a cease-fire, warning of disaster otherwise. (Associated Press) See also Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq U.S. Department of Defense Report to Congress (pdf)
• Pearson Is Said to Seek a Partner for a Takeover of Dow Jones: Pearson, the publisher of The Financial Times, is exploring a rival takeover offer for Dow Jones & Company, and has discussed a joint bid with General Electric and the Hearst Corporation, people familiar with the talks said yesterday. (New York Times) Also, The Murdoch Who Could Be King (BusinessWeek)
TECHNOLOGY & SCIENCE
• Is the U.S. winning back its competitive edge? Maybe the U.S. isn't falling as far behind other nations in math and science education as business leaders fear. A new study suggests that American universities are luring more entrepreneurial talent from overseas than many think, fueling a boom in tech startups here. (Fortune)
• I simply refuse to believe this is true: Nearly Half of the U.S. Doubt Theory of Evolution
• Saturns moon Io's has a giant smoking volcano plume. Tvashtar was snapped by Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) as the spacecraft flew past Jupiter earlier this year, this first-ever “movie” of an Io plume clearly shows motion in the cloud of volcanic debris, which extends 330 kilometers (200 miles) above the moon’s surface. Only the upper part of the plume is visible from this vantage point – the plume’s source is 130 kilometers (80 miles) below the edge of Io's disk, on the far side of the moon.
• Light Fantastic: Flirting With Invisibility: Increasingly, physicists are constructing materials that bend light the “wrong” way, an optical trick that could lead to sharper-than-ever lenses or maybe even make objects disappear. (New York Times)
MUSIC BOOKS MOVIES TV FUN!• The JVC Jazz Festival NY begins this weekend, and runs for a few weeks. Highlights include performances from Cassandra Wilson, Branford Marsalis, Joshua Redman, Keith Jarrett, Patti LaBelle, Ron Carter, Jean-Luc Ponty, and Nancy Wilson.
• Hysterical: Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at the Tony Awards: (quasi-not safe for work)
• Strain on U.S. grid to make blackouts common: Most people in the United States only think about where electricity comes from when the lights go out suddenly. But unless the antiquated transmission grid is fixed, expensive blackouts that bring modern life to a grinding halt will become ever more common, according to Lights Out: The Electricity Crisis, the Global Economy, and What It Means To You, a new book by Jason Makansi.
HBO has been promoting the hell out of "The Flight of The Conchords" -- originally a New Zealand duo, who achieved somes small measure of fame on BBC radio. It looks to be absurd and fun.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend -- and the gorgeous Weather -- its convertible time!
Sunday, June 17, 2007 | 06:30 PM | Permalink
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I'm surprised only half the US doesn't believe in evolution.
Rent a car, and drive two hours out of Manhattan in any direction. Turn on the radio, and listen to the talk shows. Be it Long Beach Island, the Catkills, or the start of upstate NY, you are going to hear a lot of Bible-thumping and anti-evo nonesense. I take that to be the reality-border around NYC... where hearts and minds are still being contested.
Drop into Kansas, as my friend did recently, and expect anti-evo to be the default belief.
Posted by: gorobei | Jun 17, 2007 9:39:54 PM
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