No one would be particularly surprised that Chinese stocks traded on U.S. exchanges did well in the third quarter. The Shanghai Composite has doubled so far this year, and many stocks like Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU), the China search engine, have made stunning gains.
In the third quarter, China Eastern Airlines (NYSE: CEA) moved up 112%. China Finance Online (NASDAQ: JRJC) ran up 282%. It is hard to imagine that the Chinese market can keep up this momentum, but analysts say that every quarter.
No one would find it odd that home builders and mortgage lenders were among the big losers in the quarter. Beazer Homes (NYSE: BZH) fell 66% to $8.25. Fremont General (NYSE: FMT), which has a subprime lending operation, fell 63.4% to $3.90. Mortgage lender Novastar Financial (NYSE: NFI) was down 68% to $8.87.
As retail sales fell, specialty store operations took a pounding. Gottschalks (NYSE: GOT) fell 63.5% to $4.34. And, Sharper Image (NASDAQ: SHRP) dropped 63.7% to $4.13.
The toughest part of the quarter is the realization the retail, housing, and mortgage shares could actually go lower during the October to December period.
Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-29-2007 @ 6:27PM
michael schneider said...
There are often segments of retail that do well even as the sector and especially big names like Wal-Mart, Sears and Target flounder. Housing will be a drag on the economy and much of but lower housing prices will help give the Fed room to cut rates which will help the market generally and perhaps some areas of retail. Dana Telsey recently provided some results of her study of which areas of retail are likely to do best when the Fed cuts rates. She also provides some of her stock picks-- see item (green label near top) at http://www.Barrelomoney.com. i posted some comments on her findings in the free Barrel View mailing which went out this morning. Anyone signing the Private Guest Book there and listed an e-mail address will receive the free mailings (it's private and Barrelomoney sends only the mailing and responses to reader questions- we do not collect personal information or anything like that).
10-01-2007 @ 3:43AM
former manager said...
Gottschalks has the right merchandise, they need to remove all upper management at district and corporate level. They do not understand what their employees want or need to do the job!