recession posts
Posted Jul 11th 2009 10:30AM by Ted Allrich
Filed under: General Electric (GE), Coca-Cola (KO), International Business Machines (IBM), Comfort Zone Investing

Summertime....and the livin' ain't easy. The economy's in worse shape than the administration thought, even after pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into it. More people are losing their jobs. Unemployment's at 8.5% and according to many economists will go higher, maybe above 10% before the layoffs stop. Gas at the pump has gone above $3 again, even with the price of oil starting to show some weakness. Home prices are still going down and foreclosures continue to rise. Defaults on consumer credit is at all-time highs. When will it ever end?
Don't know. No one does. But that isn't a reason to stop investing, to quit preparing your portfolio for the next big upward move that will surely come. You doubt that? Just look at a price chart for the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the last 100 years. It's full of periods where the line is going down, only to be followed by large increases on the upside. Unless the whole capitalist system is gone forever, history will repeat. There will be an upward swing to this market, and it's more likely sooner rather than later.
Continue reading Comfort Zone Investing: The glass isn't half empty -- it's half full
Posted Jul 9th 2009 12:20PM by Connie Madon
Filed under: Economic data, Personal finance, Recession
There is more conflicting data on the unemployment front. The good news is that new jobless claims fell by 52,000 to 565,000 in the past week. The four-week average fell to 608,000, down 10,000.
Now the bad news. The number of Americans claiming unemployment benefits rose to 6.88 million, a new high.
These numbers are confusing to say the least, leaving open speculation on both sides that the recession has ended. Economist John Ryding at RDQ Economics says that the recession may have ended in the second quarter.
Continue reading New unemployment claims fall, but continuing claims reach a new high
Posted Jul 8th 2009 2:50PM by Tom Johansmeyer
Filed under: Personal finance, Headline news, Housing, Recession
Apartment vacancies in the United States hit their highest level in 22 years in the second quarter of 2009. Job losses are to blame, according to Bloomberg, as tenant demand falls when people don't have any income. Vacancies rose to 7.5% from 6.1% year-over-year, according to Reis Inc. But this still doesn't reach the 1987 level of 7.6%. In June, the U.S. unemployment rate hit a 26-year high, with payrolls dropping faster than expectations.
Conventional wisdom has it that potential homebuyers turn into renters when the job market softens. The rental pool is shrinking, however, leading to the high rate of apartment vacancies as landlords struggle to fill units. Asking rents for apartments fell 0.6% last quarter (for the second in a row), according to Reis, the largest fall since the company started to track this measure in 1999. Overall, asking rents (including other types of residences) were off 0.7% year-over-year, down to an average of $1,040 a month.
Continue reading Apartment vacancies spiked in Q2 in U.S.
Posted Jul 3rd 2009 9:00AM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Wal-Mart (WMT), Marketing and advertising, Target Corp. (TGT), Best Buy (BBY), Sears Holdings (SHLD)
Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD), a retailer whose competitive colleagues include Target (NYSE: TGT), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), wants to improve its brand equity and find a new path to growth. As such, it's willing to employ all kinds of initiatives, especially ones that will form a nice image with the consumer during this dreadful economic contraction.
According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Sears is trying out a program that offers protection against the risk of investing in an expensive appliance during a time when job security is not as secure as it used to be.
The program will run for a specified time period beginning next week, and the basic gist is this: buy an appliance priced $399 or higher on a Sears credit card and, and if you lose your job, Sears will credit one twelfth of the cost every month. Still no job after one year? Keep the appliance, your debt will be forgiven.
Continue reading Sears offering hedge for consumers who lose their job -- good idea?
Posted Jul 2nd 2009 8:00AM by Michael Fowlkes
Filed under: Industry, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Toyota Motor Corp. (TM), Recession
Auto sales continued to drop in June, but we are starting to see signs that sales may be beginning to stabilize a bit.
The auto industry is still in deep trouble. It is going to take a while before things get back to normal, but before things can even start to improve, they have to stop worsening, and that's what may be happening.
Continue reading Auto sales show signs of stability
Posted Jun 25th 2009 10:00AM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: Market matters, Citigroup Inc. (C), Bank of America (BAC), Economic data, Cramer on BloggingStocks, Recession
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the jobless number shows the folly of thinking we can get through on what we have. Tough data point, the employment number. Lagging. But when you see it, the number doesn't feel like it's lagging. In fact, it is thesis-busting, as in, "We aren't getting better, let's stop fooling ourselves." It just feels like, "Come on, we know the truth, we need to have a second stimulus plan."
That will be the battleground for the second half of this year: further budget-busting vs. putting more people to work, because we sure aren't doing a great job of putting them to work.
Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: More stimulus, please!
Posted Jun 25th 2009 8:00AM by Alex Salkever
Filed under: After the bell, Earnings reports, Tiffany and Co (TIF), NIKE, Inc'B' (NKE), Abercrombie and Fitch (ANF), Recession
Nike (NYSE: NKE) has thus far navigated this downturn exquisitely. It has maintained sales overseas, in particular in Asia. Nike's legendary supply-chain mastery and inventory management skills have likewise served it very well. So it was a shock when the shoe giant announced Wednesday that future orders had dropped by 12%, according to Bloomberg. Bummed out investors bid down Nike share's by nearly 5% in after-hours trading.
Granted, Nike faced difficult comps. During the Beijing Olympic Games last summer Nike togs were selling like hotcakes around the globe. And a chunk of the reduction in order value came due to currency fluctuations. But it's hard to deny that this quarterly earnings announcement was a bleak reminder that the "green shoots" may be more of a Washington creation than a reality in the global economy.
Continue reading Shoe drops on Nike
Posted Jun 20th 2009 10:30AM by Ted Allrich
Filed under: Comfort Zone Investing
On Monday the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 200 points before closing a little better. No real reason for it. Pundits suggested the drop in commodity prices (oil and gold were down a little, not enough to comment on) were the reason for the dip, suggesting the economy may not be as robust nor inflation as big a problem as thought on the Friday before.
But here's the real scoop: the market has rallied well beyond a level where economic numbers justify.
Continue reading Comfort Zone Investing: Stops and starts ... partly steam ahead!
Posted Jun 18th 2009 2:10PM by Tom Johansmeyer
Filed under: International markets, Industry, Economic data, Recession
Retail sales took an unexpected downward turn in May in the United Kingdom -- for first time in three months. Cautious banks appear to be the problem, as their rationing of credit is impeding broader economic recovery. Retail sales fell 0.6% from the previous month, while economists had predicted a 0.3% change in the other direction.
Year-over-year, retail sales were off 1.6%. Sales for the year are down 1.1%, the greatest decline since score-keeping began in 1988. Of course, there's plenty of fodder for rationalizing the results. The annual change was affected by an "unusually large" retail sales estimate for May 2008. Clothing, textile, and footwear retailers and department stores led the plunge, with nonfood store sales off 1.4%, compared to a 0.3% increase in food retail sales.
Continue reading Banks putting pressure on UK retail sales
Posted Jun 16th 2009 2:40PM by Sheldon Liber
Filed under: International markets, Bad news, Rants and raves, Middle East, Scandals, Politics, Headline news

The Iranian government
hand counted tens of millions of presidential election ballots in a couple of hours; less time than we count ours by computer --
an Ayatollahs' miracle for sure! These results indicated that
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was able to garner two-thirds of the vote. Given the Ayatollahs miracle, the public viewed this result as anything but.
Protesters expressing their extreme objection to the election results then created
a miracle of their own when up to one million marchers hit the streets forming a 5 to 6 mile parade of discontent, claims of fraud, and in some cases calling the government a dictatorship.
Meanwhile
Ahmadinejad who made references to disgruntled fans after a football game in slighting the protesters, hung around for a couple of days before appearing a day late for a conference in Moscow. He missed some of the key events but he did get a chance to mention how bad the US economy was doing, neglecting to mention that Iran's economy is showing signs of falling off a cliff. If he remains president that is a real possibility.
Meanwhile the pragmatist in me knows that the greatest miracle of all would be a recanting of the election results and the president stepping down. The Ayatollahs have asked for an investigation of the election results to appease the fuming population.
The results of this investigation being conducted by the same folks that created the fraud in the first place are easier to determine than any of my stock picks. Look for the results of the investigation to acknowledge that the vote count was off by some meaningless percentage, not affecting the outcome and leaving the results as they stand.
The Ayatollahs are all for democracy as long as they get to choose who wins. Perhaps in the future they will simply default to the patterns of authoritarian rulers before them -- massive election rhetoric, with only one candidate on the ballot.
Related stories:
Iran's great potential and its challenges!Iran will waste four more yearsSheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money.Posted Jun 15th 2009 11:40AM by Mark Fightmaster
Filed under: Avon Products (AVP), Entrepreneurs, Recession
In order to keep income trickling in, companies the likes of Avon (NYSE: AVP), Mary Kay, and Tupperware are seeing a flux of salespeople -- including professionals forced to take a second job thanks to the recession.
Becke Alexander, the sales manager for Avon, noted that she hears from laid-off bankers and stay-at-home moms every week, but the company is seeing a recent boon from "gainfully employed people worried how long they'll stay that way." In fact, Alexander said, "There are no hobby seekers coming in here. It's people with a legitimate need." This pop in makeup peddlers stems directly from the current economic crisis, but not just from unemployment. A common complaint is that bonuses have disappeared, as have hours, which have forced people to turn to direct sales to make up some cash.
Continue reading Avon, Mary Kay see an employment boom
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