Empiric Student Property Share Discussion Threads

[briarberry] 18/10/2006 22:50

earnings summary

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Computer Inc. said fourth- quarter profit rose 27 percent on back-to-school sales of Macintosh notebook computers and new versions of the iPod music player. The shares jumped in late trading.

Citrix Systems Inc. third-quarter results missed Wall Street's estimate. Its fourth-quarter earnings view was below analysts' forecast of 37 cents a share

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- EBay Inc., the world's largest online auctioneer, said third-quarter profit rose 10 percent after online payment services spurred revenue growth.

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Juniper Networks Inc., the world's second-biggest maker of equipment that directs Internet traffic, said third-quarter sales rose 5 percent. The company didn't announce profit because of a probe of stock-option grants.


Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc., the second-largest maker of personal-computer processors, reported third-quarter profit rose 77 percent. The shares plunged after the company said profitability declined.

Net income increased to $134.5 million, or 27 cents a share, from $76 million, or 18 cents, a year earlier, the Sunnyvale, California-based company said today in a statement. Revenue fell 13 percent to $1.33 billion after the company spun off its memory-chip business last year.

Its gross profit margin, a key metric for chip firms, fell to 51.4% of sales from 55.4% last year. It also said its desktop PC chips sales were flat with the quarter ended July 2 and it was hurt by lower average selling prices

[briarberry] 18/10/2006 16:50

cpi, the bit they said was important is still going up and the bit they said we could ignore is going down :)

this could get interesting if the price of petrol bounces ?


Year-on-year core inflation growth edged up to 2.9 percent from August's 2.8 percent figure. The overall CPI's year-on-year growth rate fell to 2.1 percent from 3.8 percent in August.

[briarberry] 17/10/2006 22:48

i cannot believe these results, i must have made a mistake, they really are sh*t, rally anyone ?

YHOO After Hours: 25.44 Up 1.29 (5.34%)
INTC After Hours: 21.30 Up 0.40 (1.91%)
IBM After Hours: 91.65 Up 4.70 (5.41%)




Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Yahoo! Inc., owner of the most- visited U.S. Web site, said third-quarter profit dropped 38 percent because of costs to expense employee stock options.

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Intel Corp., the world's largest computer-chip maker, said third-quarter profit fell 35 percent amid price cuts and market share losses. ...

Motorola 3Q profits drop 45 percent

IBM - Third-quarter earnings jumped nearly 50 percent, thanks largely to a lower tax bill, with sales of software and hardware helping drive a 5 percent increase in the computer company's revenue.

[briarberry] 16/10/2006 23:55

US housing & banks, if you need a read...

[briarberry] 16/10/2006 23:53

SPX

short into Tuesday, probably turn out to be a bad idea

but the market is well extented, and overbought

plus i'm hoping that the ppi will still show inflation, which could get some longs to sell

don't think this will be the top as there are too many traders willing to go short


OEX iShares, freakish volume, if you look at the weekly vol for the last 3 weeks.
I guess this is due to fund managers, who are late to the party, trying to chase the momentum, trouble is that when everyone jumps on board the boat often sinks.




just have to wait and see, fingers Xed :)

[briarberry] 15/10/2006 19:44

That China syndrome
By Peter Morici

For example, GM and Ford are competitive in China, while their North American operations burn cash, hemorrhage jobs and crush suppliers, crippling communities from Pennsylvania through the Midwest. International sales account for about half of GE profits abroad, and that share is likely to grow. A stronger yuan would slash profits for many multinationals such as Caterpillar.

All those firms profit hugely from Chinese protectionism by moving jobs from the United States to China. Executive bonuses and the values of executive stock options are now aligned with the Chinese mercantilist cheap-yuan policy. Each of these firms has demonstrated callous neglect for the interests of US-based manufacturing and employment in the currency debate.




more currency debate

[briarberry] 15/10/2006 17:37

John P. Hussman, Ph.D.

On the economic front, suffice it to say that Friday's revised employment data does nothing to bolster the case for a "soft landing." Based on the new data, the 6-month growth in total non-farm payroll employment is now 0.52%. Historically, every previous decline in employment growth below 0.55% (the red line) has been associated with a recession. A single indicator isn't enough to make a strong conclusion about recession risks, but increasingly, the hope for a "soft landing" is at odds with the data.

[briarberry] 12/10/2006 19:29

recession watch...


1,300 jobs lost in Sonoma County's housing slowdown

Study says 2,000 more jobs may be cut as builders, mortgage firms, realty agents hit
By MICHAEL COIT - THE PRESS DEMOCRAT


The housing industry, which propelled Sonoma County out of recession three years ago, is now shedding jobs as builders, mortgage brokers and real estate companies feel the impact of the slowdown.



The sector, which employs one in six workers in Sonoma County, lost 1,300 jobs in the three-month period ending June 30, according to a new study.

It could lose 2,000 more jobs before the shakeout is expected to end next year, reducing employment to 28,700, the study forecasted.

The job losses - the largest since the housing market was in retreat in early 1990s - have been deeper than anticipated, even in an industry accustomed to employment swings as housing cycles run hot and cold.

The effect on the economy will be magnified because many of these workers earned $60,000 to $70,000 or more a year during the housing boom, far more than the typical worker in the county.

[briarberry] 11/10/2006 19:19

could the UK credit bubble have already peaked ? ...


The use of credit cards hit a plateau in 2005, the Association of Payment Clearing Services (Apacs) says.

Apacs says credit card use has become even more cautious this year.

It points to recent figures from the Bank of England which showed that in August credit cards users repaid more money than they borrowed.

That was the first time this has happened since May 1994.

[briarberry] 10/10/2006 17:29

price of wheat going vertically up...



oats too



corn

[briarberry] 10/10/2006 16:46

recession watch:

The nation's largest home builder, Ft. Worth, Tex.-based D.R. Horton said orders for the three months ended Sept. 30 fell 25% to 10,430 homes valued at $2.5 billion, down from 13,950 and $3.8 billion in the year-ago quarter. Its cancellation rate for the latest quarter rose to 40%, up from 29% the prior year. D.R. Horton said it will release fourth-quarter earnings on Nov. 14.

Also Tuesday, KB Home said quarterly orders fell 43% from a year earlier as the company delayed filing full financial results for the third quarter to complete an internal review of stock-option grants.

[briarberry] 09/10/2006 11:40

Seoul Composite down over 2% but the rest of the Asian markets are a mixed

[briarberry] 05/10/2006 19:35

US inflation is around 7%


In the face of this enormous inflation of paper money and credit, the Fed pretends that it's holding back inflation. The Fed does it with phony inflation statistics. The current reasonably accurate inflation number is 7 percent. The current estimation of the M-3 money supply is 9 percent. The only thing holding back massive price inflation today is the massive over-supply of goods.

Richard Russel
www.dowtheoryletters.com



some background reading on the way the USA reports it's inflation figures (old news to most traders)

[briarberry] 05/10/2006 19:30

The chances of a soft landing...

Now, a soft landing has only happened twice since WWII, while the other 8 Fed tightening cycles have resulted in recessions. Not to mention the fact that every major peak in residential real estate investment has been followed by a US recession since that time, and we have obviously seen one of the biggest peaks of all time in that department. So, the odds aren't exactly favoring the "soft landing".

Lance Lewis's excellent and informative daily letter can be found at: www.dailymarketsummary.net

[briarberry] 03/10/2006 20:20

junk bonds finally selling off

[briarberry] 01/10/2006 15:54

It's amazing how they spin debt as being a good thing...


But this record debt growth is discarded as irrelevant because the net worth of private households - asset values minus outstanding debt - over the same time has surged from $42,113.5 billion to $53,830.3 billion. In other words, asset values have risen much faster than debts.

Is this a reasonable calculation? Our categorical answer is no. Few people seem to realize that America's vast real estate "wealth" arises from imputed values. In other words, the relatively small number of houses that change hands every year establishes the value for all of the rest of the nation's houses.

In the United States, only about 5% of all existing houses are traded every year. The other 95% simply sit there, while their theoretical values steadily rise. Americans call this wealth creation. I do not. This wealth can disappear just as easily as it first appeared. In fact, it is disappearing already.

I have always rigorously disputed the idea that rising implied home values equal wealth creation. Even the owners of the houses gain, in reality, very little from the rise in prices. Everyone may feel richer. But they are no richer in housing comfort or anything else. If anyone would later exchange his residence for a place of the same quality, he would have to pay the same high price for which he sold.

In reality, the homeowner gains one thing only, and that is higher collateral for higher borrowing. Reckless utilization of correspondingly higher borrowing facilities is the central feature of every bubble economy, leading to exponential debt growth. So it happened in the late 1920s in the United States, and in the late 1980s in Japan, and so it has happened again in the United States during the last few years.

[briarberry] 01/10/2006 12:34

a narrow breadth, OEX lead rally, cannot be heathly... as many have noted it's the large caps that are leading this rally, although they were lagging until this summer

a rally in the OEX and a short squeeze appear to have kept the markets going (so far)




it's such an tempting short, economy slowing etc





everything else seems to be lagging, the financials, the NYSE, even the other stocks in the SPX aren't keeping up with this latest rally (see chart) it's only the highly weighted large caps that have pushed the SPX to a new high





RUT - of course the bulls are saying that the small caps + everything else will catch up now ? Santa rally ?







the Nasdaq has bounced in relative terms (COMPQ:SPX) but it's still not the leader it was







plus they'll find it difficult to short squeeze tech (for now)

QQQQ $-weighted* P/C ratio: 0.45. Sell.

[briarberry] 01/10/2006 10:25

It certainly looks like the top in US corp profits is finally here...


Is the Corporate Profit Machine About to Sputter?

The New York Times - By NORM ALSTER - Published: October 1, 2006

Wage gains have begun to outstrip productivity gains, and much of the advantage of cheap offshore labor has already been exploited

the combination of higher interest rates and declining property values in many areas will make it harder for consumers to draw on the value of their homes.

One concern is a sharp decline in the ratio of positive to negative revisions in analysts' earnings forecasts. In late August, the ratio stood at 1.35. Since then, it has fallen to 0.80, with downgrades now exceeding upgrades for the first time all year. Mr. Van Dijk called the increasingly pessimistic ratio "the canary in the coal mine."


the macroeconomic model...

Even more pessimistic is Douglas Cliggott, chief investment officer at the hedge fund Race Point Asset Management. Mr. Cliggott expects profits to shrink next year by 10 to 15 percent.

"We're downshifting from a very favorable environment," said Mr. Cliggott, who bases his forecasts on a macroeconomic model. Over the years, he said, there has been an "almost perfect correlation" between corporate profits and changes in four factors: household savings, the government deficit, the trade balance and business investment (which includes capital expenditures and residential construction). Increases in investment spending and government budget deficits are positive for corporate earnings, as are an improving trade balance and a decline in household savings (which generally accompanies a climb in consumer spending).

Since 2001, he noted, overall corporate profits have doubled, to more than $1 trillion. Contributors to that gain include a cumulative $440 billion increase in investment, a $375 billion expansion of budget deficits and a $140 billion decline in household savings. The only negative during the period was a $405 billion widening of the trade deficit.

But Mr. Cliggott says he sees several positive factors turning into negatives over the next year or so. Consumer spending and investment in residential construction will both drop, he said, and he expects the budget deficit to narrow. Capital spending should climb and the trade deficit should shrink, he contended but these two positives for profits will not be enough to offset the other factors.

[briarberry] 30/9/2006 12:16

Peak Oil update

Matthew Simmons, Chairman, Simmons & Company International and Author of "Twilight in the Desert"




Barrels found vs. barrels used: 1930 -- 10B found 1.5B used. 1964 -- 48B found 12B used. 1988 -- 23B found 23B used (crossover point). 2005 -- 5B found 30B used.

Peak oil: About 3 months ago it was unexpectedly discovered the world's second largest oil-field (Burgan in Kuwait) had peaked. Number one (Ghawar) is very close.

[briarberry] 28/9/2006 18:35

What a US recession means for China
By Jephraim P Gundzik

Rather than private consumption, external demand, originating primarily from US consumers, drives economic growth in China. Between 2001 and 2005, China's annual average rate of export growth was 25%. Exports grew by 35% in 2004 and 28% in 2005. The very strong nominal growth of exports accounted for about 2% of real GDP growth in 2004 and about 4% in 2005. In the first half of 2006, net exports accounted for about 2.5% of real GDP growth.

Including goods re-exported from other countries and Hong Kong, China's exports to the US account for about 50% of total exports. Thus export growth is largely determined by the growth of US demand. Because almost all of China's exports are consumer goods, personal consumption demand in the US drives China's export growth. In addition to exports, external demand also plays a key role in the growth of investment in China.

[briarberry] 25/9/2006 21:36

hello, yes for the first time in 11 years, I wouldn't want to be holding any of those mortgage backed securities that the USA has been selling around the world



The median sales price fell 1.7% year-over-year to $225,000 in August.

It was the first time since April 1995 that median prices had fallen on a year-over-year basis. It was the second-largest decline in the 38-year history of the Realtors survey, exceeded only by a 2.1% drop in November 1990.

Inventories of unsold homes rose 1.5% to 3.92 million, a 7 1/2-month supply at the August sales pace, the most in relation to sales since April 1993.

[ian56] 25/9/2006 21:25

The Fed were spooked by median house prices being down.

Regards,
Ian