Dow Chemical Heads For $39 With Solid Pricing, Volume Growth

The company reported sales and operating income growth of 18% and 24% respectively. The robust growth came about as both product prices and volumes rose by 19% and 9%, respectively

Source: http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculations/2011/08/02/dow-chemical-heads-for-39-with-solid-pricing-volume-growth/

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Obsolete Expertise and the US Economy?s Energy Problem


If you came of age in the twenty years leading up to the millennium, it’s likely you will treat energy as a non-limiting input to the US economy. As a journalist, policy maker, or economist, you are far more likely to produce political explanations when faced with economic dilemmas. The Great Recession has offered the perfect occasion to witness the phenomenon, a financial crisis which specifically kicked off amidst 150 dollar oil in 2008. Instead of advising the President that the country faced debt-deflation, with a nasty overlay of high commodity costs, the White House economic team has drawn from the post-war playbook which holds that if you stimulate the economy generally then the system will magically reorganize itself. Well, that hasn’t happened and it’s not going to happen.

The barrier to understanding the US economy’s structural problem was hatched in the previous two decades of declining energy costs. Those were good times. Unfortunately, this inculcated the view that our problems were most often discretionary, of our own making. Well, guess what. The US economy did not choose to stop growing in 2007. Thus, the recommendation that we simply “choose” to starting growing again rings rather hollow. But that is the nature of obsolete expertise, which will flog the same prescriptions ad infinitum, well past failure.

For over two years now, this blog has recommended a more targeted version of Keynesianism. In contrast to Whatever Keynesianism—which advises we throw as much money as possible at the whole system, a quickly depleting process that makes the status quo only more sclerotic—I have strongly advocated for policies which would attack energy input costs. Indeed, as illustrated in the chart above, if you agree the decline of energy expenditures from above 10% of GDP to just below 6% of GDP boosted the US economy, you must agree the quick trip back to 10% must have hurt. Worse, the stubborn levels post 2008 during high unemployment are nothing but painful.

–Gregor

Original chart, pre-annotated at Gregor.us, can be seen here: US Annual Energy Expenditures, as of July 2011.

Source: EIA Short Term Energy Outlook.

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CONAN: President Obama Has Turned Shaq Away Three Times!

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Source: http://www.legaldebthelponline.com/2011/08/02/fast-stress-reliever-from-fast-payday-loans/

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Movie Stocks: Why Movie Ticket Prices Are BS


(List compiled by Becca Lipman)

Supply and demand is a pretty simple concept.

Apple's 64GB 3G iPad is priced at $829 because the people who want them (and can afford them) are willing to pay that amount. If they were $50 there would be significantly more people standing in line to buy. In such a ridiculous scenario Apple couldn't meet the demand. Similarly, if Apple priced their iPads at $2,000 a pop, they'd have a much harder time selling out their stock.

For iPads, supply and demand have more-or-less met at a price equilibrium. Economic theory has triumphed.

But there are niche markets where supply and demand just doesn't hold. Take movie tickets…

Being a resident of New York City I have a hard time recalling a time when I paid less than $12 for a movie. And if it's in 3D or Imax I'd be lucky to get away with a ticket and small popcorn for under $25. To that end, many concession stand workers have heard me mumble "thieves" under my breath.

Granted, the big city theaters are typically more expensive than in other areas, but the fact remains that the cost of movie tickets has risen across the board. In 2000 the average ticket price was $5.40, today it's $8.06, with $3 to $5 surcharges for add-ons like 3D and Imax.  And while small town theaters may only experience marginal 3% price increases year by year, city dwellers like myself suffer more severe damage to our wallets at the ticket counter.

NY Times writer Michael Cieply sums up the inflation nicely: "In some markets, too, pricing changes have caused surprising distortions. In Santa Monica, for instance, the price of a regular adult ticket at AMC Loews Broadway 4 theater, also owned by AMC, has risen by 47 percent since 2001, to $11.75 from $8 — only a little more than the 41 percent increase in the average ticket price for the same years. But children’s tickets rose 67 percent for the period, to $8.75 from $5.25, while senior tickets are up 95 percent, to $10.75 from $5.50. Add 3-D, and a child’s ticket goes to $12.75, while a senior pays $14.75, two to three times the cost of a ticket 10 years ago."

Movie prices have been outpacing inflation rates by more than half since 1999, and the laws of supply and demand won't stand for it. Even Hollywood Execs have begun to take notice of the declining movie-going population.

Year to date (Jan 1 2011 - July 31, 2011), movie attendance is down -6.5% from last year. In fact, between 1999 and 2010 the number of domestic box office tickets sold were down in 8 of the 12 years. 2010 alone saw a -5.72% change in ticket sold. This translates into hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars lost.

The "solution" seems simple enough: While supply of movies and movie seats remain steady, the law of supply and demand says that if tickets were offered at a lower price, the theaters might be able to fill their empty seats with happy customers.

Until then, I'll wait for the DVD.

Overall, the pastime of movie going remains strong. And if you're a believer in the economic competence of movie executives, you may be interested in taking a look at the performance of the movie theater stocks on the market. We list them below.

Analyze These Ideas (Tools Will Open In A New Window)

1. Access a thorough description of all companies mentioned
2. Compare analyst ratings for all stocks mentioned below
3. Visualize annual returns for all stocks mentioned

List sorted by market cap.

1. Cinemark Holdings Inc. (CNK): Movie Production, Theaters Industry. Market cap of $2.21B. Current price at $19.24. Offers a good dividend, and appears to have good liquidity to back it up--dividend yield at 4.34%, current ratio at 2.24, and quick ratio at 2.19. The stock has gained 36.05% over the last year. Cinemark Holdings is a leader in the motion picture exhibition industry. Cinemark operates 408 theatres and 4,657 screens in 38 states in the United States and internationally in 12 countries, mainly in Mexico, South and Central America.

2. Regal Entertainment Group (RGC): Movie Production, Theaters Industry. Market cap of $1.98B. Current price at $13.09. The stock is a short squeeze candidate, with a short float at 18.69% (equivalent to 9.99 days of average volume). The stock has had a couple of great days, gaining 8.2% over the last week. Regal Entertainment Group is a leading motion picture exhibitor operating the largest theatre circuit in the United States. The Company's nationwide theatre circuit is comprised of Regal Cinemas Corporation, United Artists Theatre Company and Edwards Theatres, Inc.

3. DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. (DWA): Movie Production, Theaters Industry. Market cap of $1.80B. Current price at $21.04. The stock is a short squeeze candidate, with a short float at 14.9% (equivalent to 6.73 days of average volume). The stock has lost 32.88% over the last year. Dream Works Animation SKG, Inc. develops and produces computer generated animated feature films for a broad movie-going audience.

4. Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (LGF): Movie Production, Theaters Industry. Market cap of $974.07M. Current price at $7.05. The stock has gained 5.8% over the last year. Lions Gate Entertainment is a leading, diversified independent producer and distributor of motion pictures, home entertainment, television programming, animation and video-on-demand content.

5. Rentrak Corporation (RENT): Movie Production, Theaters Industry. Market cap of $180.83M. Current price at $16.08. The stock is a short squeeze candidate, with a short float at 6.23% (equivalent to 9.8 days of average volume). The stock is currently stuck in a downtrend, trading -11.21% below its SMA20, -13.28% below its SMA50, and -33.98% below its SMA200. It's been a rough couple of days for the stock, losing 12.13% over the last week. Rentrak Corporation's primary business is the distribution of videocassettes to home video specialty stores and other retailers using its Pay Per Transaction system. Under the company's system, home video specialty stores and other retailers that rent videocassettes to consumers, including grocery stores and convenience stores, lease videocassettes and other media from Rentrak for a low up-front fee and share a portion of each retail rental transaction with the company.

6. Carmike Cinemas Inc. (CKEC): Movie Production, Theaters Industry. Market cap of $80.80M. Current price at $6.19. This is a risky stock that is significantly more volatile than the overall market (beta = 2.96). The stock is a short squeeze candidate, with a short float at 15.56% (equivalent to 11.55 days of average volume). The stock is currently stuck in a downtrend, trading -7.15% below its SMA20, -8.69% below its SMA50, and -16.03% below its SMA200. It's been a rough couple of days for the stock, losing 6.32% over the last week. Carmike Cinemas is one of the largest motion picture exhibitors in the United States. Carmike targets small to mid-size non-urban markets.

Interactive Chart: Press Play to see how analyst ratings have changed for the stocks mentioned above. Analyst ratings sourced from Zacks Investment Research.

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Sony CEO Howard Stringer: Strung Out


It’s tough being skipper on a sinking ship, not least because el capitan is expected to go down with the ship. And, like at any other top position, the buck stops there.

So, when looking at a company like Sony, which is now only worth a quarter of its $100bn market cap peak many years ago, where else would the blame fall but with the head honchos? When you add the fact that Sony’s market cap has shrunk by half during the six year tenure of its first non-Japanese and current CEO Howard Stringer, the list of possible scapegoats narrows.

Sony’s issues are as complex as the company is gigantic.

Analysts still foresee significant revenue growth from its CyberShot digital camera and PlayStation video game segments, according to Bloomberg. In addition, its Blu-Ray media format is gaining traction, unlike some of its previous format missteps (anyone remember Betamax and Minidisk?)

The weak link happens to be its Bravia TV segment, which has lost ground to Korean electronics giant Samsung and discount HDTV maker Vizio, a newer player in the market. 

“Flat-panel TVs now are fundamentally a commodity product… The Vizios of the world came in and cut prices so dramatically to where it made it hard to compete,” Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies told Bloomberg.

Samsung is now worth $118bn and is now the world’s number one TV maker, reports Bloomberg.

Sony has also long been left behind in the portable music industry, which it dominated for decades with its Walkman cassette and CD players. Apple has since ridden the iPod wave to become the third largest company by market cap.

“My generation was willing to pay a premium for that brand… They were innovators. They had quality, and they had consumers. But the rest of the world has caught up to them. I’m not sure what their edge is anymore,” said Jack Ablin of Harris Private Bank.

Interested in digging deeper into Sony’s past, present, and future performance? Start with Kapitall’s tools below.

As the Turbo Chart shows, the company has underperformed the broad market over the last year:

 

 

Wall Street analysts, it seems, aren't too concerned about the company's outlook. As a group, they have a "Moderate Buy" rating on the stock.

 

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The Italian Conundrum


The signing of the US debt ceiling by the POTUS, moved the spotlight from the US to the reality of what is happening in Italy. A nation with a pile of debt that is to big to be rescued, has realistically been been locked out of the markets this week. The fear of contagion in Greece has slopped over into Spain & Italy this week.

The problem is we have not stopped the contagion that is putting pressure on Italy and Spain,? said a senior European finance official involved in the rescue programs, who was not authorized to speak publicly. ?We would be confronted with enormous problems if things got worse.

The cost of issuing new public debt or rolling over current debt has risen significantly in the Italian and Spanish bond pits. On Tuesday (today) it hit a new Euro Era high. This has the financial ministers already looking at Italy needing access to the Euro Stabilization funds. If they don’t get access to liquidity in a matter of months, we could start to see signs of a final solution in Europe.

There are two types of players in the market, those who move out of fear and those who move out of greed,? said the senior European finance official. ?And right now, we are seeing all of them move in the same direction.

Bloomberg has an article with some interesting quotes, about the changes underway in the Bond markets.

This has all the features of a self-fulfilling crisis,? said Harvinder Sian, a senior bond strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland Plc in London. ?The rise in yields looks pretty relentless, and it doesn?t look as if the politicians are anywhere near to getting ahead of the curve.?

?Anything materially above that risks an acceleration like we saw for Greece, Ireland and Portugal,? he said. ?The political willingness to backstop the European Union is now what the market needs.

The view is shifting in the banking sectors of Europe. The fear is rising as the reality that the system does not have the proper tools to deal with this crisis becoming  obvious to the masses.

Suddenly, Italy joined the other peripherals,? said Justin Knight, a European rate strategist at UBS AG in London. ?Investors are, in general, overweight Italy versus other peripheral markets, and it?s going to be a difficult position to unwind.

The news or rumors of news in Europe, in my opinion was the primary driver of fear in the US Treasury markets, as buyers show up in size.


Filed under: Bloomberg, Cross Currents in the World, Debt, Europe, International, Risk Management, Uncategorized Tagged: $FXB, $FXF, $UUP, dxy, FXE

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