Archives for June 2011

June 2011 - Page 8 of 9 - Money Morning - Only the News You Can Profit From

Hot Stocks: Why LinkedIn Is More than Just a "Bubble"

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LinkedIn Corp. (NYSE: LNKD) has had quite a ride since its initial public offering last week.

The stock surged 109% in its first day of trading to a peak of $122.70 a share, but has since tumbled back to close yesterday (Thursday) at $78.63.

Optimism about the potential for new-wave social media companies and a genuine thirst among investors desperate for a serious growth play drove LinkedIn's meteoric rise. But profit-taking and fears that the stock had entered "bubble" territory led to a quick drop.

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How to Fix the U.S. Housing Market

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If this week's economic reports showed us anything, it's the fact that two years into what's supposed to be an economic recovery, the U.S. housing market remains on life support.

But here's what those reports didn't tell you: If the housing market isn't fixed soon, it's going to drag the rest of the economy down into a hellish bottom that will take years, if not decades, to crawl out of.

The housing market is our single-most important generator of gross domestic product (GDP) and, ultimately, national wealth.

It's time we fixed what's broken and implemented new financing and tax strategies to stabilize prices.

Contrary to the naysayers – and in spite of political pandering and procrastination – we can almost immediately execute a simple two-pronged plan to fix mortgage financing and stabilize U.S. housing prices.

I call it a not-so-modest proposal.

The Worst Since the Great Depression

The facts are frightening: We are in a bad place. The plunge in housing prices we've seen during the current downturn is on par with the horrific freefall the U.S. housing market experienced during the Great Depression.

And without an effective plan to arrest the double-dip in housing, there's no bottom in sight.

Hope Now, an alliance of lenders, investors and non-profits formed at the behest of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, counts 3.45 million homes being foreclosed from 2007 through 2010. Current estimates of pending and potential foreclosures range from another 4 million to as many as 14 million.

According to RealtyTrac, a real-estate data provider, the country's biggest banks and mortgage lenders are sitting on 872,000 repossessed homes. If you add in the rest of the nation's banks, lenders and mortgage-servicers, the true number of these REO (real-estate owned) homes is closer to 1.9 million.

These shocking statistics illustrate just how large the current overhang of bank-owned properties actually is (at current sales levels, REO properties would take three years to unload). And they help us to understand how the staggering number of yet to-be-foreclosed, repossessed, and sold homes will depress U.S. housing market prices for years to come.

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A Greek Default is Bad - But a Greek Bailout Much Worse

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Many investors continue to favor a Greek bailout to prevent the Eurozone's first sovereign default – but they are rooting for the wrong solution.

Greece has requested another loan from its European neighbors to cover next year's $43 billion (30 billion euros) shortfall as yields on 10-year Greek bonds have climbed over 16%.

The second Greek bailout would come about a year after the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loaned the struggling country $158 billion (110 billion euros) to meet soaring financial obligations. Greece took the money on the terms that it would implement austerity measures and cut its massive budget deficit, but the country failed to meet the agreed-upon targets.

EU and IMF officials have been reviewing Greece's cost-cutting actions to determine if the country – now with about $430 billion (299 billion euros) in debt – deserves another huge loan. EU leaders have also considered asking investors to reinvest in new Greek debt when existing bonds mature, buying time to stabilize Greece's sinking economy.

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IPO Market Perking Up, But Still Not Ready to Party Like It's 1999

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LinkedIn Corp.'s (NYSE: LNKD) initial public offering (IPO) generated a great deal of excitement by surging 109% on its first day of trading.

In fact, the IPO market as a whole is looking its healthiest in years.

There were 69 IPOs through May 31, compared to 52 during the same period last year, according to data from research firm Renaissance Capital of Greenwich, CT.

There were just 63 IPOs throughout all of 2009.

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The "Pesofication" of the U.S. Dollar

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I've dubbed this the "pesofication" of the U.S. dollar.

But we're really talking here about the dollar's long-term demise.

The pesofication of the dollar represents the end of the greenback as a major world currency and figures to be one of the major long-term challenges that we U.S. investors will face.

The dollar's demise was set in motion several years ago. But the greenback's fate was sealed in late April, when U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers had a final chance to take a stand against inflation – and failed to do so.

Let me explain …

Catalysts for the "Pesofication" of the U.S. Dollar

Four years ago, I referred to the U.S. greenback as the "Bernanke peso." I coined this term, reasoning that U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's decision to cut interest rates even as inflation was accelerating was bound to cause the dollar to lose value at an ever-increasing rate.

My prediction held up for a time, but was then derailed by the little matter of the collapse of the U.S. banking system. However, after the Fed's April 27 meeting, I can report that we're right back on track, and the pesofication of the dollar is progressing with startling rapidity.

That late-April meeting of the central bank's policymaking Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) was the Fed's best chance to set a new course before its $600 billion "quantitative easing" program is scheduled to end on June 30. (The FOMC meeting scheduled for June 20-21 falls too close to the end of the Fed's quantitative-easing/U.S. Treasury-bond-purchase program for a new policy to be established.)

Bernanke seemed to underscore this by announcing that the central bank would, indeed, stop purchasing Treasury bonds on that date. He also explained that, in his view, the "market effect" of bond purchases is determined by the "stock" of bonds outstanding – as opposed to the "flow" of bonds into and out of the market.

We shall see.

Here's my bet: When the Fed stops buying about $225 billion of the Treasury's $400 billion quarterly funding needs, all hell will break loose in the Treasury bond market. After all, the two largest T-bond buyers are not going to be particularly active this summer: The Bank of Japan (BOJ) will be too busy spending money on that country's reconstruction from the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear power plant accident to be buying much U.S. government debt, while its counterpart in Mainland China – the People's Bank of China – has made it clear that it regards the United States as a pretty dodgy credit risk.

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Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) to Unveil New iCloud Service With Special Appearance by CEO Steve Jobs

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Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) plans to unveil its new iCloud service at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) Monday – and Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs will make an appearance to headline the event.

In an extremely unusual pre-announcement Tuesday, Apple said Jobs will be on hand to introduce the company's new cloud services offering, which will allow users to access music and other media over the Internet. Jobs has been absent most of the year since taking medical leave in January for the second time in two years, except for an appearance in March to introduce the iPad 2 and a few recent interviews.

Jobs usually keeps information on new products tightly under wraps until they are officially unveiled, but Apple posted a conference preview on its Web site that mentioned the iCloud offering.

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Two Options Strategies That Can Turn Short-Term Price Gyrations Into Big-Time Profits

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Everyone acknowledges that at its most basic level the stock market is driven by fear and greed. And, in the past, the immediate impact of fear has been far more dramatic than the short-term effect of greed.

In other words, stock prices have historically tended to fall faster – and further – when investors are running scared than they rise when investors get a pleasant surprise.

Lately, however, with Treasury yields still near all-time lows, commodity prices hovering near record highs, and little else offering significant potential, there's a lot of money out there in mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), retirement accounts and other institutional portfolios that's looking for a place to go.

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Why a Greek Default Could be Worse Than the Lehman Collapse

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The 2008 collapse of Lehman Bros Holdings Inc. (PINK: LEHMQ) ignited a financial meltdown that resulted in widespread bank failures and caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average to lose 18% of its value in just one week.

Yet a Greek default – which (even with a bailout) becomes increasingly likely with each passing day – would actually be much, much worse in many respects.

Sure, it's possible that European Union (EU) taxpayers will soon be dragooned into yet another rescue plan. But that would only delay the inevitable – a catastrophic collapse that will drudge up feelings of panic we haven't witnessed since the global financial crisis hit its apex nearly three years ago.

Here's why.

Dodgy Debt and a Dozing Economy

Greece's debt, at about $430 billion, is less than that of Lehman Brothers, which owed around $600 billion at the time of its bankruptcy. But Greece's finances are much less sound.

Whereas Lehman Brothers participated in the 2003-07 financial bubble with considerable enthusiasm, accumulating vast amounts of the dodgy subprime mortgage paper whose value collapsed in the 2007-08 downturn, Greece's misdeeds date back much further – to its 1981 entry into the EU.

As the poorest member of that group, Greece became eligible for a vast array of inventive subsidies, primarily related to agriculture. However, the frauds the country perpetrated to justify even larger subsidies were even more inventive. And this allowed Greece to bring its living standards close to the EU average, while still being subsidized as if it was a genuinely poor country.

Indeed, Greece produced nothing close to the level of economic output that would be needed to justify its spending and the lifestyle of its people.

The problem for Greece is thus stark: Its people need to suffer a decline in living standards of about 30% to 40%, so that the country's output is sufficient to repay its debts.

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