Archives for May 2013

May 2013 - Page 9 of 20 - Money Morning - Only the News You Can Profit From

Facebook Stock Ends Disappointing Year One; Any Shot at a Comeback?

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One year ago, Facebook stock (Nasdaq: FB) made its trading debut in one of the most highly anticipated initial public offerings ever.

While it's okay to offer a congratulatory happy anniversary, it's been anything but a honeymoon for the company and investors.

Some 421 million shares were sold, raising $16 billion, giving Facebook a whopping $104 billion valuation.

Then the disastrous story began: Shares were priced at $38, opened at $40, and then, within 10 market hours after the pricing, Facebook stock flailed. Technical glitches at the Nasdaq caused a delayed open, late executions and reports, and mispriced trades.

Lawsuits are still pending.

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Eisman: Best Housing Stocks to Buy in 2013

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In New York City last week investors from around the country gathered for the Ira Sohn Conference to pitch their lists of the best stocks to buy in 2013.

One of the more interesting presentations this year featured Steve Eisman of Emrys Partners, who gave a presentation that was very bullish on the prospects for the U.S. housing market.

While many investors have proffered opinions of the strength and validity of housing market performance, investors should pay especially close attention to Eisman when he speaks on the subject.

Eisman has shown he knows how to evaluate and profit from this market. He successfully profited from the market top in 2007.

Eisman was featured in Michael Lewis' book on subprime mortgages, "The Big Short," as one of the investors who made huge bets against the housing market at the top of the bubble and raked in billions of profits.

Now, he's picking the bottom. If he's right again, the profits could be just as large on the upside as they were during the collapse.

In his Ira Sohn presentation, Eisman pointed out that monthly payments as a percentage of income for mortgages is at an all-time low of just 14% and inventories of available homes are at a multi-year low. He thinks the growth is just beginning, and aided by very low interest rates we could see strong growth in the industry for several years.

He listed several of the best housing stocks to buy that would allow investors to profit from this continued recovery.

He favors home builders that have substantial land inventory as we go into the recovery. Those builders who have built up their land holdings over the past couple of year should amass substantial profits form reselling land purchased on the cheap.

Here are three housing stocks to buy in 2013, according to Eisman, including what he calls the "most powerful" play in the sector this year.

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How the Sequester is Killing Healthcare Jobs

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Sequester-driven budget cuts to Medicare are threatening to spur massive job cuts in the healthcare industry.

And the pain doesn't stop there – the sequester cuts are already making healthcare harder to obtain for some Medicare patients.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. The longer Congress allows sequestration to continue, the deeper the cuts will go and the more widespread their impact.

When President Barack Obama and Congress failed to reach agreement on $1.2 trillion in cuts to federal spending before March 30 — as mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011 — the sequester kicked in.

Medicare providers faced mandatory 2% across-the-board reductions in their reimbursements.

After the cuts went into effect on April 1, hospitals, doctors, insurers, prescription drug plans, and other healthcare providers immediately felt the impact.

In short, the sequester is delivering precisely the kind of broad, damaging and indiscriminate cuts that politicians warned would happen.

And as each day passes, the drastic consequences grow worse.

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Why You Should Avoid the South Africa ETF - ETF News And Commentary

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The global financial turmoil severely tested the mettle of many a developing economy. While many proved their resilience, others were stretched considerably to survive the crisis. In this context, volatility in the financial and commodity markets had hit the South African market pretty hard. Labor unrest and strikes in the mining and transportation industry of […]

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Why Not All REITs are the Best Investments for Yield

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In a yield-starved world investors have turned to real estate investment trusts (REITs) as some of the best investments for income.

REITs are structured so that they have to pay out the majority of their income to shareholders in order to retain their favorable tax status. Most of them yield far more than Treasury or corporate bonds so they have attracted attention and dollars over the past few years.

It is not just individual investors who are searching for yield. Large pension and investment funds can no longer meet their required rates of return by investing in traditional fixed income investment. They too have turned to REITs to make up the income shortfall.

However, when these large investors begin to direct billions of dollars towards the sector they are not very selective. Much of the money that flows into REIT funds and exchange-traded instruments is only concerned with gaining exposure to the real estate markets and gaining a yield advantage. This type of buying has helped the price of many of the larger more liquid REITs double and even triple over the past few years. They now trade at substantial premiums to their underlying asset value and earnings power.

The problem facing investors now is that the dollars have flowed into the securities for several years now and pushed prices to what may be unsustainable levels.

Any real estate investor can tell you that buying commercial or residential property in excess of its real value is a recipe for disaster especially if you use leverage.

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal's "Heard on the Street" column shows there is another developing threat to REIT prices. 

According to the article, Japanese investors have been piling into U.S. REITs to take advantage of the extreme yield differentials as that country is using low rates to attempt to stimulate the economy.

In addition to the dividends, however, the Japanese funds are also paying out appreciation, including unrealized gains. If the growth in REIT share prices begins to moderate, these funds will have to start selling shares to maintain their payouts and this could pressure prices as they own billions of U.S. REIT securities.

It's Enough to Make Your Blood Boil

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Here are two items that will upset you…

First, back in February, Attorney General Eric Holder christened the unofficial official doctrine of "Too Big to Jail."

He told Congress, "The size of some of these institutions [TBTF banks] becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute – if we do bring a criminal charge – it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy."

Of course, it was only the christening of another neat little name.

The Fight Club: Are "Dignity Mortgages" Essential or Insane?

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Editor's Note: There's a new idea sweeping through the country. It's called dignity mortgages.

Backers say this new financing idea will help millions of homeowners and get the middle class back to the heart of the American recovery.

Opponents think it's a recipe for disaster that will make the first financial crisis look like a cakewalk.

Today the Fight Club is taking on this growing issue — let's get ready to rumble…

Why Gold Prices Are Going Down

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Gold investors are just not feeling the love, once again left to wonder why gold prices are going down.

The yellow metal dipped again Thursday, with gold for June delivery ending down $10 at $1,386.10 an ounce. It was the sixth consecutive trading day of declines and marked a four-week low for the metal.

With equity markets continuing to log record highs, and economic data showing some signs of improvement, safe haven gold looks nothing like its moniker.

Fueling gold's recent rout is not one thing; it's a combination of things.

Here's why gold prices are going down this week.

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How Student Loans Became a $120 Billion Government Bonanza

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Business has been good for the federal government when it comes to student loans.

Over the past five years, student loans have generated profits of $120 billion for the Department of Education.

And the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) put the take from student loans for the 2013 fiscal year at $48.6 billion – helped along by a change in 2010 that eliminated the middleman and made the Education Department the direct lender for all government-backed loans.

It means the government will reap more in profits from student loans this year than any of the nation's largest corporations. Last year, for example, the most profitable company was ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM), which reported income of $44.9 billion.

The money is rolling in partly because the Education Department has stepped up efforts to collect on delinquent loans, but mostly because the U.S. government can borrow money far more cheaply than the students to whom it is giving the loans.

The government's student loans now carry an interest rate of 3.4%, which has proved plenty lucrative.

But unless Congress acts soon, the interest rate on government student loans will double to 6.8% as of July 1. (The temporary 3.4% rate was supposed to expire last July, but last year Congress extended it for one year.)

Meanwhile, 10-year Treasuries go for about 2%, and 30-year Treasuries for about 3%.

That widening gap in rates could drive government profits even higher, but at the risk of appearing to exploit a struggling and vulnerable segment of the population.

"As the pomp of graduation fades, many college graduates become keenly aware of their financial circumstance: in debt," Ernie Almonte, chairman of the National CPA Financial Literacy Commission of the American Institute of CPAs, said in a statement. "They start out with an anchor that slows their progression toward future goals. It's a difficult reality confronting a growing number of people."

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