The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article today (“Small Banks Reckoning Day Is Coming” (subscription required), Wednesday July 2, C2) on rising delinquencies on construction loans made to builders by regional banks. This chart of soaring delinquency rates on these loans…
A few minutes ago, as part of its continuing transformation agenda Starbucks (SBUX) announced that they will be closing 600 underperforming US stores. In addition, they said they will be opening less than 200 US stores in fiscal 2009, down…
The new home market continues to be brutal as we saw yesterday with Lennar and today with KB Homes (KBH Earnings Release). I created the same chart for KB Homes of new home deliveries and backlog going back to 2003:…
Homebuilder Lennar (LEN) reported 2nd quarter earnings today and they were not pretty (LEN Earnings Release). I put together a chart of Lennar’s new homes delivered and backlog going back 5 years which pretty much tells the story: LEN New Homes…
Slow U.S. economic growth and an unprecedented increase in the cost of fuel have resulted in lower-than-expected U.S. package volume and an accelerating contraction in the use of premium air products. In addition, the anemic U.S. economy is negatively impacting…
Less than a month after announcing across the board price increases to combat rising energy and raw materials costs (May 28 Press Release), Dow Chemical (DOW) is at it again announcing additional across the board price increases of as much…
The action in Lehman Brothers (LEH) this week reminds me of the Bear Stearns debacle that evolved from Friday March 14 through Monday March 17. It started with Lehman’s preliminary announcement of 2nd quarter results on Monday before the open…
The dividend is really important to me. The company feels they can keep it up through the patent expirations, but it seems like it’s going to be difficult. – Kent Croft (subscription required), President, Croft Leominster There’s been a lot of…
Retailers reported supposedly strong May sales this morning. But I don’t know that they were really all that strong. Discounters like Walmart and Costco were strong. But department stores and speciality retailers weren’t all that strong. To me, it continues…
I can’t quite figure out why the market started tanking at 1:30pm EST today (S&P Intraday Chart). I want to cheat and say it was GM’s ugly May Sales Report in which they announced a 28% decline in sales and…