Monthly Archives: September 2007

What A Huge Quarter Would Look Like For Apple (AAPL): $7 Billion

Apple (AAPL) probably already knows what its September quarter looks like, but, it could be more successful that many on Wall St. can imagine.

Mac sales are being put as high as 2.17 million by Citigroup in a research piece picked up by Barron’s. In the June quarter, they were 1.764 million units yielding $2.533 billion. At the higher unit volume Mac revenue would be about $3.12 billion. TheStreet has given a unit estimate of 2.35 million Macs. That would move Mac revenue up to $3.38 billion.

Research firm Hambrecht puts iPod sales at 12 million for the September period. In the last quarter, iPod revenue-per-unit was $160. That would bring iPod revenue to $1.92 billion. iTune sales in the June quarter were $608 million. Peripherals and software were just high of $700 million.

iPhone yield per unit is now $400  UBS is putting iPhone sales for the just-closed quarter at 950,000. That would add another $380 million.

That brings revenue to $7 billion. Revenue for the June quarter was $5.4 billion. In the September quarter of 2006, revenue was $4.837 billion.

Could $7 billion happen? If the company reaches the high end of all analyst estimates, yes.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: September 30, 2007 – 5:31 pm in Consumer Electronics,

Is Yahoo! (YHOO) Better Off As Two Companies?

Yahoo!’s (YHOO) international operations are OK, especially if you compare them to the domestic part of the company.

In the last quarter, Yahoo! US grew only 5% to $1.11 billion. International operation grew 15% to $579 million. There is level of currency risk/reward in the overseas businesses. And, the company has at least two very valuable assets. One is its 34% ownership in Yahoo! Japan which was valued at just under $7 billion as of June 30.. Softbank is the other large owner. In the second quarter, revenue at the Japanese company rose 20% to $482 million.

Yahoo! also has a 44% interest in Chinese online company Alibaba. The e-commerce operation plans to go public and raise $1 billion in the current quarter. Yahoo!’s piece of the company is certain worth in the billions of dollars.

It is fair to assume that with Yahoo! trading at 5.3 times sales, an new independent international company would trade closer to 7x to 8x. That is about $18 million. Add in Yahoo!’s ownership in the Chinese and Japanese companies and the market value of Yahoo! International would  probably be closer to $25 billion to $30 billion. The entire YHOO market cap is $36 billion now.

This leaves Yahoo! US with a value of $6 billion to $8 billion. That is for the part of the company that has a $4,5 billion run rate. It is only a 2x revenue valuation. Too low? CNET (CNET), a technology information portal trades for 2.8x. ValueClick (VCLK), an online advertising operation trades a 3.7x, which has been pushed up sharply by M&A rumors.

And, Yahoo! US is no longer growing.

This would leave Yahoo! US to cut costs and try to improve its display ad rates through new methods like behavioral targeting. Based on the company’s 10-Q, Yahoo! US had operating costs of $756 million before depreciation and amortization and stock-based costs. Could these costs be cut? If the new company was only operating in the US, it would seem likely.

Not unlike the upcoming plan to split Altria (MO) into two pieces, Yahoo! shareholders would get to have two bets to make and not one. The first company would be the faster growing overseas operation with valuable assets in Japan and China.

The second company would have a much lower growth rate. But, its cost cutting potential and the chance that it can do a better job of getting improved rates for its inventory might give the company a chance to improve a dismal performance. And, that could give the US shares some real upside.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: September 30, 2007 – 4:55 pm in Internet, , , ,

UBS Expects Mega-Loss For Q3

The Wall Street Journal is reporting the UBS will write off the value of a number of instruments held in its fixed income division. Some of these are securities tied to mortgages.

The Journal writes that UBS should have a "third-quarter loss of swiss francs 600 million to swiss francs 700 million based on a writedown of swiss francs 3 billion to swiss francs 4 billion for fixed income assets."

It will be interesting to see if any US banks are forced to make similar announcements over the next several days

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: September 30, 2007 – 3:42 pm in Banking,

Telecom Stocks Hit Highs Across The Globe

Telecom was supposed to be a business that time had passed by. VoIP, cable, and wireless internet technology like city-wide WiFi was going to bury the phone companies.

But, last week AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ), China Telecom (CHA), China Mobile (CHL), Vodafone (VOD), Deutsch Telekcom (DT), and France Telecom (FTE) all high 52-week highs.

It turns out that talking on a phone may still drive a lot of revenue. For several years, the assumption was that VoIP would take away tens of millions of subscribers. But, the revenue for Skype still appears to be modest and cable companies are taking customers, but telecom companies are replacing those with wireless subscribers. Cable can’t offer that. While landline customers may be falling, cellular business is moving up sharply.

It also appears that using phone lines for broadband may be a better business than Wall St. realized. DSL still has as many customers as cable broadband in many countries, and there is belief that fiber connections to the home will win more subscribers. That may explain why Comcast (CMCSA) is at a 52-week low.

The telecommunications business was supposed to be in trouble, but, that’s why they call a guess a forecast.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: September 30, 2007 – 12:42 pm in Telecom, , , , , , , ,

Online Retailers Hit 52-Week Highs As Same-Store Sales Collapse

Online retailer Amazon (AMZN) hit a 52-week high last week. So did Priceline (PCLN), Expedia (EXPE), and eBay (EBAY). Even Overstock (OSTK) made the list.

On the 52-week low side of the ledger, Wall St. found Sear Holdings (SHLD), Circuit City (CC), Staples (SPLS), and Borders (BGP). Same store sales for last month were disappointing for most retailers.

The rotation toward buying online seems to have come to pass. And, if bricks-and-mortar retailers want to know where their business went, they can blame it on a slow economy and high gas prices. Or, they can admit that a huge amount of their business is going online.

Part of the trend is driven by convenience, but another important aspect is that shoppers can get reviews and ratings of products online before they buy. According to a recent study by iCrossing, "About 49 percent of those surveyed said they look for customer product reviews and evaluations, up from 40 percent two years ago." It’s much harder to get a review in a store.

Forrester Research expects US online sales to hit $157 billion this year. The figures should rise to $272 billion by 2001, which would make it a little under 10% of total retail sales.

Although a number of large retailers like Wal-Mart (WMT) have large and well-trafficked sites, the movement online is going to continue to do significant damage to store traffic.

That means the companies like Home Depot (HD), Best Buy (BBY), and CostCo (COST) better start pushing the opportunity to buy at their websites harder and start looking at closing under-performing stores. And, that is likely the path which the most intelligent retailers will take over the next two or three years. Measuring store sales and attrition by location may well allow some of these companies to prune their number of locations. But, they have to get those customers to stay with them online.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

Posted on: September 30, 2007 – 12:27 pm in Retail, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Q3 Biggest Stock Winners: Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Nvidia (NVDA)

Big tech continued to do extraordinarily well in the third quarters. Stocks that would seem to have outrun their earnings continued to climb.

Among the members of the S&P 500, Apple (AAPL) rose 27% to $153.47, very near its multi-year high. The market still believes that Mac sales will be strong into the holiday season and that new versions of the iPod will continue to expand that franchise.

Amazon (AMZN) kept moving North. Its shares rose 37% and now are up 137% for the year. The company has launched its own music download service and the video Unbox product. But, it share price increase may have more to do with the market’s belief that AMZN will keep its marketing and technology costs down.

Nvidia (NVDA), the graphics chip maker, is benefiting from the surge in laptop sales Improved graphics performance is critical to most PC with the rising of computer based video games and increased online video consumption.

Among members of the Dow, tech stocks also did extraordinarily well. HP (HPQ) rose 13%. Its lead in PC sales helped its share price. IBM (IBM) rose 12% for the quarter. Its software services business continued to grow and cost cutting  activity at the firm appears to reap endless benefits.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: September 30, 2007 – 7:21 am in Regulation, , , , ,

GM’s (GM) Stock Off During Q3

If most investors were asked what happened to GM’s (GM) stock price during the third quarter, they would probably say it went up.

Wrong. The shares were actually off slightly. As UAW negotiations moved through the summer and US car sales were weak, Wall Street cut the value of the shares into late August and early September. A positive end to the talks was not enough to get it back to even.

And, then there was the question of how bad sales will be this fall.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: September 29, 2007 – 12:46 pm in Autos,

Biggest Losers In The Third Quarter Lead By Countrywide (CFC) And Circuit City (CC)

No one would be surprised to see mortgage lender Countrywide (CFC) of the list of biggest losers for the third quarter The company’s shares were down 48% to $19. The fall of Circuit City (CC) was more surprising. But, its shares dropped 48% to $7.91.

No one would have imagined that internet content delivery company Akamai (AKAM) would be on any list of falling stocks. But, in Q3 its shares were off 42% to $28.73 and are down from a 52-week high of almost $60. With the increase in video traffic on the web, Akamai would seem to have the perfect business, but pricing pressure from competitors seems to be eating it alive.

It never hurts to have a home builder on the list, given all of the bad news in that sector. Pulte Homes (PHM) dropped to $13.61.

The largest losers on in the Dow 30 were Home Depot (HD), down 17% and Wal-Mart (WMT), down 9%.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: September 29, 2007 – 8:16 am in Most Actives, , , , , ,

The Business Day In Global Warming (YGE, PCL, FSLR, SPWR, FTEK, NPWS, UEC, CEG, CVX)

Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited (NYSE: YGE) amended the joint venture contract with Baoding Tianwei Baobian Electric Co., Ltd. under which Yingli Green Energy will contribute additional capital of US$236.6 million to its principal operating subsidiary in China, Baoding Tianwei Yingli New Energy Resources Co., Ltd.

Plum Creek (NYSE:PCL) was noted positively on ethanol help on "Inside Wall Street" in Business Week.

First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) opened a new solar plant in Malaysia; First Solar was one of the WINDOW DRESSING stocks this week (see Friday notes on this) with more than 25% stock price gains.

SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR) is partnering with Macy’s to install solar power in stores in California.

Fuel Tech (NASDAQ:FTEK) was awarded air pollution control orders totaling $4.8 Million.  This is the "cleaning up coal plants" player.

CGM’s Ken Heeber talked up Oil Services On CNBC (SLB, BHI), although we haven’t gotten his read on alternatibve energy.  This sounded much like T. Boone Pickens bullish call recently that we’ve addressed.

Read More »

Posted on: September 28, 2007 – 4:18 pm in Alternative Energy, , , , , , , , ,

The 52-Week Low Club

Hartmarx  (HMX) Maker of casual and golf apparel cuts guidance. Shares fall to $4.90 from 52-week high $8.69.

Standard Pacific (SPF) Home builder. Drops to $5.45 from 52-week high of $30.52.

La-Z-Boy (LZB) Tough economy means people don’t have time to sit down. Down to $7.30 from 52-week high of $15.60.

Bigband (BBND) Broadband infrastructure provider misses all targets. Down to $5.89 from post-IPO high of $21.63.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: September 28, 2007 – 3:52 pm in HI/LOW, , , ,

Q3 Window Dressing Stocks (CSCO, GOOG, AAPL, RIMM, CROX, XOM, SLB, HAL, NOV, FSLR, BIDU, VMW, AMZN)

As quarters come to an end, with today being the quarter end, we usually like to review the top hi-flyers, usually in tech or energy of late, but we like to look for stocks that have performed the best during a quarter that fund managers and pension managers like to have on their books.  That is the famed Window Dressing trading. Below is a list of some of the top names that portfolio managers would want to show as being on their books at the end of a quarter (prices are last hour, not closing prices)

                                                June 29     September 30 (last hour)
Cisco Systems (CSCO)        $27.85        $33.02
Apple (AAPL)                           $122.04        $153.06
Research in Motion (RIMM)   $66.66        $98.07
Amazon.com (AMZN)              $68.41        $93.17
VMware (VMW)            n/a IPO $29…         $83.15
Baidu.com (BIDU)                 $167.98       $290.10
First Solar (FSLR)                   $89.29        $115.85
Crox (CROX)                            $43.00         $67.48
Google (GOOG)                     $522.70        $566.00
Exxon Mobil (XOM)                  $83.55          $92.24
Schlumberger (SLB)              $84.74          $105.00
Halliburton (HAL)                    $34.41          $38.45
Nat’l Oilwell Varco (NOV)      $104.24        $144.31

If you thought the market malaise of mortgages and brokerage blow-ups was a wreck, these guys sure didn’t know it.  What tends to happen is that many of the "index" type traders that play rebalances and play January effect tend to lighten up on the hi-flyers at the end of the quarter or immediately after it, although these have to all be looked at on a case by case basis and there are many will refute this theory.  I lean toward the refuting crowd on this as an ‘every single quarter’ basis, but when you look at the monster performance of these you can understand why some would try to sell the names.

Also, as a reminder many of the funds have OCTOBER Year-End, so this may make this quarter end a bit different.  The underlying trends are also quite favorable, although that is enough on the caveat front.   

Jon C. Ogg
September 28, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: September 28, 2007 – 2:54 pm in HI/LOW, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Industry Insider on YHOO Q2: Big Negative Surprise

From Silicon Alley Insider

Take this for what it’s worth, but a well-placed insider at a major online media company puts the Q3 advertising revenue growth of competitors AOL (TWX) and Yahoo (YHOO) as follows. 

AOL:        +14%
Yahoo:    Flat   

Ordinarily we would pay little attention to this sort of info, but having just heard from one of our regular AOL sources that AOL would be at about 15% for the quarter, we are taking the Yahoo observation more seriously.  continued here…

Posted on: September 28, 2007 – 1:39 pm in Uncategorized

Ford (F) Seen As Having Big September Sales Drop

Auto research firm Edmunds and other analysts say Ford’s (F) sales will drop as much as 18% in September. As one analyst quoted at MarketWatch said "New cars and trucks from other automakers, like GM’s line of big trucks and SUVs, are drawing buyers away from Ford."

GM (GM) and Toyota (TM) are expected to single digit sales drops due to a tough economy and high gas prices. Chrysler’s sales are expected to fall about 10%.

Ford’s problems are a by-product of the slow pace at which former CEO Bill Ford changed out the company’s product mix from pick-ups and SUVs to smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles.

Now, the chickens come home to roost.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: September 28, 2007 – 1:23 pm in Autos, , ,

Pfizer (PFE) Not Up On Viagra

A Canadian court ruled that Apotex could not market a generic version of Viagra, Pfizer’s (PFE) massively successful ED drug. Oddly, Pfizer’s shares were down 1.2% to $24.35.

The Big Pharma company has watched its stock slide almost 15% as generic drugs continue to lay siege to sales of some of its most important drugs.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: September 28, 2007 – 1:11 pm in Pharmaceuticals,

Why Is NetBank Still Open? (NTBK)

If you have followed the saga of NetBank (PinkSheets:NTBK), this has been a long slow death.  We’ve been reviewing this on and off for some time and never with anything positive, at least not in years.  This looked like a classic situation of a financial company masquerading as a dot.bomb turning into a flameout.

On July 26, 2007, back when we were just deemed as petty emerging bloggers, I wrote a piece about how this one was stinking up the room when shares were around $5.50.  I had actually been covering this one negatively at one of the predecessor operations prior to 24/7 Wall St. since 2003 or 2004 because of how the company was being run and how it looked like it had a tsunami headed straight at it.  They would have made a great asset and could have become part of a much larger company at one point, but that was way back when and is now ancient history.  The yield boost they were offering on CD’s compared to traditional banks was eating their financials inside out.

In late January 2007 I also looked at this on a review because Citigroup was acquiring Egg as an online counterpart in the U.K.  Unfortunately NetBank was ugly on a relative value basis then and the fundamentals weren’t getting better.  They were dying on the vine and divine intervention looked like its only hope.  Shares were around $3.80 then, and heading lower.

This one was hitting our 52-week lows screens all the time and we noted again in May how one analyst had even said the company was worth nothing.

The truth is very few traders stay short stocks once these get to such incredibly low stock prices, even after privately-held EverBank decided to cancel its vulture offer for the company’s assets.  Even though this one is dying on the vine the risks of shorting down at $0.08 or even higher are just too big.  If anyone really does surface with anything whatsoever this one could pop exponentially from current levels.  It won’t make that move on its own because this one would be on f’dcompany.com if it was still around. 

There is just really no value in the company.  The website NetBank.com is still up and you have to wonder who in their right mind would still be with them.  The home page shows pictures pictures of people smiling looking down at their PDA, but those are either short sellers or are competitors.

Now it seems the only bet will be if they can remain alive even on the dreaded pink sheets.  It is always possible that dead birds rise out of the ashes as a Phoenix, but the only time we’ve ever seen it is in drawing in mythology books.

Jon C. Ogg
September 28, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: September 28, 2007 – 11:59 am in Banking, Internet, Short Interest, ,

AMEX Lists Uranium Energy Corp (UEC, URME)

Uranium Energy Corp (AMEX: UEC) has begun trading on the American Stock Exchange.  This was previously trading OTC under the "URME" ticker.  The company is a US-based junior resource company with the objective of becoming a near-term ISR uranium producer in the United States.  The company claims to control one of the largest historical uranium exploration and development databases in the US and has acquired advanced uranium properties throughout the southwestern US.

it also calims operational management is comprised of uranium mining and exploration professionals with experience in the uranium mining industry gives the company ongoing uranium mine-finding and uranium mine development expertise.  Here is the management team data from the site.

Just yesterday it gave its fifth update this year of its progress at its Goliad Project in South Texas:  Since acquiring the Goliad project, the Company has drilled over 360 holes and completed extensive sampling, mapping and reporting by experienced independent and internal technical staff in generating a number of studies for permitting applications.  The Company plans to develop an in-situ uranium recovery facility, following the completion of further resource definition and engineering studies, that must meet the stringent review and analysis of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for air, water, and radiation emissions before permits and licenses are granted.  In-situ recovery is a mining process developed in South Texas over the past 30 years. The process is well understood and has been applied successfully at other South Texas mining projects.

Here is the full SEC site data that will give a much in depth example and backgrounder for the financials and operations.  We recently covered how the media was increasing coverage of nuclear energy and we focused much of the sector and gave some other links as well.
As Media Touts Nuclear Energy, Time To Review Nuclear & Uranium Stocks
Cameco: Playing Pinocchio or Pangloss
NYMEX Trading Uranium Futures
Uranium Stocks Went Bonkers on Rising Uranium Prices

Jon C. Ogg
September 28, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: September 28, 2007 – 11:12 am in Alternative Energy, Nuclear, , , ,

INVESCO PowerShares Launched Five New Foreign ETF’s (PDQ, PDN, PXH, PWD, PFP, IVZ)

There were five new ETF’s that hit the American Stock Exchange, which now counts 342 listed ETF’s at the exchange.

  • PowerShares FTSE RAFI Asia Pacific ex-Japan Small-Mid Portfolio (Amex: PDQ) aims to track the price and yield performance of the FTSE RAFI Developed Asia Pacific ex Japan Mid Small Index which is comprised of Asia Pacific small and medium capitalization companies with the largest fundamental value, selected from the constituents of the FTSE Developed Asia Pacific ex Japan All Cap Index.
  • PowerShares FTSE RAFI Developed Markets ex-U.S. Small-Mid Portfolio (Amex: PDN) aims to track the FTSE RAFI Developed ex US Mid Small 1500 Index which is comprised of small and medium capitalization companies with the largest fundamental value, selected from the constituents of FTSE Developed ex US All Cap Index.
  • PowerShares FTSE RAFI Emerging Markets Portfolio (Amex: PXH) aims to track the FTSE RAFI Emerging Index which is comprised of the emerging market companies with the largest fundamental value, selected from the constituents of the FTSE Emerging Large/Mid Cap Index.
  • PowerShares FTSE RAFI Europe Small-Mid Portfolio (Amex: PWD) aims to track the FTSE RAFI Developed Europe Mid Small Index which is comprised of the European small and medium capitalization companies with the largest fundamental value, selected from the constituents of the FTSE Developed Europe All Cap Index.
  • PowerShares International Listed Private Equity Portfolio (Amex: PFP) aims to track the International Listed Private Equity IndexSM which is composed of a diversified mix of listed private equity companies selected based on the following criteria: valuation metrics, financial data, historical performance, market capitalization and the need for diversification within the portfolio.

Some of the esoteric ETF’s tend to not see much trading volume, but these specific and focused ETF’s that track recognizable baskets serve great purposes.  The PowerShares are part of INVESCO PLC (NYSE:IVZ), which listed $492 Billion under management as of August 31, 2007.

Jon C. Ogg
September 28, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: September 28, 2007 – 10:46 am in ETF, , , , , , ,

Duff & Phelps Gets A Welcome Mat From Wall Street (DUF)

Duff & Phelps Corporation (NYSE:DUF) priced its initial public offering of 8,300,000 shares of common stock at $16.00 per share, and Wall Street is greeting it with open arms.  This is a leading independent financial advisory and investment banking firm underwritten by Goldman Sachs and UBS as the lead underwriters and co-managers were Lehman Brothers, William Blair, Keefe Bruyette & Woods, and Fox-Pitt Kelton.  By having such a large underwriting syndicate this relatively small IPO should have ensured that it will have ample analyst covereage.

Shares opened at $17.00 and are now up at $18.75.  Interestingly enough, this should help give some good wind to some other pending IPO’s:

Jon C. Ogg
September 28, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: September 28, 2007 – 9:58 am in Brokerage Firms, Financial Stocks, IPOs, , ,

3Com Bailout Confirmed (COMS, NT, CSCO, JNPR)

3Com did confirm the reports of a $2.2 Billion buyout from Bain and Huawei this morning at $5.30 per share.  Why $5.30?  It wasn’t based on the stellar valuation nor was the price on its great hope.  It gets it right above the 52-week high of $5.24 and makes most of the holders who bought shares in the last 3-years a profit if they still held.  Sure there are shareholders buried from prior years, but the "long and wrong" crowd won’t be able to stop this from happening.

We’ve felt so sorry for this company when you look at its history that it is almost going to be a joy not having to cover 3Com anymore.  Management couldn’t fix this on its own, so maybe the private equity and Chinese can.

This will be a more formidable competitor than it has been now that it is in more capable hands.  It won’t be able to completely unseat the giants, but there is a slight impact.  Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) is down 0.4% at $33.08 after briefly hittting new highs and Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR) is down marginally.  The industry dog Nortel Networks (NYSE:NT) is actually up almost 3% today, and you have to wonder if the Canadians hope a bailout is coming their way too.

Jon C. Ogg
September 28, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: September 28, 2007 – 9:30 am in Mergers and Buy Outs, , , , , , ,

CGM’s Ken Heeber Talks Oil Services (SLB, BHI, VIP, POT, OIH)

If you know market pundits, you know Ken Heebner of CGM Realty.  He made a fortune for investors on investing in real estate and he ditched that las year in favor of other plays. This morning he was on CNBC discussing his outlook, and he is one of the pundits to watch.

Two holdings he was discussing today that he is still holding are

  • Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, Inc. (POT) still holds it for strong potash sales;
  • Vimpel-com (VIP) as a cell carrier in Russia.

But he was still very positive on energy and oil services because of decline in major oil fields in the world are in decline and demand from emerging world will keep prices higher.  The good news for property owners is that he doesn’t believe in the theory that a US housing-led recession, even though economy may go sideways and flatten retail sales, will kill the global growth story because for the first time in recent history the U.S. isn’t the driving force.  Oil services is a major sector in Heebner’s portfolios now and he is still positive on Schlumberger (SLB) and Baker Hughes (BHI) today.  He didn’t mention the OIL SERVICES HOLDRs (AMEX:OIH), although that is trading up nearly 1% more today in early trading. 

Jon C. Ogg
September 28, 2007

Posted on: September 28, 2007 – 8:52 am in Oil & Gas, , , ,