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Strategies & Market Trends : Can you beat 50% per month? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (13100)	2/25/2008 10:47:50 AM
From: Smiling Bob	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 19256

If I reverse my thinking I'll have this mkt figured out Meanwhile GES - 41.86 bid gets a strong short I'm in already. Stock way out of line

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (13100)	2/26/2008 10:57:26 AM
From: Smiling Bob	Respond to of 19256

HD- 28.97 wasn't able to get in on puts. Still may. They underwent massive expansion the past 5-6 years, most of which will now bear rotten apples Store closings, sales, and writeoffs inevitable --- Housing Crumbles Home Depot Carl Gutierrez, 02.26.08, 9:45 AM ET Home Depot shocked no one when it posted a drop in fourth-quarter earnings, but the home improvement chain expects results to continue lagging for the rest of the year. For the quarter, the company reported a 27.5% drop in earnings, to $671 million, or 40 cents per share, from $925 million, or 46 cents per share, in the corresponding quarter of 2006. Even figuring in the damage caused by the bursting of the housing bubble, the company's earnings still came in short of Wall Street's expected 43 cents per share. The earnings drop came on the back of a 1.7% increase in sales, to $17.7 billion, from the $17.4 billion reported last year. The results were all the more discouraging as they came with an extra sales week included. Excluding that week, fourth-quarter sales actually declined 4.7%. Unfortunately Home Depot doesn't expect things to get better this year. The company said it expects to see a total sales decline in 2008 between 4% and 5%. It is also projecting a drop in continuing operations earnings of between 19% and 24%. Home Depot plans to open only 55 new stores this year. That's about half as many as it opened last year. Shares of the Atlanta-based company were down 1.3%, or 37 cents, to $28.45, in premarket trading. Home Depot, the largest U.S. home improvement chain, gave its report a day after Lowe's, the second-largest, offered its own. On Monday, Lowe's reported its earnings dropped by a third, but, unlike Home Depot, Lowe's predicted its sales would rise slightly in 2008. Home Depot's report also came as RealtyTrac reported that U.S. home foreclosures for January increased 57% from a year earlier. RealtyTrac noted that the pace had at least temporarily subsided in response to private sector and government efforts to help homeowners. "January's foreclosure numbers demonstrate that foreclosure activity is continuing on its upward trend, substantially increasing from a year ago in many states," said James Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. --The Associated Press contributed to this article

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (13100)	2/26/2008 11:25:55 AM
From: Smiling Bob	Respond to of 19256

Market has to tank like never before This is well out of Fed's hands Ban can't possibly baffle congress with BS. His testimony will sink mkt worse than last time --- Job Worries Sink Consumer Confidence- AP Consumer confidence plunged in February as Americans worried about less-favorable business conditions and job prospects, a business-backed research group said Tuesday. * Wall Street Wobbles on Inflation News- AP * Home Prices Drop 8.9 Percent in 3 Months- AP * IBM to Buy Back $15 Billion of Stock- AP * Wholesale Prices Jump in January- AP * Sales Slowdown Drags on Target 4Q Profit- AP * US Home Foreclosures Soar in January- AP * Google Shocker: Paid Click Hits Wall- Tech Ticker The Best of Today's Business * Home Depot Hammered, Siemens Wields Ax- Harold Maass of The Week