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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (150308)	9/25/2008 2:22:58 PM
From: XoFruitCake	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

"I question the soundness of businesses that can't function without bank credit. Again, I'm not talking about companies in which money is their business. I'm considering retailers, manufacturers, transport, pharmaceutical, tech, service. If your cash flow alone isn't paying the bills on such a continual basis that you're regularly depending on loans to survive, then you're already on fragile ground." I thought there are a lot of industries that are seasonal in natural (e.g. Christmas selling.. vacation spots etc.) and other industries that has a gap between manufacturing cost vs collection of the payments... And even for retailer, they need to finance their inventory and may need to extend credit to their consumers. In a normal credit environment, they are o.k. but now they will be shutting down... I don't see that how this can be a good public policy (to let credit market die and let every business fend for themselves)... Even big retailer like Walmart, Target etc.. use short term facilities to finance their inventory.. I don't know many companies that can operate without access to commercial paper or short term loan facility..

To: Smiling Bob who wrote (150308)	11/6/2008 3:46:23 PM
From: Smiling Bob	Respond to of 306849

A rare moment on NBR, though she's kind of late, as they usually are. Checked her other calls, which were long, and she basically picked the tops --- "Street Critique"-Hilary Kramer, Chief Market Strategist at Greentech Research Wednesday, November 05, 2008 JEFF YASTINE: Tonight's "Street Critique" guest says while stocks have been beaten up and may look tempting, there are some issues that just aren't worth it. She's Hilary Kramer, author of "Ahead of the Curve" and chief market strategist at Greentech Research. Hilary, welcome back to NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT. HILARY KRAMER, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, GREENTECH RESEARCH: Thank you, Jeff. YASTINE: First, let's talk about this market today. What happened? It got -- the markets got completely pounded. KRAMER: Well, institutions, foundations are net sellers. There are a numbers of states, counties that have to raise money and no one wanted to sell before the election. So today was the day that everyone sold, this dead cat bounce and also the day where money needed to be raised. YASTINE: Normally, when we have you on the show, we talk about what stocks and what sectors to buy. In this case we're talking about sectors and stocks to avoid. What do you have for us? KRAMER: Well, the first area sector that you want to be careful of would be casual dining because the consumer has less money, 40 percent less money in their 401(k) and unemployment rising. So what's happened is that Burger King and McDonald's have replaced many of the casual dining restaurants and eating at home. So I'd be careful of companies like Ruby Tuesday or a company like Dine Equity, DIN, which has taken on a lot of debt in order to grow and acquire companies like Applebee's. YASTINE: What's another sector for us to avoid? KRAMER: High-end retail. A number of very large investors have been really hiding in this space. This isn't just Tiffany's. Be careful of companies like Talbots. Companies like Talbots, the problem is that again the consumer has switched over and is buying at Target and at Kohl's and also there's just less money out there. The big one that I believe in avoiding is Lululemon, LULU. That's organic clothing with very high-priced expensive real estate store front and a lot of growth that analysts have built in that just can't sustain. YASTINE: And Hilary, give us a third sector then. KRAMER: OK, now this is very interesting. This is for-profit education. The for-profit education arena seems like a place that would do well when there's growing unemployment, you know, jobs are scarce and those that want to make a transition, want to go back to school and have a degree or a technical degree. The problem is that we could have another sub-prime crisis in for-profit education, just like we did with mortgage lenders because they're taking a lot of debt onto their own balance sheets, these companies, because companies like Sallie Mae aren't available anymore to give them loans so we may see some real trouble brewing. It could take a full year or two. And hopefully, any kind of predatory lending practices will also be handled during the process that these become in focus. YASTINE: Hilary, do you own any of the stocks that you've mentioned? You know, for disclosure purposes? KRAMER: Yes. I'm short DIN, Talbots (TLB) and also short lululemon, LULU. YASTINE: Hilary, thanks for your time on the program. KRAMER: Thank you, Jeff. YASTINE: Our guest Hilary Kramer, author of "Ahead of the Curve