Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Tues 02.26.2008
Gold, gold - you're making me old "Gold, gold -- you're making me old." That was my old refrain as we lived through correction after correction in the early stages of a gold bull market that never seemed clear or easy. But that has changed. Over recent years it's become obvious that gold is in a powerful bull market. And all our earlier worries and anxieties now appear to have been worth it, as the power of the great bull market becomes evident and indisputable. The chart below traces the more recent path of gold as it advances, consolidates, corrects, and then advances again. The most recent move is a breakout on the P&F chart to the 955 box.
Drop dollar peg, ex-Fed chair tells Arabs Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said on Monday near-record Gulf Arab inflation would fall "significantly" if oil producers dropped their dollar pegs, in contradiction to Saudi policy. The pegs restrict the Gulf's ability to fight inflation by forcing them to shadow U.S. monetary policy at a time when the Fed is cutting rates to ward off recession and gulf economies are surging on a near fivefold jump in oil prices since 2002. Rifts are growing across the world's top oil-exporting region on how to tackle inflation which hit a 27-year peak of seven per cent in Saudi Arabia in January and a 19-year peak of 9.3 per cent in the United Arab Emirates in 2006, the most recent figure.
Energy, food push January's PPI 1% higher Producer prices soared in January, pushed higher by energy prices and the biggest increase in food prices in more than three years, government data showed Tuesday. The producer price index climbed by 1% last month, the Labor Department reported. The closely followed PPI, which measures the rate of inflation at the wholesale level, had fallen 0.3% in December after having registered a jump of 2.6% in November. January's core PPI, which excludes food and energy prices, rose 0.4%, driven by higher drug and car prices. Year over year, the PPI is up 7.4% -- the fastest pace since 1981. Also on an annualized basis, the core PPI is up 2.3%.
Home prices fall 8.9% in 2007 Home values in the United States fell 8.9% in 2007, the largest decline in at least 20 years, Standard & Poor's reported Tuesday. The Case-Shiller national home price index fell 5.4% in the fourth quarter alone, S&P said. Prices in 17 of 20 major cities were lower at the end of 2007 than at the beginning, with eight cities falling in double-digits. Prices fell in all 20 cities in December compared with November. The biggest declines were seen in the former bubble areas in Florida and the Southwest. Home prices in Miami were down 17.5% in the past year, while prices fell 15.3% in Phoenix and Las Vegas. The 20-city index fell 2.1% in December and 9.1% for the year. The 10-city index fell 2.3% in December and 9.8% for the year. Phoenix had the largest decline in December, falling 3.5%, followed by San Diego at 3.4% and San Francisco at 3.2%
Foreclosures up 57 percent in the past year The number of homes facing foreclosure jumped 57 percent in January compared to a year ago, with lenders increasingly forced to take possession of homes they couldn’t unload at auctions, a mortgage research firm said Monday. Nationwide, some 233,001 homes received at least one notice from lenders last month related to overdue payments, compared with 148,425 a year earlier, according to Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc. Nearly half of the total involved first-time default notices. The worsening situation came despite ongoing efforts by lenders to help borrowers manage their payments by modifying loan terms, working out long-term repayment plans and other actions "You have more people going into default and a higher percentage of the properties going back to the banks," said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s vice president of marketing.
Home Depot off 27%; industry outlook 'challenging' Home Depot Inc. said Tuesday that fourth-quarter profit fell a sharper-than-expected 27% after the declining housing market hurt demand for its building and home goods supplies and the outlook for 2008 remains "challenging." Shares of Home Depot, the largest U.S. home-improvement retailer, fell 1.5% in pre-market trading. Net income in the quarter ended Feb. 3 fell to $671 million, or 40 cents a share, from $925 million, or 46 cents, a year earlier, Home Depot, part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, said. Shares outstanding fell 16% to 1.68 billion. Sales increased 1.5% to $17.66 billion, helped by an extra week compared with the year-earlier quarter. Excluding that, sales would have declined 4.7%, the Atlanta-based company said Tuesday.
Health care spending to top $4 trillion by 2017 By 2017, consumers and taxpayers will spend more than $4 trillion on health care, accounting for one of every $5 spent, the federal government projects. The 6.7 percent annual increase in spending — nearly three times the rate of inflation— will be largely driven by higher prices and an increased demand for care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Monday. But other factors in the mix include a growing and aging population. The first wave of baby boomers become eligible for Medicare beginning in 2011. With the aging population, the federal government will be picking up the tab for a growing share of the nation’s medical expenses. Overall, federal and state governments accounted for about 46 percent of health expenditures in 2006. That percentage will increase to 49 percent over the next decade.
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