Oil and Gas Companies DOMINATE Fortune's Fastest Growing Companies

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortunefastestgrowing/2008/full_list/


Sigma designs designs blu-ray chips. Intuitive Surgical.....from there TONS of energy companies, from drillers/developers to service companies, etc.

Texas obviously had the most listed in the top 100 due to the energy companies :)


Texas had 25, California had 18 and NY had 8. That is 51 total of the top 100 companies! Then, if you look at those state's populations it also helps to explain it :) NY is surprising to me given the high tax rate. CA obviously is Silicon Valley driven....

#1 company, Arena Resources, looks interesting re: analyst targets, fast growing, etc. Here is a chart. A weekly close above $46 would be considered bullish from a technical perspective. Highest analyst target is $80 and avg is $65 or so. It is about a $45 stock today.

Dan Ross
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com

Last week's markets......

So last week the stock market declined to new 52 week lows, only to soar again after the U.S. Government promised to bail out everyone with a "package/plan" estimated to cost U.S. taxpayers $700 million to $1 billion. The "cost" is tough to estimate as it will be determined years from now when profits/gains from the plan are determined. The downside of not doing something is that the U.S. stock market will probably drop in value somewhere in the TRILLIONS :) What remains to be seen is what impact this will have on the U.S. dollar, which has appreciated quite a bit over the last 2 months, recovering 1/2 of its declines vs. other currencies over the last 1.5 years.

So lets review the drama:

1) Fannie / Freddie get taken over by the U.S. government (after global monetary advisors were threatening to pull out billions of $$$ from the U.S. market. This effectively wiped out their shareholders and a U.S. Government advisor will now run the company.....

2) Merrill Lynch agreed to be bought by Bank of America for $44 to $50 billion. ML shareholders haven't approved the deal but they should agree to do the deal. This will put together the biggest retail broker company with the biggest bank distribution and the biggest mortgage company in the U.S. Oh yeah, and they are #2 or #3 in credit cards as well......The combined business will be ENORMOUS with some serious cross-selling capabilities. I have no doubt that the Merrill Lynch name will stay after the merger as it has SERIOUS brand equity. It will be Merrill Lynch, a Bank of America company.

3) WAMU - nobody loves them. Their deposits will keep them afloat for the immediate future but, if their losses in CA/FL continue to increase, they could end up going BK due having ZERO equity or via falling below federal government threshhold's for banks. Everyone watches eagerly to see if account holders begin to take deposits out of the bank and move them to other banks.

4) AIG apparently had assets but they weren't liquid assets and their business model needs liquidity/access to capital. When short-term funding market seized up it forced them to have some serious problems. The government apparently gave them a bridge loan, taking an 80% equity stake in the company. AIG, from what everyone seems to be saying, might be viable; it will just take a few months/up to a year for assets to be sold to pay down the bridge loan. When everything is said and done AIG will be a shell of what it is today but people might actually be able to figure out how the company really makes $$$ and how to assess the companies value by looking at debt vs. assets, which seemed to be why most analysts missed downgrading the company way before it ran into problems.

5) Goldman Sachs / Morgan Stanley - As of today I hear they are likely bank holding companies
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080921/bank_change.html

6) Finally, Jim Cramer on CNBC was telling folks to sell up to 20% of their assets based on the stock market's recovery on Thursday/Friday. He seems to think that these rallies should be sold into and that the market turbulence will continue for some time.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=861375679&play=1


Dan Ross
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com

Alt ED: 9-22-08 - Market down 375 and the U.S. dollar falling leads to soaring commodity prices. Oil spiked as much as $25 today alone. Can anyone say inflation? Here we go again....another shock to the system....

Chinese Milk Scare! Interesting link

http://seekingalpha.com/article/95885-synutra-goes-beyond-government-orders-in-infant-formula-recall

"A second child in China has died after being given tainted infant formula, and more than a thousand other children became sick from various forms of the product. China’s Ministry of Health has determined the problem lies in the chemical additive melamine. The chemical is never supposed to be used in infant formula, but its addition increases the reading levels of protein in milk, though not the actual amount of protein. The MOH theorizes that the chemical was added by collection centers, rather than individual farmers or formula companies.

The scandal reminds the worldwide public of safety problems caused by poor regulation in China-sourced food and drugs, even though China-produced formula is not exported. The milk powder that caused the problem came from the Sanlu Group, one of the largest producers of dairy producers in China. Sanlu recalled its milk powder last week. However, there have been complaints of problems for almost six months. The first child died on May 1 and the second on July 22. The long time lag has caused complaining in some quarters that the company has been dragging its feet before taking this drastic action. The action is certainly drastic: the MOH says that over 10,000 tons of milk powder have been recalled.

Melamine was also the culprit in the China dog food scandal that occurred last year. "

Dan Ross
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com/

Lithium Ion Batteries (ABAT) and Hybrid Automobiles...

Lithium Ion Batteries far out from deployment in cars

http://www.reuters.com/article/technolog... <--not with oil at $100! and http://seekingalpha.com/article/95552-en <--disagrees re: lithium ion and their mass deployment in cars anytime soon but has a biased opinion based on stock interests (my 2 cents). and LG Chemical states that Lithium Ion batteries will rule the hybrid world for the next 15-20 years http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080917/tc_n...

Hopefully everyone can form their own opinions. My 2 cents is that LI-ION WILL become the standard, they will make improvements in the technology and that A123 Power Systems (a filed IPO for later this fall) will likely lead to an increase in ABAT's stock price.

Dan Ross
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com

Vegas needs a new airport terminal ???

I've been hounding for awhile that Vegas traffic was really going to get hit during this economic downturn. Rooms are more expensive than ever, restaurants aren't cheap and it seems like it takes a miracle to find a blackjack table under $10 on the strip at times.

Anyway, from http://www.thestreet.com/

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10436739/1/airlines-hotels-clash-over-vegas-airport.html?puc=_htmlbooyah

"Las Vegas, a city built for visitors, is ground zero in the airline industry's effort to cut back on marginally profitable flights. But the city's powerful hoteliers are none too happy about the cutbacks. They still want the carriers to finance a new airport terminal, which is needed to support 32,000 additional hotel rooms slated to open by 2012. The timing is unfortunate. Traffic at McCarran International Airport fell 8.6% in July, compared with the same month a year earlier. In fact, traffic has fallen every month this year, except for February, which had the benefit of leap day in 2008. And the airlines aren't finished cutting. "

Oddly enough, I was talking last night with my mother re: her pending trip and she had indicated that Southwest Airlines was cutting one flight (out of two daily) that fly direct to Vegas from where she lives....

Dan Ross
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com

40/40 Club at Palazzo fails....tough times for economy & Jay-Z!

• September 8, 2008 Palazzo Wastes No Time Conversion of the 40/40 Club into a Palazzo race-and-sports book took place in what could be record time. The club, which closed last Monday, reopened on Thursday as Sportbook Bar & Grill, just in time for the kickoff of NFL season. The former nightclub has been augmented with five betting windows.

Dan Ross
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com/

Vegas going into the Toilet - Another disturbing datapoint

I just got back from Vegas earlier this week and I thought business was off a bit. The tables didn't seem as full, restaurants, pool areas, etc.

Then I find the below info. earlier today:

http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/whatsnews.cfm#3471

* September 11, 2008 Vegas Visitation Down in July Not since the start of the Iraq War, over five years ago, have visitation levels to Vegas fallen as low as they did in July, according to numbers released yesterday by the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority. Room rates were off 10% from July '07, while visitation was down 5%, as hotel occupancy, hovering around 88%. More conventions were held, but conventioneers curtailed their stays.

* September 10, 2008 NV Down -13% in July Comparison to a very robust July 2007 gives this year's July casino-revenue numbers a difficult act to follow, resulting in declines that are way above average for the year to date. Measured against last year, the state was -13% overall, with Strip slot revenues, table win and baccarat win -8%, 21% and -26%, respectively. Most Clark County jurisdictions experienced very adverse comparisons, with the Boulder Strip and North Las Vegas having the worst of it. By contrast, Reno was only off 1% and the unpredictable South Tahoe area noted an 11% increase. July's numbers mark seven straight months of decline for Nevada casinos. As far as trends go, table and baccarat drop swing back and forth, but slot handle on the Strip is further and further off last year's pace.

Dan Ross
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com

WAMU CEO out.....HUGE win for regional banks...

So I have been out on vacation the last few days and my phone has been getting lit up with txt messages from friends/buddies re: Fannie Mae/ Freddie Mac, WAMU, etc and they are curious re: my thoughts about it. To be honest, I was COMPLETELY out of the loop on this as I was enjoying my time off.

I read this commentary re: WAMU and its CEO getting axed yesterday and it really rang a bell with something that Jim Cramer talked about re: how the FDIC's new strategy is going to be a HUGE win for regional banks.

Here is something to chew on. From something I read.....not Cramer....

"Kerry Killinger was one of those lucky guys in the right place at the right time. He built WAMU by buying distressed thrifts out of the last S&L crisis. It was a lucky streak of acquisitions. Essentially he had acquired a bunch of rain buckets which collected the mortgage refi bounty resulting from the lowest bond yields in history. He never effectively integrated those acquisitions. When the drunken refi mortgage party ended, he couldn't pull himself away from the tap and charged headlong into subprime to keep the party going. It was a disaster in the making."

Now hear Cramer's take on the FDIC and their changing strategy re: banks.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10435631/1/cramers-mad-money-recap-fdic-to-the-rescue.html

While in Vegas the end of last week and early this week I noticed that Zion's bank (one of their subsidiaries) had taken over a large Henderson NV bank via the same method in the link above. So we now have TWO examples of regional banks buying deposits cheaply and getting bigger. We just have to hope that these folks HIRE or already have people that can integrate all these systems/banks together.

For the record, Cramer likes BB&T, a bank that he considers a conservative regional lender with a sound balance sheet that should be allowed to buy these guys on the cheap throughout FL and the SE.

Dan Ross
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com

BRIC growth slowing notably?

Brazil, Russia, India and China are called the BRIC countries. These are former "3rd world" economies that are experiencing rapid economic growth, have large populations and have generated some of the largest investor returns in the world for the last 5-10 years.

With occupancy rates in some Indian hotels approaching 60% (at 90% last year) the growth in the hospitality industry is quickly slowing down.

From Business Standard
http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=332964

"The total number of hotel rooms planned is being cut by 40 per cent and many developers are putting their portfolio on sale due to the decreasing business traffic, rise in interest rates and economic slowdown. Nearly 50,000 hotel rooms were planned in the country and that number may not be built by developers as business traffic has fallen 30 per cent in the last couple of months and lending rates for developers have increased significantly"

Dan Ross
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com/

7 in 10 Americans using More Coupons Today than 6 months ago.

By now, if you haven't had your head in the sand, you know that the economy has been weakening due to a "housing bubble" and a "credit crisis" that are VERY real.

Well, everything I have been hearing/seeing lately indicates to me that the credit crisis is continuing to get MORE traction, not less, and that the economy will be weak for sometime. Those economic stimulus checks we got....well, they have been spent and things aren't improving much. Up until now the bulk of the slowdown has been related to the building/housing declining. With property values declining and foreclosures rising consumers have been pulling back their spending as well.

The secondary effect of the housing bubble was that international lenders and even domestic banks have really pulled back the amount of $$$ they are loaning to American consumers and the financing terms they are giving them. Higher interest rates, removal of existing credit limits, etc. are really pinching Americans more than I think everyone wants to admit.

Having said that, the below article from http://www.prospective.com/ really highlights how the average consumer is getting pinched.

http://www.prospectiv.com/news171.jsp

"While newspapers and magazines were the primary source of coupons for 51% of consumers, 39% said they wanted to receive their future coupons via direct mail, while 26% said e-mail, either direct or through newsletters, would work. Another 16% preferred Web sites. Newspapers trailed with 14% favoring the once prevalent way to obtain coupons."

"And the good news for newspapers: 47% found print and online coupons equally convenient, while just 9% reported online coupons were most convenient. "

Dan Ross
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com

American Car Companies Look to Uncle Sam for $50 billion in loans

1) They don't build quality cars - I think they are building better ones now but that is the perception...like it or not

A new recall of 850k cars. So much for that I guess.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUSN2942792520080829

2) They haven't gotten the FOGGIEST CLUE how to brand a company. What does a GM or Ford Car stand for? Do you have any idea? Honda makes great engines, Toyota builds a great overall quality car that will last a long time, Nissan has power bang for the buck & some sexiness. Each of these companies also own a luxury brand like Acura, Lexus or Infiniti so their main brand only has so many luxury touches....

Anyway, here are some interesting articles.

Delphi's bankruptcy is going to cause big, big pension problems by the end of September. Expect GM to be in on that news.....

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSBNG11638920080829?feedType=nl&feedName=usbeforethebell&pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

Then They are asking for tons more $$$ because they can only sell gas guzzling cars and failed to innovate or brand a car company.

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7bD3A3D245-E2A2-4151-B5AD-D29C39880EEB%7d&siteid=yhoof2

I understand how important this industry is to the U.S. infrastructure, ability to have an industrial presence (in case of war)......but what I see are politicians/free enterprise/trade allowing cheaper cars into this country in DROVES. We shouldn't enable the destruction of an industry with one hand and then try and save them (without any hope) with the other hand. Just seems rational to me. The bottom line is that there are more health care costs in a GM car than STEEL costs! U.S. auto manufacturers, if they produce here, are at a competitive disdadvantage without some forms of tariffs. And then this starts the whole free enterprise/trade dilemna.....YIKES!

Dan Ross
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com

The economy keeps on growing...

From http://www.tippingpointstocks.com/

"a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. When the first quarter results showed a gain, not negative growth, the refrain from the bears was that the economy's current problems, credit liquidity and housing, were too recent to be reflected in Q1 numbers. "We're in a recession, all right, but the government numbers will take time to catch up," they said.
So when preliminary Q2 numbers came out at a POSITIVE 1.9%, the bears were somewhat befuddled. And they really didn't like it when the forecasted numbers for yesterday's GDP was raised from 1.9% to an expected annualized growth rate of 2.7%. You can only imagine the bears' dismay, then, when the Commerce Department raised the Q2 estimate even further than expected — to 3.3%. And the stock market erupted on the news, with the Dow Industrials gaining 1.6% yesterday."

Interesting alright...VERY interesting.....

" The economy, despite all odds, continues to grow, at an expanding rate.And the stock market has reflected almost none of this, as it remains distracted by housing and credit market concerns. Those concerns remain a market issue, not because of the depth of those problems, but because of investor concern that we haven't heard the complete story yet. The market can handle just about anything except uncertainty. Once the magnitude of the housing problem and the credit problem are on the table, you can expect the market to rally."

I for one am of the opinion that the economy is growing (but slowing) and it is whipsawing around like no tomorrow. The U.S. gov't is attempting to inject liquidity into the markets like NO tomorrow while constantly walking the tightrope with preserving the U.S. dollar by keeping interest rates flat (not cutting them.) I think the next president will be the one inheriting a recession and the biggest budget deficit in the history of the U.S.

Dan Ross
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com

Most Affluent City in America ....Plano ???

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2008-08-26-income-side_N.htm?se=yahoorefer

Thought everyone might find this article interesting. I don't find it surprising that it would be in the top 20, even the top 10 in America but the MOST affluent city? Come on now!

What I don't understand is how the number increased by 10% for an ENTIRE CITY in one year. That number just smells wrong.

For the record, I work in Plano but live to the north in poor Frisco I guess :)

Dan
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com

Vegas going into the Toilet - Another disturbing datapoint

I've been stating for awhile (Feb & April posts) that I expected Vegas to really get hit by this consumer slowdown. It seemed to me, the last two times I have gone, that it was increasingly more and more expensive to go there and nothing was free anymore. Hotels weren't cheap, cheap dining options were dwindling, freebies (comps) were down, etc. Don't get me wrong, I think there are tons of cool new options but, as their costs are higher than historic levels, they pass it along so they can make $$$.

Here is some supporting data

http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/

Nevada gaming is seemingly in a freefall, earning 15.2 percent less in May 2008 than in May 2007. Put another way, it's the worst May in 10 years. The decline is across the board, with the Strip at 16.4 percent less, downtown at 17.3 percent less, Mesquite at 3.2 percent less, North Las Vegas at 29.4 percent less, and Boulder Strip at a whopping 30.2 percent less.

Gambling on tables and slots were shown to be down approximately the same amount, at 15.7 and 15.1 percent, respectively.

In table games, blackjack was down 26.2 percent, craps was down 7.3 percent, roulette was down 27.7 percent, and baccarat was down 0.6 percent.

The downturn also equates to less tax money going to the state, almost $19 million less. Either taxes go up or spending gets cut...

Dan Ross
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com

China to have Largest Economy in the World by 2035

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080709/ts_afp/useconomysurveychina

Full Report @
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=20279&prog=zch
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/pb61_keidel_final.pdf

Dan Ross
http://www.BetterBizIdeas.com

BLSW (Bridgeline Software) does another small acquisition

Not sure but I think it might be their fourth of the year. Steady as the company goes.....At some point my opinion is they need to merge or buy a bigger company. Too many $$$ go out each year vs. generated for the shareholders. They need to be bigger quickly to generate any meaningful shareholder returns.
http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/080701/145620.html

http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?c=blsw

A view of their fundamentals and growth
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=BLSW

Their growth plan/investor presentation
http://www.bridge-line.com/downloads/Bridgeline%20Software%20Introduction.pdf

Dan Ross
http://BetterBizIdeas.com