Beijing Mystery: What’s Happening To the Billboards?, by Jason Leow

“The campaign appears to have started with a crackdown on the advertising of luxury [goods] … the advertising ban has been extended across much of this vast city as part of what city officials are calling a massive ‘urban reorganization exercise’ … Companies have until the end of this month to tear down whatever [billboards are] left or face fines. Outdoor ads are now officially allowed only outside the Fifth Ring Road encircling the city, several miles from the city center”

“The billboard industry’s losses may become a boon to others. Focus Media Holding Ltd., which has about 100,000 video screens in and around corporate towers and upscale apartment blocks, saw first-quarter revenue grow 75% over last year. ‘The cleanup of outdoor billboards’ must have contributed to the growth, a spokesman said.”

I noticed this but didn’t know what was going on. I’m still waiting patiently and hopefully for the masses to rise up and smash every Focus Media screen in the city. The harmony of both my office building and apartment building is disturbed by those wretched things (the locals don’t seem to mind them though).

Saving my readers from the pagination hell of Forbes’s website, here’s the list in friendly form. Forbes has one of the worst websites out there: cluttered, crammed with tiny-print links and ad-packed, it’s just plain awful.

America’s 25 Best-Paying Jobs (Title | Mean Annual Wage):

1. Anesthesiologists | $184,340
2. Surgeons | $184,150
3. Obstetricians And Gynecologists | $178,040
4. Orthodontists | $176,900
5. Oral And Maxillofacial Surgeons | $164,760
6. Internists, General | $160,860
7. Prosthodontists | $158,940
8. Psychiatrists | $149,990
9. Family And General Practitioners | $149,850
10. Chief Executives | $144,600
11. Physicians And Surgeons, All Other | $142,220
12. Pediatricians, General | $141,440
13. Dentists, General | $140,950
14. Airline Pilots, Copilots And Flight Engineers | $140,380
15. Podiatrists | $118,500
16. Lawyers | $113,660
17. Air Traffic Controllers | $110,270
18. Engineering Managers | $110,030
19. Dentists, All Other Specialists | $108,340
20. Natural Sciences Managers | $107,970
21. Marketing Managers | $107,610
22. Computer And Information Systems Managers | $107,250
23. Sales Managers | $102,730
24. Petroleum Engineers | $101,620
25. Financial Managers | $101,450

Decent, positive morning but then selling hit at 2 PM exactly (ding, ding!) and things got ugly… one look at the new lows versus new highs will tell you how bad the breadth was.

Notable New Lows: Sepracor (SEPR), Genentech (DNA); Homebuilders Hovnanian (HOV), Pulte (PHM), and Meritage (MTH); value traps McClatchy (MNI) and Journal Register (JRC); and plenty of REITs and Regional Banks.

Notable New Highs: Hoku (HOKU), Google (GOOG), Garmin (GRMN), and First Solar (FSLR).

I’ll feature an intraday chart of newly issued Blackstone Group (BX) as the stock du jour. Be nice if this IPO marked a top in the private equity “bubble,” but it probably doesn’t.

Back in the Summer of ‘05 during a lull in one of my chats, I posted a photo of Sam, the world’s ugliest dog. Here’s this year’s winner, Elwood. Maybe I should create a Gratuitous Ugly Dog Pic category.

From this week’s interview with Arnie Schneider in Barron’s:

“It is just inconsistent to me that home builders are trading at new lows and retailing stocks are trading at new highs. That isn’t the way the economy works. They’re more closely linked than that. I think the reason [for this disconnect] is that 94% of homeowners have over 10% equity in their homes. They have unrealized losses versus a year ago, but they still have realized gains in their homes and they are not forced sellers. As long as they have a job, consumers are going to continue to spend and be confident, and that is why we are most likely to avoid a recession. But the foundation is weaker.

If you look at the financial-obligations ratio, it is at an all-time high. Mortgage-equity withdrawal is half its peak level, but it is still way above normal and there are lags there. The headwinds on the consumer have started and they are gathering, but it takes a shock to tumble the economy into a recession.”

Here’s a picture of the RTH - XHB disconnect, but I don’t know if it’s that big a deal.

Selling from the get-go, a nice directional day where traders had a fine tailwind to help them out.

Notable New Lows: A ton of regional banks and other financials: throw a dart; Homebuilders Meritage (MTH), Hovnanian (HOV), and Pulte (PHM); and long-suffering Starbucks (SBUX).

Notable New Highs: Sunpower (SPWR), First Solar (FSLR), and a ton of Oil Services stocks led by Schlumberger (SLB).

Here’s a quarterly chart of Starbucks for a long-term perspective … has the world run out of fools who pay $3 for a $0.30 cup of coffee? (I think not.)

A little hesitation at the start of the day but buying kicked in after 10 AM and continued all day… a very decent day of strength.

Notable New Lows: Starbucks (SBUX), Homebuilders Pulte (PHM) and Hovnanian (HOV), Heelys (HLYS), and UTStarcom (UTSI).

Notable New Highs: Anything China-related, BHP Billiton (BHP), Liberty Global (LBTYA), Semiconductor HOLDR (SMH), Ciena (CIEN), Transocean (RIG), Tyson (TSN), and Nvidia (NVDA).

HOKU was the stock du jour, slightly conspicuous doing 38 times normal volume. Everything came together for Dummies: good market tone (longs get a tailwind), an unusually active and volatile stock trending strongly making 20 bar highs, followed by a lovely little narrow range bar that formed a swing low for stop placement. Catching this one trade would make your week (and maybe even your month).

The 15 Ideas Portfolio has been backsliding this past month … a lot of the deep value stocks I picked are Financials / Regional Banks, which have been suffering of late.

Related:
15 Ideas Portfolio screenshot, May 22, 2007
15 Ideas Portfolio screenshot, April 21, 2007
15 Ideas Portfolio screenshot, March 22, 2007

Any parent of small kids who isn’t living on the moon has heard about the Thomas the Tank Engine toy recall. I ordered battery-powered James and had it shipped (at great expense) from the US just before the recall was announced. The Fat Controller (me) was very cross!

Toddler T likes his Thomas trains (they’re nice and solid), and I like the fact that the wooden toys also fit on his plastic Tomy train tracks. Lead paint though, bummer.

Related: RC2’s Train Wreck