PowerOptions WeBlog

Two bits of news caught the PowerOptions‘ blogs attention today: Microsoft (MSFT) releases Halo 3 with over $170 million first day sales and Wal-Mart (WMT) is expanding its $4 generic drug program.

Chevron (CVX) announced today a $15 billion stock buy-back in an attempt to return some of its profits to shareholders. This news coupled with projections of oil prices reaching $90 or even $100 per barrel has us thinking there may still be price gains in big oil stocks.

For those thinking the housing slump will continue to drag down retailers like Home Depot and Lowes, this blog is for you. Lowe’s reported today sales are trending lower than forecast and the company is likely to have numbers at the low end of its announced spectrum.

The dollar reached a record low against the 13 nation Euro in trading Monday. Greenspan, while out promoting his new book, and economic experts have expressed worry over both recession and/or runaway inflation. Also, if you haven’t seen Jim Cramer’s Fed-Rate meltdown from earlier this month on youtube, it is an entertaining (if not somewhat [...]

September was a good month for bear positions on the housing sector (this is where we potentially returned 61.3%) and for Biotech and automakers. Daimler Chrysler and GM have seen over 10% in stock price gains over the past month.

The rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee announced it would be lowering rates from 5.25% to 4.75%. This is the first rate cut the committee has made since June of 2003. The Federal Reserve Committee also cut the discount rate it charges banks for short term loans by one-half a percentage point.

T-Mobile (DT), a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, has landed the iPhone contract for the German Market. The German based company seemed a natural fit to provide service for the phone. Germany provides a potentially robust market for Apple as the country currently leads the world in exports and is Europe’s largest economy.

Title companies are engaged in the ethereal business of real estate contracting. A basic description of their function is they insure a homeowner is the rightful owner of a property. This seems like a relatively unnecessary administrative function, but without these companies real estate ownership and transactions would likely be more chaotic and risky.

If you ask someone who has visited Europe recently, they will tell you it isn’t nearly as cheap as it used to be. The weak US dollar may put a strain on our foreign travel budgets, but it has meant domestically produced goods and services are looking less and less expensive to the global market.

Liongate’s 3:10 to Yuma, starring a gun slinging Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, will open in theaters this Friday to critical acclaim. But, ‘in the world’ where movie stars, the movie’s Oscar chances and money rarely share the same point of view, the politics of releasing and promoting films can get contentious.