For Active Traders, 2010 Can’t Come Soon Enough

According to a recent online survey of more than 270 retail investors conducted by online broker TradeKing, most investors are writing off hopes of a recovery this year and looking to 2010 for relief.

In the survey conducted during the last week in October 2009, 47 percent of investors described their market outlook as “neutral” or “not sure,” which are among the highest levels reported since the survey’s inception in July 2007. Accordingly, most of those surveyed maintain a skeptical view of the Obama administration’s handling of financial market matters, with more than 62 percent of respondents saying the administration’s policies either make them feel “less confident in the market” or had “no effect at all” on their market confidence, up two percentage points from last quarter.

“One thing is certain: uncertainty dominates right now,” said Don Montanaro, Chairman and CEO of TradeKing. “We see at TradeKing how investors’ bullishness comes in the form of very specific moment-in-time opportunities, but the overall sense is that the market could go either way on any given day until we see some solid trending data signaling long-term recovery.”

Unemployment Remains #1 Trade Trigger for Second Consecutive Quarter

U.S. Unemployment Claims held fast as the top trade trigger for both equities and options traders, with 41 percent of respondents pointing to this issue as their primary concern. U.S. Housing, Consumer Spending and Interest Rates all tied for second at 30 percent. These concerns knocked Quarterly Earnings from its #2 spot last quarter, falling sharply from 36 percent to 27 percent in this most recent survey.

Energy and Technology Sectors Have Moved Up Sharply As Top Long Opportunities for Equities and Options Traders

For the sixth straight quarter, Energy remained the favorite sector for both equities and options traders as having the greatest potential for success in a long position for the coming quarter, followed closely by Technology.

• 58 percent of total respondents selected Energy as their top long play in the coming quarter, up from 49 percent in July. It was followed by Technology at 47 percent, which rose from 34 percent just three months ago.

From a short position, Transportation and Travel took top spot for the second consecutive quarter, followed by Finance and Retail as the most promising short plays.

• Transportation and Travel was selected by 24 percent of the respondents for the top overall sector to short, up from 19 percent last quarter. Finance took second at 23 percent and Retail came in third at 21 percent.

Most Americans Are Still Upbeat and Optimistic – But Less So than in the Recent Past

A new Harris Poll finds that the great majority of the public is satisfied with their lives, and that most people believe that their personal situation will improve over the next five years. The numbers who feel this way are lower today than they were in the last few years, but most Americans are still upbeat and optimistic in spite of the economic tough times and the increase in unemployment. Furthermore, a majority of Echo Boomers (aged 18-30), and pluralities of Gen X (aged 31-42) and Baby Boomers feel their present situation today is better than it was five years ago. Only among Matures (aged 62+) is there a plurality who feels that their situation has become worse.

Some of the most interesting findings are:

• Fully 88% of all adults are satisfied with their lives, and 54% are very satisfied. However, these numbers are lower than in any of the four other Harris Polls that asked these questions since 2003.
• More people (40%) feel that their situation has improved over the last five years than feel it has got worse (27%). However, among Matures (aged 62+), more people feel their situation has become worse (30%) than better (20%). The 40% who feel their situation has improved is lower than it was in any of the four previous surveys. In 2005, a 56% majority felt this way.
• Notwithstanding the economic bad times, a 54% majority of adults believe their personal situation will improve over the next five years. However, this is lower than it was. In 2005, fully 65% believed their situation would improve.
• On this question about the future, there are very large differences between generations. The older people are, the less likely they are to be optimistic. Fully 82% of Echo Boomers (aged 18-30) and majorities of Gen X (64%) and Baby Boomers (54%) believe their situation will improve. Only 21% of Matures believe this.
• Republicans are more likely than Democrats to be very satisfied with their lives (63% vs. 49%) but are less likely to believe that their personal situation will improve in the next five years (52% vs. 63%).
• People with higher incomes are a little more satisfied with their lives, and are much more likely to feel their personal situation has improved in the last five years (52% among people with household incomes of $75,000 or more, compared to 32% of people with incomes of less than $35,000). However, they are not significantly more optimistic about the next five years than are people with incomes below $50,000 or below $35,000.

These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 1,019 adults surveyed by telephone between October 13 and 18, 2009 by Harris Interactive.

Will the $10 Billion Business Tax Refund in Unemployment Bill Help Save Retail Jobs

With the passage of the $10 billion business tax refund bill help retailers leading up to the holiday season? One entity thinks so. The National Retail Federation welcomed the passage of legislation that will bring recession-plagued retailers and other businesses more than $10 billion in badly needed cash by lengthening the period during which they can “carry back” current losses to claim a tax refund from previous years when they made a profit.

“This legislation will provide retailers with an important source of capital to finance their operations and keep employees on the payroll,” NRF Vice President and Tax Counsel Rachelle Bernstein said. “Because retail sales have fallen so dramatically over the past year and access to capital has been so limited, retailers are experiencing severe challenges in finding the cash they need to operate their businesses as the economy moves toward recovery.”

“Today’s vote comes at a crucial time because most retailers see between a quarter and half of their annual sales during the final quarter of the year as consumers buy gifts for the holidays,” Bernstein said. “If retailers can’t find a way finance inventories for the 2009 holiday season, many could be forced to close stores, lay off workers or even go out of business. This will help keep that from happening.”

The House voted 403-12 today to approve Senate amendments to H.R. 3548, the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2009, and sent the measure to President Obama for his signature. The bill extends unemployment insurance benefits but also includes a provision added in the Senate that will expand businesses’ ability to “carry back” net operating losses suffered during the current recession in order to claim a refund from taxes paid in previous years.

Existing law allows companies to carry back a loss for up to two years. Economic stimulus legislation enacted in February expanded the period to five years for companies with up to $15 million in annual gross receipts, but larger businesses were still restricted to two years. The provision included in the unemployment bill will expand the five-year period to include all businesses that suffer a loss regardless of size, and will give companies the choice of using the carryback for losses from either 2008 or 2009 rather than just 2008 as provided in the stimulus bill. In the fifth year, the carryback will be limited to 50 percent of a company’s taxable income for that year, but any loss not utilized can be “carried forward.” Small companies that took a five-year carryback under the stimulus bill will be able to carry back 2009 losses as well. The proposal is estimated to provide $10.4 billion in tax relief over 10 years.

The provision was added to the bill by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., but was based on legislation sponsored in the Senate by Baucus and fellow Finance Committee member Senator Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and in the House by Select Revenue Measures Subcommittee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., and Ranking Member Patrick Tiberi, R-Ohio.

“The sponsors of these bills have been telling their fellow members of Congress for months that this is about saving and creating jobs, and if it wasn’t enacted soon more jobs would be lost,” Bernstein said. “That message has been heard, and the work that has been done is going to help tens of thousands of retail workers keep their jobs at a time when jobs are hard to find.”

R&D Spending Increases Despite Recession Trends

In the face of a severe global recession, the world’s 1,000 largest publicly traded corporate research and development spenders actually increased spending on R&D in 2008, affirming the critical importance of innovation to their corporate strategies, according to global management consulting firm Booz & Company’s fifth annual analysis of global innovation spending, released today. R&D outlays for these companies rose by 5.7 percent to US$532 billion, even as sales were up only 6.5 percent. While the increase in 2008 R&D spend was less dramatic than 2007’s gain of 10 percent, it was just slightly less than the 7.1 percent global five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for R&D.

Overall, more than two thirds of companies maintained or increased their R&D spending in 2008, despite more than a third (34 percent) reporting that net income plummeted last year, according to the study. More than a quarter of companies decreased their R&D allocation in 2008.

The study looked at R&D spending and its link to corporate performance, uncovering insights into how organizations can get the greatest return on their innovation investment. New to the study this year is an in-depth survey of nearly 300 senior managers and R&D professionals from 250 companies around the globe that probes the impact of the downturn on innovation spending and strategy.

Key findings of the report include:

Innovation is viewed as increasingly vital to corporate strategy. More than 90 percent of those surveyed say that innovation is critical as their companies prepare for the upturn, and fully 70 percent of respondents state their companies are either maintaining or increasing their spending on R&D in 2009, according to Booz & Company. Furthermore, the top 100 companies in the Innovation 1000 clearly signaled their investment priorities by increasing R&D spending by 3.2 percent while reducing overall capital expenditures by one percent.

Companies are spending more, but more wisely. “One result of the recession is that it has forced companies to think more carefully about their innovation processes and portfolios – for both good times as well as bad,” observed Kevin Dehoff, a Booz & Company Partner. “This held true through the most turbulent quarters these companies have navigated, indicating they’re ready to make smart bets that will pay dividends in the coming upturn.” Accordingly, the survey of senior managers and R&D directors reveals that seven in 10 companies are now adjusting their strategies to better capture changing customer requirements. Nearly half of the respondents report becoming more risk averse in their approach to innovation, changing the filters they apply when green lighting new R&D projects. More than 40 percent said their companies are focusing on process improvements to change R&D spend during the downturn, and a similar number say they’re getting better at killing bad projects, as well as focusing more on newer products that have the potential to grow faster.

The top 20 innovation spenders increased their budgets by just 3.2 percent. This gain is less than one-third the 10.7 percent rise in 2007 and was the result of a precipitous 35 percent drop in net income among the 20 companies, which fell from $115 billion in 2007 to just $75 billion in 2008. Still, the top 20 spenders accounted for 26 percent of spending by the entire Innovation 1000.

Recession’s impacts on R&D vary widely by industry. In 2008, as last year, two-thirds of R&D spending was concentrated in three industries: computing and electronics (28 percent), health (23 percent), and automotive (16 percent).

• No industry felt the pain more than auto with nine out of the top 10 R&D spenders in the category cutting their innovation outlays in 2008. Overall, 60 percent of auto companies in the Global Innovation 1000 decreased R&D spending, compared with 25 percent who decreased R&D last year. Yet the remaining 40 percent of auto companies on the list increased spending enough that the auto sector on a net basis slightly increased R&D spending overall by 0.6 percent.
• The Software and Internet sector, on the other hand, clearly has seen the recession as an opportunity. Eight out of the industry’s top 10 R&D spenders increased their R&D spending last year.
• R&D spending in the computing and electronics industry was up more than 4 percent, though the proportion of companies that increased R&D spending was essentially unchanged from last year.
• Healthcare companies spent the most on R&D as a percentage of sales –- 12 percent –- followed by Software and Internet (11.4 percent). In contrast Telecom, and Chemicals and Energy, spent the least, 1.4 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively.
• Aerospace and Defense was the only industry to see innovation spending sink, down 2.3 percent.

Every global region increased its spending. North American, European, and Japan-based companies retained their 94 percent share of the global 1000 innovation spend. Every region, including China and India, increased its expenditures, though they did so at slower rates. Japan upped its allocations by just 0.5 percent, Europe by 6.3 percent and North America, 6.5 percent. These levels were below the global five-year CAGR of 7.2 percent.

Additional study findings include:

• The top 10 global R&D spenders in 2008 were, in descending order: Toyota, Nokia, Roche Holding, Microsoft, General Motors, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Ford, Novartis and sanofi-Aventis.
• R&D spending among the Global Innovation 1000 ranged from just under $9 billion spent by #1 Toyota to the $58 million spent by #1000 Laird PLC, a London-based maker of electronics equipment, a wide range that explains why the top 100 companies account for fully 62 percent of the total R&D spend of the Innovation 1000.
• Sales of the Global Innovation 1000 grew 6.5 percent to $15 trillion in 2008, a significantly smaller increase than the 10 percent increase this group registered in 2007, and R&D spending as a percentage of sales remained the same as the previous year, 3.6 percent.
• North American-headquartered companies on this year’s list spent 4.6 percent of sales on R&D, a slight decrease compared with 2007, while Japanese-headquartered companies spent 3.7 percent of sales, significantly up from last year, and European-headquartered companies spent 3.2 percent, a decrease from the prior year.
• Booz & Company estimates that the Global Innovation 1000 accounts for 81 percent of 2008 total global corporate R&D spending of $660 billion.

Consumer Confidence Continues to Rise

Consumer confidence in the overall economy improved, while confidence in technology and consumer electronics fell slightly in October, according to the latest figures from the Consumer Electronics Association and CNET.

The CEA-CNET Index of Consumer Expectations (ICE) climbed five points to 174.1 in October. The ICE, which measures consumer expectations about the broader economy, is up 10.4 points from this time last year, and has climbed in three of the last six months.

“Consumers were met with positive news regarding economic recovery this month,” said Anne Claudio, vice president of research at CBS Interactive. “The stock market rallied to levels not reached in years while optimism is being expressed by economic leaders that the end of the recession is near.”

The CEA-CNET Index of Consumer Technology Expectations (ICTE) declined four points this month. The ICTE, which measures expectations for buying CE and spending more on CE products and services, is up 3.1 points from this time last year.

“With the holiday shopping season right around the corner, consumers are still being cautious towards spending,” said Claudio. “Continued good news on the economy will drive spending in many categories, including technology, as consumers look to enjoy the holidays.”

Off to China…Again!

Reprinted from our sister blog at www.reversemergerblog.com:

I just arrived in China for my third visit this year. I remain a strong believer in the enormous opportunity for successful, growing Chinese companies to access capital and seek a path to liquidity with a trading stock in the US. Obviously I’m not the only one. Most reverse merger players have either been to China or set up shop there. Some go nearly every month. To show how things have changed, the second edition of my book, coming out in December (you can pre-order on Amazon now- hint hint), has a full chapter on China, whereas the first edition from 2006 only described it somewhat briefly as a relatively new but growing trend.

This trip I am making several speeches and visiting with clients and other contacts. It is definitely worth the grueling trip. I have met some talented, dedicated, goal-oriented entrepreneurs and dealmakers who are truly incredible and I enjoy working and cooperating with them. And the friendships developed are a very nice secondary benefit. It is an amazing and unique place.

I am also hearing some serious talk about other countries beginning to push deals to go public in the US, and I expect that in the coming months we will all see that begin to develop. The world gets smaller and smaller. See you when I’m back - I’ll try to write from there but have a crazy busy schedule! Later guys.

Small Businesses Getting Ready to Hire

The nation’s unemployment rate may have hit a 26-year high in September but many small businessowners are getting ready to hire.  The latest Intuit Payroll survey found that nearly half of the small business owners surveyed, 44 percent, are planning to hire new employees within the next 12 months. At the same time, many small business owners believe that benefits are key to attracting new hires but are finding them difficult to afford.

“Economists may have declared the recession over, but on Main Street, unemployment figures are what really matter,” said Nora Denzel, senior vice president of Intuit’s Employee Management Solutions Division, which helps more than 1 million small businesses easily and affordably manage their payroll. “There are struggles ahead, nobody is uncorking the champagne bottle quite yet, but we are starting to see small signs of optimism.”

These 12-month hiring plans coincide with a somewhat optimistic view of their own prospects for growth. Sixty percent expect their business to grow in the next year. Newer businesses are the most bullish: 80 percent of companies founded less than three years ago expect to grow over the next year, compared to roughly half that have been in operation for 10 years or more.

When it comes to hiring, small business owners are looking for candidates with a broader skill set. Fifty percent of the small business respondents said they were looking for a “people person” or “jack of all trades,” over a “creative genius” (11 percent) or “mathematical wizard” (4 percent).

Benefits Key to Attracting Talent

While small business owners get ready to hire, many of them are in a quandary when it comes to attracting talent. Nearly 90 percent of survey participants said that health insurance benefits are important to attracting and retaining good employees. Yet 58 percent don’t offer healthcare insurance, with nearly 50 percent stating that they can’t afford it.

Employer-provided retirement plans are even scarcer. Among the businesses surveyed just one-fourth offer retirement benefits. Of those who don’t, nearly two-thirds said they don’t have a responsibility to do so while the remainder said that they can’t find an affordable plan.

“There’s a widening gap of expectations,” said Denzel. “On one hand, we as a society assume that health and retirement benefits are part of every employee’s compensation package. And yet even as these small businesses gear up to hire, according to our results, small businesses are leery about what those benefits will cost.”

Additional Findings

The survey also found that:

• Friends and family matter. Seventy-nine percent of small business owners surveyed have hired a friend or family member and only 22 percent said that this was a bad decision. The reason may have to do with trust, which was cited as one of the two biggest hiring challenges, along with finding employees with the right experience.
• Long-term relationships are important. Forty-four percent of the small business owner respondents reported that their first employee still works for them.
• Stimulus funds not a factor. Consistent with the previous Intuit Payroll Survey conducted three months ago, only 1 percent of respondents reported receiving federal stimulus money. Yet 74 percent admit that they are probably not taking advantage of all the benefits available to their business under the federal economic stimulus plan.