John At The Center

Foreign hostility to China’s export dominance is growing. Paul Krugman, the winner of the 2008 Nobel economics prize, wrote recently in the New York Times that by holding down its currency to support exports, China “drains much-needed demand away from a depressed world economy”. He argued that countries that are victims of Chinese mercantilism may be right to take protectionist action.

via China’s export prospects: Fear of the dragon | The Economist.

Between 2010 and 2014, about $1.4 trillion in commercial real estate loans will reach the

end of their terms. Nearly half are at present ―underwater‖ – that is, the borrower owes more than the underlying property is currently worth. Commercial property values have fallen more than 40 percent since the beginning of 2007. Increased vacancy rates, which now range from eight percent for multifamily housing to 18 percent for office buildings, and falling rents, which have declined 40 percent for office space and 33 percent for retail space, have exerted a powerful downward pressure on the value of commercial properties

via Congressional Oversight Panel: Serious Pain in Commercial Real Estate Just Starting « naked capitalism.

Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. computer programmer Sergey Aleynikov was indicted on federal charges that he stole trading software from the bank.

via Ex-Goldman Programmer Indicted Over Software Theft (Update2) – BusinessWeek.

Topping the list is John G. Stumpf, head of Wells Fargo, the bank based in San Francisco, according to an analysis of 2009 compensation in the industry. Mr. Stumpf was paid a personal best of $18.7 million in cash and stock for 2009 — up 64 percent from 2007, just before the financial crisis struck.

via Wall St.’s Biggest Bonuses Go to Not-So-Big Names – NYTimes.com.

Congressional Oversight Panel – February Oversight Report: Commercial Rea

Congressional Oversight Panel – February Oversight Report: Commercial Rea

via sex, art, and politics – Congressional Oversight Panel – February Oversight….

Thomson Reuters has boosted its direct market access capabilities through the acquisition of Aegisoft, a US-based provider of electronic trading and testing tools. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

via Thomson Reuters acquires Aegisoft.

The revenue gains would come largely from a projected increase of 12,000 subscriptions to the Bloomberg Professional service, which provides data, analytics and news geared to financial-services professionals.

via Bloomberg to Add Employees – WSJ.com.

* Validea: One of my favorites and started by author of The Guru Investor, John Reese. Validea is a premium service that tracks screens preconfigured with the investing criteria of history’s greatest investors, like Buffett, Graham, Peter Lynch, Ken Fisher, and more.

* Finviz: Lots of stuff going on here. IMO, the most powerful, free screener available. With fewer preset screens, Finviz is for more advanced investors who have specific criteria they look for in stocks. A whole lotta descriptive, fundamental, and technical ways to sort for new ideas.

* Manual of Ideas: Mentioned in my post from last week, Top 6 Ideas for Piggyback Investing, MOI has both free and premium screens like 10×45 Bargain Hunter, European Value Report, Equities and Tobin’s Q. These screens come in form of subscription newsletters (again, some free, some premium) with more analysis included beyond the output of the stock screens.

* AAII Screens: Blown away by how many screens the American Association of Individual Investors has on its website (you have to join AAII to access these screens). You can find growth and value screens with preset parameters (like IBD Stable 70 and CAN SLIM) as well as guru screens that look for specific investment criteria established by famed investors like Graham, Buffett, Dreman, Lynch, Zweig, etc.

* Zacks: Nice combination of some free screens (Earnings & Margins, Growth and Income) and premium screens (Zacks Rank 1)

* CNBC: lets users save custom made screens and also has a few prepackaged screens for free

* The Kirk Report: Couldn’t be remiss in mentioning the great screens Kirk puts together for subscribers to his service. He calls his screens, the Stock Screen Machine.

* The Motley Fool’s CAPS: Nifty free screener that incorporates the community’s CAPS ratings into the screens. Allows users to download results to spreadsheets.

via The Web’s Best Stock Screens: Looking for the next winning investment | New Rules of Investing.

This could get interesting:

Investors were “caught off guard” on Feb. 4 when MasterCard said rebates and incentives associated with new and renewed customer agreements climbed 35 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, R.W. Baird & Co. analyst David Koning said in research note that day. MasterCard plunged 10.3 percent as profit fell short of most Wall Street estimates and after Visa reported earnings that exceeded forecasts

via MasterCard Says It Isn’t in ‘Price War’ With Visa (Update2) – BusinessWeek.

This graph from CBRE shows the retail cap rate since 2003. Note that 2009 is an average annual rate, and the cap rate in Q4 was at 9.01% – the highest since the series started.

via Calculated Risk: CBRE: Retail Cap Rates Increase Sharply in Q4.

No surprise here but nice to get a picture: