Welcome back! I hope you all enjoyed your long weekend. Some great ideas last week, we will be discussing many of them in class this week.
I found years ago that economic adversity can bring opportunity. Back in 2002-2003, the Dow was in the middle of another bear market and the so called do it yourself investors realized it took more than free charts and chat rooms to manage a portfolio of investments. It was during this time that most clients came to me looking for help and advice. It seemed that during good times, anyone could make money in the stock market; however, during the bear market of 02-03, it was quite easy for the self directed investor to lose money. It was out of need that they sought my help. Furthermore, given my expertise in financial planning, it was during the same period that I introduced the business planning services for small business owners. In 2003, the unemployment rate surpassed 6%, high compared to the 4% we faced on January of 2000. Highly qualified entrepreneurs who had lost their jobs in the technology field were starting their own business and were in need of business planning to obtain financing from the Small Business Administration and other lenders. Throughout the years, I continued to introduce or modify services to fit the needs of my target market. Last winter, I introduced the live chat to provide advice to individuals online off business hours. Later, I introduced the 401K review and reintroduced the business planning services as federal funding was allocated to help small business owners thru the Small Business Administration. It is during difficult economic times that many of the most successful ideas have been introduced (do a little research, you would be surprised!). If you can find a solution to society’s problems and can reach the right target market and price your product or service accordingly, you are bound to be successful.
You will have until Thursday, February 25, 2010 to complete the following blog assignment. Please don’t complete this assignment until we get a chance to discuss it in class.
Think about your answer to last week’s blog prompt. Think about the conditions you posted could make a business successful in this economic environment. Do a little research using the Wall Street Journal or Yahoo Finance resources and find one small business that currently trade in a US stock market that meets the criteria you posted was needed to succeed in this environment. Provide three reasons to support your claim. (We will discuss this prompt in class)
With this economy finding a good business to invest is difficult, because you never know what can happen the next day. However, today all of us are looking for better prices for different products; that’s what overstock.com,Inc. offers and investing in this company would be profitable. In a shot-term, with a percentage change of +5.14 in 30 days and a percentage increase chage of 41.50 in a year overstock.com Inc will gain value. Then at the same time is a business that gives consumers good quality products for less.
In last weeks blog I discussed how a small clothing company could survive in these economic times. The U.S. stock that I chose to back up this idea (couldn’t find a smaller company ) is the Casual Male Retail Group, Inc.,Otherwise abbreviated as CMRG in the NASDAQ. I chose this company for a few reasons. First off, the CMRG are only targeting large and tall males. While in comparison, the company that I take part ownership in, is also only targeting on young adults( both male and female) who thrive for those catchy lingo’s and vibrant colors on shirts. Also a part of my consideration for choosing this stock was that over the course of the last year, despite the financial difficulties, the company still grew the whole year during 2009. Growing from .50¢ a share and now standing at $3.20 shows its improvement. Lastly the reason I chose this particular stock was because in today’s society more people are growing to be taller and larger. This indicates to me that no matter what the stock market does(pending it doesn’t crash entirely) this company will continue to grow. Big people need clothes on their back’s too.
“HealthFitness is an award-winning provider of integrated health and fitness
management services for employees and individuals.”HealthFitness Corporation.I
had previously talked about ways to curve the national obesity crisis in the
country,with collaborations with local Fitness centers and goverment.This
corporation is a little different,but has had a profound effect on health and
fitness improvement in individuals. They provide programs on-site,telephonic
and web-based to improve individual health and fitness. They have been dealing
with Fortune 500 clients for 30 years.Theyre services arent for everybody who
is at a company working. If you work at an Old Navy store for example, you
more then likely wouldnt here from this great corporation.Many people can
benefit in life from these services. That’s why I feel like theyre needs to be
a great way for individuals to get Fitness,health consulting,etc. services for
practically free, with the help of goverment. Health Fitness Corporation is
actually a great firm to invest in, simply because they are really needed in
the workplace. The Healthier individuals are the greater, their
production.But, for those who dont work in a family like corporation,who value
employee satisfaction,health, and overall being, then Health Fitness Corp.
doesnt apply to you.Theyre’s a lot of places you can work out at,but if the
opportunity cost for getting in shape ,is going to put a burden on your
income, then i wouldnt blame most people for not joining local gyms. Now if
the goverment, worked on partnerships with local gyms, and made it more
affordable for individuals who are obese or on the verge to it, to get
services like HF Corp., then we would have an healthier America.
In bad economic times its a difficult decision in where to invest your money. Something i definitly would invest my money in is the tobacco industry. Statistics show that even though prices went up for marlboro and other brands, people still have not stopped buying them. Its a addiction therefore people will still buy them even if they have no money, they will find a way. According to yahoo finances ” American ciggarette companies still seem to be doing financially good”.
In my previous blog entry, I discussed young photographers taking pictures of their community to help improve their society . Searching through stocks, i found a small business, Photo.net. They strive to be the best educational community for people who wish to become more experienced photographers. About 4 million individuals come to this site each month to discuss photography, explore and share photographs, and learn more about the art of photography. By creating this site it allows those who are starting out or are more familiar with photography to connect with each other and improve their capabilities.
It is extremely difficult to start a small business in today’s economy. I would recommend investing in Cooper Industries, which manufactures and sells electrical products and tools. I recommend this because the percentage has gone up 22%. They’re profit margin is at 8.66%, and they bring in $5.07 billion. Si i think it is a good investment because of the increase in the company at 22%.
As it turns out, I was wrong about my statements from last week’s blog; last week I said that headhunter services would excel during a time of depression, but this is not the case. According to yahoo finance, the trading value of monster.com (MWW) was around 80 in the 2000-2002 period, and during the 2008-2010 period, it traded below 20 points. In fact, on March 6th, 2009, the stock traded at 6.66, the lowest it has been in over a decade. Currently, the stock trades at 14. I will have to re-think what a business needs to do well in a depression.
Last week for my blog assignment I suggested that a Job placement company or a staffing agency offering career building options to its clients is probably being insulated by the downturn in the economy. Because so many companies laid off as a result of the recession, these same companies need temps while they don’t have full time employees and they will need full time employees once there is a boost in the economy. Not only this, but people that have been laid off and were working the same job for ages are probably outdated as far as their skills go, a career building company offers their customers an opportunity to extend their curriculum and learn new skills and get back into the work force with more to offer. In an article in the NY Times, Amy Zipkin said that the downturn on the economy has had a hard time pulling down companies such as these that offer temporary employees to American Businesses. I found many companies doing this kind of work but unfortunately a large amount of these did not trade in US stock. I saw someone write on an earlier post about Kelly Services, Inc. which is a company that came up many times in my research. Kelly Services company characteristics are very similar to that of what I had in mind for a good business during this economic environment. I didn’t want to name this same company again so I decided to go with Manpower Inc. (ticker symbol MAN). Even though the quarterly reports for 2009 has decreased compared to 2008 reports, it is predicted that as the economy starts to recuperate, there will be a higher demand for these companies to place employees in those same companies that had to lay off as a result of the recession. Even though they might not be generating as much revenue right now, the prospect that they will be generating more revenue in the near future makes them a good candidate.
During today’s economy, many people speculate whether or not to invest in companies. However, according to Yahoo Finance, the cleaning product companies are doing exceptionally well. They had a positive change of .16%. It is not much of a surprise that the change is positive because many people clean all around the world. It may be just a quick household cleaning or a small business’ job to clean the houses or locations of others. With there being more dirt around us every day, it is no wonder as to why the cleaning products are still in business.
While reading Yahoo Finance, I stumbled across generic drug companies. On February 25,2010, they had a change of +3.33%! With more people being unemployed, the cost of “branded” medicines may be too high to purchase. Thus, the generic drug companies generate the SAME product for a much smaller price. Companies like Walmart advertise their generic brands and that attracts more people to go to their locations to shop around.The lower the price, the more people will buy your product.
As it turned out I misuderstood last weeks asignment. I said that the best way for a business to advertise is word of mouth, however that is not the best way. The best way for a business to advertise is through the internet or the tv.What the internet is doing is vertually elimaniting the need for consumers to leave their homes. According to Time Magazine “online shopping is faster, cheaper, and better”.according to Collier from Time Magazine he says “digital technology is giving marketers powerful opportunities because it can build brand awareness
like TV, let advertisers “talk” directly to consumers on a one-to-one basis, and do hard-nosed selling like direct mail. “It uses every step of the digital channel”. Advertising is a way for a business to succeed in this economy and give the consumer the chance to compare the same product from different companies.
I chose Monster Worldwide Inc., known as Monster to most people. Monster is an employment agency and also provides business training. The symbol on the New York Stock Exchange is MWW. I chose this company because it represented best what I chose to do for my small business. According to CNBC.com, this time last year the stock was at $5.95 a share. This is also around the time that the financial crisis was in full swing. Today, the stock is trading around $14.13, that is almost a $10 increase in price per share, clearly demonstrating the company is in very good times when most other companies were failing. They are in high demand during this time of economic uncertainty, and have profited when profits were hard to come by!
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In my research this week i found a small business that has found a cheaper way to find tumors through a scan. The machines currently being used to scan for tumors cost $2,500,000. It is quite expensive and is mostly found in major hospitals. They have now found a way to use SPECT Scans which are used for bone purpose, to find tumors by injesting a chemical that lights up malignant tumors in the scan. These machines costs $800,000 or less and they are found in six times as more hospitals. Also another bonus is that the SPECT scan take about 2 weeks to yield results and the PET takes 5 months. With the rate of cancer increasing I can see a lot of investors investing to make this more available. It will save lives, money, and the doctors’ time to use this method. This small business could revolutionize medicine by cutting these costs in virtually half.
Understanding my small website based company i found different details about a more thrieving industry which instead will generate more revenue, this small business would be Emisphere Technologies, Inc.,it is a thrieving business in the biopharmaceutical world. They delivery a wide range of prescription drugs currently employing 20 fulltime workers targeting elderly civilization for easier ways of obtaining drugs. Observing there statistics i found there CHANGE was 0.07 (5.93%) from there last trade. While looking into there chart of sustain growth i found thta this company only climbs even within this bad economy. This organization is relevant to our economy because now in a depression people would rather obtain financial income not conserned with making that long trip to the pharmacy.
We all know that the economy has been tough for the last few years, and for those who have an addiction to smoking cigarettes now is the best time to ether quit or roll your own cigarettes. After all that was found inside cigarettes, the government decided to charge higher taxes to make up for the money spent on heal care. When I started working at Pleasant Smoke Shop in Malden 4 years ago, the price of a Marlboro was only $4.75 today 4 years later that price has almost doubled to $8 a pack. So what people started doing was taking the alternative route and rolling their own cigarettes and saving almost $6 per pack. According to the Cigarettes-Review website “Most of the major tobacco companies posted continuous sales growth during the past two quarters, April-June and July-September 2009. The largest domestic tobacco company, ITC, with cigarette brands such as India Kings, Classic, Gold Flake, Navy Cut, Bristol, Scissors, Capstan and Flake, registered sales growth of over 20% in the tobacco business in both the quarters ending June and September this year.” Many new small cigarette tobacco companies have been created over the past few years and almost 90% of them have succeeded. Due to the fact that people are quitting brand name cigarettes and are now rolling their own I strongly suggest that a small cigarette tobacco company have a good chance of succeeding.
Graham Packaging Co. has made its debut as a publicly traded company today, setting the price for its initial public offering at $10 per share. The company, which has extensive plastic recycling operations, is based in York, Pa.
The company is trading under the symbol GRM on the New York Stock Exchange and is offering more than 16 million shares of common stock through Feb. 17. Graham Packaging has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 2.5 million shares at the IPO pr
Proceeds from the offering will go to repay a portion of the company´s debt.
Graham Packaging is a supplier of plastic containers for dish detergents, motor oils and food and beverages. One of the company´s subsidiaries, Graham Recycling, supplies 60 million pounds of recycled bottle grade plastics to Graham´s North American packaging plants annually, according to the state of Pennsylvania.
( I COPIED THIS OFF WASTE AND RECYCLIIG NEWS)