3 Steps to Slash Your Halloween Bill (Deal of the Day)

There may be no way to avoid buying an Iron Man costume this Halloween, but at least you can do it on the cheap. Even as Americans say they plan to spendmore than $66 on costumes, candy and other Halloween gear this year, according to the National Retail Federation – up 18% over last year – new savings tactics can help keep costs from bubbling over budget.

People are expected to participate more in the holiday this year, with more saying they plan to wear a costume (up 21%), carve a pumpkin (up 9.5%), visit a haunted house or decorate their home, according to the NRF.

Still, retailers are running scared, shaken by slow winter holiday sales and early discounts, experts say. Sugar and cocoa prices both hit record highs earlier this year, but candy-makers and grocery stores have eaten most of the cost increases to stay competitive, says Philip Gorahm, an equity analyst for Morningstar. On the costume racks, leftovers from last year have stores lowering coupon minimums, offering discounts on purchases of as little as $25 instead of last year’s $50, says Sok Verdery, the founder of CouponShack.

Retailers’ fears have also led to bigger discounts earlier in the season, a boon for deal hunters. Here’s how to cut costs on three big Halloween expenses.

Average 2010 projected budget: $23.37 (up 13% from 2009)

Newly popular, group-buying sites have gotten into the spirit, offering vouchers worth a 50% discount at Halloween sites and local stores. Groupon recently offered Los Angeles residents $25 of in-store credit at Halloween Club for $12, and LivingSocial users could pay $15 for $30 at HalloweenExpress.com. Payment certificates can often be paired with coupon codes, too.

To maximize savings on costumes, browse the clearance section, Verdery says. Each year, manufacturers typically come out with a new version of pirate costumes, princess dresses and other costumes. Last year’s silver “Gatsby Girl” adult flapper costume is on clearance for $30 at BuyCostumes.com, less than half the price of this year’s nearly identical one in black, which costs $70.

Average projected budget: $18.66 (up 28%)

It’s a great year for cheap pumpkins. Farmers across the country have reported good pumpkin harvests, which means they need to clear their fields. The average pumpkin costs $4.33 this season, down 10% from last year, according to the Department of Agriculture.

To stretch your budget, think seasonal rather than Halloween. Garden stores continue to cut prices on on chrysanthemums, decorative kale and other fall annuals, which may be 50% off by now, says Susan Littlefield, the horticultural editor for the National Gardening Association. For seasonal décor through Thanksgiving, just add a few cheap hay bales and some winter squash. (You can also repurpose the hay for yard mulch and the squash for eating, she says.)

If you’re in the market for a cackling bat or an animated coffin for the front yard, many of the same group vouchers for costumes can also be used on decorations.

Average projected budget: $20.29 (up 13%)

For chocolates alone, Halloween is the biggest-selling season, with 90 million pounds sold, according to market researcher Nielsen. But while sugar and cacao prices have been on the rise, consumers are unlikely to feel the pinch until the economy improves, Gorahm says. The lag between purchase and manufacturing delays price increases, but stores are also more likely to use candy as a loss leader to pull in consumers this time of year.

To save, look for print-at-home deals, says Stephanie Nelson, the founder of CouponMom.com. Sites such as Redplum and SmartSource.com have twice as many candy coupons this year than they did in 2009, she says, including one for $1 off three Hershey-brand snack-size bags and another for $1 off Hershey’s Bliss chocolates. Paired with store sales -- like Rite Aid’s (RAD) $5 rebate on a Hershey’s candy purchase of $15 or more -- it’s easy to walk away with a full bag.

The New Best Places to Retire

All the charm of Asheville, but with cheaper housing. The recreation of Boulder, without the income tax. The sunshine of Sedona, with a lower cost of living. With today’s would-be retirees as concerned about whether they’ll get to retire as they are about where, the best cities and towns for retirees now have a much higher bar to clear: They can’t just be great places – they have to be affordable.

That leaves most of the old standbys off the list. As boomers have gotten older, they’ve flocked to places like Sarasota, Fla., Pinehurst, N.C., and Eugene, Ore., driving up prices along the way. Two decades ago, Asheville was a tiny, affordable North Carolina town; in the last two decades, since the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement was established, the population’s grown 24%, and the cost of living is now higher than the national average, according the Council for Community and Economic Research. But the real story is in the meteoric rise of real estate prices in retiree-friendly markets: Despite the national housing collapse, prices in Boulder, Colo., have risen 10% in the last four years, according to Zillow.com, while other cities, like Madison, Wis., have suffered very small declines. As a result, many of those spots are prohibitively expensive, even after prices have fallen.

Meanwhile, nest eggs have shrunk, and retiree incomes are stagnating. Social Security benefits didn’t rise in 2010, nor will they in 2011. Benchmark Treasury bond yields are at their lowest since January 2009, and certificates of deposit are earning almost nothing – at 0.55% interest, a one-year $10,000 CD would earn just $55. Forget what the Social Security Administration says: For anyone looking to make their savings last, cost of living does matter.

But that doesn’t mean a beautiful mountain town or a great university community is off limits. Looking for all the advantages of the conventional best places with half the costs, SmartMoney.com found doppelgangers – the more affordable twins to some of America’s previous chart-toppers. They’ve got a similar culture, climate and suite of amenities, as well as comparable medical, educational and travel offerings. But as of today, they’re less well-known, less crowded, and less expensive places to live.

Next: Better than Sedona, Ariz. ...

The morning News: November 2, 2010

Unfortunately, I cannot read the contents of the fromt this page.

The Rally Might Not End So Soon (Ahead of the Curve)

With the economy struggling after the worst recession on record, an ongoing debt crisis in Europe, a brewing trade war with China, a collapsing dollar, and yet another mortgage scandal, I'm going to make the case that stocks could be at all-time highs by this time next year.

My prediction doesn't require a particularly rosy view of the economy -- just simple arithmetic.

Let's start with this: $103 per share. That's the record high for expected operating earnings for the S&P 500. It was set almost exactly three years ago. Not coincidentally, the S&P 500 reached its all-time high (1565) around the same time.

Now another number: $63 per share. That's the low for expected earnings for the S&P 500, set in May 2009, a month before the bottom of the recession, but two months after the bottom for stocks.

The 39% drop from $103 to $63 is quite a tumble. It's not the worst earnings drop in history, but it is the worst since 1938. And it happened even though the gross domestic product fell only 1.1% over the same period (not adjusted for inflation).

Now, a third number: $92. That's where expected earnings per share are right now. That's a huge gain off the low -- an amazing 46%. That stellar gain took place while GDP grew only 5% (again, not adjusted for inflation, and assuming that third-quarter growth was the same as second-quarter growth).

As I discussed in this column a couple of months ago, this kind of earnings jump happens because of "operating leverage." When a recession hits, earnings are hit far worse than the overall economy. And when the recovery begins, even a modest recovery, earnings come surging back. It's as close to a law of nature as you're ever going to find in investing.

All it would take now for earnings estimates to return to all-time highs would be another 12% increase. That seems pretty much inevitable over the coming year, unless the economy lapses into another recession (which, as I explained here recently, it's definitely not going to do). If 5% GDP growth can trigger a 46% earnings recovery, it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch to think that we could get the further 12% earnings recovery we need, even if GDP growth is downright mediocre.

12 Potential Leveraged-Buyout Candidates

AFTER A LULL FOLLOWING THE 2008 financial crisis, leveraged-buyout activity is perking up with a $1.8 billion deal last week for children's clothing retailer Gymboree (GYMB) and a recent transaction involving Burger King. Seagate Technology (STX) said Thursday that it has been approached by private-equity firms about an LBO, and there was talk last week about a potential LBO of Yahoo! (YHOO) in a deal that could top $25 billion.

The heightened activity has led to speculation on Wall Street about which companies could become the next targets. After talking to a group of analysts and investors, we've come up with a list of a dozen potential LBO candidates, including Gap (GPS), Safeway (SWY), Dell (DELL), eBay (EBAY) and Whirlpool (WHL); disk-drive makers Seagate Technology and Western Digital (WDC), and retailers Aeropostale (ARO) and GameStop (see table, An Attractive Dozen).

We're analyzing the candidates the way private-equity firms do, by focusing on companies with modest debt—some have sizable net cash positions—that trade for reasonable multiples of earnings and pretax cash flow. Gap, for instance, trades around 19, or 11 times projected 2010 profits. It also has more than $2 a share in net cash. Whirlpool, at 84, trades for nine times projected earnings, and Dell, at 14, fetches 11 times forward profits with $4 a share in net cash.

Yahoo! is attracting interest because it holds cash and valuable stakes in Asian Internet companies that could be worth a total of more than $10 a share—60% of its stock price even after a two-point gain last week to 16 on the buyout speculation. Early this month, Jefferies analyst Youssef Squali wrote that asset-rich Yahoo! could fetch $20 to $23 a share in an LBO.

"Just about any company trading for 12 times earnings or less that isn't capital intensive can get LBOed in this market," an investor tells Barron's. One reason is the formerly unfriendly bond market; it is now much more receptive to LBOs, and with more discipline than in the wild days of 2006 and 2007 and debt-laden deals for Hilton Hotels, TXU, Harrah's Entertainment and Clear Channel Communications.

The technology sector is ripe for LBO activity because tech outfits usually have strong, cash-rich balance sheets.

An Attractive Dozen

Barron's has compiled this list of potential leveraged-buyout candidates. Because LBOs typically require heavy borrowing, many targets feature significant cash on their balance sheets, or relatively modest debt. They also usually present low ratios of enterprise value to pretax cash flow.

* eBay
* Dell
* Yahoo!
* Gap
* Fidelity Nat. Info. Svcs
* Safeway
* Computer Sciences
* Western Digital
* Whirlpool
* Seagate Tech.
* GameStop
* Aeropostale

Sources: Thomson Reuters; Bloomberg

The retail sector has also been popular with private equity despite the industry's historic volatility and sensitivity to the economy. Toys "R" Us, Neiman Marcus and Michaels Stores have all gone private in recent years.

Several Wall Street firms have drawn up lists of buyout candidates in response to concerns of their institutional bond clients, who want to avoid holding debt in such companies; LBOs, after all, set off explosions in corporate borrowing, downgrades of credit ratings and falling bond prices. In a recent report, Merrill Lynch's credit team spotlighted Omnicom Group (OMC), Clorox (CLX), CBS (CBS), ConAgra Foods (CAG) and Safeway. UBS put out a similar report earlier this month and highlighted Quest Diagnostics (DGX), Lubrizol (LZ), Computer Sciences (CSC), Pitney Bowes (PBI) and Expedia (EXPE).

The targets of past LBOs often have been surprises because of factors besides valuation, notably the receptiveness of corporate boards and managements. LBO shops hurt their reputation with boards by walking away from some high-profile deals in 2008 after the markets tanked.

Private-equity firms are eager to complete transactions because they're sitting on tens of billions of dollars of commitments from institutional investors—on which they typically earn fees—and will be forced to free the investors from those commitments if they don't invest the money. The firms' executives are great at boasting about their prospects, and they're now talking about doing $10 billion-plus deals. But despite the excitement created by a few deals, private-equity transactions still account for just 10% of 2010 domestic mergers and acquisitions, according to Capital IQ. The biggest LBO since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 was the $5 billion purchase of IMS Health earlier this year.

Corporate buyers have—and probably will retain—an edge because they have deeper pockets and access to lower-cost financing. Corporations also can realize greater cost savings from integrating acquisitions into existing businesses. This enables them to pay more.

It's easy to see why private equity is attracted to Seagate, the top maker of disk drives. Seagate and rival Western Digital have some of the lowest valuations in the tech sector even after moving up last week on the Seagate buyout report.

The New REIT Choices

In these days of stagnant stock prices and moribund real estate markets, many people might be surprised to learn that real estate investment trusts, those stock-like investments that own real estate, have been one of the best performers in 2010. But at least one group has noticed the trend: real estate executives, who are flooding the stock market with a slew of new REITs.

Almost 20 publicly traded REITs could debut in 2010 (seven had already debuted by the end of August), according to real estate–research firm Dealogic, a big increase from the nine REIT initial public offerings in 2009. The REITs own everything from hotels in Massachusetts to glass office towers in Texas. Investors so far have been receptive to existing REITs this year; as a group, they’re up 12 percent, with residential REITs up almost 25 percent (the broader stock market is down 2 percent). Even with the still floundering market for most IPOs, REIT executives are betting that by going public now they can raise cash to pay down their own debt or to gobble up properties at distressed prices, says Michael Dubis, a financial planner who also teaches a course on REITs at the University of Wisconsin.

Of course, investing in any sort of real estate these days requires some faith that prices for offices and houses won’t start tanking again. Even in the flurry of new IPOs, some REITs have had to cut their offering prices to attract skeptical investors, says Nick Einhorn, a research analyst at the IPO-research firm Renaissance Capital. But some pros still see potential in REITs. The average REIT dividend payout is 4.5 percent, considerably higher than that of government bonds or money-market funds.

Some analysts say a few of the new commercial REITs show promise. One of the more highly regarded newcomers is Piedmont Office Realty Trust (PDM). The Johns Creek, Ga.–based firm owns 73 buildings, including Chicago’s Aon Center, the nation’s fifth-tallest building. Piedmont went public in February at $14.50 a share, and even though its shares have risen 27 percent, it still sports a high 6.9 percent dividend yield. The share price of smaller Hudson Pacific Properties (HPP) is down 4 percent since it debuted in June, but some analysts like it because of its unique properties: a collection of eight California office buildings and movie-production spots. The firm raised more than $200 million from its IPO and recently acquired another office building.

Mid-Termania is!

The market is again today, but you don't get too excited. We had yesterday in the profits of the parking problems, which is exactly what happened a week ago.

In the last seven trading sessions, high, as is the case with closing 1,185.64 and low closing has been 1,182.45. Like narrow.Today, we've been as high as 1192.0,85% 0.67% S & P 500 as compared to today is currently our Buy list.

Of course, the big news is today elections. [1] [2] if the query should have thought, Democrats are in great loss. Intrade now receives more than one sees the 60 seats in the House GOP.

I would caution you from reading too much politics, starting from the market. You are a player that Larry Kudlow syndrome, in which each uptick or market is, therefore, to a downtick in Washington.

I'm reminded of the story when Richard Nixon was asked what he should, therefore, if he is President of the United States.Nixon said that he would be likely to down to the purchases of stocks, Wall Street. They asked the nimitekstiin wall Streeter, what he thought, that he said that if the President Nixon, he too will not be buying stocks.

The Federal Reserve begins its two-day meeting today in Washington. [1] [2] the great news coming tomorrow at 2: 15 pm, when they notify Quantitative easing plan. as I said before I wanted everyone else is disappointed, so you will not be able to see small troops surprised.

Then on Thursday, we have three more earnings reports in the future. If that does not have enough excitement, Friday we have the jobs report. However, the majority of the then November must be pretty boring.

Posted by Eddy 2nd.November 2010 at 10: 23 am