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Amazon.com went public almost 10 years ago and online holiday sales are still less than one-tenth of the total. It is highly expected that Web shopping won’t ever eclipse the fun shoppers going to the malls to see and touch their products before buying them.

A prediction from Jupiter Research in New York says online shopping will eventually peak at between 10% and 15% of the total annual retail sales. Online sales will break the $100 billion mark for the first time this year. According to ComScore Networks, a Reston, Virginia research firm, cyber-sales during the holiday season will climb 24% to $24.3 billion this year. According to Washington-based National Retail Federation, total seasonal sales, excluding online shopping, will increase 5% to $457.4 billion. Thank goodness for cd rates.

Many shoppers search the Web to do research, and then go to stores to see the products. Only some trust they could get a good fit of jeans and shoes online. Retailers are increasingly using their websites to drive store traffic. According to some analysts there is a social aspect of shopping and for some shoppers it is an actual activity they’ll plan on.

Coach, a New York-based company and the largest US luxury leather goods maker, this holiday season is providing facility to shoppers to view handbags from multiple angles on its website. The company is also promoting its store-return policy and flat $8.50 shipping rate for online purchases. The company CEO, Lew Frankfort views the Internet as the Coach flagship store that anyone can visit at home or from the office. “I saw it as a marketing vehicle,” he said in an interview. According to Coach spokeswoman, Andrea Shaw Resnick, online sales, while the fastest growing, represent only about 3% of Coach’s total sales. More than 70% of shoppers who visit Coach’s Web site say it spurs them to buy in stores.

The data published on November 25 showed that eBay was the online winner this “Black Friday”. However, overall Internet traffic growth was well below last year’s, even as bargain?hunters tracked down much-adored toys and electronics on the Web before “Cyber Monday.”

According to the online audience measurement firm, overall traffic to the Nielsen/Net Ratings Holiday eShopping Index rose 12% on November 24 after Thanksgiving over the same day last year. That is drastically below the 29% growth in the overall traffic to the index from 2004 to 2005 but in accordance with 11% growth seen from 2003 to 2004.

The data shows that eBay had the most Web traffic on “Black Friday” with 7.5 million unique visitors. Amazon.com grabbed the second place with 3.4 million unique visitors, followed by Wal-Mart Stores with 3.2 million visitors. Much of that online traffic in advance of “Cyber Monday” was dedicated to the search for Mattel’s T.M.X. Elmo, the most popular and hard-to?find toy of this season. The eBay reported sale of 2,537 T.M.X. Elmos on November 24 for an average price of $70.10. The toy retails at Wal-Mart for $39.97 and as much as $150 on Shopping.com.

Other popular items on eBay included Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo (7974.OS) Wii. About 14,675 Sony PlayStation 3 have been sold on eBay for an average price of $1,186.39 from November 17 to November 24. Nintendo was introduced on November 19, and since then, 26,708 have been sold for an average price of $412.53.

Shopping.com and PriceGrabber.com, which allow consumers to compare deals from a variety of retailers, have witnessed year-over-year jumps of 40% and 45% respectively in the volume of traffic on their sites. However, traffic does not necessarily means higher sales. As shipping becomes faster and more reliable, more Internet shoppers are waiting for December to make purchases, and are browsing the Web for good deals.

Nike, a US multinational, is sacking the Pakistani company Saga Sports, its main manufacturer of hand?stitched balls due to the concerns about “significant labour compliance violations”. Nike, the official supplier of Premiership league, admitted on November 20 that some of the balls used in the Premiership matches might have been stitched by children in their homes.

A six-month investigation conducted by Nike concluded that Saga was outsourcing many of the balls to casual workers who sew them together in their homes around the city of Sialkot. Nike’s chief executive, Mr Mark Parker, said that the factory has persistently broken its commitments and breached its trust with Nike forever.

“If you have production in homes, it’s very difficult to monitor safe labour conditions,” said a Nike spokesman. “There’s also the potential for underage labour, which we do not condone.”

Nike is supplying balls for the UK Premiership since 2000. The company paid the league close to £10 million for a three-year deal and wrested the prestigious contract from Mitre. Sacking of Saga will mean a shortage of balls for the near future as Nike speeds up to switch production to factories in China.

Nike informed the Premier League about the decision in advance. A league spokesman said that they could only support Nike in taking action where they had found the standards of labour been violated.

In the late 1990s, a series of disclosures about child labour at factories around Sialkot impelled sportswear companies to tighten their monitoring in the area. Nike has since been praised by charities for cleaning up its act.

“We’ve been working very closely with Nike to ensure the rights and conditions of people working in these factories are fair and of an acceptable standard,” an Oxfam senior policy adviser, Mr Samar Verma said. According to him, the Nike’s decision to sack Saga Sports is a very positive step in the right direction.

US Airways Group Inc offered an $8-billion takeover of bankrupt Delta Air Lines Inc on November 15 in an attempt to restructure costs and get the most out of a sector showing signs of recovery. Delta is the No. 3 US airline. According to US Airways, the deal would create the No. 1 trans?Atlantic carrier. The deal is the latest move by US Air CEO Doug Parker, who planned the May 2005 takeover of the then-bankrupt US Air by financially-healthier America West. Parker has proposed becoming the CEO of a merged airline.

A spokeswoman of Delta said that Delta intends to emerge from bankruptcy as a stand?alone carrier. “Maybe US Airways did a pre-emptive strike here,” Calyon Securities’ Ray Neidl said. “The big concern is government regulators, if they give the green light. And if they do, it will probably set off a series of potential M&A activity in the industry.”

Delta creditors would get $4 billion in cash and 78.5 million shares of US Air stock with an aggregate value of $4 billion based on closing stock price on November 14. CreditSights analyst Roger King said, “This appears to be sort of a hostile takeover. Delta CEO Grinstein has made it clear that he doesn’t want to merge. But US Airways is appealing directly to the creditors.” Industry leaders such as UAL Corp CEO Glenn Tilton and Parker have been outspoken proponents of consolidation. They both have approached Delta in the past for a merger.

US Air announced its offer represented a 25% premium over the current trading price of Delta’s pre-petition unsecured claims as of November 14. The offer also represented 40% premium over the average trading price for Delta unsecured claims over the last 30 days.
While Delta stock is considered of modest value, creditors claims have monetary value and can be traded by investors. US Air thinks the combination will generate at least $1.65 billion in annual synergies.

The modern mutual fund investor, these days, has become a model of play-it-by-the-book moderation. No frills or fads satisfy the great majority of this multitude, 96m strong in the US alone. According to the latest tallies by the Investment Company Institute, people nowadays have close to $10 trillion riding on their US fund investments and almost $20 trillion worldwide.

In times of yore like the 1960s and 1990s, fund shares buyers went on flings with go-go aggressive growth funds and Internet funds. Those high-risk, high-cost escapades are all in the past. The evidence to support these assertions comes from the latest data published by the Boston consulting firm of Financial Research on money moving into and out of mutual funds. The five largest selling categories of funds in September were large value, foreign large blend, intermediate term bond, world allocation and world stock. None of these in the group is a gimmick. You can also look at some of the names represented on the list of best-selling individual funds for September: the American Funds’ Capital Income Builder and Capital World Growth & Income; the Dodge& Cox International Stock Fund, and the Franklin Income Fund. The common themes in both lists are revealed in words such as large, value and income. You can just observe the money feeding gradually in 401 (k) and other long-term saving vehicles.

This might have been evidence of a performance-chasing fever 10 or 15 years ago. Today, by most analysts’ account, it represents that the economy’s future is a global story. To suggest that fund investors have mature enough to make another mistake is taking it way too far. Instances of speculative enthusiasm were displayed in 2006.

It is not the case that every dollar should be put in a conservative type of fund. To a contrarian, the lack of the words “aggressive growth” on current fund bestseller lists suggests there is room for a new outburst of high spirits in the market.

The picture of fund investors that comes out from their current actions is a very healthy-looking one. It suggests they have recognized themselves as long-term investors with long-term objectives and have chosen long-term investments well suited to pursuing those goals. It also suggests if stock market runs into a bad patch, fund investors are more likely to serve as stabilizers than contributors to the problem.

Bankaholic has the Highest CD Rate comparision of certificate of deposit accounts from online banks across America.

With the elections over and the year quickly moving towards its end, investors have turned their attention to capital returns rather than Capitol Hill. Money managers and hedge funds are buying riskier assets such as small cap stocks, emerging market debt and high?yield junk bonds as those sectors have continued to post solid returns.

“What we are seeing is a flight to risk,” said Stephanie Pomboy, an economist at MacroMavens in New York. “With only 33 trading days left, and the rush to generate double-digit returns now begun, the appetite for risk-taking is not surprising,” she said.

To date this year, junk bonds have returned 9.5%, emerging markets over 8%, and small cap equities 13.6%. Investors are still moving into these sectors in hope of more returns. “A lot of investors are chasing yield and a lot will regret what they’ve bought when all is said and done,” said Bob MacIntosh, a portfolio manager at Eaton Vance Management in Boston. MacIntosh thinks the junk market is pricing in too low a premium for both economic and geopolitical risks. Hedge funds emerge as the major buyers in these sectors.

According to Morningstar, an investment research company based in Chicago, the average equity mutual fund has averaged a total return of 11.16 for the same period. Investors have shown a desire for more speculative and volatile assets as the Federal Reserve is unlikely to increase rates soon. Most of the investors think the central bank will cut rates in 2007. In addition, any doubt about the outcome of the elections is now out of the way. The sentiment has helped push the Dow Jones industrial average’s performance, which has returned about 15% year-to-date.

On November 9, investors gorged on $5.7bn of debt issued by HCA in the second-largest junk bond sale ever to help finance its leveraged buyout by a private equity group. HCA offered yields as high as 9.6% given that many Treasury yields are paying less than 5%. The sale came after investors bought $1.1bn in bonds issued by NRG Energy on November 8 and a concurrent $1bn offering by Dutch company Bank Nederlandse.

The rally lifting Asia-Pacific stock indexes to records during the second week of November may just be getting started. In 2005, Asian shares outside Japan had their biggest two-month advance in November and December. Anticipation of US consumers buying more holiday gifts and international funds flowing into the region has lifted prices this year.

Indexes in Australia, India, Singapore, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka reached all-time highs in second week of November. After rising 0.9% for the week, a Morgan Stanley Capital International Asia?Pacific stock index that excludes Japan is 0.3% away from its record set in May.

According to the Chong Sze King, trading manager at Asian Genesis Asset Management, the US outlook has set the stage for a Santa Claus rally in Asia. “Investors are buying in anticipation the markets this year will perform as they have historically,” he said.

Many Asian companies are benefiting from growing demand in the US, the largest buyer of Asian exports. Data compiled by Bloomberg shows that international investors have bought a net $117.8m of stocks so far in November in six emerging markets in the region. According to Citigroup, investors purchased more shares in Asian markets outside of Japan than they sold in November and December for the past four years.

Economic data released in November shows growth in the US is weathering a housing slump. The unemployment rate declined to a five-year low in October. The University of Michigan’s index of consumer confidence was at 92.3 in November after rising to 93.6 in October.

A National Retail Federation forecast says sales at US stores will rise 5% in November and December. While the estimate is below last year’s 6.1% growth, it is higher than the 10-year average of 4%. Data shows that the holiday period accounts for a fifth of US retailers’ sales and new products, especially in the technology sector, are likely to spur consumers spending globally.

Web search leader Google Inc. (GOOG) is hiring radio sales people for its US radio venture. The company is spending a lot in a bid to expand its position in the $20-billion radio industry. According to Michael Mayzel, Google spokesperson, the company will begin a public test of Google Audio Ads by the end of the year. Advertisers will be able to go online and sign up for targeted radio ads by using the same AdWords system that they use to buy Web search ads.

Google is testing its capability to move into offline media, saying it would help customers buy advertisements in 50 US newspapers. It made an apparent move into radio in January by paying more than $1 billion for dMarc Broadcasting, which connects advertisers to radio stations through an automated advertising system. Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that investment in radio advertising could grow over time to include up to 1,000 Google employees. The company had 9,378 employees in September.

According to Bill Figenshu, chief operating officer of Software Media Exchange, Google is hiring sales people in major markets. “They’re hiring sales people to sell radio and paying about 50% more than a typical radio sales person might make,” he said. Figenshu added three people he had spoken to believe Google was in discussions to buy about $1 billion in radio advertising inventory from Clear Channel Communications. Clear Channel is the biggest radio station operator and controls an estimated 20% of local radio industry revenues. Google’s move into radio comes at a time when Clear Channel is weighing a possible sale of the company. Clear Channel has declined to comment on the reports that Google could take a stake in the radio company, perhaps as part of a buyout led by private equity firms.

RBC Capital Markets analyst David Bank says he is perplexed by Google’s hirings as they are being made before Google has significant radio advertising inventory to sell. “While there are other possibilities, we believe there’s a reasonable chance Google Audio is establishing critical mass in anticipation of a major acquisition of prime inventory”, he said. Bank added Clear Channel’s size and potential sale make it a likely source of inventory for Google. According to him, Google may take a modest investment in a leveraged buyout or take a stake in the company’s current incarnation.

Now that Democrats have control of Congress, Federal Reserve chairman Ben S Bernanke may find it difficult to establish an inflation target. For the first time in 12 years, Democrats have captured the House of Representative and taken control of the Senate. The Democrats sealed their Senate majority when Jim Webb defeated Republican incumbent George Allen.

Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank, Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, and other Democrats prefer the Fed focusing on promoting growth as well as containing inflation. Some legislators advocate the Fed to adopt a target for employment as well as prices. According to Tom Gallagher, senior managing director at International Strategy & Investment Group in Washington, the Democrats would give Bernanke a tougher time than the Republicans on inflation targets. Bernanke says a target would help cement the Fed’s credibility as an inflation-fighter and make it easier to manage the economy. Supporters think if he is unable to press ahead, those aims might be damaged. According to Adam Posen, a senior fellow at Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington, the Federal Reserve’s political legitimacy and ability to respond flexibly to shocks to the economy would be impaired.

Bernanke affirmed in his Senate confirmation hearing last year that the independent Fed can adopt a numerical target for inflation on its own. However, he’s unlikely to proceed without at least the implicit support of key policymakers. Under current law, the Fed has a mandate for both price stability and full employment. Bernanke thinks the adoption of an inflation target would boost rather than hamper the Fed’s ability to achieve both goals. Maryland Senator Paul Sarbanes has time and again challenged Bernanke over targets. Sarbanes, who’s retiring, expressed concern that the Fed would become too focused on inflation, to the loss of promoting growth. Reed, another Democratic member of the Banking Committee, has also warned Bernanke against adopting a rigid rule to guide monetary policy.

Software makers Novell and Microsoft have finally signed a deal which says that Novell will allow Microsoft to use its open-source Linux software to work with Windows. In return, Microsoft will make two separate up front payments totaling $348 million to the Novell. In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on November 7, Novell announced that Microsoft would pay Novell $240 million up front in subscription fees to allow the world’s largest software maker to use its Linux software. Microsoft will also pay an additional $108 million up front for use of patents.

Earlier, Novell and Microsoft took an entry into a broad set of business and technological agreements to make their products work together better to serve corporate customers who use both Linux and Windows computer servers. Linux is the most admired variant of open-source software. Unlike proprietary software, open-source software lets developers to share code and add functions. A user has to only pay for custom features, maintenance, and technical support.

The deal says that Microsoft will not sign a similar agreement with any other Linux distributor for at least three years. According to some analysts, Microsoft’s pact with Novell has dealt a blow to other Linux distributors such as market leader Red Hat. The pact will run until at least 2012. Under the pact, Novell will pay Microsoft at least $40 million over five years for use of Microsoft’s patents based on a percentage of its revenue from open-source products.

Novell said that Microsoft has also agreed to spend $12 million a year to market scenarios where users can virtually run Linux on Windows machines and vice versa. Over the life of the agreement, Microsoft will also spend $34 million to put in place a sales force devoted to the combined offering, Novell said.

Morgan Stanley, MS, a US investment bank, and Visa Europe have decided to settle a long?running anti-trust dispute. The move could bring to an end a six-year competition probe by the European Commission into the credit card group.

The dispute started after Visa denied Morgan Stanley join its card network. The US investment bank had wished to offer card services to shops and merchants in the European Union. However, Visa did not permit Morgan Stanley access to its network, pointing that Morgan Stanley runs the Discover card in the US in competition with Visa.

In 2000, Morgan Stanley filed a complaint to the European Commission. The commission opened an investigation and issued formal charges against Visa in August 2004 accusing it of abusing a dominant market position. Visa has been waiting for a final decision ever since.

According to executives from both the groups, Visa and Morgan Stanley have now agreed to settle the dispute. Now, Morgan Stanley will become a member of the Visa card network, and in return withdraw its anti-trust complaint to the Commission. The move follows the decision by Visa Europe in October to split from the Visa group’s international operations. While Visa International plans to be a publicly-listed company, Visa Europe decided to retain its structure as an association owned and run by its member banks.

The Commission refused to comment on the move. Formally speaking, the settlement between Visa and Morgan Stanley does not affect the probe, although in practice it will be very difficult for the regulator to pursue an infringement already addressed by the parties. Should the agreement between the parties force the Commission to abandon its probe, it would remove the threat to Visa Europe of a fine of up to 10 per cent of its global annual turnover. However, Visa and its rival MasterCard still face pressure from the Commission to cut the fees they demand from retailers.

US economic growth slowed to an annualized rate of just 1.6% in the third quarter of 2006. Housing and the oil-fuelled rise in imports remain the primary factors for dragging down the economic activity. The news of the slowdown comes at a bad time for the Republican party, which has been leaning on its economic record to regain its support damaged by the war in Iraq.

Growth in the third quarter was the slowest since early 2003. However, strong consumer spending ensured the economy continued to expand, though below its potential growth rate. Inflation pressures were eased a little, with the core personal consumption expenditure deflator growing at an annualized rate of 2.3%, down from 2.7%.

Most analysts predict growth to rebound in the current fourth quarter, as lower oil prices depress imports, though it will probably remain below trend.

Figures from the eurozone showed growth in lending to the private sector equaled its highest rate since the launch of the euro in 1999. This highlights robust economic activity in Europe but raising expectations of possible further interest rate rises by the European Central Bank.

Democrats seized on the weak US third-quarter growth figures as evidence that the US
was “on the wrong track.” However, Hank Paulson, the Treasury secretary, rejected weak third-quarter growth as a “blip”.

According to Carlos Gutierrez, the commerce secretary, the capacity of the economy to absorb the correction in housing is another example of how flexible and how strong this economy is.

Although growth is lower than expected, it is unlikely to prompt the Federal Reserve into early consideration of interest rate cuts. Fed issued a statement saying: “Going forward, the economy seems likely to expand at a moderate pace.” The statement is being seen as a pre-emptive strike ahead of the third-quarter growth report.

Some of the world’s largest investment managers have appealed to US regulators to give shareholders the right to change the composition of US boards. They claim shareholders in US companies lack basic rights which are given to shareholders in other developed countries. The appeal is a sign that one of the key creed of US corporate governance - limited shareholder get access to company proxies for board elections - comes under attack from non-US investors as foreign ownership of US companies is increasing.

The group, which manages about $34,000 billion in assets collectively, has written a letter to Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The letter is signed by the Australian Reward Investment Alliance, the Association of British Insurers, F&C Asset Management, the Third Swedish National Pension Fund, Scottish?based Standard Life Investments and PGGM-a large Dutch pension fund manager. In the letter, the group appeals the regulator to give investors the right of voting in the election of directors. This move, the group thinks, might help to prevent corporate scandals and board-level negligence of duty which have surfaced in recent years in US companies.

The move follows the delay of a key SEC meeting that was to discuss whether shareholders should be allowed more access to company proxies. The SEC was to decide whether to let stand a recent US court ruling that had forced the regulators to review its policy that blocked shareholder access to proxies where elections of board directors were concerned.

The matter has become a key battleground in US corporate governance. Shareholder rights activists have strengthened efforts to get access to the proxy to contribute in the composition of company boards-and therefore also in such matters as executive compensation.

“The US system is at odds with shareholders’ basic ownership rights and lags behind other countries in corporate democracy”, said Peter Moon, chief investment officer of the Universities Superannuation Scheme. “It is critical that US policymakers understand that this has ramifications for how overseas investors view the integrity of the US markets”, he added.

There is nothing quite like dipping gasoline prices to boost the US stock market. A lot of things have changed since August 2, when gasoline futures hit a 2006 peak of about $2.34 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The prices of gasoline fell 75 cents through the middle of this week. In the stock market, the S&P500 Index jumped 8.6% and the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed more than 13%.

Indeed, a few other things have been going on at the same time, including indications that the Federal Reserve is finished increasing short-term interest rates for the foreseeable
future. And experts of the market keep telling us that changes in energy prices don’t pack as much of an economic wallop as they did a few years ago.

All the same, a break at the pump can still energize investors’ sprits. The investment firm UBS AG says that in the past two months, its UBS/Gallup index of investor optimism has climbed 26 points to 79, concurrent with a fall in the number of investors worried about the economic impact of energy prices.

When the price of oil topped $78 a barrel in July, the sense of strong upward movement was almost obvious. Speculations swirled that oil price was headed for $100 a barrel. Instead, what happened was a change of direction that caused pain on large and small investors alike. Some well?known hedge funds came away bleeding with energy-inflicted wounds.

While most other stock mutual funds have rallied smartly, Morningstar Inc. data show natural-resources and precious-metals funds with minus signs in the past three months. Many arguments can be made for holding a natural?resources or other commodity-related fund as part of a diversified investment plan. Having a stake in energy investments can serve as a nice offset in case rising fuel prices hit the family budget. Quite possibly hordes of commodity bulls are correct that fast growth in China and India will increase demand for energy and industrial commodities for year to come.

US blue chips fell on October 25 as dim views from Boeing and General Motors cast doubt on investors’ hopes for next year’s earnings. Boeing shares fell 2.9% to $81.18 after the company announced a charge that pushed down the top end of its full-year 2006 earnings forecast. However, Nasdaq and S&P500 stock indexes were trading higher, supported in large part by results from online retailer Amazon.com.

People were expecting the Federal Reserve to keep its key interest rate unchanged at 5.25% for a third straight time after its two-day policy meeting. However, the investors were divided as to whether its next move will be to raise or cut rates. According to Jon Brorson, managing director of growth equities at Neuberger Berman in Chicago, earnings were somewhat of a mixed bag on October 24 and the same trend was expected on October 25.

On October 25, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was up 1.66 points at 1379.04. The Dow-Jones industrial average was down 28.10 points at 12,099.78. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 7.91 points at 2,352.75. Shares of Amazon.com soared 11.2% to $37.40. The company’s profit and revenue have proved the analysts’ estimates wrong. The Web retailer announced it would slow growth in its technology spending, suggesting future profit may go up.

GM’s shares fell 4% to $34.76 as investors looked afar the rise in quarterly operating profit to 2007 and beyond when GM’s financial comparisons will be tougher. Shares of RadioShack, electronics retailer, fell 9.1% to $17.19 after the company announced a quarterly loss.

Hardware shares and household furnishings were among the worst performing subgroups as the National Association of Realtors released US existing home sales data for September. The data shows sales declining more than anticipated to a 6.18 million unit annual rate from a 6.30 million pace in August.

PepsiCo has announced its plans to launch healthier products next year and focus on growth in emerging markets. This will be in continuation of the strategy that has helped the world’s No 2 beverage company stay profitable even as sales growth of its soft drinks has slowed.

According to PepsiCo’s new CEO Indra Nooyi, the company is on right track to meet its annual target of volume and revenue growth in the mid-single digits and earnings per share growth in the low double digits. Speaking at an analysts’ conference in New York on October 23, Nooyi said she would lead the company without a major departure from the strategy of her predecessor Steve Reinemund, who will retire in May. Nooyi added that she has been involved in the company’s strategic planning for the last several years and a radical shift in the strategy is not going to happen.

Under Reinemund’s guidance, PepsiCo evolved into a $33-billion food company from being known mostly for selling soda and salty snacks. The company embraced the push into healthier options like Tropicana juices, Aquafina water and whole grain Quaker Oats Cereals while seeing earnings rise.

PepsiCo has fixed its targets for midteen-range profit growth in the international unit and 7% growth in the North America unit. Nooyi said that health and wellness, natural and organic products and premium products are the areas ripe for growth in North America. Mike White, CEO PepsiCo International, said concerns about health are global and because of the growing concerns about obesity, they were not pushing international consumers to increase the serving size of their salty snacks, but to just eat them more frequently. CFO Richard Goodman said that PepsiCo would allocate $500 million a year for tuck-in acquisitions as part of an aggressive expansion strategy. Some analysts feel there will be more focus on acquisitions in the near future.

All leading indicators are now confirming that most US home markets are in bear mode with anxious sellers and limited buyers. The Donald Trump Index is also not telling a different story. Donald Trump Index is mostly a psychological measure, which is based on popularity of real-estate-oriented seminars headlined by the property mogul and TV star.

According to the Learning Annex, a New York-based education company, the Real
Estate Wealth Expo, featuring Trump and 70 other money mavens, attracted more than 60,000 participants in 2005, when the home market was at its peak. The Expo charged as much as $499 per person. Recent ads for the event offered a price as low as $99 for similar seminars that are scheduled in cities such as Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Toronto. Is there any connection between the 80% drop in the Trump Index and the measurable decline in the market?

It is evident now that there are more home sellers than buyers. The data collected by
National Association of Realtors says that there is more than a 7 month-plus supply of
unsold houses. Higher mortgage rates combined with large, static inventory depresses existing home sales, which fell 0.5% in August to the lowest level since 2004. The housing starts in August were down 20% from a year ago. With the highest supply of homes in 13 years, the housing group forecasts a 9% drop in existing-home sales for 2006 and a 17% drop in new-home purchases.

The total number of homes available on the market is out of balance with the demand. If we assume that the US population of 300 million is growing at a rate of 1% per year, and there are about 2.6 people per household, the base demand for housing is about 1.15 million units. The new-home construction rate was 1.7 million in August, and there are roughly 4 million unsold homes in the market today. Unless speculators and investors absorb the surplus, the supply may exceed the demand by 4.5 million homes.

Homebuilders are now offering teaser incentives to buyers, such as free kitchen and bath upgrades. That sounds tempting if you are exploring for a new home, but see how serious they are to lock sales by asking them to cut their selling prices.

With oil prices down sharply from its peak, some investors who invest money into energy-sector exchange traded funds (ETF) have slipped up as well. From its July peak of close to $80 a barrel, oil prices have fallen about 22 per cent and pulled down stocks of major energy companies along with it.

ETFs in the energy sector haven’t bucked the trend. With about $4.6 billion in assets, Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund, the largest energy-oriented ETF, has dropped 9 per cent from mid-July. Investors see the quick downfall of oil-related ETFs as a reminder of the volatility inherent in betting on narrow slices of the stock market. ETFs are similar to index-oriented mutual funds but trade on an exchange, like a stock. There are many ETFs which replicate broad well-known stock market indexes like the S&P 500.

Many advisors warn against Main Street investors using ETFs to pile into hot sectors, rather than cautiously investing their money over all kinds of investments. For investors
who think a recovery in oil prices is in the cards, energy-related ETFs would be a good bet since they hew to their index of choice. Unlike actively traded mutual funds, energy?related ETFs don’t boost holdings of cash or take other measures that would buffer their fall or limit their gains should oil prices rotate.

With energy prices falling, there have been big outflows in energy ETFs. However the
outflows don’t necessarily indicate that investors are cutting contact to energy stocks. Since ETFs can be sold short or used to hedge complicated bets on market, analysts warn frequently that ETF asset flows give a clearer picture of institutional trading activity than investors attitudes. In reality, while energy ETFs have lost assets recently, the outflows began in July, when oil was at its crest. Energy sector ETFs witnessed net outflows of about $234 million in July and $507 million in September. Some analysts think what happened is not a reflection on sentiment in the market but an institutional activity.