By: Rob Black - Tue, 26 Jun 2012 17:46:16 -0800
Winner: Stocks Rebound On Housing Improvement
Winner: Housing Bust is Over!Housing Bust is Over!Today's Case-Shiller house price report helped confirm it.On a sequential basis, house prices rose 0.67%. On an annualized basis, house prices only fell 1.9%, which is far better than the expectation of a 2.50%.And the more you dig into the report, the better it looks.Here are some datapoints:• 19 out of 20 cities saw gains.• 18 out of 20 cities saw an improvement in annual returns.• There were no cities where house prices hit brand new lows.New home sales have hit a 2 year high.Clearly new home sales have bottomed – and the debate is now about the strength of the recovery. Although sales are still historically very weak,.
Sales and prices are both starting to move up.
Winner: Best Buy Founder Mulls Going Private
Best Buy founder Richard Schulze is considering making a bid to take the consumer electronics retailer private.Schulze, who owns a 20.1% stake in the company, abruptly resigned as chairman and a director earlier this month.The Journal says Schulze could sell his stake, but that his preference is to buy it. Best Buy has an enterprise value of about $8 billion.
Loser: Knicks’ Stoudemire Fined $50,000 for Offensive TweetAmar’e Stoudemire of the New Yourk Knicks was fined $50,000 by the NBA for using a gay slur in a Twitter message. Stoudemire, who had a $19.9 million salary last season, was involved in an exchange with a Knicks fan on June 23 when he used “offensive and derogatory language. Stoudemire received a Twitter message with an obscenity from the fan three days ago and responded with a direct message that included the slur. The message from Stoudemire became public when the recipient re-tweeted it, leading Stoudemire to apologize in a follow-up message.