Filed under: Bad news, Economic data, Housing, Recession

Sales of existing homes fell slightly in March 2008, the National Association of Realtors announced Tuesday, as resales continued to lag amid the nation’s worst housing slump in more than 15 years. It was the fourth existing home sales decline in the last five months.

Sales advanced at a 4.93-million-unit annualized pace in March 2008, the NAR said. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had expected March 2008 existing home sales to register a 4.95-million-unit annualized rate. The February 2008 existing homes sales statistic was revised to a 5.03-million-unit annualized pace.

Regionally, March 2008 existing home sales fell 6.5% in the Midwest, 3.5% in the South, and 2.2% in the West. Sales roses 2.2% in the Northeast.

Meanwhile, the U.S. median home price plummeted 7.7% to $200,700 on a year-over-year basis. The median price was $217,400 a year ago.

Equally significant, home inventories rose 1.0% to 4.06 million units, a 9.9-month supply at the current sales pace. A typical, healthy housing market has an inventory of 3-4 months.

The existing home sales statistic is considered a lead economic indicator because the metric tracks actual signings for the month reported, in this case, March 2008.

Economic Analysis: A poor March 2008 existing home sales statistic. Existing home sales remain weak, indicative of an economy in recession and a housing market where potential buyers anticipate future price declines, and hence postpone home purchase decisions. Further, if sluggish home sales persist, that’ll make it very hard for the U.S. economy to resume an sufficient growth rate in Q3 2008.

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Filed under: Industry, Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Recession

The U.S. automobile companies make more money on SUVs and pick-ups than they do on low-priced sedans and coupes. That’s old news and hardly worth repeating, except alongside the word that inventories of these trucks is piling up.

According to the AP, “Used SUV sales in March were down 14 percent nationally compared to last year.” When used cars don’t sell, neither do new ones. Used vehicle dealers will cut prices to move supplies of SUVs, which they can’t hold because they need cash-flow. An abundance of affordable, cheap trucks will be attractive to those who need a replacement automobile during a recession. That leaves new automobile dealers and firms like General Motors (NYSE: GM) and Ford (NYSE: F), which supply them in a bind.

The price of Ford’s stock moved up sharply last week when it posted better-than-expected earnings. Almost all of that gain disappeared the next day when analysts became more clear-heading about the continuing drop in Ford’s sales.

That drop is about to get much worse.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

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Filed under: Google (GOOG), Marketing and advertising

Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) ventured further into mobile advertising this past week with the introduction of display ads geared for mobile phones. From the smallest cellphone screen resolution to the iPhone, Google wants to ensure that it will be able to display ads on all those billions of little screens in the very near future. This should come as no surprise, as CEO Eric Schmidt seems to always promote Google’s mobile efforts every single chance he gets. It’s no surprise — there are way more mobile users in the world than there are Computer users.

Can Google become as successful on the mobile screen as it has been on the Personal computer screen? That’s a tough one to chew on, but the extremely limited real estate of a cellphone screen might make that effort quite difficult. Google just can’t line up paid ads down the side of a cellphone screen like it can on that laptop screen or that 21″ LCD monitor on the desk at home or in the office.

The iPhone changed the game a bit last year, giving customers a very large screen — both physically and in resolution — to play with. However, the number of iPhones pale in comparison with total cellphones with a smaller color screen. Google’s Android cellphone operating system, which has a massive partnership following, may be able to increase available inventory on the mobile screen for Google’s ads. In fact, that was probably a top priority. However, it will be quite a while before customers have that at their fingertips. Google’s mobile ad efforts, until then, will be highly complementary to its regular advertising business on the PC screen, but nothing more.

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Filed under: Deals

The board and management of Continental Airlines (NYSE:CAL) have decided that staying single is the best way of life. After long merger talks with United (NASDAQ:UAUA), Continental has elected to go it alone.

Continental may still enter a “code sharing” alliance with one or more airlines so that customers can have common ticking across more than one carrier.

The decision is based on the premise that airline mergers created nightmarish customer service problems which drive fliers to the competition. It is a sound position and calls into question the wisdom of Delta’s (NYSE:DAL) merger with Northwest (NYSE:NWA).

While industry marriages may allow for the cutting of some routes and personnel, they can lead to labor relations headaches including strikes by employees who are trying to keep their jobs. The hook-ups also do nothing to solve the more pressing problem at all airlines–rising fuel costs.

The rest of the story is at 24/7 Wall St.

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Filed under: Before the bell, Microsoft (MSFT), American Express (AXP)

Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) is up 21% on strong earnings.

Ambac (NYSE: ABK) is up almost 8% on an upgrade from Moody’s.

American Express (NYSE:A XP) is up 4% on good Q1 numbers.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is down over 4% after reporting a weak quarter.

Chemed (NYSE: CHE) is trading down 15% on a poor Q1.

Stocks may trade differently in the pre-market than the do in the regular session.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

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Filed under: Management, Raising money, Venture capital industry, Private equity industry, Investments

IndexAtlas has announced the launch of the $50 million Art Industry Fund, an substitute private equity fund targeting only businesses that serve the art industry.

This will include such operations as auction houses, advisory services, financial and security firms, software and media companies. Each investment is intended to last four years and will range from $3 to $8 million. The fund is expected to close by December 31, 2009.

CEO and founder of IndexAtlas, Sergey Skaterschikov, believes the fund will generate an IRR of 35% and bases his investing strategy on his book, “Skate’s Art Investment Handbook.” Skaterschikov established IndexAtlas in 2001 and manages $400 million in fully invested funds and has advised on $2.4 billion in transactions.

There have been many such reports in here showing how there has been a convergence of private equity and venture capital. If this isn’t a prime example of that, then nothing else is.

If I didn’t know superior, it nearly sounds a lot like a Sotheby’s (NYSE: BID) incubator fund, even though it’s not.

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Filed under: Yahoo! (YHOO), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Time Warner (TWX), Starbucks (SBUX), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Advanced Micro Dev (AMD), Money and Finance Today, Alcoa Inc (AA), CBS Corp ‘B’ (CBS), Nucor Corp (NUE), Marriott Intl’A’ (MAR)