Retail gains in January

US retail sales moved up an unanticipated 2.3% in January, the biggest gain since May 2004. The expected increase was just 0.8%.

Nelson Mullins grows

Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, the state’s largest law firm, expanded with an acquisition of Greenville’s Wilkins & Madden. Former SC Governor Dick Riley’s father, Ted Riley, shared an office 60 years ago with Wilkins. Ted Riley was SC painter Jasper Johns’s uncle.

Manufacturing

According to the Federal Reserve, manufacturing in the US was running at 79.6% of capacity in December, about two percentage points below ten years ago. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of US workers in manufacturing is less than half its 1965 level.

US trade deficit

The US Commerce Department reported last week a record 2005 trade deficit of $725.8 billion, up 17.5% from the year earlier. US oil imports were up 39.4% for the year. The US is consuming far more than it makes.

Trade deficit with China

US trade with China hit its own record deficit of $201.6. US Senator Lindsay Graham (R–SC) is threatening to push next month for a vote on his proposal to apply a 27.5% tariff on Chinese imports if China fails to strengthen its currency, making Chinese goods more expensive. In 1990, there was no US company operating in China. In 2004, US–affiliated companies in China – companies with at least a 10% US stake – earned about $3 billion. General Motors reported income of $218 million from China in the first nine months of  2005.

Currency hedge funds falter

For the 20 years up to 2004, currency hedge funds averaged annual returns of 14.6%, according to a survey of 61 funds tracked by Parker FX Index. In 2004, the same funds suffered a 0.61% loss. Last year, 2005, there was a gain of 0.02%. Currency hedge funds bet on international currency exchange rates, and too many funds bet against the dollar only to see the dollar rise in value.

How ’bout them pineapples?

Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. will close down its pineapple operations in Hawaii in about two years. Del Monte has determined the costs of pineapple farming in Hawaii, where they have operated for 90 years, as too high.

Chevrolet vs. Ford

In 2005, Chevrolet auto sales in the US were 2,651,124. Ford auto (just Ford and not Lincoln, Mercury, etc.) sales were 2,634,041. On the other hand, according to R. L. Polk & Co., new US vehicle registrations for 2005 counted 2,630,000 Ford autos and 2,625,000 Chevrolets. Who is #1? Who cares? Both are losing market share. Chevrolet sales were down 3.5% in 2005, and Ford was down 4.8%. The Toyota auto nameplate sales were up 10.5%. For 2006, new–car sales in the US are expected to run around the same number as 2005, about 17 million.

If you remember Valentine’s Day

at The Plaza….

New York’s huge Plaza Hotel is converting into a condominium building with a much smaller hotel attached, maybe 100 rooms. On March 15 at Rockefeller Center, the auctioneer Christie’s will sell off the hotel’s collectables. The Frank Lloyd Wright Suite (#223–225), where Wright stayed in the 1950s during the construction of his design of the Guggenheim Museum, used to hang a 41–inch–square photograph of Wright. The Wright photograph will be sold, presumably for something between $600 and $800 million, according to The New York Times.

Get a little gas money back

in stock dividends

Over the next three years, BP plans to return about $65 billion to shareholders. The world’s five largest energy companies (BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco) distributed about $76 billion to shareholders in 2005, while $50 billion was spent on new oil exploration and production. In other words, there just aren’t that many more places to look for oil. When oil prices hiked in 1980–82, the oil industry spent about 80% of its free cash flow toward new oil exploration and production, and now only 40% goes in that direction.

France vs. US

Unemployment in France is about 10%, and the average French worker spends just under 1,500 hours on the job. In the US, unemployment is less than 5%, and each US worker averages a little over 1,700 hours on the job.

Health care

According to the SC Small Business Chamber of Commerce, almost 850,000 South Carolinians have no health insurance, and that includes no coverage by any public program such as Medicare.