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JULY 21, 2003
Edited by Toddi Gutner The Stat 1.2 percent of all U.S. home mortgages were in the process of foreclosure in the first quarter of 2003. That's a record high. Data: Mortgage Bankers Assn. THE MEDIA News from All Over At one time, news junkies far from home had to read an abbreviated, photocopied ragsheet put out by hotels or ocean liners. No more. NewspaperDirect has joined with 300 companies, including Ritz-Carlton and Norwegian Cruise Lines, to provide same-day editions of 170 newspapers, representing 40 countries in over 25 languages. For about $4 a day, you can pick, among others, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Le Figaro, and Shanghai Daily.   REAL ESTATE Going Down? Pen a book called The Coming Crash in the Housing Market (McGraw-Hill, $14.95), and you might be accused of craning your neck for signs of impending doom. Just the same, author John Talbott has spotted something worth noting: In the past six months, house prices stopped rising. And in such key markets as Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, they sank. "Many cities may have peaked," says Talbott, a onetime Goldman Sachs banker and now a visiting scholar at the Anderson School of Management of the University of California at Los Angeles. Talbott's view contrasts with the prevailing sentiment, which is based on the latest real estate industry statistics as traditionally reported -- that is, by comparing the median price of existing single-family houses to the median 12 months earlier. By that measure, the national median price rose 7% in the 12 months ended Mar. 31. Using the same industry statistics, Talbott looked at the six months ended Mar. 31. Turns out the national median price ran flat. Naturally, even if overall growth is stalling, hot spots remain. Among them: Las Vegas, Sacramento, and Sarasota. By Robert Barker GIZMOS Counting Watts Hook up this kilowatt-hour meter to that old fridge in your garage. You may retire it when you learn how much juice it uses. Kill A Watt, $40 from Repair-Clinic.com, plugs into a wall outlet and logs the power consumption of anything that's plugged into it. It teaches you to turn off your computer when you're done (save $100 a year) and whether to repair or replace older appliances when they break. MUTUAL FUNDS The Good Fight Want to shake up Corporate America? H Team Capital, a New York startup, has an offer for you. In September, it will launch a fund that will wage proxy contests and other legal battles against companies with shareholder-unfriendly policies. The strategy has paid off for big investors such as pension giant TIAA-CREF and investment manager Relational Investors. But because proxy battles are costly and fail half the time, don't be surprised to pay high expenses and see wide swings in returns. H Team has yet to file its fees.
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