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Washed away

There's been plenty of time for random musings the past few days. As ever, a trip back home leaves me feeling content but conflicted. There's so much about home that is enticing and hard to leave behind: the warmth of my blankee, the free-flowing filter coffee, the parental units that I can leave all the worrying to for a few days. But I'm at odds with the city that my parents have chosen to retire in. In Chennai, a gentler-paced city that is charming precisely because it isn't racing with itself, I feel like a fringe element looking in on a party that I can never be a part of. In Mumbai, a giant-hearted tidal wave of a city, I sometimes come within a razor's edge of my sanity. In short, my heart is in so many places at the same time that home is destined to be somewhere in between.

Is home the place that you can stake a claim to? If it is, then how can we explain this? This National Geographic piece by Cathy Newman is an unabashedly sentimental ode to Venice, which she says, has one foot in a watery grave. The canals of Venice that have fed a million fantasies are also its undoing, says Newman. With every acqua alta or high tide, Venice's foundation sinks just a tad lower. With every new wave of tourists besieging the city, a few more of its indigenous residents are left adrift.

Consider for a moment this startling statistic: The number of Venetian residents in 2007: 60,000. Number of visitors in 2007: 21 million. Whose Venice is it anyway?

In these fluid times, cities can no longer afford to be ethnically exclusive. Try as they might, Raj Thackeray and the MNS will never be able to stem the mighty tide of migrants that pours into Mumbai every day. But Venice is not a pulsating hive of commerce; its very beauty puts limits on how much it can stretch its resources. Somewhere along the way, Venice seems to have sold out to the dollars that flood its canals, and Venetians have paid the price for it.

Venice has always been on my wishlist of places to visit, never mind the dizzying prices. But now, $40 seems too high a price to pay for a Carnival mask, for more reasons than one.

It's true what Newman says, "Kisses end. Dreams vanish, and sometimes cities too. We long for the perfect ending, but the curtain falls along with our hearts. Beauty is so difficult." 

I don't have any photos of Venice you haven't already seen, so I'll leave you with a photo of a stunning sky taken from my parents' balcony. Am I tempted to stay back in dear ol' Chennai? Sometimes.

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Something Greater than me

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Malibu mini video: sponataneous moment of nature-appreciation. I know it seems strange that an Angeleno can forget his proximity to the ocean, but in the business of the day, it's easy to forget.  LA is seaside town!

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The Ultimate Malibu Moment

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In this video footage, a 7-months-pregnant woman paddle-surfs calmly past me. I'm standing on the world-famous Malibu pier, where people literally fish for sharks: I look out, and here is this serene, happy person -- very pregnant -- standing on a board, oar in water, gliding by.  Some people excel at living in the moment, and they inspire me.

Dane Findley
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The Los Angeles Real Estate Voice (Blog) Pre-Approval Can Be Essential

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Ebbe anne Elbe

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Opportunity with Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble, the presumed king of defensive stocks, has been giving up ground of late.

The maker of brands including Crest, Tide, and Pampers is hovering near a 52-week low following a disappointing earnings report on Jan. 30. The company is down 14% in 2009, versus a decline of 6.4% for Colgate-Palmolive (CL) and 3.1% for Clorox (CLX). On a forward price-to-earnings basis, P&G is now cheaper than it's been in 20 years. Shares closed at $52.94 on Monday.

Is that a reason to jump into P&G? "You better believe it," says Jack Russo, an analyst at Edward Jones. "They give you everything you want," he says, citing sheer scale and product and geographic diversity to go with a strong balance sheet.

There's nothing sexy about P&G's business, but its scale and relative stability still make it an attractive stock for the times. The company boasts a remarkable 23 brands that each generate $1 billion or more in annual sales, including household names like Gillette, Head & Shoulders, Dawn, Bounty and Charmin.

"They have individual brands that do more in revenues than entire companies," says Darryl Oliver, consumer staples analyst for Brown Advisory, a Baltimore-based investment firm. Loran Braverman, an equity analyst for Standard & Poor's, thinks P&G shares were oversold in the wake of the second-quarter results in January, as some investors came to the stock with unreasonable expectations.

"I think it's just a misunderstanding that these companies are not recession proof," she says. Rather, "they're recession resilient." She has a 12-month price target of $71 on Procter & Gamble and rates shares at Strong Buy. Investors can also count on a growing income stream. P&G has increased its dividend for 52 consecutive years and currently yields 3% -- its highest figure in two decades.

The company -- and consumer staples in general -- largely lived up to their defensive promise in 2008. P&G fell 14% last year, compared with a 38% decline for the S&P 500. S&P's consumer staples index was off 18%. Thus far in 2009, though, P&G has trailed not just its peers, but the broader market. The S&P 500's 3.8% decline beats P&G's 14% slide.

P&G shares now trade at 13.9 times earnings estimates for the next 12 months, far below its median multiple of 20 times over the last 20 years. In a reversal from prior months, that's also a discount to rival Colgate's 15.1 forward earnings multiple. Investor's concerns are not unfounded, of course. P&G faces headwinds in the form of a strengthening U.S. currency -- 56% of profits came from outside North America last year. Commodity costs, though softening, continue to impact results. And retailers appear to be storing fewer goods in their inventories.

"Impacts of this magnitude are unprecedented in our industry and have been felt across each of the business segments to differing degrees," said P&G's Chief Financial Officer Jon Moeller, during the Jan. 30 earnings call. For the quarter, P&G's organic product volume fell 3%, though organic sales, helped by higher prices -- still rose by 2%. Analysts use the organic figure to strip away the impact of acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange.

For the fiscal 2009 year ending in June, P&G now expects organic sales growth between 2% to 5%, that's below a 4% to 6% forecast provided last fall. Analysts see fiscal 2009 EPS of $4.26, up from $3.64 in 2008. The 2009 figure includes a 63-cent gain from the spin-off of P&G's Folgers coffee subsidiary last fall. Despite the slip in volumes, P&G held its overall global market share, the company said.

As such, P&G is positioned to overcome current obstacles. The company's broad product portfolio insulates sales from the much talked-about trade down effect to cheaper, so-called private label goods. Oliver says trade-down is a "blip on [P&G's] radar screen because of the share they have in their categories."

They have "good, better and best within brands," Oliver says. For instance, a 50-ounce container of Tide -- P&G's premium laundry detergent -- fetches $8.99 on Safeway's online shopping site. The same size of Gain, another P&G detergent, goes for $4.99.

All together, P&G controls about 60% of the U.S. detergent market. S&P's Braverman notes that a softening ad market could also help P&G, the world's largest advertiser. For a company like P&G, "share of voice" is closely tied to the company's market share. If P&G can get extend its ad reach at a lower cost that could benefit both the top and bottom line in coming quarters, she says.

One caveat about P&G shares: prolonged signs of economic improvement could cause investors to shift out of P&G into riskier companies with stronger growth prospects. That could pressure Procter stock. For investors doubtful of a quick economic recovery, though, and those still feeling sick about the big swings in their portfolios, P&G could be a reasonable remedy.

Source.

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tide II

a sandbar has appeared on our beach here. i liked the pattern it created so i waited until sunset yesterday evening to grab a long exposure which would illustrate the pattern without burning out the white water. i find it a very meditative image after pondering it for close to 24 hours. let me know what you think...
 
hope you enjoy this series of desktop background wallpapers.
 
these images are created for a 1.6:1 aspect ratio. the image resolution is 2560x1600, use a setting such as center or fit if you are using a different resolution.
 
this series is comprised of images i like and personally use as my desktop backgrounds. if there are other images in my stream you'd like to see as backgrounds send me a note. prints are available in limited quantities here.

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