Earning, Saving & Spending

Personal income and spending reports are due out at 8:30 a.m. Monday from the Bureau of Economic Analysis – the same folks who brought us Friday’s advance GDP report, which showed that the nation’s economy still was contracting in the second quarter of 2009, but at a slower pace.

The personal income and outlay release uses aggregated numbers for the entire country, so it’s not a great source of nitty-gritty salary detail. Read the May 2009 edition, on the Web site now, for a look at the format and data that will be updated Tuesday with June results.

While very macro, it’s still a decent springboard for doing a grassroots story about household earning and savings trends. (The BEA report assumes that the different between income and outlay equals individual savings, so that figure is part of the monthly report.)

People never, and I mean never, get tired of reading about wages – their own and other workers. And this summer, story angles about household income abound. Aside from the obvious jobless-related approach, many employed workers are taking a pay cut as companies and governments adopt the practice of using unpaid furloughs to cut costs. Check into how widespread this practice is and what the ripple effects are in your area.

It’s not all bad news. Remember that many employees are seeing a few extra stimulus dollars in their checks – how are they spending them? Paying down debt, saving or splurging? You can ask workers themselves, keeping in mind that the real frugalities are home washing out used Ziploc bags and not spending in the public venues like malls and restaurants where you usually find ‘real people’ for your stories. Try to catch people in money-neutral locations – parks, the library, etc., to get a balanced sampling.

Also talk with local banks and credit unions about trends they are seeing. Check with payroll managers – are more workers hustling to retire 401(k) loans or having savings automatically debited right from their checks? Giant payroll processors like ADP and PayChex offers some tidbits in their media centers; it’s worth a call to them or smaller regional providers to see if they can comment on payroll trends.

We also just had a federal minimum wage increase to $7.25 per hour, effective July 24. (Keep in mind that some states’ higher minimums supersede the federal rate; here’s a list from the Department of Labor.) Minimum and living wages are controversial topics, especially among small business owners, so there’s another angle for you.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

All Eyes on Automakers

Monthly U.S. auto sales tallies are always closely watched, but Monday’s numbers will be especially interesting because they’ll reflect a full week of sales under the federal "cash for clunkers" program.

Automotive sales, of course, have spent the past year in a free fall, sending General Motors and Chrysler to bankruptcy court and Capitol Hill for concessions. Thousands of workers have been furloughed, bought out, retired early or laid off.

Here’s how drastic the drop has been: In 2007, U.S. consumers wheeled away in some 16 million new cars trucks. This year, the most upbeat forecasters predict total sales of – maybe – 10 million vehicles. That’s nearly a 40 percent drop in two years – meaning 40 percent less revenue for pretty much the entire supply chain and everyone connected with auto retailers.

So even if you don’t have a car company headquarters or factory in your territory, chances are a good number of your readers have a vested industry in the health of the auto industry.(After all, as taxpayers they now own a majority stake in GM!)

The automakers – including the U.S. units of transplant and overseas companies, report monthly sales a day or two after the last business session of the previous month. Autodata Corp., an information service for the industry, posts the release calendar and year-to-date figures free of charge on its Web site.

The June tally is up now; take a look to make sure you understand the terminology. First you’ll see the year-over-year results – last June compared to this June, in raw numbers and in percentage-point change. (Those are the negative numbers in the third column, for most brands.) The next three columns are cumulative sales year-to-date, compared to the same period in 2008.

You also should understand SAAR – that is, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales, a measure of how many cars could be expected to sell in a year if the pace of the current month continues.

Autodata also provides an aggregated spreadsheet at the end of the day to some media outlets; the reports are a valuable shortcut in creating charts and info boxes. The firm has been inundated of late with media requests and might switch to a paid subscription, so don’t put away your calculator just yet. Meanwhile, a polite request to media@motorintelligence.com may just get you a coveted spot on their distribution list.

Another way to prep: Check out the company-by-company forecasts by industry watchers such as Edmunds.com; while not infallible, these predictions can help you get a feel for the story-du-jour in auto sales. Sometimes it’s external forces like the current rebate program; other months it’s the horse race for the No. 1 position or the dive in truck and SUV demand.

Individual company releases (sign up for them at individual automaker media Web sites or via PR Newswire – and do it today, not Monday) come in no particular order and trickle out after noon on the appointed date – leaving you the morning free to troll dealerships for retailer and consumer comments.

Check around today to see if you can sit in on (and video) the closing of a new-car deal Monday morning; hearing the voice of a consumer who decided to take the plunge – and the reasoning behind his or her purchase – will add quite a bit of human interest to what can seem like a dry numbers story. With billions of taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs at stake, car sales reports these days are anything but routine.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

The ABC's of the GDP

The granddaddy of all economic statistics will be released at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow, and the numbers will show whether or not the U.S. economy has started to claw out of its most dismal slump since the Great Depression.

Gross Domestic Product, in all its intricacies and implications, isn’t something you can assimilate overnight. But since it’s pretty much all of the statistics we’ve already discussed – and more – wrapped into one, it behooves any business reporter to bone up a bit.

Considered the key measure of any country’s economic health, the GDP basically is the sum of all goods and services produced here. It’s considered a lagging indicator, meaning it’s a review of how things were in the previous quarter, from personal income to goods exported overseas.

If quarterly GDP growth (or contraction) deviates significantly from predictions, markets globally will gyrate. According to Reuters, analysts expect the Q2 advance report to show further contraction in the U.S. economy -- the first time since 1947 that records show four consecutive negative quarters – but the pace of contraction is expected to ease.
Start at the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, which produces the GDP reports.

Click on the GDP channel and you’ll find an e-mail sign-up, educational information about methodology, and other helpful info. Note that the GDP figures for any given quarter are released three times – the advance, preliminary and final reports. The advance is our first peek and will be refined twice more until we get the final verdict on the second quarter. If you’ve never done so before, you might want to read the releases for previous quarters to familiarize yourself with the format.

The spot news in the GDP story will be whether or not it signals an end to the recession. In that regard, you can plan on doing a local economy story highlighting the hardest-hit sectors in your area. If your readers have lost manufacturing jobs or tourism revenue or orders for new airplanes, talk to regional analysts, academics and economists about how long an upswing might take to revive or replace those losses at the local level – and fold in macro view using national statistics.

GDP results tend to move markets; if they buoy or dampen the mini-rally underway, keep an eye Friday on stocks of local interest, especially large employers whose shares are likely lurking in your readers’ retirement accounts.

Also, be sure to root around on the BEA site; you’ll find GDP stats for states and metro areas as well as the U.S.-wide figure. On the downside, the data is a couple of years old, but the interactive maps and tables may provide a springboard for stories as well as charts and graphics.

As an aside, note that the BEA also tracks personal income and spending and issues monthly reports. The June numbers will be released August 4 so you might want to give that channel a glance too, while you’re on the site.

And keep in mind, as Mark Twain supposedly quoted, “there are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics.” Not everyone agrees that the GDP figure is a true reflection of our economy. I doubt the measure is going to be scrapped any time soon, but critiques help you put it in perspective; here’s a link to a readable Associated Press piece from last year explaining some analysts’ qualms.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Digging for Agriculture News

Neighbors are starting to hand fresh produce over the back fence, even here in the Midwest where summer temperatures don’t seem to have kicked in quite yet. They’re casting a critical eye over their gardens and weighing in on this year’s horticultural successes and failures.

With agriculture a key part of most state and local economies, you might want to do the same. Stories about crops and the people who grow them are always interesting, informative and offer great photo ops.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture site offers information overload and story ideas galore, from economics and research to crop marketing and food safety. Its Agriculture Fact Book, while someone dated, will give you an overview of topics and resources.

Naturally you’ll want to explore your state’s agriculture department as well. And for more information about trends and concern, check out the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture - who knew?! – a sort of trade and lobbying group for these related government agencies. Here’s the membership list and links to state offices.

If your state or region is known for one main crop, you could focus on the health of that business and any positive or adverse conditions this year that could affect jobs and revenue. Commodity prices are set at the Chicago Board of Trade, a sort of stock market for crops. If you aren’t up to speed on commodities don’t overlook the CBOT Web site’s helpful glossary and educational channels.

Keep in mind that crops grown for animal feed, research or for use in non-edible products all have a tale to tell. Biotech firms in your area may be researching genetically altered foods; your state university’s agriculture school or extension service might be a good place to get some leads.

If you need small business stories, look around for interesting companies related to agriculture and find out how the weather and the economy are treating them. Check roadside fruit and vegetable stands, farmers markets, small nurseries and specialty growers. What are they doing to compete?

Any interesting seed companies or mail-order suppliers in your area? Processing plants? Landscape supply companies selling giant palms to Las Vegas golf courses? How are the plants doing at the local cranberry bog or winery?

Agriculture stories practically scream for multimedia coverage. Try a sunrise scene at the local produce market or an explanatory video of blueberries going from field to muffin. Don’t laugh – in 1999 The Oregonian won a Pulitzer Prize for its biz package that followed a batch of potatoes from their field in the Pacific Northwest to their fate as french fries in Indonesia. Read all about it, along with some great advice for making business news relevant to readers, in this American Journalism Review piece.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Car Stories that Sell

Automotive dealers got the final rules and regulations for the “cash for clunkers” program Friday, and already over the weekend hastily-produced local TV ads were exhorting buyers to take advantage of the deal.

In a nutshell, the federally sponsored “Car Allowance Rebate System,” as it’s formally known, offers credits of up to $4,500 to people who trade in older cars and trucks for more fuel-efficient new models. The credit applies to purchases, and even to auto leases of at least five years. Trade-ins can be foreign or domestic as long they’re less than 25 years old, be drivable, and average 18 miles to the gallon or less.

To ward off “flippers,” the new law also requires that trade-ins be registered to the new-car buyer for the past year. The program will be in effect until Nov. 1 or until the federal funding is exhausted. Complete details about the program are available at the CARS program Web site.

In a year where auto sales so far are hovering around a three-decade low and major domestic manufacturers are closing thousands of dealers, any jump start to car buying is noteworthy.

You might approach this from a dealer perspective and marry it with an update (and infographic) about the status of car retailers in your area. The National Automobile Dealers Association, a trade and lobbying group, also offers commentary, statistics and updates at its site. An interactive map purports to outline the economic impact of auto sales in each state; it’s worth a look.

Or, you could run a consumer affairs or personal finance story instead. There are a couple of caveats in the fine print of the CARS rules worth pointing out:

• Since the new law – predicated on fuel-mileage concerns -- requires the traded-in gas guzzlers to be crushed and scrapped rather than resold, consumers likely won’t get the standard trade-in allowance for their old cars. They’ll want to weigh the lost value against whatever level of CARS credit they’re eligible for.

• The credited amount might not be exempt from sales tax; depends on the laws in your state so worth a call to the treasury department.

• Many older cars – including the 1997 purple Ford Escort sitting in my driveway – won’t make the cut for the credit because they still get make pretty decent miles per gallon. Consumers can look up their car’s eligibility by using this calculator. It’s rather ironic that those of us responsibly driving fuel-sippers all along won’t be able to cash in on the credit, isn’t it?

• The credit must be applied against a new vehicle costing less than $45,000 – so luxury auto dealers probably aren’t going to yield the best CARS color for your story.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

The Academic Avenue

Business journalism benefits from a wide array of sources. Sometimes, objective analysts are difficult to find – you can start to feel like a pinball bouncing between parties with vested interests, like PR staff, financial analyst and industry trade groups.

That’s especially true in tough economic times, when spokespersons are wary of sowing the slightest seed of doubt or dismay. Sometimes you’re lucky to find consultants and independent analysts who are gutsy enough to speak candidly without fear of reprisal from corporate clients. Sometimes, you’re not.

Before you’re on deadline and desperate for perspective, start mining your region’s business schools for credible, accessible academics. Visit them, learn from them and get their cell phone numbers. In fact, with Labor Day fast approaching, contact the schools’ communications staff now, before they’re swamped with fall semester tasks. They can give you an overview and specific faculty names to cultivate in coming months.

The big state and private universities are obvious sources; here’s the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking of top institutions.

Don’t, however, focus on them to the exclusion of smaller schools and community colleges for expert help. Many of their instructors are or were local business practitioners, or are well-connected with executives and development groups in your area. The U offers a great member spreadsheet that’s sortable by state; click on the “member institutions” tab to search in your area.

Aside from the academic experts themselves, business schools’ public relations teams can keep you abreast of conferences, studies, publications and new faculty.

You may be able to sit in on class sessions of particular relevance to your beats, especially if guest speakers include prominent business people. Student projects and case studies – especially at the graduate level – generate newsworthy results or at least interesting background data for your files.

It’s also worthwhile to make the professional acquaintance of the library staff. Depending on the institution, they may have specialty collections, historical materials or subscriptions you otherwise couldn’t access. One near me, for example, has a tax law library that no doubt would rival the Internal Revenue Service archives.

Plus, if you’re absolutely stumped for a source of statistics, librarians who specialize in business and finance can be a lifesaver on deadline. Try this University of California site that lists numerous university business libraries worldwide. The individual library sites themselves are a treasure trove of ideas and information.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Pet Biz Stories Fetch Readers

We’re about halfway through the dog days of 2009 – theoretically the sultriest, laziest days of the year.

If you’ve hit summer melancholy in your writing, challenge yourself with something like this: Can I get a puppy or a kitten into a business centerpiece display next week?

The $45 billion-a-year business of pets has boundless reader appeal. Animal lovers will lap up the information and the anti-pet contingent will devour your article too, rolling its collective eyes at the cash people spend on those darned cats and dogs, parrots and pigs.
The Petco and PetSmart, whose sites also offer fun facts and financials. Ask pet store proprietors – especially independent ones – about local suppliers; these small businesses could make interesting biz features or career spotlight stories. Seek out new or unexpected products.

Other good features include doggie day care, animal spas and motels, pet trainers, sitting services (we’re in peak of vacation season), kennels - the list goes on. Relatively new to the scene are the pet-waste pick-up services; there’s an interesting work-life story for you.

Or, focus on the business of pet health care. If you have a pharmaceutical firm nearby, check to see if they’re working on animal formulations of common human medications. Many veterinary clinics feature up-to-date technology and treatment. Look for the labs that process their blood work and companies that manufacture kitty-sized surgical equipment.

Be adventuresome. I once spent an entire night – 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. – in a for-profit emergency veterinary clinic. Patients ranged from the city’s $35,000 K-9 dog (upset stomach but X-rayed just in case) to a scrawny yellow scrap of a kitten whose destitute family couldn’t afford treatment. (The brusque, barely-out-of-vet-school doctor pulling the late shift nearly let them go but at the last minute picked up the tiny cat and carried it away, treating it at his own expense with an exasperated sigh.) Try something similar; the stories practically write themselves and you get a first-hand view of veterinary economics. Not to mention a vast array of multimedia opportunities for your Web site.

For more ideas try the pet funeral and cemetery industry. Condolence cards are going mainstream; ask stationery and gift shops how sales are doing. Urns, caskets, grave markers, memory jewelry and other products are a huge business.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Revving Up Airline Coverage

Now’s about the time for those midsummer doldrums when we all dream of jetting off to an exotic locale…or even someplace just moderately exciting.

Businesses writers without cash for a trip can do the next best thing - catch up with the airline business.

Even if you don’t have a major carrier headquartered inside your beat, you probably have an airport nearby that employs part of your audience either directly or in ancillary jobs with suppliers, cargo handlers, cleaners, the security force and other support services.

And the aircraft themselves ferry inbound tourists, business travelers and other passengers who leave their economic footprint in your area.

So spend some time developing a dossier on air traffic in your region. Which carriers are dominant? Check out their financials – most airlines are reporting earnings this week – and sign up at their media relations centers for e-mail feeds.

Are there any specialty firms like vacation charter services, corporate jet sharing programs or private shuttles operating out of your region? They – along with hands-on suppliers like the catering companies, the cleaning services, airport concessions operators – can provide useful data about traveler habits as well as interesting fodder for feature stories. For example, why does a snack pack worth $1.99 on land cost $8 aloft, and who gets to pick out the ingredients?

Your airport authority reports are public record; often available on Web sites. Traffic figures, landing fee revenues and other data should point you to key players.
Other helpful sources of data include:

• Bureau of Transportation Statistics - They offer stats including passenger counts, load factors, airport passenger counts and so on.

• Air Transport Association - This industry trade group’s Web site is packed with data and explanations; the ATA spokesman and economists are accessible and in tune with economic trends.

• International Air Transport Association - This is a Montreal-based organization representing 90 percent of carriers around the globe. They're particularly helpful with industry-wide issues, and will frequently offer economists or officers to speak to the media on issues that carriers themselves might not want to comment on. If you cover a major tourist destination, they can offer insight about patterns of foreign visitors.

Fuel is a huge cost factor for airlines; in fact those few who do manage to eke out a profit these days usually do so based on their fuel hedging practices (buying ahead at what they hope are rock-bottom prices.) Check with the Energy Information Administration, the federal fuel-information site, for helpful current and historical info on jet fuel prices.

Another helpful source of data and links: The Aviation Database. This is actually a fee-based consultancy that generates customized reports for people/businesses, but they have an excellent collection of historical stats and links to other sites that have great information.

Despite the hassles of flying these days, aviation is still a rather sexy business that lends itself to consumer pieces or just plain interesting feature stories. So forgive the cliché, but visit your local airport soon and let your writer’s imagination soar.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Covering Temp Firms

If you’re looking for a fresh angle to the jobs story, a couple of imminent earnings reports will give you a timely news peg.

Tomorrow, staffing industry giant Manpower Inc., reports quarterly financial results. And next week, on July 28, its equally global counterpart Kelly Services Inc. releases earnings, giving you ample reason to report a solid and audience-friendly piece on the state of temporary work in your region.

Temping is a viable income stream for many of your readers and a way for displaced workers to keep a toehold in the workforce. Don’t overlook the industry as a source of work-life stories and job-market forecasts.

Robert Half International Inc., parent of Accounttemps and other contingent-workforce firms, posted its second-quarter results last week. Revenue was down to $749 million from $1.2 billion in the same period a year before, while profits plummeted to $5.4 million $74.6 million a year ago.

But while they’ve taken the same economic hits as most other industries, staffing firms represent a multi-billion-dollar annual business, with more than 2 million workers a day being placed in assignments that can last a day or a year. Demand for temps dropped sharply in late 2008 but the pace of the fallout is slowing so far this year. It also, analysts say, tends to rebound sooner than the permanent job market, so temping activity can be a bellwether of employment activity in your region.

Some 6,000 firms operate about 20,000 branches nationwide, so it shouldn’t be hard to find sources and anecdotes. Niche firms abound, serving sectors from health care to autos to construction. Not surprisingly, the smaller shops are more accessible than the publicly-traded corporations. Try several for a frank discussion about what they are seeing in your territory, what concerns them and what their forecast is for the balance of the year.

The American Staffing Association, a national trade group, operates a helpful Web site and its state-by-state chapter directory
can help you home in on local contacts. The site also features industry FAQs and other materials in its media relations channel.

Another avenue: Talk to major employers about their outlook for hiring temps. Don’t overlook government agencies, universities and K-12 school districts; they rely on staffing firms to fill temp posts ranging from scientists to substitute teachers.

The consulting firm Staffing Industry Analysts offers a free daily e-mail feed; sign up at the site. While not primarily intended as a media resource, their consulting staff may be available to comment on trends or point you toward statistics.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Credit Reports Score Big

Aside from spot news, earnings season is a good opportunity to revisit companies, industries and issues you sometimes neglect to cover or might not have time to explore.

For example, firms posting financial results tomorrow include two credit-reporting giants, Equifax Inc. and Fair Isaac Corp. Fair Isaac, more commonly known as FICO, is the Minneapolis company that develops credit-scoring formula and related business services. Atlanta-based Equifax is one of the Big Three consumer credit reporting agencies. The other are Dublin, Ireland-based Experian and privately held TransUnion LLC, which is headquartered in Chicago.

Credit reporting is a huge, multi-faceted industry with substantial ramifications for your readers. These three agencies, along with myriad local and regional bureaus, keep track of how promptly consumers pay their bills, how much available credit they use and other financial behavior that purports to assest risk. They repackage and sell this information in a variety of ways to diverse clients.

Business is brisk – Equifax alone posted sales of $453 million in the first quarter of the year, though its profits dipped to less than $55 million. These companies often are demonized as the results of their analyses encroach further into consumers’ lives, affecting not only transactions with lenders but sometimes with employers, insurers and prospective landlords. Mistakes aside, though, they’re only slicing and dicing information that already exists based on our own behavior. While it may be galling to have giant corporations make money off of re-selling our bill-paying habits, there is no turning back now.

In writing about credit reporting for your readers, knowledge is power, and the corporate Web sites are a gold mine of information about industry issues, concerns and trends. Poke around to find story angles of special pertinence to conditions in your region. More insight is available on the Web site of the National Credit Reporting Organization, The trade group currently, for example, trumpets a membership drive aimed at resident-screening services – the businesses that check applicants’ credit for landlords and property management services. If you cover territory known for a tight rental market or housing hardships for low-income people, you could spin a new angle by talking to local resident-screening firms.

Amusingly, the agencies used to guard the results of credit scoring tenaciously, forbidding lenders from disclosing the proprietary results of their complicated algorithms. Then, a decade or so ago, the collective light bulb went on and the agencies realized they could reap even more sales by offering consumers’ own rating back to them – for a fee. Products like ‘credit monitoring’ also came into vogue over the last decade as identity theft became a much-hyped fear and now are aggressively marketed through television, the Internet and direct-mail.

If you’re covering a personal finance angle, be sure to use links or an info box to let your audience know about the Federal Trade Commission’s oversight of credit reporting and scoring, and the laws that protect individuals – such as the one requiring the credit reporting agencies to provide one free report each year. And despite the ubiquitous TV ads with the losers in the pirate hats, that’s not the site you want to endorse. The real free one is here.

Be sure also to alert your audience to the federal laws that protect them. The Fair Credit Reporting Act provides recourse them to consumers who spot errors or mix-ups on their reports.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Crafting Local Housing Stories

Get ready for another busy week on the residential real-estate front. A number of key statistics will be released over the next few days, giving you more news pegs for reports on the local housing scene.

Dollar signs are an irresistible draw for most readers, and there are plenty to be found in upcoming reports:

* On July 22, the Federal Housing Finance Authority its monthly Home Price Index. This one will reflect May 2009 sale prices for mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Here’s an FAQ about the report and how it compares to other home-price indices. The monthly gains and/or declines in selling prices are presented regionally but the site offers quite a bit of historical data on a quarterly basis that's available for selected metropolitan markets.

Also Wednesday, the Mortgage Bankers Association weekly roundup of home-loan application data can provide some demand-side perspective as well as average interest rates and terms.

* On July 23, the National Association of Realtors posts its monthly Existing Home Sales report at 10 a.m. It shows the number of units sold, as well as home prices, also on a regional basis. Ancillary reports break out single-family dwellings, condos and other niches. While you await the report, here’s a look at the NAR’s historical data and methodology.

* Next week will bring another round of reports, including the U.S. Census Bureau’s new home sales report on July 27, reflecting May sales. It also includes sales prices and makes for an interesting – though not, of course, apples-to-apples – contrast to the NAR’s existing sales report. On Tuesday, more home price data arrives via the S&P/Case-Shiller Indices.

It’s helpful to be familiar with all of the above data and the methods used to obtain it. But really, the reports are just some of the building blocks for reporting on your local real estate scene. You need to get a narrative going and show how a stagnant market hinders mobility – that people who can’t sell their current houses can’t move to take another job, be closer to family, retire in Tennessee. Hit the classified ads and talk with the people behind the real-estate listings (keeping in mind that do-it-yourselfers may be more accessible than those represented by agents). Take note of “reduced” signs as you drive around – those marked-down prices represent someone’s nest egg or dream fund evaporating.

With all of the above elements in place, you can pull together a compelling home sales package. For the Web, consider video interviews or tours with stranded homeowners, or an interactive graphic mapping recent home sales and prices in selected communities. Your audience will be clicking for more.

Here are a few other residential real-estate resources you should bookmark:

* The Real Estate Center
* Real Estate Magazine
* Builder: the online trade journal for the construction industry

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Cinemas Keep Reeling Them In

Movie watchers just love the smell of popcorn in a recession.

That's judging by this year’s movie ticket sales, which are thriving even as other leisure venues like restaurants and casinos clamor for discretionary dollars.

So far, summer of 2009 box office is trending just 1 percentage point below the record-setting season in 2007, according to industry blogger Patrick Corcoran of the National Association of Theater Owners. That’s fueled in part by the release of eagerly awaited sequels involving Harry Potter, Transformers and Ice Age characters as well as a gangster flick starring a clean-shaven Johnny Depp and sans tentacled villains. But some analysts also surmise that consumers sacrificing vacations and other big-ticket items are treating themselves to more time in front of the nation’s 38,000 silver screens.

A trend piece would make a catchy business centerpiece and you have myriad angles from which to choose, from the plight of local independent theaters to pending movie house expansion in your area to the fiscal health and future of existing cineplexes. From a business-technology standpoint, 3-D and digital projection systems are hot topics and likely to alter the shape of local theater competition. Find out who’s ahead in the race to upgrade. Talk to theater managers about whether more cost-conscious patrons are trying to sneak in contraband snacks, and if they’re using promotional pricing to beef up crowds.

Resources abound; aside from Corcoran’s insider blog, the NATO home page features links, FAQs, statistics, legislative matters affecting the cinema trade. The site is worth a visit just for the YouTube replays of kitschy retro concession-stand come-ons on its home page.

Several large theater operators are publicly traded, including Regal Entertainment Group and AMC Entertainment Inc. - meaning you can get their financial records at their investor-relations sites.

Talk with commercial real estate developers about plans for new theaters and new theater trends. One that’s catching on is the premium movie experience, where patrons pay extra to dine on cooked-to-order meals, sip wine or cocktails and relax in reserved luxury recliners. Aimed at the post-teen crowd, this trend too can reshape the cinema trade in your area. Big players in the luxury theater realm include Gold Class Cinemas, and Muvico. Movie eateries include Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Studio Movie Grill, Movie Tavern and Regal Entertainment Group’s Cinebarre concept.

Remember, even if these outlets aren’t yet in your area, their executives may be available to discuss industry ups and downs.

Business stories should include lots of dollar signs and numbers; one good source of a ready-made weekly box office chart is Nielson EDI Inc. You can ask local theater managers how attendance trends in your area compare to the national scene.

And don’t forget about drive-ins. The United Drive-in Theater Owner’s Association offers some (slightly stale) statistics as well as a listing of drive-ins reopened or built over the past decade. The nostalgia site DriveInTheater features a state-by-state directory as well as lore and preservation info.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Making Sense of Market Moves

Not to jinx anything, but we appear to be enjoying a little stock market rally this week.

The nation’s major indices – the NASDAQ, Standard & Poor’s 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average – each closed up at about 6 percent week-to-date Wednesday.

Decent earnings reports, a slowdown in reported credit card delinquencies, a weaker U.S. dollar (which is a good thing; one of these days I’ll tell you why) and an upbeat Fed report all have pushed traders into a bullish mood. We’re not at a year-to-date high by any means – that happened back in January, on the Dow – but the trend is noteworthy.

If the bounce extends through the end of the week, you might want to consider a markets story. Readers who’ve been stuffing their unopened investment statements under the sofa cushions all year likely will have caught wind of the market uptick and expect local business coverage to reflect it in some way.

The trick: How to make sense of stock index moves when you’re not a market maven who does it for a full-time living. How can you add value beyond replicating a wire story?

Report the share prices of companies headquartered in your area, along with earnings they’ve recently issued, or other context about their business and industry. If you aren’t sure which local firms shares are traded, consult a local business journal; they often publish annual directories. Use corporate Web sites to get historical stock prices and other data for your charts.

Don’t overlook major local employers even if their administrative offices are elsewhere. Boeing Co., for example, moved its headquarters to Chicago in 2001 but you can bet its share performance still is of interest to thousands of workers and retirees in the Seattle area.

For market overviews and practical tips for investors, seek out economists at local universities and business schools. Beware of commentary from experts in commissioned sales-oriented jobs at banks, brokerages and insurance firms unless you’ve checked out the individual’s credentials and reputation. That isn’t to say all such people will produce nothing but self-serving quotes, but the scope for bias is great, as it is with representatives of most industries. If you want remarks from financial advisers, locate some fee-only Certified Financial Planner professionals; you may do a ZIP-code search for those in your area at the CFP Board of Standards site.

Another touchy area: It’s OK to acknowledge significant stock market fluctuations – but for most individuals, investing is a very long-term proposition. As far as I’m concerned, it’s unethical to hype short-term gains and losses with big headlines, dramatic pull quotes and other eye-catching devices, thereby training your readers to overreact to ordinary volatility. Financial message boards are rife with poignant posts from spooked investors who locked in losses at the bottom and are, inexplicably, waiting until markets climb before they buy in again. Be sure your coverage and its presentation are balanced and informative, not sensational.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Unlocking the Earnings Enigma

Let’s face it, most journalists aren’t numbers gurus. Sure, there are some exceptions: I know one who used to take MIT math courses “for fun” … shudder.

But while most of us could happily while away the afternoon paging through a paperback thesaurus, those tickers scrolling beneath the CNBC anchors might as well be ancient hieroglyphics and the phrase ‘balance sheet’ has about as much appeal as ‘spinal tap.’

There’s no getting around it for business writers, though – particularly during earnings season, an expression you’ve no doubt heard a lot of this week. It means that many publicly traded corporations have closed their books on the preceding quarter and are ready to announce whether or not they made a profit in those three months. Earnings season, obviously, comes around four times a year. The implications are watched both for individual companies and for the overall health of the economy – and the stock market will gyrate accordingly.

Yahoo! Finance offers a really handy day-by-day earnings calendar that isn’t as cumbersome as those published by major stock markets. Get in the habit of skimming the look-ahead view so you can prep for earnings announcements of companies in your territory.
Many large corporations release at 7 a.m. or otherwise before the market opens, so you might have to get up early in order to post results online in real time. Make sure you’ve set up executive interviews and obtained the password for earnings-related conference calls ahead of time, not the day of the release when investor relations pros are at their busiest.

Other companies announce earnings after the markets’ 4 p.m. close, which can make for a real scramble on deadline for print editions. Again, pre-arranging interviews and getting the cell phone numbers of key analysts and executives will streamline your task.

Your Web and graphics editor will thank you if you provide historical figures – a five-quarter look back is typical – before the day of the release, so those charts can drawn off deadline. Get the figures from the company’s investor relations site; they’ll also show you how sales and earnings have fluctuated at that firm.

The trick with an earnings story is not to simply rewrite the press release; sales and income figures are key but you must provide some context for the numbers. In this Minneapolis Star-Tribune story,Liz Fedor reports Monday’s results from industrial supplier Fastenal Co., succinctly including the effect of the release on the company’s stock price and background about job cuts.

If the company is a landmark in your area or a major employer, don’t limit your reporting to experts; get reaction from workers, suppliers and retirees who hold those corporate shares in their portfolio.

Still wondering how to interpret the numbers? Just in the nick of time, the Reynolds Center next week will present “Understanding Financial Statements,” a free, online seminar you can attend right from your desk. The award-winning presenter, James Gentry - a veteran financial journalist and instructor – will lead you through the mysteries of the balance sheet, the income statement and more. It’s a small time commitment that will immeasurably boost your comfort level and your ability to cover financial news with authority. Or if you can't make the weeklong seminar, check out Gentry's one-hour tutorial on financial statements.


Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Prepping for the Home Builders' Forecast

Real-estate watchers are hoping for an upbeat omen Thursday when a trade group releases its monthly builder sentiment report, which showed an uptick in May but then dropped in June after hitting record-breaking lows over the winter and early spring.

Why should you and your audience care about a dry-as-a-bone industry index? The National Association of Home Builders polls its members about what level of demand they expect in the near future for new houses. The results of the survey – formally known as the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index - are considered a harbinger for the overall residential real-estate market and the ripple outward toward consumers, lenders and suppliers – not to mention appliance dealers, furniture stores, painters and other businesses that serve home builders and buyers.

In short, most of us. Any story that addresses the precarious local housing scene and its effect on just about everyone’s fortunes will grip your readers’ attention. With a little digging, you’ll find myriad options for localizing and adding color to an otherwise abstract report.

First, visit the NAHB newsroom and sign up for their e-mail delivery, so you’ll get future releases automatically. Familiarize yourself with the methodology and historical results of the poll; you’ll notice the dramatic dip into single digits late in 2008 and early this year; a five-year look-back would make an eye-catching graphic, or you might just add a link to this chart with your story.

Then delve into the impact on your audience. On the NAHB site, locate the state-by state list of local builders’ associations. Click on the URLs for local sites and you'll get a member directory or search engine leading you not only to area builders but to industry trades and suppliers, from masonry experts to architects to electrical contractors. All of these small- and medium-sized businesses have a housing-related story to tell. And since most are privately owned, they’re not under the corporate constraints of large and publicly traded developers – meaning you're apt to get more candid comments and even access to workers, job sites and dynamic photo/video possibilities.

Layer those anecdotes with specific data - in prose or in graphic form - about housing permits issued in your region. County governments often can provide recent stats; otherwise check out the U.S. Census’ Building Permits report - which is current through May right down to the county level for many major U.S. markets.

The NAHB also has subsets of data you can tap for quirky angles, depending on your audience demographic. For example, the 55+Housing Market Index (55+HMI) measures developments aimed at mature buyers and retirees – helpful info if you’re in snowbird territory.

Another go-to residential real-estate resource you should bookmark: The National Association of Realtors; this trade-group site offers statistics, analysts and assistance with local contacts. They’ll be releasing their monthly existing home sales report on July 23.

It’s nearly impossible to overestimate your readers’ interest in home sales trends and real-estate values. In an era of dwindling equity, a tidal wave of foreclosures and a glut of new construction, the fallow housing market still is fertile ground for enterprising reporters.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Back-to-School Biz Basics

Many of us have yet to gnaw an ear from this year’s corn crop or break out our bathing suits. But in the retail world, it’s September in July. National merchants used to wait until August to toll the school bells. This year, sales fliers and Web sites already tout backpacks, notebooks and dormitory décor.

And no wonder. Aside from a chance to rebound from dismal year-to-date sales, which continued to slide in June with a 5.1 percent drop compared to 2008, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, back-to-school merchandising is the second-largest piece of the annual purchasing pie, according to this research data from the National Retail Federation.(And by the way, if you haven’t signed up for news feeds from the ICSC and the NRF, I recommend it. And while you’re at it, follow BigResearch on Twitter for a steady stream of consumer behavior updates. )

Outfitting the nation’s 76 million students with everything from books to backpacks to BlackBerries is a $51 billion business – bigger than Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Halloween and Father’s Day combined. The only more crucial period for stores is our annual $445 billion “winter holiday” spree. And where back-to-school once meant a new pencil box and shiny shoes, all sorts of retail chains are in on the act now. And their marketing methods are more interactive, aggressive and innovative than ever, which is a story angle in itself.

Staples, the office-supply purveyor, has declared July 15 the “official” kick-off to school shopping complete with a list of must-have items. Bed, Bath & Beyond’s home page is devoted to dormitory chic, along with a MasterCard-sponsored $55,000 scholarship sweepstakes. The housewares retailer is actually soliciting dorm-room inventions from students via edisonnation.com and charging a $25 fee for entries!

TAF, formerly the Athlete’s Foot shoe store, already is offering a free sports bag with $50 purchase. And Office Depot is aiming a special merchandising effort at teachers, with its Star Teacher discount program and teacher-appreciation breakfasts at selected stores in July and August.

Previously, Wal-Mart has tried a Facebook page aimed at college-bound pupils, so keep an eye on social media sites for more offbeat marketing approaches. And read the next few weekends’ sales circulars thoroughly; they’re great source of trend and “what’s hot” stories.

By the way, if you’re wondering where I got that 76-million-student statistic above – the U.S. Census Bureau publishes intriguing fact sheets on a variety of events including this one on back-to-school shopping. It features factoids ranging from enrollment in various demographics to the number of stores in categories ranging from kids’ clothing to books. All are helpful tidbits that add texture and interest to your seasonal stories.

We’ll revisit back-to-school shopping between now and Labor Day, but make sure you don’t wait until summer’s end to add this all-important consumer-spending season to your radar screen.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Taking the Temperature of Tourism

Even though the calendar says it’s been summer for less than a month, we’re about halfway through “fiscal summer” – the vacation and tourism season that runs from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day.

This midway point is a logical moment to do a checkup on the travel and tourism business in your state or region. And even though by most accounts the weather and the economy are conspiring in 2009 against a blockbuster season, a tourism story is hard to beat for a lively and engaging business read.

They’re also good opportunities to incorporate multimedia features – like video or a slide show – into your Web presentation. Interact with your audience by asking your Web editor to post a survey (“How much are you spending on vacations this year?”) with the story, or a showcase for readers’ own travel photos. Perhaps a weather outlook graphic or a map of road construction projects would be a good fit, depending on your angle. Bring your stay-at-home reader into the experience with a camera’s-eye view from a new thrill ride or tour of a cheese-making plant.

Sources abound. Generally, you’ll want to start with your state statistics office to get a feel for how large the industry looms in your territory. (And rest assured there is some angle – not every region can boast Disneyworld but someone, somehow in your neck of the woods depends on travelers for part of his or her livelihood.) This directory of government Web sites includes links to all of the state tourism offices; while aimed primarily at consumers, most feature a media page with contact information, FAQs and economic impact figures. The visitor info will provide you with leads on attractions you can call for input, from state parks to motorsports tracks to tribal casinos. Each state’s AAA branch keeps tabs of tourism activity, too.

Other voices you’ll want to hear from are as diverse as vacation-rental managers, local motel franchisees, campgrounds operators, chambers of commerce, RV sales and rental dealers, marinas, tour guides, bars and boutiques. You may want to home in on one sector, if it’s huge in your area, but try to avoid the trap of the perfunctory annual “boat sales” story if that’s commonplace to your readers. Find something quirky and off the beaten track instead. Festivals.com offers a fascinating 40,000-strong list of gatherings and shows; sign up at the site to sort by date and locale for events in your area.

And of course, get out there and talk to tourists, whether they’re on a full-time road trip or area residents splashing away a day at the water park. Ask what they’re spending on, what they’re scrimping on and how their leisure budget stacks up this year compared to previous seasons.

Anecdotes are appealing, but keep in mind that most industry representatives will put a positive spin on even the most dismal season. Make sure you probe for hard numbers. Don’t overlook the financial performance of publicly traded travel and leisure companies headquartered or having a large influence in your area. If you’re not sure, here’s link to MarketWatch Inc.’s tracking site for the Dow Jones Travel and Leisure index, which will point you to major players. The companies’ investor relations Web sites generally will post a list of industry analysts you can call for comment. While some analysts are guarded in discussing specific stocks, many will give you an overview of this year’s seasonal ups and downs.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Humanizing weekly unemployment claims

It’s been a heavy few days of jobs and consumer behavior data, and there’s plenty more headed your way.

Weekly jobless figures are due out at 8:30 a.m. from the Labor Department; check the department’s media center for today’s release and to sign up for automatic e-mail feeds.

Sometimes, when reporting on this weekly release, a standing infographic may be all that you’ll want to do, unless you can tie the data to a local or regional event such as a job fair, a story on retraining programs or funding, new layoffs or other related events affecting your audience. Scout calendars and check with your region’s unemployment and retraining agencies for those human angles that add color and interest to bald statistics.

Be sure to include dollar signs – tell your readers what those unemployment checks are worth; the amounts vary by state and by the previous wage of the claimant so check with your local agencies to see how your state’s benefits compare with the national average of about $292 a week. This federally sponsored site, CareerOnestop, provides a map with quick links to state unemployment services.

To quickly generate a jobless claims chart, scroll to the bottom of the news release on the Labor Department’s site and click on ‘State Detail Prior Week,’ then click ‘Weekly Claims Data’ on the resulting page. You’ll be able to select your state and set date parameters, producing an instant table of historical data that reflects initial claims and ongoing unemployment insurance claims each week.

This report includes a comments section highlighting states with the greatest change, with a few notes about what’s behind the numbers; those notes can guide you to a more substantive focus.

You might also build on the seasonal angle; by now, most students have finished their terms and are competing for summer jobs with laid-off adults and retirees propelled back into the workforce by shriveled retirement portfolios. Take a look at teen unemployment in your region – state workforce development agencies often can help with statistics or at least ‘guestimates’ – and then at the ripple effect of all of those out-of-work Millenials. With their purchasing power scaled back, how are local venues from malls to movie theaters feeling the pinch?

One warning: The weekly jobless claims report reflects “insured unemployment,” meaning those eligible for jobless benefits. The rates shown in tables do not reflect statewide or national full unemployment as mentioned in the Employment Situation report discussed in Monday’s blog; the rate in the monthly Employment Situation report is generally regarded as the true unemployment rate.
Yes, it can be confusing, so here’s a primer on unemployment data offered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. With jobs – or the lack thereof – likely to be a key facet of most business stories in the foreseeable future, understanding the available data is well worth your time and effort.

And if you’re planning a weekend feature about the plight of area job-seekers, Friday will bring fresh news in the form of the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment, a respected consumer confidence indicator based on telephone interviews with some 500 households. Thomson Reuters is a joint sponsor and their site provides a more comprehensive release, with an explanation of methodology, than the rather primitive U of M site.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Spotting the local story in consumer spending trends

The Federal Reserve will release its monthly report on consumer credit at 3 p.m. this afternoon. The July report – they’re usually released in the first five or six business days of the month – will reflect consumer borrowing activity in May. It’ll be closely watched after the June release showed U.S. consumer borrowing in April dropped by a stunning $15.7 billion. That was the second-largest dive on record following a $16.6 billion drop in March as joblessness and tighter lending standards, among other factors, prompted shoppers to keep their plastic stowed.

Consumer spending drives about 70 percent of the nation’s economy, so such a sharp pullback – while a sign of more prudent individual money management -- is dismal news for purveyors of goods and services. The Fed report provides data on revolving debt, such as that charged to credit cards, and non-revolving debt including auto loans. It does not reflect home loans or other consumer debt secured by real estate, so it’s a good barometer of everyday household spending.

You can localize the Fed report by talking with local merchants, restaurateurs, auto dealers and myriad service providers from hair salons to pet groomers. Do they see an actual drop in spending, or are patrons paying more with dollar bills than credit these days?

For more useful statistics about consumer credit use and the credit card industry, be sure to sign up for media access at CardTrak.com. Their data center provides a bonanza of reports showing how consumers use a variety of payment cards, including a state-by-state perspective on average household credit card debt and tables that break out store card and gasoline card usage. CardTrak’s analysts are accessible for interviews about industry trends; the site also features a glossary of payment card terms as well as get-out-of-debt calculators you can use to do the math for readers on hypothetical borrowing scenarios.

Be sure to check with local credit unions that issue payment cards (usually with the Visa or MasterCard logo, meaning that’s the processing system their transactions run through); they’re more likely than the big banks to be candid about trends and card-use activity in your region. Consumer credit counseling centers – be sure to find a not-for-profit one via the National Foundation for Credit Counseling – often will speak to reporters about trends they are seeing in their area.

CreditCards.com is another site that tracks consumer and industry data, and it also features industry analysis and personal finance news, including its Taking Charge blog by a panel of experts.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make financial news and trends relevant to your audience.

Bankruptcy boom is fertile ground for beat reporters

Late Sunday night General Motors Corp. received a judge's approval for the next phase of the Detroit-based manufacturer's Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, in which it will sell most of its assets to a government-owned company that will become the new GM.

The once mighty automaker may have the largest bankruptcy case pending, but it's not necessarily the most important to your audience. Staying abreast of troubled businesses in your region is crucial because their financial woes will echo throughout the job market, real estate market, tax base and other areas that affect your audience's well-being. Corporate bankruptcies can signal last-ditch turnaround efforts and a lifeboat amid a sea of red ink. Small businesses filing for liquidation reflect the end of someone's dream and imminent changes to neighborhoods, shopping districts or at the very least fewer options for consumers and job seekers.

Business bankruptcy filings were up 64 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. That compares to a year-over-year increase of 34.5 percent for individual filings, meaning that companies are filing at close to twice the pace of people. According to the ABI, some 14,319 firms filed for protection from creditors in the first three months of this year – and at that pace, there are likely some poignant and cautionary bankruptcy tales in your territory.

The ABI is a not-for-profit organization that studies insolvency, and its Web site features a plethora of news and statistics, sorting them by state, by judicial district and other criteria. The ABI also offers educational webinars and teleconferences, a research database, expert commentary and links to other resources as well as FAQs and other information you can highlight in consumer stories.

Bankruptcy suits – which essentially are a plea to the court to freeze obligations to creditors -- are handled in federal court; visit the U.S. Bankruptcy Court site for a primer on types of filings for companies and individuals as well as a glossary and other basic background.

The court locator on that site will show you which federal district handles bankruptcy filings in your area. If it’s nearby, you can make periodic in-person visits to peruse filings and talk with trustees and judges about trends, as well as attend hearings. If the nearest court is out of range or if you want to make more frequent checks, register for an account with PACER, which stands for Public Access to Court Electronic Records. It’s not free – generally 8 cents a page whether you view them online or print them -- but it’s a lot more efficient than trekking to court every day if you’re serious about catching bankruptcy filings as soon as they hit the court clerk’s office.

Two other sites used by seasoned bankruptcy reporters are those of private consultants that post synopses, contact information for key players and often court documents for cases they are handling. You won’t necessarily get the scoop on new filings at these sites, but they are a helpful and cost-effective way to stay abreast of bankruptcy suits you’ve decided to follow. The firms, which provide a variety of services to restructuring companies, are Epiq Systems and Kurtzman Carson Consultants.

Jobless woes dominate financial news

It’s back to work Monday after a long holiday weekend – for some.

Employers cut another 467,000 jobs in June, according to last week’s report from the U.S. Department of Labor, boosting the U.S. unemployment rate to a 25-year high of 9.5 percent.

Making a living is the axis on which most households revolve, so don’t overlook myriad options to spin these routine government reports into timely, informative and human stories that will resonate with your audience and keep them looking to you for local ramifications and resources.

The monthly Employment Situation release, published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is one of the many economic data sources you should bookmark and note in your calendar. In addition to bottom-line totals, it sorts employment data by gender, race, wage and age and industry sectors, as well as updating totals for people who are involuntarily working part-time or who have given up and dropped out of the workforce. A close study of the release and its ancillary tables will yield many creative angles for follow-up trend stories that you can tailor to your region and pursue this week.

Teenagers, for example, who were expected to face a dismal summer-job outlook this year, nevertheless boosted employment by more than 24 percent in June. Other tidbits: average hours worked in a week dipped to 33, and some 9 million workers who want to work full-time are employed only part-time. .

About the only sector gains – as often is the case – were in the health care arena, which suggests a timely career-options story aimed at recent grads or displaced mid-career workers. The federal Occupational Outlook Handbook is one place to start, with analysis and statistics about ‘tomorrow’s jobs’ as well as links to state-by-state job market forecasts.

The worse-than-expected report also sets the stage for a number of household-driven releases later this week, including two consumer-sentiment gauges, the Mortgage Bankers Association weekly report on home-loan applications, the Federal Reserve’s monthly report on consumer credit use and a retail sales update from the International Council of Shopping Centers. Dismal employment news also drove major stock markets down in last weeks’ shortened trading session; investors will be watching for ripple effects as July unfolds.

Fill ‘em up

Ironically, work-bound commuters and other motorists will benefit from the job-loss news and its expected adverse effect on consumer spending. Crude oil and gasoline prices dropped last week on the news; they’re still up substantially from the start of the 2009 but well below the $4-plus average from a year ago this week. That’s according to the Automobile Association of America’s fuel gauge report, another reliable site to bookmark for the pump-price data that will play into so many of your upcoming consumer and economic stories

A handy source for local fuel prices – and the consumers who are keeping an eye on them – is GasBuddy.com, which features motorist reports on daily gas bargains in specific markets.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make these important economic benchmarks relevant to your audience.