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INVESTING: Don’t wait for the market to reward strong earnings

Analysts are once again telling us the S&P 500 will post double-digit earnings growth, continuing a streak from early 2003. And I am going to continue with a theme I’ve been bringing up here lately: If earnings are up double digits for the last few years, why isn’t the stock market following suit? Waiting for the earnings, then making an investment decision, will never give you the returns you want. The last time the S&P 500 was up double digits…

NOTIONS: How fear and loathing make the world go ’round

In her social work class, my friend Cheri was assigned a paper on hate groups. The professor sent her master’s degree students to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Web site. There, they were to find the map of active hate groups in America, read about those operating in Indiana and discuss their reactions to what they learned. Cheri was left wondering why so many people are so afraid of those they perceive as “different,” and why “different” so often equates…

Transit center proposal hits a bump in the road: Tenant claims to be happy at proposed location, landowner not yet part of talks

In late June, IndyGo announced plans to build a massive transit center on a 14-acre parcel in downtown Indianapolis where bus and future rapid transit lines would cross and people could park their cars and wait in comfort for transfers. But the U.S. Postal Service, which leases facilities there, might not be interested in moving. And the landlord the main post office rents from said he hasn’t been contacted and is irked the city is eyeing his property. “Frankly, I…

EYE ON THE PIE: Who needs economists, anyway?

Economists are not stupid people. They are timid and tend to hide their timidity behind a wall of overbearing self-confidence. But they are not stupid. In fact, often they are too smart to talk about what they do and do not know. As they wiggle over the rocks of uncertainty, they appear to others as either sneaky or formless. Let’s take interest rates as an example. Economists like to talk about how, if the Fed raises interest rates, home mortgage…

St. Elmo top-selling restaurant; others sizzle, too

St. Elmo Steak House was the top-selling restaurant in 2005, ringing up $11.3 million in sales, but the Cheesecake Factory, Oceanaire, Maggiano's Little Italy, Sullivan's Steakhouse and P.F. Chang's, among others, all topped $5 million.

BEHIND THE NEWS: Dick settles big SEC case for a small sum: $110,000

It was frontpage news two years ago when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Rollin Dick, charging he and another former Conseco Inc. executive masterminded an accounting fraud that allowed the company to overstate 1999 profits by $367 million. The case has reached an anticlimactic conclusion: Under a settlement approved July 3 in federal court in Indianapolis, Dick agreed to pay a $110,000 fine. Without admitting or denying wrongdoing, the 74-yearold agreed not to commit future violations or to…

New business incubator is made for minorities

Black business owner Bob Logan is one of four entrepreneurs chosen by the Indiana Business Diversity Council as inaugural tenants of its unusual new incubator, which caters solely to minority-owned businesses.

Property tax-cap concern growing

Local officials say a new state law that caps property tax bills for homeowners and businesses will send the city into a financial tailspin if legislators don’t modify it in an upcoming session.

BULLS & BEARS: Use paper, fifth-grade math to track investment results

Throughout history, we have devised methods to calculate and measure results for all kinds of activities. In academics, we have grading systems that measure student performance. In sports, the most important factor in any game is the score. But when it comes to keeping track of investment results, I suspect that many investors do not have a good grasp on how well their money has performed. Attempting to keep a mental scorecard of the rate of return on your investments…

VIEWPOINT: Consumers should take charge of health

In an environment where we’re all being asked to pay a larger share of our own health care costs, it’s interesting to see how little time we spend thinking about major decisions that have an impact on our health. Like selecting a primary care physician or any medical specialist, for example. According to a recent Managed Care Weekly Digest survey, 67 percent of U.S. adults ages 18-64 said they spent eight hours or more researching an automobile purchase, yet only…

Players’ desire to shorten season could doom RCA Championships

Officials for the WTA, which represents women professional players, and the ATP, which represents men, are considering shortening the lengthy tennis calendar by imposing a short offseason-possibly a three-week, midyear respite that would collide with the RCA Championships.

Firm may hold key to earlier detection: Startup lands grants for breast cancer biomarker

Linda Malkas’ arrival at the Indiana University School of Medicine four years ago is beginning to look like a coup for the city’s life sciences initiative. Armed with promising cancer research, Malkas helped found CS-Keys Inc., which last month received a $285,000 infusion from BioCrossroads’ Indiana Seed Fund and is poised to net a similar investment July 17 from Triathlon Medical Ventures in Cincinnati. The additional capital is critical to the startup’s continuing development of a biomarker that detects breast…

SPORTS: Ames, Iowa: site of my ‘goose-bump’ sports moment

I’ve been blessed to experience a multitude of “goose-bump” moments in sports. Watching Indiana’s Hoosiers complete a perfect season and win a national basketball title in Philadelphia. Jack Nicklaus capturing a Masters at age 46. Hoosier Fuzzy Zoeller winning a U.S. Open at Winged Foot in a playoff with Greg Norman. A New Castle/Batesville high school basketball regional championship game at Chrysler Fieldhouse that epitomized all that boys’ basketball used to be in Indiana. So many incredible performances at Olympic…

Alley’s new aim: Consolidate electronics industry: Ex-banker shooting for $170M in revenue by 2012

Since purchasing Escient Solutions in early 2003 and changing its name to Electronic Evolutions Inc., Mike Alley has increased revenue 35 percent, to $6.5 million. That’ll be small potatoes if Alley’s dreams for the company pan out. Alley, former Fifth Third Bank of Central Indiana president and CEO, wants to be a consolidator in the fragmented electronics and automation design and installation industry. Toward that end, he partnered in late June with electronics industry veteran Daniel Knotts and formed E2…

Myers Protection Services: South-side security firm sees alarming growth Revenue could exceed $3 million this year

Usually, someone with a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement would look forward to a career as a police officer or detective. In David L. Myers’ case, the degree paved the way to becoming a business owner. Myers, 34, founded Myers Investigations in 1995, shortly after graduating from the University of Indianapolis, funding the startup with a $5,000 inheritance. Despite entering an industry dominated by older, veteran police officers and detectives, he quickly built a client base among area law firms…

Rapid-transit plans gain speed, but drivers might not give up keys

Just 5,900 Marion and Hamilton County commuters would park their cars in favor of rapid transit if that were an option, according to data from a late-2001 report for Indianapolis’ Metropolitan Planning Organization by New York firm Parsons Brinckerhoff.

INVESTING: Steep retreat in gold prices gives commodity an allure

Our culture is easily distracted. Shiny things grab our attention. Gold’s luster doesn’t change, but our perception of the shine apparently does. After gold suffered for 20 years in a protracted bear market, we became mesmerized by the stuff, running the price from $250 an ounce to $730 in seven years. I guess when we do decide to focus, we really turn up the heat. But then gold in late spring suffered a sharp 25-percent correction in only four weeks….

THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW: I’m just lounging by the side of the jury pool

I got something in the mail recently. Now, from my friends’ overwrought reactions, you’d have thought it was an invitation to go hunting with Dick Cheney. But no, to my colleagues, this was even more frightening. “This” was my summons for jury duty. As for me, I thought it was kind of cool. OK, so it’s not the prize patrol delivering my earlyretirement check. But the constitutional romantic in me was moved by the fact that I’d been summoned to…

EYE ON THE PIE: Where have Hoosier jobs gone?

“You’re that guy,” she said. “Yeah, I’m that guy,” I confirmed. “How’d ya like some numbers? You can do with them whatcha want,” she said with an intonation that made the opportunity sound pornographic. “I just picked them out of the trash right here at the Department of Workforce Development. They’re fresh and pretty clean.” “How much?” I asked. “Enough for lunch,” Dorothy replied. “Deal,” I said, and we made an exchange of paper money for data on paper. There…