Honolulu Star-Bulletin from Honolulu, Hawaii • 30

C6 BUSINESS HONOLULU STAR-BULLETIN FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2004 Will market's cheer last? -t s'i'Z. v-vy "A lot of things happen in January and it gives a good indication of where the market can go," Jeff Hirsch said. "There's a lot of tea leaf reading. Everyone is trying to figure out where the market may be headed for the year to come." The January Barometer has been a very effective predictor, especially in odd-numbered years, and even more so in post-election years. Since 1950, there have been only five major errors: during the Vietnam War, in 1966 and 1968; after the market bottomed in 1982; in 2001, the year of the Sept.

11 terror attacks; and in 2003, when January trading was slow ahead of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "I think the reason why the January Barometer is a good indicator is that investors are a lot like dieters. They look at the New Year as a new beginning," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist with Standard Poor's. ment, the brokerage's mutual fund group.

"1 think everyone does some housecleaning at year end, and that has a positive effect on the market." Analysts say the January Effect has been happening earlier and earlier in recent years, as institutional investors anticipate the market's seasonal strength; indeed, small caps have shown pronounced strength In recent weeks. Limited tax-loss selling after two positive years for stocks might mute the phenomenon this year, but most Wall Street professionals are predicting a robust January. That bodes well for the rest of 2005, said Jeffrey A. Hirsch, president of the Hirsch Organization and editor of the Stock Trader's Almanac, whose father, Yale Hirsch, devised the January Barometer in 1972. According to this indicator, the direction the Standard Poor's 500 takes in January forecasts the direction for the entire year.

By Meg Richards Associated Press NEW YORK What comes after the "Santa Claus" rally? Some market watchers are already talking about the "January Effect," a seasonally strong period for equities, especially volatile issues like small-cap and technology stocks. The market's good cheer usually lingers through the first part of January, as money managers reposition their portfolios for the year ahead. Investors typically return from the holidays with renewed conviction, buying back stakes in securities sold in December for tax purposes and putting new money to work following year-end payouts of dividends and bonuses. "In January there's money flowing in. That's when people are getting back into the marketplace," said Jeff Mortimer, portfolio manager for Charles Schwab Investment Manage ASSOCIATED PRESS Rose Mary Jones grabs a loaf of bread from the bottom shelf as she shops at the Bi-Lo grocery store In Simpsonville, S.C Global food retailer Royal Ahold NV said yesterday it will sell two of its U.S.

grocery chains, Bi-Lo and Bruno's, to Dallas-based Lone Star Funds for up to $660 million in cash. Bi-Lo, Bruno's chains sell in deal valued up to $1.3 billion Dollar. Foreign investors may sour By Celeste Perrl Bloomberg News Royal Ahold NV, the Dutch food retailer that owns Stop Shop stores in the United States, agreed to sell its Bi-Lo and Bruno's Supermarkets chains to Lone Star Funds for as much as $660 million in cash to pay down debt. Ahold will receive $560 million on closing the sale and may get an additional $100 million within 18 months, spokesman Walter Samuels said yesterday. Help: Manufacturers see need for clearer manuals Continued From CI of Treasury bonds being sold to finance the federal budget deficit.

Analysts say there had been a major shift in attitudes among foreign investors. During the economic boom of the News: KFVE's K5 Continued From CI to age and gender. Generally, the demographic most desirable to advertisers is 25- to 54-year-olds. According to this year's book, most local newscasts attracted fewer of the adult viewers that their advertisers covet. "We can't control how many people will be watching, but we held our position in the market," Rosenberg said.

While a reduction in the households and people using TV is a concern for the industry, the lowered numbers could be an anomaly due in part to the inclusion of the Thanksgiving holiday period, when fewer people watch TV, Rosenberg said. KHON was the only station to show growth from year to year in the Monday through Friday morning, 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts in both demographics and the number of households, said Rick disposals worth as much as 2.3 billion euros, Samuels said. "They will indeed reach their goal," as the stores being sold are retaining borrowings, Lex Werkheim, a fund manager at Eureffect BV in Amsterdam, said of Ahold, whose stock he doesn't own.

Including an estimated debt of 460 million euros for the two chains, the purchase price for both is worth about $1.3 billion, according to Delta Lloyd Securities analyst Pascale Nachter-gaele. don't read. Most products are really complicated. (And) most consumers are busy. They can't be bothered to figure anything out," he said.

A study in the journal Pediatrics last year suggested child safety seats in cars are often installed wrong because the manuals were written at a lOth-grade reading level while nearly a quarter of U.S. adults read at or below the fifth-grade level. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission offers tips in its Winter 2004 newsletter about how to write manuals. "Consumers may use your product in ways you did not intend," the newsletter advises manufacturers, urging them to provide explicit warnings for all real and potential safety hazards.

But even when nothing Is wrong with a product, poorly prepared instruction guides can result in a high volume of product returns or calls to tech-support help lines. And so companies are waking up to the need for better manuals. late 1990s, investors poured trillions of dollars into the United States, much of it by buying American companies and real estate, because the returns seemed higher than most other regions of the world. Now the opposite is happen News at Nine gets Blanglardi, senior vice president and general manager of KHON and KGMB. "Less homes were watching TV so it was a significant accomplishment that KHON was still able to post these kinds of numbers," Blangiardi said.

"We've been working quite diligently with market research to ensure that at the end of the day that KHON2 News is the station viewers want to turn to first." NBC affiliate KHNL at 10 p.m. has audiences "equal to or exceeding the NBC audience; it's the best retention we've ever had," said John Fink, vice president and general manager. KHNL and KFVE. the first two-station duopoly in the United States, are both owned by Alabama-based Raycom Media, but KFVE does not have a separate news operation. Fink also was satisfied with KHNL's one-point growth at 5 p.m.

and with the introduction of KFVE's K5 News at Nine REG. $359.95 on federal bonds ing: The dollar is declining even though the economic news has been fairly good. The nation's economy has expanded about 4 percent this year, with growth rebounding after a slowdown this summer caused in part by rising oil prices. 2 rating, 4 share evening news show, which garnered a 2 rating and 4 share. The show, which is the only newscast to run at 9 p.m., was introduced in October just weeks before the rating period, Fink said.

"The feedback has been great," Fink said. "The business and professional types and the working moms and dads have said they enjoy having the opportunity to get the late news earlier." While poor demographics might dampen an advertiser's enthusiasm for a station, the strength of the economy should keep pricing strong, Rosenberg said. Also, few advertisers make decisions based on the strength or weakness of one ratings period, he said. "We certainly won't be dropping prices," Rosenberg said. "The economy is good and you know what they say a rising tide carries all ships.

Right now, I'd say this is very healthy broadcast market." WHILE SUPPLIES J7 Students! Continued From CI Minneapolis, noticed some companies put more effort into manuals than others. "Mattel and Hasbro, for example, are excellent, as are Legos," he said. "Conversely, instructions for putting bikes together make you want to jab yourself in the eye with the Allen wrench the company was thoughtful enough to include." Part of the challenge in developing good instruction books is the language barrier when a product is made overseas. But even in English, it's hard to decode engineer-speak and legalese. "The term 'counterclockwise' isn't necessarily an intuitive thing for people," said Rob Eddy, Infographics vice president of marketing whose background is in product development.

"We are trying to look at this from the consumer's perspective," Eddy said. "We are walking them through it and breaking it down as simply as we can," said Eddie Hopps, The chains, whose stores are in southeastern U.S. states including Alabama and North Carolina, will keep their debt. Ahold expects to complete the sale in 2005's first quarter. Chief Executive Anders Moberg, who joined Ahold after the grocer said it inflated profit by $1.3 billion over three years, aims to raise 2.5 billion euros from asset sales by the end of 2005 to reduce debt.

Yesterday's agreement means Zaan-dam, Netherlands-based Ahold has received commitments for president of Infographics' parent company, Hopps Communications Inc. Frequently, that will be through sequential drawings not photographs with as few words as possible, distilled from assembling and disassembling the products themselves in the company's basement workshop. New York marketing law expert Linda Goldstein said manufacturers are taking instruction manuals more seriously. "I think the more current trend is to make the instruction manuals more consumer friendly, and actually invoke some creative juices to almost use them as an additional piece of marketing material," said Goldstein, chairman of the Promotion Marketing Association. Jonathan Blum, a contributor to high tech-focused SYNC magazine, said instruction manuals "are rivaled only by the TV remote control as the poorest executed item in all of consumer electronics." But he doesn't blame the little books entirely.

"Most people Staff members begin by assembling or operating the product and then creating a rough "storyboard." AFTER that GEBCO QUALITY Orientation, or point of reference, an important part of creating a diagram can be referenced quickly Putting it all together, step by step by step With a glut of products on the market that require assembly straight out of the box, many manufacturers are getting help from companies that specialize in creating instruction manuals that won 't give consumers headaches. Here 's an example of an operation manual that was broken down and reassembled by graphic design company Infographics: ONLY BEFORE I Businesses! Teachers! EDCE fact cnnnlioo Light, medium or thick pouches. 12.5" wide opening to feed your documents. Adjustable temperature control for perfect laminations. Gebco has everything you need to preserve, protect and enhance important documents, presentations and signs! rT" 1 GEBCO 591 -08 mm hawah's id ft document finishing company gebcogebcohawaH.eom creating a manual 4 -A A creating a manual CtneW if I i I As a general rule, text is kept to a minimum so the manual is easier to digest quickly and better suited for foreign-language markets kept to a minimum so Sales Service Supplies 415 Cooke Street I Source: Infographics ASSOCIATED PRESS.