CALIFORNIA

Housing outlook takes a grim turn
LOS ANGELES --Shares of Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's largest mortgage lender, sank to an all-time low Tuesday as a major homebuilder offered a grim outlook for the industry and the Bush administration signaled it is growing more concerned about rising mortgage defaults.

County vehicle fleet to be streamlinedCentralization could also save $1.6 million this year
The Yolo County Board of Supervisors Tuesday voted 4-1 in favor of a major reorganization of how the county obtains and pays for its vehicles and heavy equipment - changes that could save the county about $1.6 million this year, supporters estimate.

The reorganization plan would establish a centralized fleet service that would control, maintain and purchase all county vehicles and equipment and would be accountable to the Board...
...In order to trim the fat among department vehicles, the plan recommends establishing a minimum monthly usage requirement of 400 miles for all vehicles that don't fall under the "heavy vehicle" category, which includes vehicles such as large trucks, tractors, buses, and forklifts. Those vehicles would have a minimum usage requirement of 10 hours per month, Groom said...

COLORADO

Public senses an economy going south
SEDALIA, COLO. -- The numbers stopped adding up some time ago, and every month, Shane Covelli gets angrier.
He sells heavy equipment on commission, and construction firms aren't buying. Covelli has sold his Corvette, stopped taking his wife out to dinner, pulled his son from the ski team. He has withdrawn nearly $50,000 from his retirement accounts and started taking extra work, laying carpet and pouring concrete evenings and weekends. Still, he owes more than he earns, and he can't seem to fix it...

SOUTH CAROLINA
Police probe heavy equipment thefts
Conway police are investigating reports of at least three construction vehicles being stolen since last month, according to a police statement released today.
Between Dec. 7 and Dec. 10, someone stole a backhoe from the Cratbtree Commons construction site off El Bethel Road and a front-end loader was reported stolen from the same site between Dec. 15 and Dec. 16, the statement reads.

ILLINOIS
HEAVY EQUIPMENT - Cat adds computerized tracking, management to all machines

PEORIA, Illinois - CATERPILLAR now includes as standard equipment its computerized EquipmentManager and Product Link, the company's remote asset management solution. The system will be installed in all mining and industrial machines sold in Canada and the United States.

Caterpillar will phase in EquipmentManager/Product Link beginning with wheeled hydraulic excavators and articulated trucks. The system comes with a three-year subscription to Asset Watch, the remote asset management portion of EquipmentManager. The system types of machines will be phased in throughout 2008 on other types of equipment.
EquipmentManager is a secure, web-based application that uses key indicators from equipment such as hours, location and diagnostic codes. Combined with powerful tools such as mapping, maintenance scheduling and troubleshooting instructions, EquipmentManager quickly sorts through machine data to identify events that require attention, and delivers information in a meaningful and actionable manner.

NEW YORK
Sector Snap: Heavy EquipmentShares of a Variety of Heavy Equipment Companies Tumble on Concerns About Financial Outlooks

(Associated Press) - Shares of a variety of heavy equipment companies fell Wednesday on worries that current earnings expectations for them may be overly optimistic.
Baird's Robert F. McCarthy said that in light of expectations of slower economic growth and lower gross domestic product growth, average analyst estimates for most machinery and diversified manufacturing stocks are too high.

"Historically, these stocks generally underperform stock market averages when economic growth is moderating or in recession," McCarthy wrote in a note to investors.
"Given our cautious outlook for growth in the developed economies, we believe new entry points require deeply discounted valuations."
McCarthy lowered his financial outlooks for companies across the sector...