Morgan Stanley: Sell the Rally in Financials
April 28, 2008
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) advised clients on Monday to sell into the rally in financial stocks. Morgan analysts Betsy Graseck, Cheryl Pate and Justin Kwong anticipate further dividend cuts, increased dilutive equity offerings and the continued deterioration in the credit markets. Read more »
Stocks Ben Graham Would Like: FMD, MVC, FIF
April 27, 2008
Benjamin Graham is widely regarded to be the founder of modern value investing. His greatest student, Warren Buffett, attributes much of his success to Graham’s teachings. Though Graham believed that much research is necessary and that no stock screening methodology is perfect, he did give us some guidelines on how to perform initial screening techniques to limit the number of investments that should be researched further. Read more »
General Electric: Buy and Hold
April 25, 2008
General Electric (NYSE: GE), one of the largest and most respected companies in the world, has seen its shares drop nearly 24% from its 52-week high of $42. In April alone, shares dropped from $38 to $32, a 16% decline precipitated primarily by continued weakness in the financial markets. GE’s Q1 2008 earnings, announced on April 11th, came in below both analyst and management expectations, missing the mark by nearly 14%. Read more »
Trinity Industries: Investing in Rail
April 22, 2008
Trinity Industries (NYSE: TRN) is an interesting little company in one of our favorite spaces: railroads. Trinity maintains, builds and leases rail cars to the likes of Burlington Northern, CSX, Norfolk Southern, as well as a host of other rail companies. Read more »
Libor Rises Unexpectedly: More Pain for Borrowers (and Lenders)
April 19, 2008
Between April 14th and April 18th, the Libor rate jumped sharply to 2.9%, up from 2.7%. This increase, which was unexpected, will “add billions of dollars to the interest bills of home-owners, companies and other borrowers around the world, ” according to the Wall Street Journal. Read more »
UBS - Activist Investor Begin Talks
April 19, 2008
UBS (NYSE: UBS), with shares down more than 50% in the past 52-weeks, has finally begun talks with activist investor, and former UBS chief executive, Luqman Arnold. Mr. Arnold, currently heading up Olivant Advisers Ltd., a London based investment firm, believes that significant changes to both the structure of UBS and the director mix are necessary to boost shareholder value. Read more »
Fannie Ex-Execs Settle
April 19, 2008
Several Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) former executives have settled with federal regulators over alleged violations of accounting rules dating back to 2004. Former chief executive officer Franklin Raines, former chief financial officer Timothy Howard, and former controller Leanne Spencer will be required to donate $3 million to charities aimed at helping homeowners keep their homes. Read more »
Doomsday ETF: Buffett’s Biotech Bet
April 17, 2008
According to a recent Yahoo! Finance TechTicker video and article, Warren Buffet and George Soros are making large bets in Healthcare and Biotech companies. Large stakes have been taken in Glaxosmithkline, Sanofi-Aventis, and Johnson & Johnson, to name a few. Read more »
GM Exec: “Global Warming is a Crock of S—”
April 17, 2008
General Motors’ Vice Chairman and Product Development Chief Bob Lutz recently let loose and said that he believes global warming is a “crock of s—.” That’s right, the person who is in charge of product development at GM - a company who is struggling to compete with Toyota for cleaner cars - essentially said that he does not believe that burning fossil fuels affects global warming. Read more »
Earnings Preview: Will Google Perform?
April 15, 2008
On Thursday, Google will report its Q1, 2008 earnings. There is rampant speculation about whether Google will perform, and with April options expiring one day after earnings are released, we can get get a sense of what the investing population thinks as a whole. Read more »