Category Archives: stocks

Merrill: How to do a Conference Call Right

I wasn’t on the Merrill call this morning, but David Gaffen was, and it seems from his live-blog – and the Merrill share price – that John Thain just gave the market a masterclass in spinning negative announcements. Rember that … Continue reading

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The Bigger the Bank, the Better the Return

Update: I got this one wrong: see the comments for all the gory detail. Big-bank stocks are riskier than small-bank stocks, which means they go up more than small banks do in up markets, and they go down more than … Continue reading

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A Bear Market: Where Good News is Punished

Stocks in general are down about 2% today, but the big losers are all the companies in the news. Merrill Lynch has found itself $6.6 billion of new equity? Down 3.9%! Citigroup has found even more, to offset an $18 … Continue reading

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Citi: Negative Revenues

I’ll leave the live-blogging of the Citi conference call (slides here) to David Gaffen and Floyd Norris. Norris has already made two excellent points: he’s wondering why Citi’s still paying a dividend at all, and he’s noted that US revenues … Continue reading

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CNBC-Related Stock Moves, Part 2

Interested in buying stock in Converted Organics? Too late. The Peanut Gallery has the intraday chart: Today, another stock I have been following was mentioned on CNBC, (COIN: 12.40 +42.53%). Look at the chart and see if you can tell … Continue reading

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Why Schultz Might Not be Right for Starbucks

Jack Flack is underwhelmed by Joe Nocera’s column on Saturday, in which the veteran NYT columnist has a bearish take on Starbucks. I’m more impressed, partly because it came out on the same day as a similar column from equally-veteran … Continue reading

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How to Trade a Bear Market

Baruch at Ultimi Barbarorum gives us his tips on how to trade a bear market: Let the Constanza Doctrine be your guide: do The Opposite of what feels good. You are not alone, and at the moments of maximum stress … Continue reading

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How Merrill Spun its Write-Down News

Shares in Merrill Lynch are flat this morning: investors seem unconcerned about the news that the company will take a whopping $15 billion write-down in the fourth quarter. Last month, after Merrill got a $5.6 billion cash injection from Temasek … Continue reading

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Blackstone: The Stock Buyback Which Isn’t

Stock buybacks are good news for shareholders for two reasons. Firstly, they increase demand for the stock, which helps boost the share price – but that effect is one-off, and temporary, and mostly benefits the shareholders who sell their stock … Continue reading

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BofA-Countrywide: An Acquisition Which Makes Sense

Countrywide shares are up over 40% today as the WSJ reports the company might be taken over by Bank of America.
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The CNBC-PZE Fiasco

It’s a fun game, this stock-market malarkey. You watch CNBC, see a talking head recommend a stock ticker symbol, and then jump onto your computer to execute the trade. It’s so easy! And, for all that investors are continually advised … Continue reading

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Can Pandit Cut Citi’s Dividend?

In the WSJ report on Citi shoring up its capital base, we’re told that a dividend cut is now a real possibility: The board of Citigroup is expected to meet on Monday, a day before it reports earnings, and to … Continue reading

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Can Politicians Boost Stock Prices?

There’s an interesting letter in the WSJ today, from John Callister in Ithaca. Callister has about $700,000 invested in the stock market, and all he cares about, in terms of the presidential election, is which candidate will make that sum … Continue reading

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No Respite for Bear Stearns

On Friday, I noted that Bear Stearns was trading below its book value ($84.09 per share), and said that the "next milestone to fall" would take place if the share price dropped past $73.41, where the bank has a market … Continue reading

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Parsing Starbucks

Jack Flack (congratulations, btw) today decodes the jargon-filled press release which accompanied the news that Howard Schultz was returning as CEO of Starbucks. The release certainly needs decoding. The headline, ferchrissakes, is "Starbucks Announces Strategic Initiatives to Increase Shareholder Value": … Continue reading

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Can Alan Schwartz Rescue Bear Stearns?

This time last year, Bear Stearns was trading at a hundred and seventy something dollars per share. Today, it closed at seventy something dollars per share, well below its book value of $84. That’s all you need to know to … Continue reading

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The Power of Market Capitalization

What is the correlation between a company’s size, as measured by market capitalization, and its power? I’m not sure how one would measure power, but I don’t think that market cap is a good proxy for it. ADM is worth … Continue reading

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Bear Stearns: Now Trading Below Book Value

Bear Stearns is being clobbered today, down more than 5% to just $79 per share. And it’s passed a major milestone, too. Here’s its fourth-quarter earnings report: Book value on November 30, 2007 was $84.09 per share, based on 136.2 … Continue reading

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Ouch

Bill Ackman’s short bets seem to be rather better than his longs. Dow Jones reckons that he made over half a billion dollars in 2007 shorting MBIA and Ambac Financial. Which is good, because his long position in Target seems … Continue reading

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State Street Corp Should be Falling, not Rising

Another one for the annals of bizarre stock moves: State Street Corp, the parent of State Street Global Advisors is surging to new all-time highs today. This is on the news that the company has breached its fiduciary duties to … Continue reading

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Two Trades for 2008

I don’t make predictions. But, what the hell, let’s see how these two trades turn out over the next year. The first is highly speculative, and individual investors aren’t even allowed to do it; the second is highly defensive, and … Continue reading

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The Most-Traded Stocks of the Year

Here’s an interesting exercise: compare this table, of the largest US companies by market capitalization, to this table, of the top stocks in 2007 by dollars traded. For instance, more money changed hands trading Apple shares than trading Exxon Mobil … Continue reading

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Does LVMH Rule the Champagne Market?

Christina Passariello has an interesting WSJ article today on LVMH’s Champagne business, explaining at some length how the French luxury-goods giant sources all the grapes it needs to be the world’s biggest Champagne merchant. I do worry, though, that in … Continue reading

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Stock Market Datapoint of the Day

Dean Baker: Investors in stock have not done very well over the last decade. The S&P 500 rose by a cumulative total of 52.6 percent from December 1997 to December 2007. After adjusting for inflation, the increase was 17.3 percent, … Continue reading

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McDonald’s Datapoint of the Day

George Will: McDonald’s exemplifies the role of small businesses in Americans’ upward mobility. The company is largely a confederation of small businesses: 85 percent of its U.S. restaurants — average annual sales, $2.2 million — are owned by franchisees. McDonald’s … Continue reading

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