After being on the road at two different conferences and a funeral, I'm finally home. I watched my usual late night TV shows when I arrived on Wednesday night. It seemed they all had some sort of comedy piece to do with the fact that Starbucks closed for the three slowest hours of the day…
Until now I have always supported the Anti Iraq War stance of Code Pink Women For Peace. I think that the U.S. invasion of Iraq did nothing to make the country safe from terrorism, as well as needlessly cost taxpayers. Generally, it is an abuse of our patriotic young men and women in our military. …
A reader asks: "You said you were watching REITS a few months ago and would pull the trigger if they fell. Can we buy them yet?" My answer: Not yet. I use the Dow Jones Wilshire REIT Exchange Traded Fund, (RWR – $66.32) to follow the REIT market. Right now the fund has fallen 34%…
Legg Mason's star portfolio manager Bill Miller thinks that Microsoft (MSFT – $28.34) needs to raise its price in order to acquire Yahoo! (YHOO – $29.57). At $29.57, Yahoo is trading like Microsoft will up its price (remember, Yahoo deserves a big discount to the deal price because of how long the deal is expected…
Eben Esterhuizen quotes George Soros saying that the current financial crisis is the culmination of a 60-year super boom of dollar credit expansion . The current financial crises based on over-leverage and excess government spending is part of the long term trend in the decline of the dollar that started in the 1970's. The Pound…
So many bloggers are negative on the Yahoo! (YHOO – $29.20) board and management. Om Malik calls the Yahoo! board asleep at the wheel. I've been following and supporting fund manager Erik Jackson's small guy Plan B campaign since he started back in 2006. As far as my trades go, I've bought Yahoo every time…
Fellow The Panelist contibutor Eben Esterhuizen asks and clearly answers "no" to the question, "Will Recession Lead to A Solar Depression? " To take Eben's analysis a little further, I thought I'd deliniate the factors that do affect the solar industry. Every investor should have an opinion about this list before throwing money after lofty…
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan writes about a potential sale of Yahoo. But with a market cap of $33 billion (minus $2 billion in cash) that doesn’t leave many potential buyers with enough market cap to swallow Yahoo. All the buyers/partners that are big enough, like Microsoft and Google, are already competing with Yahoo, so they aren't really…
Mike writes: I have a question regarding Ford Stock—-I see you purchased Ford Stock years ago—-what is you take on the future of Ford? Mike Dear Mike:I haven't really owned Ford common shares (F – $6.70) directly except for a quick trade. I do own and have owned Ford Convertible Preferred (F-PRS -$32.74). In general,…
We know that coal and petroleum companies are mining the raw materials that contribute to greater levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, but who else is contributing? Surpisingly, agriculture, as Mike Brune from Rainforest Action Network (RAN) says: We launched a major new campaign taking on giant Agricultural companies ADM, Bunge, and Cargill for violating…
Photo:J.reed, Creative Commons, Flickr With reports of retail spending up this year, even in the face of so much bad news about housing and mortgages, my inner contrarian awakens. I'm terrible at picking specific retail trends in terms of what brands are in fashion. I do not trust myself to pick the next American Apparel…
Photo:ldysw357, Creative Commons, Flickr This phenomenum of closed end funds getting cheap into year end and rebounding is another type of January effect that is well known but not without risk. It is well known, and yet it continues to exist. Part of the reason may be that the lack of liquidity keeps any hedge…
Starbucks came up on my year-end tax selling screen, so I decided to take a look at its valuation. Everyone loves to hate Starbucks (SBUX – $21.20). The stock as been on a one-way ticket to hell, falling nearly 50% from its highs created by what I term the "Starbucks Bubble." In my experience, when…
Felix Salmon at Portfolio.com dug up the ratios for level 3 assets at each major Wall Street broker. This ratio is seen by some to be "scary." I don't find it as scary as some. The assets in Level 3 are mark-to-model. Some of these could include complex derivatives for which there is no market…
Together with Madonna, Sting and Prince, Vikram Pandit, my old boss at Morgan Stanley, has acheived rock star status. He's the only CEO I know of in the world who is referred to only by his first name. I've been seeing a lot on CNBC and other media dissing the Citigroup Board for choosing Vikram…
I bought some S&P 500 futures betting on a higher U.S. stock market for December. We have lower interest rates, a cheap dollar and U.S. companies at the cheapest forward price earnings ration in years. What's not to like? Do I have a stop on my position? You bet! I don't want to take a…
Top Fifteen Listed/Tradeable Holdings as of November 2007 month end. Prices as of December 5, 2007. I've done a lot of trading this November. I haven't been disclosing all of my trades but hopefully some of the changes in my top holdings will give you an idea. 1. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/A – $147,500) (up from…
I'm starting to know what New York Times blogger, James Kanter means when he says that real solutions for carbon reduction are far off in the future. A carbon tax remains the most simple solution and, priced right, would allow business and consumers to decide whether carbon sequestration, reduced consumption or alternative energy sources make…
Throughout the mania of the expansion of the moneyed class in China, I've watched the gambling stocks with the frustration of "I should have seen this coming" as Las Vegas Sands (LVS – $118.76) made its meteoric rise. But for much of this year I've been thinking that the gambling stocks were overvalued, and didn't want…
On Wednesday, I was positive on John Thain as the new CEO at Merrill Lynch (MER – $56.11). I was also a buyer – so I bought a little. But now I'm holding off a bit. I still think the fact that John Thain got to look at the firm's books and still wanted the…
Well it turns out Joe Capone is wrong after predicting to me months ago that John Thain would run Citigroup after Prince was fired. But he's not that wrong because after watching Thain's interview on CNBC I'm sure he was offered the job and chose Merrill instead. Knowning that Thain worked in Mortgage Backed Securities…
The last two days have all the markings of a bear market short-covering rally. The sectors that have the most negativity have rallied the most: Retail and Financials. If this were a real transition from a negative selling market to a rally, the sectors that have been leading would continue to lead: Technology and Materials. …
A Reader Asks: Hi David, How does an average guy like me with an Ameritrade account take advantage of the Canadian Dollar rising (13% since September). Are there any currency products that are traded? Also, can I short the dollar at the same time? Thanks, Mark D
Photo:sneakums, Creative Commons, Flickr Top Fifteen Listed/Tradeable Holdings as of October 2007 month end. Prices as of November 1, 2007. I've been spending much of the month in the beautiful autumn colors of the Berkshires of Massachusetts. My portfolio has not changed much but check out below to see where it has: 1. Ishares Inflation…
Yesterday's Wall Street Journal added a supplement called "Environment: The Journal Report." Since the Journal has yet to follow the New York Times' lead and offer online content for free, here is a quick summary of the front page article "Handicapping the Environmental Gold Rush" by Jeffrey Ball: