Photo:mckaysavage, Creative Commons, Flickr So we had some bad earnings reports today. The conventional wisdom is that the credit crunch is leaking into the industrial U.S. economy and consumer spending. I have to say that today simply felt like an emotional and volatile day. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a couple of weeks everyone…
Hariet Hentges, a former nun hired last year to be Wal*Mart's (WMT -$45.99) first head of Environmental Outreach is leaving. She says it is for personal reasons. I'm holding my WalMart stock as it is good value. But, as I don't see big upside, I continue to have my entire position overwritten with $47.50 strike…
Art Chang is amazed that Google’s (GOOG – $616.32) market cap now exceeds Time Warner (TWX – $19.10), Disney (DIS – $35.39), and News Corp (NWS – $24.48), combined. He’s right to be amazed, but when you think about it from the point of view of someone buying a business, it’s not that amazing. Google…
Tuesday, October 9th was designated (I still can’t figure out exactly by whom) a day of protest against Chevron (CVX – $92.30) and its paying of royalties to the regime in Burma (Myanmar). Information about the protest and how you can participate be found at this Chevron Protest Blogspot posting. Amy Goodman explains why she…
I started a small position in the Morgan Stanley High Yield Fund (MSY – $5.76) today. According to the Closed-End Fund Association website, the Morgan Stanley closed-end fund is trading at at 14% discount to Net Asset Value of $6.72. The recent increase in junk bond yields (drop in prices) has made me neutral on…
Diageo PLC (DEO ADR: $89.37) has a staggered board which protects management and the board from being accountable to shareholders by only allowing a few board members to be elected each year. That way it takes a few years to change a shareholder unfriendly board. Usually, managements that are afraid of their shareholders do this.…
Photo:actualmatthew, Creative Commons, Flickr This is the ongoing list of my top holdings. Due to popular demand, the list has been expanded. Top Fifteen Listed/Tradable Holdings as of June month end (prices as of August 6, 2007): 1. Ishares Inflation Protected Treasuries ETF (TIP – $102.03)2. Chevron Corp (CVX – $93.58)3. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/A –…
During the days of maximum fear around Thronburg Mortgage (TMA), I bought some of the common and some of the preferred of this mortgage REIT after hearing the CEO give what I thought was a very honest and detailed appraisal of their losses. He impressed me. Honest, humble CEO's always do. I realized this company…
Seems like every financial institution is getting on climate change and socially responsible investing. Somehow I think they are a bit ahead of most investors. I’d be much more interested in data about companies that see themselves as responsible for the planet and how they perform financially versus companies that exist only to reward their…
Chubb (CB – $52.95) has been dead money for the last two years. I think it's the best managed of the insurers. But I usually wait for some kind of disaster to push the market down before I buy a property and casualty insurer. People hate this sector right now because property and casualty rates…
How am I positioning for the Fed Interest Rate Cut? I continue to buy overweight financials, especially the big ones like Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC), JP Morgan Chase (JPM), Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs (GS) and Lehman Brothers (LEH). I'm even short some puts on the Financials ETF (XLF). In the short term, financials…
The founder of The Body Shop, (now part of L'Oreal Group – LRLCY.PK) Anita Roddick died yesterday in England. She was one of the real pioneers in a business that tried to treat animals, the planet, their workers, their producers and shareholders in a fair way and still make a profit. I think she has…
Felix Salmon at Portfolio.com has rightly trounced me for buying Countrywide Financial earlier this summer. I thought it was a good bet at the time, but I got out in August once things started to get confusing. I knew CFC would have to recognize losses from their higher funding rates and portfolio markdowns. But it…
Why, you ask? Arson, suicide, record attendance, luxury?
Well, there is Internet connection here but it's slow. It seems to have gotten better over the week. My camp, Entheon Village, has been great and set up a repeater. The Barbie Death Camp (and Wine Bar) Satires Mattel Inc's (MAT – $21.68) top selling doll of all time, Barbie, being cast into ovens. You…
Photo:herby_fr, Creative Commons, Flickr I'm taking a week away from stock research, trading, credit meltdowns and blogging for The Panelist. I'm leaving the Default World and heading to the to a dry salt lake bed called Black Rock City. I heard there might be Internet access. If there is, I'm going to try to report on how…
I enjoyed reading the results of Trader Monthly's poll of 2500 traders. If ever there was a answer to why we need market regulators to level the playing field, Trader Monthly found it in the following questions: "If you could parlay some insider info into a guaranteed $10 million trade but knew you stood a…
On my way back from the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting, I stopped at the Chef Boy Ardee plant in Milton, PA which is owned by Conagra (CAG – $25.66). I bought Conagra as a value play a couple years ago. The stock has not moved much in that time. I collected a nice fat dividend early on that…
Photo:MShades, Creative Commons, Flickr I've been away in Kauai until Tuesday night, and since I've been back I've been trading furiously. I'm usually only this active in my personal account when the Russell Indices rebalance every June. The first of my trades is actually the most recent. About a half hour ago I sold out…
A recent WSJ article points out that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 82% since the last bull market began on October 9, 2002. It feels like a lifetime ago, but U.S. stocks hit record highs just three weeks ago. Given the strong run the bull market has had, there are still more bulls…
Wondering how the planet's atmosphere is faring at shareholder meetings? Ceres is an organization that is interested in "sustainable prosperity." My favorite of the Ceres activities is their shareholder resolution work and the roundup of corporate resolutions. A quick report card on the various companies is quite clear. I quickly ran across some oil companies…
This is the ongoing list of my top holdings.See May 2007 List. See June 2007 List.Top Ten Listed/Tradable Holdings as of June month end (prices as of August 6, 2007):1. Ishares Inflation Protected Treasuries ETF (TIP – $100.051)2. Chevron Corp (CVX – $79.64)3. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/A – $111,000)4. Conoco Philips (COP – $76.55)5. B P…
Reader Question: David Neubert, I am thinking about buying some Ford preferred stock symbol (F-PS). Do you think its still a good investment? I sold all my market holdings early that Thursday morning, a few weeks ago, before the market begin to really take a dive. Now I want to get back in with…
The democratic Congress votes on the Green Jobs Act of 2007 – summary at the Huffington Post. Free Training for a "Green Collar" workforce? I'm guessing the new Green Collar workforce will mostly be wearing suits or overalls. Well, it may mean better trained workers for the solar, wind and waste management industries.
People are recommending shorting Coutnrywide. It has been my experience that the shorts, much like bubble buyers, tend to pile in at the bottom. This is where fundamental value based research can help – I've been keeping track of book values of several of the large banks that seem to me will survive the whole…