Unilever (UN- $30.14) has been a value (and disappointing stock) in my portfolio. Recently the stock has been moving up with the rest of Europe (and up as part of the currency effect of the declining US Dollar).
Eric Jackson provides a wonderful explanation of what it's like to be a shareholder activist. He describes his trip to the 2007 Yahoo shareholder meeting at BreakoutPerformance.com. He arrived annoyed and came away with a better understanding of the company and its workings. As a matter of fact, he was impressed with how much potential…
It seems like just weeks ago the financial media was looking for the coming drop in fed funds rate by the Fed. Real Estate was dropping and the economy was slowing. This time last year, inflation was on the rise and interest rates were going up. I like to use the financial media as a…
Previous Photo:crawfishpie, Creative Commons, Flickr The Green MBA embodies much of what we are about here at The Panelist: Green and Greedy. Though I should say GREEDY and GREEN since we are about making money, saving for retirment, our children’s college, a nice house with solar panels etc. Anyway, I thought this story at Reuters…
Philip Morris/Altria (MO – $70.29) suffered a small blow in the Supreme Court yesterday when it was ruled that it could not moved a tobacco litigation case from the more hostile state courts to more business-friendly federal courts.
I just saw Eric Jackson talking to Maria Bartiromo on CNBC. He's getting press for his small shareholder campaign to shake up management.
Central Vermont Power (CV – $35.27) continues to come up with programs to make its electricity more valuable and the planet less carbonated. In addition to their program to turn cow manure from dairy farms into methane and electricity, they are now getting into converting hybrid-electric cars. I'll continue to call this an implementation of…
Someone from the The Panelist family who is a member of the cult of Apple asked the following question: Hi David, We were thinking of buying apple (speculating on iPhone earnings), was wondering what your opinion was on current valuation and if this seems like a good idea?
I cut my short 10-year note and long bond treasury futures positions in half this week. It seems we are at an emotional extreme around fears of a rate increase. This is about where we were last month with fears of a rate cut. I’m still buying the argument that we are in a trading…
In the late nineties, when I was running the New York program, trading at Morgan Stanley, we called days like today “Reversal Friday.” Fridays were the days we usually were busy playing credit card roulette to decide who would have to pay for the order-in Friday lunch. Imagine forty traders, sales people and researchers putting…
With the market falling and volatilities expanding, I was selling puts today on stocks/securities. Yes, I am a contrarian! I sold puts on my safety securities that I wish would fall enough so that I could buy them. These are not speculations, I sold a series of puts on things that have real value and…
As Annaly (NLY – $14.50) got clobbered today, I did a little trade to make sure I'm buying Annaly near book value. Structured as a REIT and passing through 90% of earning for shareholders, Annaly Mortgage is a great way to earn dividends/mortgage interest.
Every hedge fund is long their little portfolio of favorite stocks and short the market. For almost everyone, "short the market" means short S&P500 futures or SPY (the ETF that represents the S&P 500). With a market cap of $386 billion and representing 2.9%, General Electric (GE – $37.29) is the second largest company in…
As the large caps approach fair value, I start looking for things to sell so I can reinvest in Municipal Bonds.
The film The Corporation mentions that a corporation is an externalizing machine that tries to get the rest of society to pay the costs of its actions.
I just watched Jim Cramer's Mad Money (I couldn't help but laugh at how long the WikiPedia entry for this TV show is, The Panelist should be so lucky). He thinks Citigroup (C- $54.15) is more valuable broken up than as one big unit. I could not disagree with him more.
The Panelist blogged live from the floor of the Berkshire Hathaway 2007 Shareholder meeting. Maybe we didn’t get everything right, so here’s a transcript:
We, at The Panelist, are trying to figure out which politicians to endorse for the upcoming 2008 elections. Luckily we have loads of time to make our decision and, sadly for their supporters, the candidates are starting ridiculously early. Previous Photo: stevegarfield, Creative Commons, Flickr
I’ve been trying to sell at least something every day this week.
ConAgra Foods, Inc., (NYSE: CAG – $25.67) expects to report higher-than-projected earnings per share for fiscal 2007. ConAgra expects fiscal 2007 earnings per share to be above the high end of the $1.28-$1.33 range it had previously announced. The consensus is $1.34. So what's Neubert doing with his Conagra?
I've had some inquiries about my positions so I decided to list my ten largest positions by current dollar value. I have over 100 securities in my portfolio and like to move them around quite a bit. Below are the largest discretionary exchange traded position. I do not include bonds (US or otherwise) or the…
I own Citi and write about it often. Citigroup has been getting a lot of attention lately as shareholder activists try to unlock value. What stock is next?
I bought some Berkshire Hathaway for some accounts I watch for friends and family. They like me to keep their accounts fully invested. Here's what I sold and why:
Amgen’s been dropping and I keep buying, but I’m nearing a full stomach on the biotech.
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