The Panelist Therapist Website Design and Mental Health Topics
This is an actual conversation I had with the most prolific blogger I know, Felix Salmon. He has been churning out material about the JPMorgan takeover of Bear Stearns. He helped me better explain why Bear Stearns was trading over the JPM buyout price of $2.00 a share. He used our discussion to produce a…
Oil stocks could get a double boost.
British judge cancels order to freeze $12 billion in PdVSA assets.
I've been getting the inside scoop from some hedgefund traders (who always request to remain anonymous). One told me that the reason Bear Stearns (BSC – $7.90) is trading so far above the deal price with JP Morgan (JPM – $41.00) is that bond holders who NEED the deal to go through are buying millions…
In response to Michelle Haimoff's piece about the environment and religion, here's another example of people mushing religion and environment together (but they usually do it to attack environmentalists). And here's the central argument from Shellenberger and Nordhaus:
Ask yourself a simple question: Do you believe that the U.S. dollar will appreciate over the next decade? That’s the question I asked myself on thepanelist.net.
My friends and Portfolio have this handy slideshow that shows how much value destroying CEO's were overpaid last year. Not surprisingly, CEOs of financial firms like eTrade (ETFC – $3.29), Countrywide (CFC – $4.76) and Citigroup (C – $18.62) top the list. For nearly all companies, the CEO is an employee, not a founder, not…
I bought Bear Stearns (BSC – $4.68 – down 85%) on Friday for $33.00. I thought there would be some kind of rescue package. I was wrong. Here, Portfolio.com blogger, Felix Salmon summarizes some of my comments and those by others. Instead, what I got was The Fed exacting their revenge on Bear at my…
The March 1979 incident at Three Mile Island (TMI) in Pennsylvania was the worst commercial nuclear power plant accident in U.S. history.
In December of 2006, several workers at Quality Pork Processors (QPP) in Austin, Minnesota, came down with a mysterious illness.
Photo:Taberanddrew, Creative Commons, Flickr Exxon Mobile (XOM) is expected to lead Big Oil stocks higher.
The New York Times recently reported that the cost of Chinese-made goods sold in the U.S. has risen steadily for the last eight months.
Eric Savitz asks, "What will Microsoft do if Yahoo Whiffs Q1?" My bet is that the market will think Microsoft (MSFT -$28.63) is paying too much for Yahoo (YHOO- $28.45) and perhaps will be hit and go down a buck or two. What SHOULD Microsoft do? CELEBRATE. Yahoo still has huge web traffic and a…
The recent New York Times Magazine entitled “The Money Issue,” covers topics ranging from how good works are measured, to why people give, microfinancing, and the relationship between celebrity and philanthropy. But what struck me off the bat is the chart illustrating how Americans allocated their contributions to charitable causes in 2006. The research was…
Photo:Andrew, Creative Commons, Flickr New York governor Elliot Spitzer had an itch that had to be scratched. Let the media frenzy begin! Big deal. This is between him and his young family. But then again, the alliteration "Spitzer Sex Scandal" has a nice ring to it, and who really wants to listen to another minute…
Exxon Mobil (XOM) is not known for its environmental record. Indeed, many environmentally-friendly investors feel that Exxon could be doing much more in terms of alternative energy investment. And, interestingly, that is what XOM has been doing the past three decades. XOM just hasn't been doing it in an area where we usually think to…
I recommend that holders of Aution Rate Preferred read this article by the President of the Closed End Fund Association, Tom Dinsmore.
Merrill Lynch (MER – $44.38) is turning trees into money, according to the Wall Street Journal Online. I am sure many will ridicule this as a fake and short-sighted public relations move. However, any step in the right direction is a positive one. With today's central bank move to inject liquidity into the system, the…
Several analysts expect the U.S. dollar to rebound in the second half of the year. A slowing U.S. economy always affects the rest of the world with a delay, they say, and most of the bad news may already be priced into the greenback. "For Euroland, historically, the delay has been one or two quarters,"…
Budget blueprint: The House and Senate take the first major step in the budget process this week, voting on their respective "budget resolutions" which act as a blueprint for the twelve spending bills Congress will churn out this year. Weighing in at $3 trillion, the current drafts top the president's budget proposal by about $20…
A friend who must remain anonymous asks: "Sent you a message on your Facebook acct…you adding to Merrill Lynch (MER – $42.97)? Can't get a read on the big pullback..do the institutional traders know something we dont?" I'm not adding to MER and I'm actually out of it for a while. My stop loss rule…
A reader who likes to send me his portfolio decisions has had a better call on the markets lately. What I like about him is that he sees his portfolio as an investment, is very critical of US government policy, is nervous about the debasing of the dollar via inflation and takes long term views. …
Note to Congress: Please get rid of the penny and stop supporting the wasteful use of zinc and copper for something that is thrown away. According to this article about the penny at Mainstreet.com, there are 1.2 cents worth of copper and zinc in a U.S. penny and it costs 1.7 cents to produce one.…
The theory of decoupling suggests that emerging markets have broadened and deepened to the point that they no longer depend on the United States for growth, leaving them insulated from a U.S. recession. Several analysts have claimed that decoupling is a load of rubbish, while others swear by it. One of the factors complicating the…
My anti-government-war-complex conspiracy theorist friends often tell me that the income tax is immoral because it supports war, and illegal because it was founded by the Supreme Court to be anti-constitutional. But these guys are either living in a paranoid delusion or making a completely incorrect legal argument based on a historical partial truth and…