Author Archive

  • The Christmas Bust
    , December 26th, 2008 at 10:27 am

    Despite huge discounts, many retailers had a lousy Christmas:

    “It’s been difficult, much more difficult than anyone expected,” Gilbert Harrison, chairman and chief executive officer of retail advisory firm Financo Inc., said today in a Bloomberg Television interview from West Palm Beach, Florida. Consumers “will spend on necessities, they’ll spend on what they need, but they’re being very particular in what they’ll buy.”
    Discounts of 70 percent off or more by Macy’s Inc., AnnTaylor Stores Inc. and other retailers failed to prevent a spending drop of as much as 4 percent during the final two months of the year, according to data from SpendingPulse. Including fuel, sales tumbled as much as 8 percent.
    More than a dozen retailers, including Circuit City Stores Inc., have sought bankruptcy protection this year as the credit squeeze and the U.S. recession dried up funding. The holiday results indicate further filings are possible, along with consolidation among similar companies, said Harrison.

  • Peter Schiff on Alex Jones
    , December 25th, 2008 at 2:22 pm

    Peter Schiff is not widely considered to be the crank that he is. Here’s a video of him with crackpot Alex Jones who believes, among other things, that 9/11 was a planned and carried out by the Bush administration.

  • Merry Everything
    , December 25th, 2008 at 11:40 am

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    I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and profitable new year.
    I’d also like to thank all of my readers over the past twelve months. I’ve had this site going for 3-1/2 years now and it’s truly a labor of a love. I enjoy getting emails and questions from folks all over the world. I really don’t think I could do it without all the feedback I get. I’d also like to thank all of the folks who have linked to this site over the past year, which has brought Crossing Wall Street to an even larger audience.
    Let’s hope 2009 is a big change from 2008!
    Oh, one more thing. This.

  • The Decline and Fall of Oil
    , December 23rd, 2008 at 3:28 pm

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    The January contract, which expired last week, got to a low of $32.40. On July, 11, oil reached $147.27.

  • How Best to Describe California
    , December 23rd, 2008 at 3:16 pm

    Imagine if Lehman Brothers had been allowed to issue license plates:

    In fact, there has been very little interest among institutional investors in municipal bonds since the financial markets began to collapse this fall, and states have had to rely on individual investors — far less plentiful and reliable than institutional investors — to buy bonds.
    Right after Washington cobbled together its plan to bail out banks, California, which uses bonds to pay for projects as well as to cover its short-term cash needs, sold $5 billion in notes, and 80 percent of the buyers, rather than the typical 30 percent, were individuals.
    Last month, when the state tried to restructure existing debt with an additional $523 million offering, it had to reduce the offering by two-thirds, said Tom Dresslar, the spokesman for Bill Lockyer, the California treasurer.
    “The institutional investor interest was nil,” Mr. Dresslar said.
    Further, the State Legislature’s inability, with the governor, to figure out a way to deal with the state’s $15 billion budget gap has weakened the market’s confidence in California, something other states could face if the fiscal situation deteriorates.
    This month, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the $5 billion in revenue bonds issued by California last month and put more than $50 billion of debt on watch for a downgrade.
    “The bottom line is we are not viewed as a quality investment,” Mr. Dresslar said, adding that California is not in position to offer the sort of fat interest rates needed to get offerings off the ground.

  • Ouch
    , December 23rd, 2008 at 3:03 pm

    One year ago, Business Week looked at what the pros were staying:

    Garzarelli is advising investors to buy some of the most beaten-down stocks, including those of giant financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers (LEH), Bear Stearns (BSC), and Merrill Lynch (MER). What would cause her to turn bearish? Not much. “Our indicators are extremely bullish.”

    Of course, there are six stocks on my Buy List that are down by over 50% this year, and I’m still beating the market by a fe point.

  • Despite Bailout, Market Thinks GM Is a Goner
    , December 23rd, 2008 at 1:44 pm

    I think the government ought to pay attention to the market on this one.

    GM dropped as much as 18 percent today in New York trading to extend yesterday’s 22 percent plunge, while credit-default swaps on GM bonds rose 0.5 percentage point in a sign of increasing concern that the Bush administration’s bailout may end in a default.
    The stock-price slide erased the 23 percent gain on Dec. 19, when Detroit-based GM received a federal aid package to help the automaker stay in business until March 31 while it crafts a plan to shut plants, shed brands and reduce debt.
    “It’s almost impossible for a management that invested in the assets, that hired the people, that put forth the strategy, to change so dramatically in such a short period of time,” Edward Altman, a New York University finance professor who created the Z-score formula to measure bankruptcy risk, said in a Bloomberg Television interview.
    There is a “high” likelihood of a GM bankruptcy, Standard & Poor’s said yesterday in reducing the rating on the company’s unsecured debt to C, or 11 grades below investment quality. Robert Schulz, an S&P analyst in New York, said creditors can expect “negligible recovery” should the automaker default.
    GM has slashed output and won union concessions since saying Nov. 7 it may run out of operating cash by year’s end. The automaker said it would need as much as $18 billion in aid or face a possible bankruptcy.

  • How it Happened
    , December 22nd, 2008 at 4:04 pm

    The Onion explains it all:
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  • This Doesn’t Look Good
    , December 22nd, 2008 at 4:01 pm

    Man found dead hanging by his belt in British hotel.
    Did I mention that he was naked? Or the head of insurance at HSBC?
    “His death is being treated as non-suspicious.”
    Speak for yourself.

  • Bernie’s Cribs
    , December 22nd, 2008 at 12:16 pm

    Nice. Very nice.
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