• Some Odd Football Stats
    Posted by on December 1st, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    Despite being 40-years-old, Brett Farve is having the best season of his career, at least going by passer rating. Through Sunday, Farve’s passer rating is 112.1 which is the sixth-highest of all-time (although second to Drew Brees for this year). Farve’s previous high came 14 years ago when his rating was 99.5 which is the 49th best of all-time.

    Chris Johnson of the Titans already has 1,396 yards rushing on just 217 carries. He has touchdown runs of 85, 89 and 91 yards this season. Johnson is averaging 6.43 yards per carry which is the highest for a full-time back in the last 50 years.

    Thanks to a pick last night, Darren Sharper has eight interceptions for the year including three that he’s returned for touchdowns. Sharper is now the active leader in interceptions with 62 (that’s tied for 7th all-time). He has 11 lifetime touchdowns which is second all-time, just one behind Rod Woodson. On career yardage, he’s also second to Woodson trailing by 92 yards.

    The odd thing about interceptions is that 10 in one season seems to be like “hitting the wall” in a marathon. Since 1981, 12 different players have had 10 interceptions in one season but no one has gotten to 11. This might be the Nigel Tufnel Theory of Defensive Backs.

  • North Korea Revalues Currency by 100-to-1
    Posted by on December 1st, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    Something tells me this isn’t going to work:

    In an alleged bid to curb inflation and suppress its growing black market, North Korea implemented a currency revaluation on Monday, according to Yonhap, the South Korean news agency.
    The exchange rate between old and new currencies is 100 to 1, with the old denomination of 1,000 won notes being replaced by 10 won notes.
    It is the first time in 17 years that the hermit kingdom has revalued
    its currency and the effect in the capital was instant. “Many people were taken aback and confused,” said one source to Yonhap. “Those were were worried about their hidden assets rushed to the black market to swap them for dollars or Chinese yuan. The yuan and the dollar jumped,” he added.
    “When the news spread in the jangmadang (markets), people panicked,” reported the Daily NK newspaper, quoting a source in the North Eastern province of North Hamkyung. Another source, in the Western city of Sinuiju, on the border with China, told the paper: “Traders gathered around currency dealers. Chaos ensued when currency dealers tried to avoid them.”

    It’s really shameful that a country has mismanaged its currency so badly.
    Why are you looking at me like that?

  • How to Value Gold
    Posted by on December 1st, 2009 at 12:41 pm

    Barry Ritholtz posts a chart from Albert Edwards of SocGen which tries to show if gold is overvalued or undervalued. This chart reiterates the point I’ve made before that I’ve never seen a set of variables that closely tracks the price of gold.
    I don’t see how useful a valuation metric is when the price is often one-fifth of where it should be.
    One of Barry’s commentors sums it up well:

    Let me get this straight… Gold has been ‘inexpensive’ for for roughly 38 out of the past 40 years, and is now near a record low?

  • Blodget Vindicated!
    Posted by on December 1st, 2009 at 11:44 am

    Amazon.com (AMZN) is up to $138 a share today which is yet another new high. We’re coming up on the 11th anniversary (December 16th) of Henry Blodget’s famous $400 long-term price target for Amazon.
    The stock has since split 6-for-1 (a 2-for-1 and a 3-for-1) so the adjusted price target works out to be $66.66
    We can debate what long-term means, but if it’s 11 years, then Blodget was pretty much spot on if we assume an average return on equity of around 7%.

  • Peet’s Raises Bid to $32.50
    Posted by on December 1st, 2009 at 11:23 am

    Whatever is in that K-Cup license, someone wants its very badly.

    Peet’s Coffee & Tea Inc. raised its bid to buy Diedrich Coffee Inc., the maker of single-serve coffee packets, for the second time to $32.50 a share, topping the latest offer from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc.
    Peet’s boosted the cash portion of its bid to a range of $21.26 to $22.87, plus 0.321 share of its own stock, for each Diedrich share, the Emeryville, California-based company said yesterday in a statement. The offer totals $32.50 a share at any price of Peet’s stock from $30 to $35. Last week, Peet’s offered as much as $32 a share, including $19.80 in cash, while Green Mountain raised its bid to $32 a share in cash, or $265 million.
    The companies are vying for Diedrich’s K-Cup business, the maker of prepackaged coffee cups used in Green Mountain’s Keurig brewing equipment. Green Mountain has been consolidating K-Cup manufacturing, which is about twice as profitable as collecting royalty fees, according to Mitchell Pinheiro, an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia.
    “Green Mountain could counter with an increased offer, as the company seems committed to rolling up its K-cup licensees,” David Tarantino, an analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co. in Milwaukee wrote in a note. He recommends buying Peet’s and doesn’t rate the other stocks.

    This almost reads like a movie. As a business enterprise, Diedrich is pretty much a joke. But they have a license which is very valuable yet no one seems to know what it exactly entails. Let me change that — someone knows and they’re willing to pay a lot for it. Peet’s is now willing to pay $32.50 for a stock that was worth 21 cents a few months ago.
    Who needs gold when there’s coffee? (John Hempton has more.)

  • Eaton Vance’s Earnings
    Posted by on December 1st, 2009 at 11:08 am

    I also neglected to mention Eaton Vance‘s (EV) earnings report from last week:

    Investment manager Eaton Vance Corp. said Tuesday its profit jumped 39 percent in the fourth quarter on higher assets under management and lower investment losses.
    For the three months ended Oct. 31, the company earned $48.4 million, or 39 cents per share. That compared to $34.9 million, or 28 cents per share, in the year-ago period.
    Quarterly revenue edged up 2 percent to $254.1 million from $249.8 million the same time last year.
    Earnings in the latest quarter were increased by about 5 cents per share by tax adjustments primarily related to stock-based compensation.
    Last year, Eaton Vance’s investment losses cut fourth-quarter earnings by 13 cents per share. The company recorded an impairment charge of $13.2 million on investment losses.
    The performance beat Wall Street expectations. On average, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of 33 cents per share on revenue of $250.3 million.
    In the latest quarter, assets under management grew to $154.9 billion, up 26 percent from $123.09 billion in 2008. That helped lift quarterly investment advisory and administration fees 2 percent, to $195 million.
    For the full year, Eaton Vance earned $130.1 million, or $1.08 per share. That was down 34 percent from $195.7 million, or $1.57 per share last year.
    Thomas E. Faust Jr., the company’s chairman and CEO, noted in a release that earnings in 2010 should continue improving as a result of expense controls and favorable trends in asset management.

  • Self-Parody Alert
    Posted by on December 1st, 2009 at 1:21 am

    The reappointment of Ben Bernanke has sent Nassim Nicholas Taleb into an existential crisis. I’m not making this up.

    What I am seeing and hearing on the news — the reappointment of Bernanke — is too hard for me to bear. I cannot believe that we, in the 21st century, can accept living in such a society. I am not blaming Bernanke (he doesn’t even know he doesn’t understand how things work or that the tools he uses are not empirical); it is the Senators appointing him who are totally irresponsible — as if we promoted every doctor who caused malpractice. The world has never, never been as fragile. Economics make homeopath and alternative healers look empirical and scientific.
    No news, no press, no Davos, no suit-and-tie fraudsters, no fools. I need to withdraw as immediately as possible into the Platonic quiet of my library, work on my next book, find solace in science and philosophy, and mull the next step. I will also structure trades with my Universa friends to bet on the next mistake by Bernanke, Summers, and Geithner. I will only (briefly) emerge from my hiatus when the publishers force me to do so upon the publication of the paperback edition of The Black Swan.
    Bye,
    Nassim

    Take care,
    Eddy

  • Keep It Classy, Fast Money
    Posted by on November 30th, 2009 at 7:51 pm


    (Via: TBI)

  • Amazon Hits New High
    Posted by on November 30th, 2009 at 1:12 pm

    Shares of Amazon (AMZN) got as high as $135.25 today.
    image875.png
    Here’s something to think about: Amazon reached its 1999 closing high of $106.69 (adjusted for splits) on December 10, 1999 — almost exactly ten years ago. The stock didn’t break that closing high until October 23, 2009.
    So was Amazon’s stock a bubble 10 years ago? Yes and no. Even if you bought at the exact top, you’ve made a very small profit (although it’s basically been erased by inflation). But still, you’ve done a lot better than the S&P 500. Excluding dividends, the S&P 500 is down about 23% since December 10, 1999.

  • Clinton in Bed with Goldman Sachs
    Posted by on November 30th, 2009 at 12:47 pm

    But this time, it’s Chelsea:

    Chelsea Clinton, daughter of ex-US President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is engaged to marry her long-term boyfriend.
    She is marrying Marc Mezvinsky, a banker at Goldman Sachs, with whom she became friends as a teenager.
    A spokesman for former President Clinton confirmed that the couple got engaged over last week’s Thanksgiving holiday.

    Congratulations to the happy couple.