• Happy Birthday General Motors!
    Posted by on September 15th, 2008 at 9:17 am

    GM turns 100 years old today.
    The stock is currently around $13. Unfortunately, their book value per share is about -$100.
    Someone alert Hank Paulson.
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  • Yale and Harvard’s Endowments
    Posted by on September 15th, 2008 at 8:32 am

    From June 30, 2007 to June 20, 2008, the S&P 500 lost -13.1%. But Harvard and Yale managed to eek out gains for their endowments. Yale hasn’t announced the figure yet, but it’s expected to be positive in the single digits. Harvard gained 8.6%, which is better than 95% of institutional managers, to reach a total of $36.9 billion. Yale’s endowment now stands at $23 billion.

  • Just a Reminder
    Posted by on September 15th, 2008 at 7:19 am

    Erin Callan from Lehman’s conference call in June:

    Lowering gross and net leverage to less than 25 times and less than 12.5 times respectively, both of those numbers are prior to today’s capital raise; reducing our gross assets by approximately $130 billion and our net assets by approximately $60 billion with a large part of the reduction, as I will talk about in detail, coming from less liquid asset categories and also providing significant price visibility for marking the remainder of our inventory.
    We significantly reduced our exposure to asset classes such as residential and commercial mortgages, and real estate held for sale of approximately 15% to 20% in each case and acquisition and finance exposure by almost 35%. We also reduced our high yield or non-investment grade debt inventory in the aggregate, which includes our funded acquisition finance position by greater than 20% in the quarter.
    I want to be clear at this point that we do not intend to lower our leverage ratios from these levels. From a liquidity perspective, we made great progress growing our cash capital surplus to approximately $15 billion, that’s the surplus, from $7 billion in the first quarter. We grew our liquidity pool to almost $45 billion and that compares with $34 billion at the end of the first quarter.

  • Lehman Fills for Chapter 11
    Posted by on September 15th, 2008 at 6:49 am

    It’s official. After 158 years of business, Lehman Brothers (LEH) is no more. The company has filed for Chapter 11. I was glad to see the Fed walk away from saving them. A year ago, LEH was going for about $60 a share. The current bid is for 70 cents a share.
    In a very exciting Sunday, Bank of America (BAC) announced that it’s buying Merrill Lynch (MER) for $29 a share. Now Morgan (MS) and Goldman (GS) are the last two independent I-banks standing.
    That’s not all. There’s talk of a Fed rate cut today (bad idea). Also, AIG (AIG) is in very big trouble and is scrambling to raise money. Oil is also down over $4 and is now below $97.

  • Denouement on Wall Street
    Posted by on September 14th, 2008 at 7:08 pm

    It’s all falling apart.
    Bank of America in Talks to Acquire Merrill Lynch
    Lehman Inches Toward Bankruptcy After Potential Buyers Drop Out
    The WSJ writes:

    In a recent note to clients, Oppenheimer analyst Meredith Whitney pointed out that industry revenue was down 63% in the first half of 2008 from the first half of 2007, but expenses were cut by just 10% during that period. Non-compensation expenses, which include buildings and technology, actually rose 25% from the prior year.

    Remember when Sunday wasn’t the most newsworthy day on Wall Street.

  • Why Lehman Brothers Is Not Bear Stearns
    Posted by on September 12th, 2008 at 10:05 am

    From the WSJ‘s Market Beat:

    Despite similarities in equity and credit markets’ perceptions of Lehman Brothers Holdings this week with views of Bear Stearns in its crisis of confidence during the week ended March 14, there are some glimmers of hope for Lehman in the differences.
    The magnitude of Lehman’s drop in the stock market and the widening of the spreads in the market for insuring against events of default certainly recall Bear’s last days. The major difference between Bear and Lehman is continued faith in the latter’s short-term liquidity.
    That may explain why the equity-options market on Lehman pivoted Wednesday, and some traders appeared to bet on the firm by buying call options. About 15,700 contracts giving the right to buy Lehman stock for $12.50 a share in October changed hands Wednesday, outweighing open interest. Even as the stock trades down 32% to $4.92, a greater number of calls have traded than puts, suggesting a bullish leaning among option analysts.
    While options traders also took both sides on Bear Stearns during its crisis, the bias was more clearly on the bearish put side. “We think Lehman is better off than Bear Stearns in a number of respects,” said Scott Sprinzen, credit analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “Their liquidity is stronger, just given the size of their cash position, and (there is) a lesser dependence on credit-sensitive short-term borrowings.”
    Reacting to the liquidity scare on Friday, March 14, Standard & Poor’s cut its rating on Bear Stearns’s short-term and long-term counterparty debt. The difference between the ratings agency’s tone on Bear and that on Lehman is hard to miss:
    “Ongoing pressure and anxiety in the markets resulted in significant cash outflows toward the week’s end, leaving Bear with a significantly deteriorated liquidity position at end of business on Thursday,” the agency wrote.
    Lehman’s prime-brokerage business is smaller than Bear’s relative to its more diverse portfolio, Mr. Sprinzen noted. And Lehman doesn’t depend on hedge-fund clients’ free credit balances to the same extent. In Bear’s case, the “run on the bank” by prime-brokerage clients was a major contributor to its fall.
    On the market for credit default swaps, the spreads on Lehman are not far from those on Bear Stearns when it closed Friday March 14. They have since narrowed from their worst levels of the day of 775 basis points to 745 basis points almost twice as wide as where they were Tuesday, according to Phoenix Partners Group. Still, the swaps have not yet started to trade “up front,” indicating traders would want cash on delivery, as happened with the Bear Stearns.

  • Crossing Wall Street Seven Years Ago
    Posted by on September 11th, 2008 at 12:34 am

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  • The Money Honey Turns 41
    Posted by on September 10th, 2008 at 3:36 pm

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    Happy Birthday Maria from everyone at Crossing Wall Street!

  • The Credit Crisis Fallout Continues
    Posted by on September 10th, 2008 at 3:24 pm

    From The Telegraph:

    Credit crisis blamed for rising number of adulterous wives
    A lonely hearts website for married people claims twice as many wives are signing up as they were a year ago, many of them well-off and living in the Home Counties.
    It claims they are turning to adultery because the credit crisis had made their husbands “no fun”, causing them to work longer hours, worry about losing their jobs and shun social activities.
    This comes just days after an academic study found that couples are more likely to get divorced or separate if one of them gets the sack.
    Sara Hartley, a spokesman for IllicitEncounters.com, said one of the website’s new members summed up the mood by claiming she had previously coped with being a “golf widow” but now felt as if she was a “downturn widow”.
    “Her husband had barely paid her any attention since New Year, was no fun and seemed completely pre-occupied.
    “She said golf widows at least have happy husbands, but downturn widows are living with men who are starting early, working late, fearing for their jobs, constantly on the phone on holiday and withdrawing from their social lives.
    “Half of the new female members we spoke to claimed to be married to professionals or senior managers directly affected by City or economy issues, and all of them said they had joined because their husbands were no fun, and that any sort of passion or intimacy had simply dried up since the New Year.
    “They wanted to feel special again, and they craved company away from somebody who was distracted and disinterested.”
    The website, which was set up in 2003 and now has 235,000 members, said women were joining at a rate of 55 a day in 2007.
    But this year the figure has risen to more than 100 a day, and an average of 142 a day last week.

  • Donaldson Reports 19th Straight Record Year
    Posted by on September 10th, 2008 at 11:56 am

    I wanted to mention Donaldson’s (DCI) earnings report from last week when I was out. This is a boring stock but it certainly knows how to deliver earnings. For the July quarter, which is the company’s fiscal fourth quarter, Donaldson earned 60 cents a share compared with 53 cents for last year’s fourth quarter.
    That’s a pretty nice increase although the 60 cents a share was a penny below Wall Street’s consensus. If we want to split hairs, the EPS came in at 60.26 so we’re not talking about a huge miss.
    For fiscal 2008, Donaldson earned $2.12 a share. If you recall, the company raised its 2008 forecast three times last year. This was Donaldson’s 19th straight record year!
    Bill Cook, the Chairman, President and CEO, said “We also set a new sales record in the fourth quarter, exceeding $600 million for the first time, and a new sales record for the year as we delivered our first $2 billion sales year. Our sales strength was broad-based again this quarter as Engine Products were up 13 percent and Industrial Products were up 20 percent. Geographically, sales grew 24 percent in Europe and 17 percent in Asia, driven by the combination of organic sales volume growth and the benefits of the stronger foreign currencies, and sales grew 9 percent in NAFTA.”
    “Our sales trends remain positive as we enter fiscal 2009. We expect to continue making progress on our operating improvement initiatives while continuing to invest in our business for future growth. Although we expect raw material costs to continue to increase, we will work to offset the impact through internal cost reduction efforts, raw material price indexing in some markets, and price increases in other markets. While we are cautious about global economic conditions, we believe that the combination of our business model and extensive diversification of our products, end markets, and geographies will lead to our 20th consecutive year of record earnings.”
    For 2009, the company sees EPS climbing 9%-11% which comes to $2.30 to $2.40. I think that’s a bit of low-balling so they can raise estimates later. Still, it’s good to be cautious. Bear in mind that Donaldson earned $1.83 a share in 2007 so that translates to growth of nearly 16%.
    So what about a P/E ratio? Well, that’s always the tricky part so some guesswork is needed. Donaldson’s stock has pulled back from over $51 in May to under $40 recently. That seems like a good buying opportunity. Given Donaldson’s historic P/E ratio and its ability to deliver consistent earnings growth, I would give the stock an earnings multiple of 20. Your mileage may vary. That places the stock at $46 to $48 a year from now. That’s a decent return from today’s price. Donaldson also pays a small quarterly dividend (11 cents a share), but it has increased it for 22 straight years.
    Here’s a look at Donaldson’s incredible earnings streak.

    Year………….Sales……………..EPS
    1990…………$422.9……………$0.19
    1991…………$457.7……………$0.21
    1992…………$482.1……………$0.23
    1993…………$533.3……………$0.26
    1994…………$593.5……………$0.30
    1995…………$704.0……………$0.37
    1996…………$758.6……………$0.42
    1997…………$833.3……………$0.50
    1998…………$940.4……………$0.57
    1999…………$944.1……………$0.66
    2000…………$1,092.3…………$0.76
    2001…………$1,137.0…………$0.83
    2002…………$1,126.0…………$0.95
    2003…………$1,218.3…………$1.05
    2004…………$1,415.0…………$1.18
    2005…………$1,595.7…………$1.27
    2006…………$1,694.3…………$1.55
    2007…………$1,918.8…………$1.83
    2008…………$2,232.5…………$2.12