• No Comment
    Posted by on May 1st, 2007 at 4:37 pm

  • The Portfolio Pile On
    Posted by on May 1st, 2007 at 10:54 am

    Conde Nast’s Portfolio has not gotten off to a great start. Now Dan Gross calls Tom Wolfe’s piece about hedge funders “astonishingly lame.”

    When Wolfe does give us a name, the piece reads like a clip job. He introduces us to Thomas Hudson’s Pirate Capital and Daniel Loeb’s acid pen—both nicely described in Steve Fishman’s New York piece three years ago. As BusinessWeek did four years ago, Wolfe describes Stevie Cohen’s mammoth house: “32,000-square-foot clubhouse and 14 acres of grounds! Next to Stevie’s art collection—which is nothing less than a world class museum!—Stevie’s indoor basketball court, year-round swimming pool under glass, his gym, his spa facility, his theatre for movies and every other electronic medium, his hair salon, two putting greens complete with sand traps and a fairway in between, and, as the piece de resistance, an ice rink the size of Rockefeller Center’s with a 36-by-24-foot rink house for the Zamboni!” This is like a Wolfe parody, a laundry list punctuated by exclamation points!!
    Indeed, there’s little evidence that Wolfe has any firsthand experience with these people. Yes, he attended the Robin Hood Foundation gala, and describes a scene at the wedding of Carl Icahn’s stepdaughter. But I don’t think he knows many of the young guys he so self-assuredly describes. (Maybe it’s because he doesn’t know where to look. At one point, he refers to “Merrill Lynch’s 41-story building in Times Square.” Perhaps he means Morgan Stanley‘s.)

  • Great Business, Bad Stock
    Posted by on May 1st, 2007 at 10:25 am

    Despite great business results, Google‘s (GOOG) stock hasn’t been such a winner. Since the beginning of last year, the stock is trailing the S&P 500, although there have been better entry points along the way.
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  • Chase Throws Away Customers’ Info
    Posted by on May 1st, 2007 at 9:50 am


    Scary.

  • Sysco’s Earnings
    Posted by on April 30th, 2007 at 11:49 pm

    The Dow was in the black for much of Monday, but after about 2:30, it slipped into negative territory and eventually finished 58 points lower. That ended the Dow’s chances of marking an historic first—20 of 22 up days.
    Before the bell, Sysco (SYY) reported earnings of 35 cents a share. That was a nice improvement over last year’s total of 30 cents, but it was a penny short of Wall Street’s forecast. The market wasn’t pleased and the shares tumbled 4.6% lower. That seems like an overreaction. Nothing seems to be going Sysco’s way this year. The stock is down nearly 11% for 2007. That’s unusual for a stock that’s historically been so stable.
    I also noticed that our favorite micro-cap, Nicholas Financial (NICK), seems to be waking up. The stock doesn’t normally move very much, but it rose 4% on Friday and another 2.6% today. That’s a lot for NICK. Both days had much higher-than-normal trading volume. The company should be reporting earnings soon, but it hasn’t said what day yet.

  • 20 of 22 Up Days for the Dow
    Posted by on April 30th, 2007 at 11:02 am

    The Dow is currently up 22 points. If this holds, it will be the first time in the Dow’s 111-year history that it rallied 20 times in 22 sessions.

  • Wanted: Berkshire CIO
    Posted by on April 30th, 2007 at 8:13 am

    Get your resumes in!
    Warren Buffett is hiring his replacement:

    With Mr. Munger’s help, Mr. Buffett will whittle down the current contenders to about 20 “real possibilities,” he says, adding that he’ll start reading the letters in earnest after Berkshire’s annual shareholders’ meeting next weekend. From those 20, he will ask for personal investment records going back at least 10 years. Then, after determining whether “the general attitude toward purchase and sale of securities is compatible” with Berkshire, he will fill the job with either one or two people. He plans to hand them up to $10 billion to manage until it is time for them to take over the entire portfolio.
    Mr. Buffett explains that the purpose of the trial run is “to see if their decision-making apparatus works out, hopefully while I’m still alive.”
    What it isn’t, however, is a mentorship program, something many applicants have misinterpreted. He says he isn’t looking for someone to teach, but “for someone who already knows how to do it.”
    The misunderstanding is reflected in dozens of letters from students, professional investors and a surprising number of engineers and lawyers hoping to be apprenticed to the master. “I assure you,” wrote one 20-year-old college student, “although I may be short on experience, I am very long on potential.” A lawyer in Oregon recommended his four-year-old son, characterizing the toddler as a “great negotiator” on issues such as “bedtime, chores, allowance, baths, etc.”

  • Erin Brockovich, Corporate Exec
    Posted by on April 30th, 2007 at 7:47 am

    story.jpg
    Here’s a strange one. Remember that Erin Brockovich chick? Julia Roberts got an Oscar for playing her. Anyway, it turns out she’s now a veep at Save the World Air Inc. (ZEROE.OB).
    No, I’m serious.
    (Via Altucher & Stockerblog.)

  • Taxes around the World.
    Posted by on April 28th, 2007 at 10:15 pm

    Citizens for Tax Justice looks at taxes around the world.
    worldtaxes.jpg
    (Via Greg Mankiw.)

  • Euro So Beautiful
    Posted by on April 28th, 2007 at 10:04 pm

    The euro hit a record high against the dollar. Jurgen Reinhoudt says this is good for the prestige of Europe, but not so good for its economy:

    If the Euro eclipses the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, the value of the Euro could appreciate still further, making European exports even more expensive than they are now (in addition to causing severe troubles for the United States). In French political terms, this would be a highly undesirable development given that “an exchange rate of $1.40 would endanger” the survival of Airbus. As Airbus struggles “to meet $220bn of dollar contracts from an operation with euro labour costs,” the heat is on. No French political leader would tolerate Airbus going bankrupt, certainly not if a bankruptcy were caused by a European exchange rate considered to be abnormally high.
    But a Euro worth more than $1.40 (or even $1.50) would not just be problematic for Airbus or French exporters. True, Germany and countries that are economically closely linked to it (such as the Netherlands) have the ability to withstand the pressure of an expensive Euro, but France, Spain, and Italy do not.
    A Euro worth more than $1.40 would cause significant difficulties for Mediterranean countries in general—potentially re-launching the political debate over the mandate of the European Central Bank, something that both Sarkozy and Royal have hinted at.
    Unlike the American Fed, which has as a goal to keep growth high, unemployment low, and inflation low, the task of the European Central Bank is simply to keep inflation low, even if this adversely affects economic growth. If European growth were to falter and the Euro were to rise even further in value, many politicians from Southern Europe and France will put heavy pressure on the ECB to lower interest rates. This would lower the value of the Euro but also lead to higher inflation, the mortal enemy of the ECB. It would have all the makings of a fascinating financial feud.
    The discomfort brought about by the Euro’s “low” value to the dollar was mostly a matter of prestige. Now that the Euro is worth far more than the dollar and still rising in prestige (and value), its value is becoming a matter of tangible economic and political concern. Stay tuned.