My 5 Step Plan to Spend Less Money on Gasoline
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on May 13th, 2006 at 7:24 am

1. Spend.
2. Less.
3. Money.
4. On.
5. Gasoline.
It’s still the cheapest energy around:

Unfortunately, there is nothing on the horizon that comes close to gasoline as far as cost and performance is concerned. Consider the fact that taxes in Europe put gasoline prices at $5 to $8 per gallon. If alternatives to gasoline had economic merit, they would surely have arisen in Europe.
Ethanol made out of corn is probably the closest thing we have to a domestic alternative to gasoline. But no matter how nice “growing our own fuel” might be in theory, it’s uneconomically expensive in fact. Even after 30 years of lavish federal subsidy, ethanol (defined as fuel that is nine parts gasoline and one part ethanol) has only managed to capture a bit more than 3 percent of the automotive fuels market, and even industry participants concede if the subsidies and consumption mandates were removed today, the entire industry would collapse.

All-Time Home Run List
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on May 13th, 2006 at 5:52 am

Yesterday, Alex Rodriguez hit his eighth home run of the year, giving him a career total of 437. Despite all the attention on Barry Bonds, A-Rod is piling up the homers at a much faster rate.
Hank Aaron didn’t hit his 437th home run until September 1966. He was nearly two years older than Rodriguez is now. If A-Rod hits 13 more home runs before the end of the year, he’ll break Ken Griffey Jr.’s record as the youngest player to 450.
Of course, he’s still a long way away from Hank Aaron’s 755. A-Rod will need to average 36 home runs a year for nine more years. In fact, he’s still not even 60% of the way to 755.
Here’s the top 35 (active players in italics):
Aaron………………755
Ruth………………..714
Bonds………………713
Mays……………….660
Sosa……………….588
Robinson………….586
McGwire…………..583
Killebrew………….573
Palmeiro……………569
Jackson…………….563
Schmidt…………….548
Griffey………………539
Mantle……………..536
Foxx…………………534
McCovey…………..521
Williams…………….521
Banks……………….512
Mathews…………..512
Ott…………………..511
Murray………………504
Gehrig……………….493
McGriff………………493
Musial………………..475
Stargell……………..475
Winfield……………..465
Canseco……………..462
Thomas………………455
Sheffield…………….453
Yastrzemski…………452
Bagwell………………449
Thome………………..444
Kingman……………..442
Ramirez……………..441
Dawson………………438
Rodriguez……………437

Another Decline
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on May 12th, 2006 at 3:51 pm

The market is ready to do something it hasn’t done in over a year — decline over 1% on two straight days (the record is four). The cyclical and small-caps are getting pounded, and the 30-year Treasury broke through 5.3% today.
Energy stocks opened strong yesterday, but have nose-dived ever since. The Dow Oil & Gas Index (^DJUSEN) is currently down about 3%.

Rockin Wall Street
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on May 12th, 2006 at 12:03 pm

Mark Gilbert compares investment banks to bands:

Investment banks have personalities that are reflected in how they go about their business and how their peers view them. Bands express their character traits through the music they make and the company they keep.

Here’s his rundown:
1) Goldman Sachs = The Rolling Stones
2) Citigroup = Ozzy Osbourne
3) Deutsche Bank = Fleetwood Mac
4) JPMorgan = Radiohead
5) Barclays Capital = Oasis
6) Morgan Stanley = Coldplay
7) Merrill Lynch = Madonna
8) HSBC = any boyband
9) UBS = Phil Collins
10) Commerzbank = David Hasselhoff
Under Deutsche Bank, he write: “A lazy comparison would equate Deutsche Bank AG, Germany’s only global bank, with Kraftwerk, Germany’s only global band.” Kraftwek? Please. Has he never heard of the Scorpions, the Ambassadors of Rock?
Plus, there are some glaring oversights. I’ll try fill in some blanks.
Lehman Brothers = The Clash, the only bank that matters.
Bear Stearns = OutKast, often copied never topped.
Credit Suisse = The Village People, see Quattrone’s mustache for details.

Thank You!
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on May 12th, 2006 at 11:43 am

Thanks for the all the responses to my question, “where are you?”
I never realized Crossing Wall Street has so many readers. And I certainly never realized that I have readers all over the world. (Canada has the Internet??)
Thanks also for the many kind words. I greatly appreciate all the feedback I get.

Freakonomics on Soccer
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on May 12th, 2006 at 10:33 am

Are you a good soccer player? It may depend on when you were born.

If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in next month’s World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this quirk to be even more pronounced. On recent English teams, for instance, half of the elite teenage soccer players were born in January, February or March, with the other half spread out over the remaining 9 months. In Germany, 52 elite youth players were born in the first three months of the year, with just 4 players born in the last three.

Update: Um, it’s not true.

Dow vs. S&P 500
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on May 11th, 2006 at 5:05 pm

Although the Dow is near an all-time high, it’s still trailing the S&P 500 in this bull market. Here’s a comparison of the two since July 2002.

If the Dow kept pace with the S&P 500, it would be over 1,200 points higher than it is today.

Dell? Or No Dell?
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on May 11th, 2006 at 12:45 pm

The market is not in a happy place today. Tech stocks are getting hit especially hard. Dell (DELL) just hit a new three-year low.
Dell’s closing price on May 13, 1998: $24.56.
Dell’s price midday May 11, 2006: $24.50.
Dell’s profit for FY1998: $1.46 billion.
Dell’s estimated profit for FY2006: $3.4 billion.
Gold is soaring, and bonds are falling. Interestingly, the short-end of the yield curve is doing well (meaning, yields are lower).

Danaher Hits New High
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on May 11th, 2006 at 10:17 am

Here’s how strange Wall Street can be. Three weeks ago, Danaher (DHR) reported good first-quarter earnings. The company made 67 cents a share, two cents more than Wall Street’s consensus. The company’s forecast for the second quarter and the rest of 2006 was a bit conservative, but the range still included Wall Street’s forecast.
The stock reacted by falling. Then, all of a sudden, somebody concluded that this might be a good stock after all. The stock rallied to a new all-time high yesterday. It was almost a delayed reaction to a good earnings report.

Let Us Hear From You
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on May 11th, 2006 at 10:04 am

The marketing department high atop the Crossing Wall Street Tower has noticed a growing number of visitors to our Web site. We’re curious as to the geographic makeup of our readership. So…let us hear from you! Just send us an e-mail telling us what city or country you call home. Thanks!