Morning News: October 11, 2013
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on October 11th, 2013 at 7:02 am

IMF Wants Central Banks to Oversee Markets With Gov’t Supervision

Royal Mail Stock Jumps 38% on First Trading Day After IPO

France’s Fracking Ban ‘Absolute’ After Court Upholds Law

Middle East Oil Fuels Fresh China-U.S. Tensions

G20 Hopes Grow for U.S. Deal to Avert Default

Republicans Enter Talks With Obama on Debt Limit Increase

Starbucks CEO Starts Petition Against Government Shutdown

Blue Cross Plans Jump to an Early Lead

Good Vibrations for JPMorgan

BlackBerry Co-founders Considering Bid for Company

Del Monte Pacific Buys U.S. Canned Food Business for $1.7 Billion

Here’s What Brokerages Have to Say About Infosys Q2 Results

Safeway Third-quarter Profit Down

Credit Writedowns: First Signs That U.S. Shutdown is Impacting Consumer Spending

Roger Nusbaum: True Understanding of the Long Term

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Morning News: October 10, 2013
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on October 10th, 2013 at 6:49 am

Draghi’s Next Move Seen Easing Liquidity as Rates on Hold

Abenomics is a Gigantic Headache for the World’s Largest Pension Fund

China’s Ambassador to Myanmar Stresses Communication

Currency Volatility in India Brings Down PC Shipments in APAC

For Janet Yellen, Obama’s Federal Reserve Nominee, Quiet Patience Paid Off

The Yellen Fed? Precise and Predictable

Budget Stalemate Could End Talk of the Fed Tapering Its Stimulus

Tracing the Calendar Down to the Last Cent

Washington Budget Chaos Keeps Fed Rates Low for Longer

Rejection Rebound? Men’s Wearhouse Up 28% After Refusing Jos. A. Bank’s $2.3 Billion Offer

Morgan Stanley Sees Gold Lower in 2014 as Goldman Says Sell

JPMorgan Clients in Cash as Schwab’s Options Hedge Default

Check Out What’s Happened To The Windows PC Market Since Apple Launched The iPad

Jeff Carter: 95% of the Time, I Am Selling

Joshua Brown: A Tale of Two Dows (Or Why We invest Globally)

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Travel Week
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on October 10th, 2013 at 2:01 am

I have to apologize. I’ve been traveling this week and haven’t had much time to post. I hope to bring you full analysis and market news in this Friday’s CWS Market Review.

Morning News: October 9, 2013
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on October 9th, 2013 at 6:31 am

India September Trade Deficit Narrows to 30-Month Low

IMF’s Pessimism on Global Growth Widens

Yellen’s Quake-Proof Calm Needed to Guide Fed Easing Exit

What the Fed Does, and Can Do

Recession Looms If Treasury Uses Tools to Prevent a Debt Default

Bharti, Walmart Call Off India JV; to Independently Pursue Retail Business

Alcoa Reports Profitable Quarter on Lower Costs

Microsoft’s $7.2 Billion Nokia Bet Not Luring Apps

The Worst Is Over for Yum! Brands

Panasonic Said to Halt Plasma TV Output This Fiscal Year

Jos. A. Bank Proposes to Buy Men’s Wearhouse for $2.3 billion

New Stock Symbol for Tweeter After Twitter Mix-Up

Take That, Counterfeiters: One Hundred Years of Changes to the $100 Bill

Cullen Roche: Meet Your New Monetary Overlord, Janet Yellen

Credit Writedowns: In the Event of a Missed Payment, the U.S. Has Three Days to Cure

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On the Road…
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on October 8th, 2013 at 9:57 am

Light posting today. It’s a travel day.

Morning News: October 8, 2013
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on October 8th, 2013 at 7:03 am

German Exports Rise Less Than Expected in August

The Ultimate Bitcoin Question: Can the Feds Spend $3.3M in Seized Digital Currency?

Federal Reserve to Unveil a Redesigned $100 Bill

Shutdown Costs at $1.6 Billion With $160 Million Each Day

The Costs of Debt Default Are Sobering

Morgan Stanley Seen Leading Profit Gains at U.S. Banks

Twitter’s Need To Profit Overseas Will Test Its Free Speech Principles

Apollo’s $2.5 Billion Cooper Offer in Jeopardy

Google Lands A Huge Customer For Google Apps: Whirlpool

BlackBerry Security May Be Key to an ‘Agnostic’ Future

To Lift Hong Kong Park, Disney Deploys Iron Man

Ford Comes From Behind In China To Stun Japanese Rivals

Steve Ballmer’s Final Letter To Shareholders As CEO ‘Of The Company I Love’

Jeff Carter: Bitcoin Volatility Solution

Joshua Brown: Preparing for the Twitter IPO – Get Your Mind Right

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The VIX Hits Three-Mont High
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on October 7th, 2013 at 2:41 pm

The government is still closed and the stock market is down again today. The market had been down about 1% early on, but now it’s down about half that much.

The politicians are involved in a stand-off and I’m inclined to think it will go on until someone has to make a move. Here’s how it stands: The country will exhaust its borrowing authority on October 17th. We’ll then run out of money sometime between October 22nd and October 31st.

One casualty of the government shutdown is economic stats. We didn’t get the regular jobs report on Friday, and many other reports may be delayed. On Wednesday, the Fed will release the minutes from its September meeting.

What’s interesting is that the stock and bond markets are actually quite calm despite the chaos in Washington. I think the choice of defaulting is so outrageous that Wall Street can’t take it seriously. I think that’s right.

The VIX hit a three-month high today of 18.54, but that’s still well below the levels we saw during the Debt Ceiling Crisis from two years ago. During the summer of 2011, the VIX was regularly over 40.

The market has a defensive posture today as telecom and utilities are up, and financials are down.

Morning News: October 7, 2013
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on October 7th, 2013 at 6:33 am

World Bank Cuts China, East Asia Growth Forecasts

Japan PM Abe Tells Trade Negotiators of Commitment to Deregulation

Global Financial Services Firms Join New Open Messaging Network

A U.S. Default Seen as Catastrophe Dwarfing Lehman’s Fall

Five Reasons to Fear the Debt Ceiling

Here’s a Fantastic and Disturbing Paragraph on How the Market Views the Debt Ceiling

JAL, Airbus Announce Landmark Order

Apollo, Cooper Disagree Over $2.5 Billion Price in Latest Deal Setback

Twitter’s Data Business Proves Lucrative

Twitter Advertisers Say Service Needs More Users

Swarms of Rivals Seeking Share of Social Media Pie

BlackBerry Accused in Suit of Inflating Shares With False Claims

As DVRs Shift TV Habits, Ratings Calculations Follow

Epicurean Dealmaker: Punished by Fate

Weighing the Week Ahead: Will Markets Look Beyond the Washington Logjam?

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Twitter Soars 1,000%. Sorry, Make that Tweeter
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on October 4th, 2013 at 1:04 pm

From Reuters:

Excitement for Twitter’s coming IPO is running pretty high – so much so that some investors on Friday mistook the nearly worthless stock of long-dead electronics retailer Tweeter for the “tweeting” site, sending shares up more than 1,000 percent.

Tweeter Home Entertainment Group, a specialty consumer electronics company that went bankrupt in 2007, saw a its most active day of trading in more than six years even though it has nothing to do with the social media site.

The stock, which trades over the counter, closed Thursday at a price of less than a penny a share, and Friday hit a high of 15 cents a share on Friday, before paring gains to trade at 5 cents, a 669 percent rise. More than 11.7 million shares had traded by midday.

The volume was the most active trading day for the company since May 10, 2007, when 13.05 million shares were traded and the company reported quarterly results and said it may choose to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Phillips 66 Raises Dividend By 25%
Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on October 4th, 2013 at 11:41 am

One of the mistakes new investors make is they assume that any stock that’s down is a value stock and is therefore a good buy. Unfortunately, a stock being down doesn’t make it cheap. It only makes it cheaper than it was.

The same thing with a low P/E Ratio. Sometimes a stock’s P/E Ratio is low for a very good reason. A low multiple is a necessary but not sufficient characteristic for a value stock.

How can you tell the difference between a good stock that’s down and a bad one that’s down? That’s a very difficult question, but there is one shortcut I like.

The dividend.

Investors should always take notice whenever a beaten-down stock raises its dividend. That’s often a sign from management that things will get better.

Last year, Phillips 66 (PSX) was spun-off from ConocoPhillips. The stock initially did very well, but it has been a laggard for the last six months. Impressively, the company just raised their dividend by 25%. That’s a hefty increase. The quarterly dividend will rise from 31.25 cents per share to 39 cents per share. At $1.56 for the year, PSX now yields 2.65%.

I can’t say whether PSX is a good buy here. I’d need to do more research. But the higher dividend is a very encouraging sign.