Filed under: Netflix, Inc. (NFLX), Blockbuster Inc 'A' (BBI)
Shares of Blockbuster Inc. (NYSE: BBI) were up 16.92% on Monday after Hollywood Entertainment founder Mark Wattles disclosed a 5.7% stake in the company.Continue reading Blockbuster shares jump as Wattles boosts stake
Filed under: Other issues, Columns
Can investing and collecting go hand-in-hand? Yes -- especially if you are collecting coins, stock certificates, bank notes, or other rare items of value. Larry Schutts, an expert in investment-related collectibles, will review items of interest from his collection and answer your questions here each week.
If you are old enough, you may remember that firms once issued stock certificates to investors as proof of ownership. Electronic trading has nearly rendered the practice obsolete. Old certificates are still in demand, though. A growing collector community actively seeks the certificates of firms no longer in business, and that exerts steady upward pressure on the values of desirable pieces. Investors are noticing, and collectible certificates are now being included in diversified portfolios.
Continue reading Collectible Investments: Early U.S. railroad stock certificates
Filed under: After the bell, Deals, Bad news, Law, Rants and raves, Employees, Scandals, Money and Finance Today, Amer Intl Group (AIG), Politics, Headline news, Federal Reserve, Recession, Financial Crisis
In my previous post on the Financial Stability plan presented by the Obama administration, I mentioned the dangers involved with dealing with some of the sharpest players on Wall Street. I used the analogy of not knowing who the sucker is when you sit down at the poker table because it turns out to be you!
It turns out that the taxpayer bailout money was used to pay bonuses of about $450 million to a small group of employees at the business unit that lost $40.5 billion last year at AIG and caused the crisis in the first place. Apparently, this appears to be a contractual obligation of AIG which cannot be abrogated.
Continue reading Bonuses in the AIG poker game: We stole it fair and square
Filed under: Wal-Mart (WMT), Columns
Welcome to the 101st installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions, and just a bit of everything else when it comes to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) has been the sole shining light at retail for over a quarter now as the recession deepens and retailers see huge slowdowns in spending. More customers have "traded down" to Wal-Mart to conserve cash while buying the basic necessities and the world's largest retailer has seen consistent growth as a result.
The company, in many ways, is doing what has always worked: marketing on value. The company can try as many upscale experiments as it wants, but it is and always will be the place where the masses shop for everything they can while saving every possible penny. But Wal-Mart is not resting on the value proposition alone from recent changes I've seen. The stores are getting cleaner, less cluttered, and easier to navigate. Yes, this is a big deal.
Continue reading Wal-Mart Weekly: More price rollbacks and clean, spacious stores
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Wal-Mart (WMT), Campbell Soup (CPB), Kellogg Co (K), General Mills (GIS), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT)
General Mills (NYSE: GIS), a cereal manufacturer whose colleagues at the supermarket include Kellogg (NYSE: K), Kraft (NYSE: KFT), and Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB), is all set to report earnings on Wednesday, March 18. This will be for the third quarter, and according to the following source, analysts are expecting $0.88 per share. It won't be an impressive performance if General Mills merely meets expectations. In the previous year's Q3, the company did $0.87 per share. Obviously, $0.88 wouldn't be much in terms of growth.
Continue reading Earnings preview: Will General Mills top estimates?
Filed under: Other issues, Rumors, Economic data, Federal Reserve, Recession, Financial Crisis
There has been discussion of the possibility of suspension of the "Mark-to-Market" accounting rule. This has contributed to the current euphoria surrounding financial stocks. The logic is that this would stop the death spiral in the capital base of many of the banks and other financial companies, an action that is at the root cause of our current financial crisis.
A suspension of "Mark-to-Market" accounting would definitely give breathing room to banks. However, there are other alternatives, such as suspending financial regulatory requirements, which could have the same effect.
Continue reading Suspension of Mark-to-Market: Rigging the scale is not losing weight!
Filed under: International markets, Middle East, Economic data, Oil, Federal Reserve, Recession, Financial Crisis
Earlier in the session we were looking at lower oil prices, but the mood has changed, and the precious crude is trading higher with the overall market today, picking up nearly 2.5% on the day.Filed under: eBay (EBAY), Citigroup Inc. (C), American Express (AXP), Amer Intl Group (AIG)
Crummy manufacturing and production data and continued weakness in housing data were not stopping buyers today. At least not until the last 90 minutes when we saw selling take away the triple digit gains in the DJIA. This looked like another day where bulls were washing out the bears until late-day from a DJIA financial component took much of the wind out of the sails today. But the tech-heavy NASDAQ was in negative territory most of the day. Here were today's closing bell levels:Continue reading Closing Bell: Claw-backs are bears, not bonuses (AXP, AIG, C, EBAY, SPWRA)
Filed under: Rumors, Products and services, Google (GOOG)
Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) continues to try owning as many communication channels as possible to its customers. After buying unified messaging company GrandCentral a few years ago, the largest internet search company is has morphed that service into "Google Voice." Google Voice lets you can place free phone calls to anywhere (from anywhere) in the U.S. where you have internet access.Continue reading Google Voice debuts; now Google can be your telephone provider
Filed under: Law
Another day, another Donald Trump lawsuit.
Bloomberg reports that "Trump and Los Angeles-based Irongate Development allegedly induced buyers with marketing materials touting Trump's involvement when he had merely licensed his name to the project, known as Trump Ocean Resort Baja, according to the complaint filed yesterday on behalf of 69 condo buyers in state court in Los Angeles."
Filed under: Products and services, Amazon.com (AMZN), Technology
With all the gloom in the global economy, I got to wondering whether there is anything else going on in the world of business. I'm looking for growth because I think that's what will ultimately bring the economy out of the doldrums. Not surprisingly, that growth is coming from technology companies. In Growth Matters, I look at consumer technology companies that point the way to growth trends -- and in the process introduce services and products you may want to explore.
I was surprised to learn that the world's second largest e-commerce company, behind Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), is Germany's Otto Group. I interviewed Thomas Voigt, Vice President Corporate Communications for the Otto Group, who said, "The Otto Group companies focused on multichannel sales at an early stage and added E-Commerce to their traditional mail-order operations, in order to plan for the future."
Continue reading Growth Matters: Otto Group is world's second biggest e-commerce company
Filed under: Chesapeake Energy (CHK), Economic data
This post was written by Minyanville contributor Steve Smith.Filed under: Management
The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that "The nonfinancial firms in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index have a total of $811 billion in cash and marketable securities on their books," according to calculations by Goldman Sachs. This amount not only is "just shy of a record high in nominal terms," it is also "up $43 billion from the depths of the financial crisis last fall."
Cash piles are increasing as companies slash capital expenditures and pull back on share buybacks, which seems stupid given how much lower stock prices are than when companies were buying back their own shares with reckless abandon.
Continue reading Are public companies sitting on too much cash?
Filed under: Federal Reserve, Recession, Financial Crisis
Last week, Britain lowered interest rates and started buying Gilts (Gilts are the equivalent of U.S. Treasury bonds). This may have set a trend into motion.
Now, the Federal Reserve must decide whether or not to follow suit and buy U.S. Treasuries. If the Fed decides to buy Treasuries, it most likely will affect the long end of the yield curve. The Fed would do this to lower mortgage rates and narrow the yield between long-term treasuries and corporate debt.
This week, the Fed's policy makers are meeting to discuss these issues. Under discussion also will be the notion of "quantitative easing," which means that the Fed will increase the nation's money supply to give the economy a shot of adrenaline.
Continue reading Will the Federal Reserve follow Britain and buy U.S. Treasuries?
Filed under: Consumer experience, Burger King Hldgs (BKC), Stocks to Buy, Best Stocks for 2009
Even in the worst of times, people still have to eat. After taking into consideration the cost of time spent cooking, it's probably (sadly) cheaper to eat fast food than to shop for, prepare and clean up after a home-cooked meal.
So here's the first of multi-part primer on various faster food vendors of differing stripes. Let's start with Burger King Holdings (NYS: BKC), the second biggest burger slinger on Earth.
Continue reading Fast Food Wars #1: Burger King worth a bite?
Filed under: Bad news, Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis
U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner is expected to give out details of his toxic asset purchase plan, which includes forming public-private partnership. The cost of the program is estimated at $1 trillion!
Before you can even think of spending another $ 1 trillion bailing out the banks, you have three major problems to take care of:
1. JP Morgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM) is holding $ 87.7 trillion of CDSs "off the books." Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C) and Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) are holding another $43 trillion of CDSs "off the books." That's $130.7 trillion "off the books" for just three banks. CDSs, CDOs and CLOs are over the counter (OTC) transactions. Bank regulators do not determine the dollar value of these transactions. If you don't even look at the transactions, how can you determine the extent of the problem? This is why the title of this post says it is foolhardy to spend $1 trillion of taxpayer money when you don't even know the extent of the problem.
Continue reading Geithner's proposal to spend another $1 trillion to buy toxic assets is foolhardy
If the allegations are to be believed, Robert Allen Stanford ripped off his investors to the tune of $8 billion and managed to cheat the IRS out of its cut of his ill-gotten gains as well.Filed under: Major movement, Bad news, Options, Technical Analysis
United Therapeutics (NASDAQ: UTHR - option chain) stock is falling today after the company announced it expects a probable delay in receiving FDA approval for Tyvaso, its inhaled drug to treat pulmonary hypertension. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on UTHR.Continue reading United Therapeutics (UTHR) hit by drug delay
Filed under: Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Exxon Mobil (XOM), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Sprint Nextel Corp (S), Whole Foods Market (WFMI), Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), Newell Rubbermaid (NWL), Analyst initiations, SanDisk Corp (SNDK)
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Analyst upgrades:Continue reading Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: WFMI, CCE, S, XOM, JPM ...
