Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) has published its earnings after the close.
Unfortunately, traders maybe looking more forward to the new list of public company holdings than anything.
Net earnings were listed as $2.880 Billion, with Investment & derivative gains/losses of $610 million and operating earnings of $2.27 Billion.
Coeur d’Alene Mines (CDE) Company posts loss in most recent quarter. Drops to $2 from 52-week high of $5.18.
Par Pharmaceutical (PRX) Cuts full-year guidance. Drops to $12.82 from 52-week high of $24.50.
Nextwave Wireless (WAVE) Low on cash. Falls to $.89 from 52-week high of $7.49.
ANADIGICS (ANAD) Warns on earnings and is downgraded. Sells off to $3.06 from 52-week high of $19.53.
Cogent (CCOI) Cuts revenue and earnings forecasts. Plunges to $7.31 from 52-week high of $30.16.
Douglas A. McIntyre
Russian shares in ETF’s, closed-end funds, and ADR’s are taking a little beating this morning after Russian forces have rolled in with tanks, troops, and air raids into Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia region. Deciding who is responsible is up to you, particularly as Russia and its former Soviet Union states are known for information not coming out at all or not coming out in a timely and accurate manner. Here is a list of the reactions we are seeing in these stocks, funds, and ETF’s.
On June 3, 2008, Smith International (NYSE:SII) and W-H Energy Services (NYSE:WHQ) entered into a definitive merger agreement that would have Smith paying $56.10 in cash and 0.48 common share for each W-H share outstanding. At the time, the transaction valued each W-H share at $93.55, for a total value of about $3.2 billion. Analysts looked on the deal as a good match.
Usually rumors on new technology items create buzz or create hype for shareholders, but they can also create unrealistic expectations that ultimately hurt the stock. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has been under the cloud already with only about one month under its belly of 3G iPhones.
The rumor mill has been saying that Apple would release a downsizedversion of the iPhone. Essentially the rumors are about an iPhoneNano. Even Business Week has covered it. The prevailing rumor for astripped down and smaller version of the iPhone due sometime aroundChristmas.
McDonald’s (MCD) may be raising the prices on its "Happy Meals" and offering less attractive "Dollar Menus" None of that seems to matter. In July, same-store sales moved up 8%. Sales at worldwide restaurants rose 15.9.
McDonald’s said that US revenue was helped by breakfast traffic.
In Europe, results were especially strong, pushed ahead by 7.6%. The people on the continent used to be great chefs, but that must be over.
Douglas A. McIntyre
Why should Freddie Mac (FRE), the big banks and large brokerage firms have all the fun losing billions of dollars. Fannie Mae crashed the party today by announcing mind-boggling losses and cutting its dividend. The push shares down 13%
After Wal-Mart (WMT) announced its outstanding June numbers, Wall St. said the company was actually “recession proof”. Consumers, beat down by high gas and commodities prices, could turn to Wal-Mart to get relatively high quality goods and groceries at low prices. That would give its same-store sales a boost that might last throughout a recession. The power of the opinion lasted one month. Wal-Mart’s same-store sales were weak in July.
Ambac Financial (ABK) Cut To Underweight at JPMorgan.
Ann Talor (AMM) Cut to Market Perform at FBR
Bank of America (BAC) Cut to Neutral at UBS
FEMSA (FMX) Cut to Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley
Apple (APPL) Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse
Dell (DELL) Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse.
EMC (EMC) Started as Outperform at Credit Suisse
The sun can never set on a day before some large multinational company says that its future is in China. Why should Nokia (NOK) be an exception?
Nokia management opines that, even though 600 million Chinese have cellphone, that the figure could rise sharply in the next few years.
Boeing (BA) has already suffered the ignominy of three delays in the launch of its new Dreamliner jet. The tardiness of the project will cost the company revenue, at least in the next year. It has also made Boeing’s best customers angry. That does not matter so much because they have no place to turn other than Airbus, which is also perennially late with its aircraft deliveries.
Boeing faces a new challenge in launching its products. It is short on toilets for the planes.
Based on GDP figures and June numbers out of retailers including Wal-Mart (WMT), the tax rebate program helped the economy for about 30 days. July retail numbers seem to show that the effect did not go much beyond that. Economist Martin Feldstein recently wrote "Recent government statistics show that only between 10% and 20% of the rebate dollars were spent. The rebates added nearly $80 billion to the permanent national debt but less than $20 billion to consumer spending."
The safe-house for money center banks closed and locked its doors long ago. The mortgage-related paper crisis rolls on like a mighty river and its latest victim is RBS (RBS). But, victim is the wrong characterization. RBS and other banks did create and buy these securities. They also failed to assess their risks.
RBS lost $1.35 billion in the first half, driven by a a $5.9 billion write-down in assets. According to Reuters, RBS said difficult conditions in financial markets "look set to be compounded by a deteriorating economic outlook". Stated another way, things will get worse.
With oil down to about $120 a barrel it is easy to forget that the dynamics of supply and demand still favor higher prices. That may not be true today, but it will not take many years for supply to begin to dwindle. Exports from countries like Indonesia and Mexico are already running down. Political unrest could still cause long-term supply interruptions from some nations, particularly Nigeria and Iran.
Oil exporters want to keep more of their own crude to fuel a rising number of cars and burgeoning infrastructures. Spiking oil prices are not a sure thing, but the situation is getting closer to that.
According to Reuters, RBS (RBS) had $1.35 billion loss due to write-downs.
Reuters reports that Google (GOOG) says its investment in AOL may be impaired.
Reuters writes that Citigroup (C) and Merrill Lynch (MER) have settled claims over the auction-rate securities they sold.
Reuters reports that GM (GM) will spend $900 million to make adjustments to its capacity.
Markets in Asia were mixed with Shanghai off sharply.
The Nikkei rose .3% to 13,168. Mazda was up 2.6% to 589. Sharp was off 1.5% to 1430.
The Hang Seng fell 1.2% to 21,837. China Life (LFC) fell 2.6% to 28.60. China Netcom (CN) fell 3% to 22.90.
The Shanghai Composite dropped 4.5% to 2,606.
Data from Reuters
Douglas A. McIntyre
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