If you go all the way to page 14 under the “Transactions with Related Persons” section after the disclosure about the Oklahoma City Thunder that is where you find the goodies. This is the “Founder Well Participation Program” and it shows the sums that Aubrey McClendon got from the well participation program.  After that, it also shows that the Map Sale was rescinded.

In order to avoid any data confusion and in order to avoid any contextual issues, we have run this verbatim from the proxy materials.  The proxy noted, “The Board and Aubrey voluntarily renegotiated the terms of the FWPP to provide for early termination on June 30, 2014, 18 months before the previous termination date of December 31, 2015, pursuant to a letter agreement previously filed with the SEC. Aubrey will receive no compensation of any kind in connection with the early termination of the FWPP. Further, to address requests for more information, Aubrey voluntarily disclosed personal financial and operational information regarding his oil and gas investments through the FWPP.”

The company has reaffirmed that it plans to nominate an independent non-Executive Chairman.  Here are the full details of the WELL PARTICIPATION PLAN as follows:

The FWPP permits Mr. McClendon, the Company’s co-founder, to participate and invest as a working interest owner in new wells drilled by the Company. In 2005, the FWPP was documented as a formal plan containing substantially the same terms as prior agreements with the Company’s two co-founders that had been in place since the Company’s initial public offering in 1993. Shareholders approved the FWPP on June 10, 2005. The participation of co-founder Tom L. Ward terminated following his separation from the Company in 2006. The Company believes the FWPP fosters and promotes the development and execution of the Company’s business by aligning the interests of Mr. McClendon and the Company. Mr. McClendon has continually participated in the FWPP since the Company’s initial public offering in 1993, except during the five-quarter period from January 1, 1999 to March 31, 2000. The Board and Mr. McClendon recently renegotiated the terms of the FWPP to provide for the early termination of the FWPP on June 30, 2014, 18 months before the end of its current term on December 31, 2015, pursuant to a letter agreement previously filed with the SEC on the Company’s Form 8-K on May 2, 2012. Mr. McClendon will receive no compensation of any kind in connection with the early termination of the FWPP.

Under the FWPP, Mr. McClendon has the right to participate in either all or none of the wells spudded by or on behalf of the Company during each calendar year. Prior to the beginning of each year, Mr. McClendon must provide written notice to the members of the Compensation Committee of his election to participate in the FWPP and his proposed working interest percentage for that year. His working interest percentage may not exceed a 2.5% working interest in a well and is not effective for any well where the Company’s working interest after Mr. McClendon’s participation election would be reduced to below 12.5%. Subject to these limitations, if Mr. McClendon elects to participate in the FWPP, he must participate in all wells spudded by or on behalf of the Company during the given calendar year and cannot elect to participate on a well-by-well basis. In September 2011, Mr. McClendon elected to participate in the FWPP for the 2012 calendar year at the maximum 2.5% working interest permitted, the same participation percentage that Mr. McClendon has elected for the past nine years.

24/7 Wall St. wanted to make a log of companies which have already signaled that they will be presenting data or that data will be presented on their behalf at the 2012 ASCO Annual Meeting.  The data below is as follows:

As of May 10, the total abstracts submitted were 5,264 and of those there have been 2,744 which have been accepted for presentation at ASCO.  Of those accepted for presentation, some 1,859 are going to be ‘ePublication only’ for viewers.  The breakdown for the Abstracts shows that the oral presentation is currently 257 presentations and 2,487 are listed as poster presentation only.

The most presentations accepted (203) so far are focused on Genitourinary Cancer, which covers urinary tract and male genital tract as follows: Prostate cancer; Bladder cancer; Kidney cancer; Testicular cancer; Penile cancer; Nonmalignant tumors of the urinary tract and male reproductive system; and Von Hippel Lindau disease.  As of today, the fewest accepted presentations (93) covers Pediatric oncology.

ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARIA) will have updated clinical data from the pivotal PACE trial of ponatinib, our investigational pan-BCR-ABL inhibitor in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).

Array BioPharma Inc. (NASDAQ: ARRY) recently noted that it “presented Phase 1 data on MEK162 in 28 patients with biliary tract cancer at the ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in January 2012. MEK162 was well tolerated and showed evidence of clinical efficacy in this patient population, including a complete response and a partial response. Stable disease was observed in 12 patients.”

Biovest International, Inc. (OTCQB: BVTI), a majority-owned subsidiary of Accentia Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTCQB: ABPI) announced in early May that the new data from the BiovaxID® Phase II mantle cell lymphoma clinical trial conducted by the U.S. National Cancer Institute will be presented by the NCI at the 2012 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.

Celldex Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLDX) previously noted that interim topline results of the Phase 2b EMERGE study of CDX-011 in patients with advanced breast cancer will be presented in a webcast on May 23, 2012 but it is not going to get in at ASCO as it noted, “Celldex anticipated presenting these topline results at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2012 Annual Meeting. Due to a clerical error in which the incorrect submission category was inadvertently selected in the on-line ASCO submission form, the abstract for the EMERGE study was not considered for acceptance. Celldex attempted to rectify this clerical error but was informed that no exceptions are made to the submission policy.”  Call this the “ASCO-less ASCO presentation.”

CytRx Corporation (NASDAQ: CYTR) will present data from its Phase 1b/2 clinical trial in patients with advanced solid tumors, primarily soft tissue sarcomas.

Exelixis, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXEL) recently announced that cabozantinib will be the subject of nine presentations at the upcoming Annual Meeting… The company noted that cabozantinib encompasses phase 3 pivotal trials in medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) and metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).

Galena Biopharma (NASDAQ: GALE) will present “Safety and Long-Term Maintenance of Anti-HER2 Immunity Following Booster Inoculations of the E75 Breast Cancer Vaccine” and it will host a panel called “HER2 Targeted Cancer Therapies” which includes NeuVax update from the Phase 2 and current Phase 3 PRESENT trials.

Generex Biotechnology Corporation (OTCBB: GNBT) will be presenting data on its breast cancer treatment ambitions.

Genomic Health, Inc. (NASDAQ: GHDX) recently announced that 18 abstracts were accepted for presentation at ASCO which will be highlighting Breast, Colon and Prostate progress.

ImmunoGen, Inc. (Nasdaq: IMGN) noted in late-April “At the upcoming ASCO meeting in June, we expect to see not only EMILIA Phase III data and new SAR3419 Phase I data, but also data from the Phase II trial evaluating the safety of trastuzumab emtansine in the adjuvant/neoadjuvant setting.”

Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NKTR) has two abstracts: one covering a Phase 3 study of NKTR-102 versus Treatment of Physician’s Choice in patients with locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer previously treated with an anthracycline, a taxane and capecitabine; a second will be NKTR-102 in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.

NewLink Genetics Corporation (NASDAQ: NLNK) announced in April that data from its HyperAcute(R) Pancreas immunotherapy and its HyperAcute(R) Lung immunotherapy as well as its D-1MT IDO pathway inhibitor will be presented at the annual meeting.

Pharmacyclics, Inc. (NASDAQ: PCYC) will have two oral presentations and one poster discussion session: two oral presentations will highlight the first reporting on data from the ibrutinib (formerly PCI-32765) Phase II CLL single agent trial in treatment naïve patients and the ibrutinib Phase Ib/II CLL combination trial with ofatumumab in relapsed or refractory patients; the poster discussion session will highlight data from the ibrutinib Phase Ib CLL combination trial with bendamustine and rituximab in relapsed or refractory patients.

Seattle Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SGEN) will show updated information on ADCETRIS for patients with relapsed Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma (sALCL).

Here was a recent list of other stocks to watch covered by an analyst in the Denver Post.

JON C. OGG

The company now claims over 11,000 employees and has efforts in 44 countries as of now.  The CEO letter also noted an enormous and untapped opportunity in its core business: “Through smarter deal targeting, there is significant growth waiting to be unlocked in our core daily deal business.  In the United States alone, we have more than 10 million geo-located subscribers engaging with Groupon every month who have yet to make a purchase. We are kicking off a campaign to activate these customers, primarily by featuring deals that are closer to them; as you might imagine, deal proximity is a major driver of purchase behavior.”

Mobile is growing here as the rate of the total deals is now 30% mobile rather than 25% just four months ago.  Another benefit today is that a smaller firm called B. Riley upgraded the shares from Sell to a less negative Neutral rating.

Investors are so far cheering for Groupon this morning with it shares up 5.5% at $10.52 against a 52-week range of $9.82 to $31.14.  The online coupon and daily deals site still has a market value of $6.8 billion according to Yahoo! Finance.

Keep in mind that this Groupon IPO was at $20.00 and shares rose 50% at the IPO launch before losing their value and then some.

JON C. OGG

The company filed an 8-K after the close of trading Friday.  Hesse noted that the company has received feedback from some shareholders relating to the discretionary adjustment the Compensation Committee made under the incentive plan payouts for the impact of the iPhone on its financial results.

Hesse noted in the filing, “I do not want, nor does our Compensation Committee want, to penalize Sprint employees for the company’s investment with Apple, so I will forego this adjustment to my compensation. I have also voluntarily decided to take some additional actions regarding my personal compensation, and the Compensation Committee has agreed. I’m hopeful that these actions will allow the company to remain focused on delivering the best overall customer experience in the wireless industry, which is what will serve the company best in the long run.”

There is a lot more to this story if you look past the raw terms of the cuts.  Here are some of the actions being taken on Hesse’s compensation:

• Salary cut on a pro-rata basis over his remaining paychecks in 2012 to repay the $239,760 associated with the discretionary adjustment he received in February under the 2011 Short-Term Incentive Plan.
• Salary cut on a pro-rata basis over his remaining paychecks in 2012 to repay the $106,463 associated with the discretionary adjustment he received in February related to the performance units under the 2009 Long-Term Incentive Plan.
• Forfeits any right to a payment of $250,500 associated with the discretionary adjustment earned with respect to the 2011 performance period for the performance units under the 2010 Long-Term Incentive Plan. Subject to the satisfaction of applicable vesting conditions, this payment would otherwise be payable to Hesse in 2013 under the terms of the plan.
• Forfeit any right to payment of $294,107 associated with the discretionary adjustment earned with respect to the 2011 performance period for the performance units under the 2011 Long-Term Incentive Plan. Subject to the satisfaction of applicable vesting conditions, this payment would otherwise be payable to Hesse in 2014 under the terms of the plan.
• Reduce, from 200% of Hesse’s annual base salary ($2.4 million) to 170% ($2.04 million), his target opportunity under the 2012 Short-Term Incentive Compensation Plan.
• Forfeit two million performance units (valued at $2 million) granted to Hesse on February 22, 2012 under the 2012 Long-Term Incentive Compensation Plan.

Again, this feels like one of those situations where there is just a lot more to the story than meets the eye.

Hesse went on to say, “These voluntary actions regarding my personal compensation, which total $3,250,830, will eliminate any benefit for me to the discretionary adjustment the Compensation Committee made earlier this year, and will set my 2012 incentive compensation target opportunities at my 2010 levels.”

Hesse said this voluntary reduction of his future compensation does not constitute “Good Reason” under his amended and restated employment agreement dated December 31, 2008.  Hesse also agreed that if his employment terminates prior to completion of the salary reductions described in the first two bullet points above to a reduction of any amounts otherwise payable to him or his estate in an amount necessary for Sprint Nextel to “fully recover the indicated amounts, and to the extent insufficient to do so, to repay the remainder as soon as reasonably practicable.”

Doesn’t that sound a bit like a clawback of pay similar to what you have heard about for Wall Streeters during the financial crisis?

What is interesting here is that this starts out using the ‘investment’ with Apple over the iPhone.  It is not typical for a CEO to take a pay cut and to address dealings with an outside company as one of the first issues.  That is particularly the case in a hot product like the iPhone.

Another take here, and perhaps the most important take, is that Hesse is losing serious support from inside the company.  The way that the news reports went in February it looks like the board rejected Hesse’s efforts to acquire Dan Hesse, to purchase MetroPCS Communications, Inc. (NYSE: PCS) for the no-contract and ‘pay as you go’ cellphone service offering.  It is worth noting that MetroPCS shares hit another 52-week low on Friday and this one has been battered since earnings just over a week ago.

The question we are asking ourselves here is really about the timing of this filing.  By sneaking the news out on Friday after the close of trading, it sure seems like the company is hoping that other news will be more front and center besides a ‘voluntary’ pay cut.  The news may not be a stock-moving event on its own merit but this certainly feels like the second move from Sprint that would lead us to question just how long Dan Hesse has left as CEO of Sprint Nextel.

Sprint is burdened with debt of more than $20 billion at the end of 2011 and its share price of $2.36 compares to a $2.10 to $6.45 range of the last 52-weeks.  The $7.1 billion market capitalization of the common stock is only a small portion of the Sprint Nextel enterprise value.

Blocking a CEO-led acquisition and then sneaking in a filing late on a Friday showing a ‘voluntary’ pay cut for the CEO… Honestly, how much longer does Dan Hesse have as CEO?

JON C. OGG

Prostate cancer and the issue of Buffett’s successor are likely first.  Will this cause shareholders to call for a more focused disclosure over who will take over as CEO? Even if so, every Berkshire Hathaway investor knows that Berkshire Hathaway is Warren Buffett and Warren Buffett is Berkshire Hathaway.  Our take: Buffett is likely to divulge his successor only when it is on his terms or when the decision must be announced.

The second issue is The Buffett Rule.  Most of the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders are not exactly middle class.  They are usually the one-percenters, at least they are for the A-Shares with that super-high share price.  Warren Buffett was met with a cold stare from the audience before when he defended Lloyd Blankfein at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and it will be interesting to see how the audience reacts to any notion of paying higher taxes and their chief capitalist calling for Obama and Washington D.C. to increase the tax burden on the wealthy.

Read Also: Buffett’s Full Investment Holdings

While this may seem like a sideshow, the investments in International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) and Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) almost have to be a topic to bring up.  For years Mr. Buffett has shied away from technology.  A $10 billion bet or thereabouts has only grown in value and we all know that Buffett said he would never invest in shares of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) because his close ties with Bill Gates would be construed as possessing knowledge that is too close to the situation.

It will be interesting to see if Buffett addresses relatively new positions such as DaVita Inc. (NYSE: DVA) and Dollar General Corporation (NYSE: DG).  DaVita is the king of kidney dialysis and if that is not a captive market then no other market is captive.  Dollar General is one we have referred to over and over as benefitting from the secular trend of dollar stores as these stores are reaching up to grab customers from traditional retailers.

We would also expect to hear a little bit more about the investing decisions and input from Berkshire’s two new portfolio managers Ted Weschler and Todd Combs.

With extremely large stakes in Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) and Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) and with those positions now being up near highs again, it will be interesting to see if Buffett addresses these core holdings as keys to the core holdings with higher dividends.

Berkshire Hathaway’s A-shares closed on Thursday at $121,800 against a 52-week range of $98,952.00 to $123,578.00; and the B-shares closed at $81.26 against a 52-week range of $65.35 to $82.47.

JON C. OGG

The agency said

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said today that it had lowered its long-term corporate credit rating on Finland-based mobile telecommunications equipment manufacturer Nokia Corp. to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-’ and its short-term corporate credit rating to ‘B’ from ‘A-3′. The outlook is negative.
At the same time, we lowered our issue ratings on Nokia’s unsecured debt to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-’ and assigned recovery ratings of ’3′ to this debt, reflecting our expectation of meaningful (50%-70%) recovery prospects in an event of payment default.
The rating action reflects a downward revision of our expectations for revenues from Nokia’s Devices and Services division in 2012 and a subsequent revision of our profitability and cash flow assumptions.

S&P showed little faith in the new alliance with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) which has already produced the buggy Lumia 900. The smartphone is based on Window OS. Nokia has largely abandon its own Symbian OS, a move which S&P questioned.

The announcement came on the same day that Strategic Analysts reported that Samsung passed Nokia as the world’s largest handset company by volume

It is only a matter of time before Nokia is broken into two piece–one smartphone, and the other cheap handsets, and sold

Douglas A. McIntyre

In a separate issue to rank last week’s bias, we just featured the strongest stock charts in the S&P 500 Index after a poor week where the S&P fell by -1.9%.  We already showed a tempering of expectations going into earnings season, so the reactions were not really any huge surprise.

Can you derive a true earnings season bias by evaluating the post-earnings reactions of Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA), J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK), Infosys Ltd. (NASDAQ: INFY), Coinstar, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSTR), Mattress Firm Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: MFRM), and Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC)?  24/7 Wall St. thinks you can find a key trend here that may help investors cover their assets this earnings season. Hopefully this review and analysis will help investors focus on the underlying issues of each major earnings report rather than getting hung up on whether just over 8% GDP growth in China is good enough and whether the PIIGS in Europe are going to keep dragging down Europe and the rest of the world.

Read Also: More Rising Dividends Expected This Earnings Season

Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA) managed to surprise just about everyone to the upside.  When it had just announced production cuts a week before, the aluminum giant managed to turn in a positive earnings report at $0.10 EPS rather than a loss of -$0.04 EPS expected.  The conference call talked up growth in many key segments and said that China is not as weak as it looks.  Alcoa went from $9.32 before earnings to close at $9.90 the day after and even closed at $10.17 the following day before closing the week out at $9.85.  All in all, Alcoa added 2.3% for the week.

There was a big earnings reaction disappointment from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) and from Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC).  These are the two healthiest banks and it really sets up caution for the coming junk-bank earnings from the money center group this coming week.  Both companies beat earnings and talked up their books and finances.  At the end of the day, J.P. Morgan closed down 3.6% and Wells Fargo closed down almost 3.5% after earnings.  We would pay closer attention to the book value analysis for the major financial sector earnings due this week because the sector was a great performer in the first quarter and looks to be treated rather poorly even after good earnings.

The Internet wild card was of course Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and the earnings were clouded by a stock split that is actually a share structure shenanigan giving Larry & Sergei ultimate and complete control of the company.  The focus remains on the decline in pay-per-clicks as well, and shares fell 4% or $26.41 to $624.60 after the earnings report.  This was a drop of less than $8.00 for the whole week.

It should be of little surprise that Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK) issued an earnings warning.  We do not even count Nokia as a market indicator any longer and this posted a double-digit drop after warnings and then weakened further the rest of the week.  Shares are down at $4.02 now and at the weakest level in a decade.  Ask yourself this question… Do you even know anyone that still has a Nokia phone?

Infosys Ltd. (NASDAQ: INFY) is supposed to be the king of Indian IT-outsourcing, and the earnings report itself did not look bad.  The problem came from cutting its growth rates by one-third for the coming year and that spooked investors big time with a drop of 13.4% to $49.15 at the end of the week.  Infosys is now within striking distance of a 52-week low of $46.12.

One positive did come from Coinstar, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSTR) with much higher guidance.  Shares rose 7.3% to $65.78 and the stock put in a new 52-week high of $69.74 before softening up with the weak stock market tape.  The bright side here was no negative reaction from a price hike.  Go figure.  Unfortunately, it was hard to draw any major inference here into other media and movie companies.

Another bright spot came from Mattress Firm Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: MFRM) with higher earnings guidance and an acquisition which will boost its market share in the mattress sales segment.  Shares hit a new post-IPO and all-time high of $45.96 and this one gained almost 13% for the week.  Unfortunately it is going to be hard to draw much pin-action here for other retail names.

Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC) put a hex on its turnaround story as this key contract in the U.K. is still held up and is not finalized for better or worse.  The earnings warning turned a value stock back into a value trap.  CSC closed down almost 8% for the week at $27.02 and it is a weak stock that got weaker.

Read Also: Four Top IPOs to Watch This Coming Week

So, the vote is in if you just look at the broad market reaction on each and filter out all of the other noise.  The long and short of the matter is that if you look at the core economy companies here and filter out the few bright spots, Wall Street is not really wanting to pay up for what appear to be decent earnings.  After a huge first quarter, it seems as though the bias is leaning toward only rewarding companies which really exceed expectations.  Now we know what to be braced for going into the coming week as the real earnings season floodgates open wide.

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JON C. OGG

Our review focuses on fresh tempering of expectations from Alcoa, Inc. (NYSE: AA), and caution from SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) and Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO).  There are also more very fresh concerns regarding the following companies: General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE); J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM); Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT); Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV); International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM); AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) and Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE: VZ); Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC); and also McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE: MCD).

This is not an effort to move towards the panic button, but it is also full of evidence and inference showing that things might be a bit tempered compared to estimates of even two weeks ago.  This tempering may still not kill the expectation that the DJIA will see 14,000 or higher this year.

Alcoa, Inc. (NYSE: AA) has taken a very interesting path here ahead of earnings season.  The company is set to report earnings next week and it is generally the first DJIA component to report earnings each quarter.  For better or worse, that means that investors try to use Alcoa as a benchmark for all major economic companies each earnings season.  The issue goes far beyond Alcoa and far beyond just the base economy companies as one last tempering of earnings expectations for the first quarter of 2012.

While Alcoa is the current focus, we wanted to identify what other DJIA components and/or what other sector leaders have said ahead of earnings season.  It may not be as cautious as many investors were braced for at the start of 2012, but it is far from positive and could act as a drag on the expectations that the market will keep rising.

If you tie in what flash memory maker SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) warned of lower demand and lower pricing hurting sales and margins.  With it being the largest independent flash maker, this dimmed the hopes of the tech boom continuing and the drop was in all Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) component suppliers.  Earlier this week came word from John Chambers of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) that government spending was going to get worse before it gets better.

Another concern, which seems to be a lame call rather than an insightful call, came from Moody’s where the credit ratings agency issued a formal downgrade on General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE).  We warned when the ‘negative review” came up last month that the call was unwarranted and/or very late because things have gotten better rather than worse.  We would only expect that this tempered estimates mildly and the company has done what it can to give the all-clear signal in recent weeks and months.

Jamie Dimon noted, “Your company earned a record $19.0 billion in 2011, up 9% from the record earnings of $17.4 billion in 2010.  Our return on tangible equity for 2011 was 15% — the same as last year.  Relative to our competitors and given the prevailing economic environment, this is a good result. On an absolute and static basis, we believe that our earnings should be $23 billion – $24 billion.”

The 38 page document talked about mortgage-related losses and he noted that the hostility toward the banking industry continues.

Jamie Dimon noted that the bank bought back $9 billion of stock and that it was recently granted permission to buy back up to $15 billion more during the remainder of 2012 while lifting the dividend from $1.00 per share to $1.20 per share on an annualized basis.  While this was a good thing, here is why this dividend hike should have been taken as a disappointment by Wall Street and Main Street investors alike.

Dimon’s full annual letter is here.

JON C. OGG

Ron Chan, ex-Chairman and CEO of ChinaCast has now resigned from the board of directors over serious disagreements with the group of directors.  Then came news from the board of directors which issued a scathing letter to shareholders.  FULL LETTER

To add insult to injury, NASDAQ halted trading in the stock.  When investors get into stocks that have management infighting it rarely turns out that well.  Keep in mind that this is in China as well, and we have said over and over that perhaps the most evident example in freedom speech comes from financial officers of companies which listed shares in America.

ChinaCast provides post-secondary education and e-learning services in China.  This is a situation which seems far from over.

Shares went out down 4.5% on Friday at $4.24 and the 52-week trading range is $2.27 to $6.91.

JON C. OGG