RSS Updates
Email Updates
The 24/7 Wall Street Corporate Power Rankings of the thirty-two most important companies in America are determined by earnings, analyst rankings, important corporate news, trends in each firm’s industry, product introductions, management strength and changes, and credible rumors. It is, in effect, a new version of the DJIA.
The Corporate Power Rankings are released at midnight on each Sunday based on performance during the previous week.
Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) surged to the top on unexpectedly strong earnings. Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) got knocked down the list as it was stripped of its “Aaa” rating. Exxon (NYSE:XOM) took the bottom stock on poor refinery margins and a sharp drop in oil prices.
Douglas A. McIntyre Read More
Reuters: The economy probably added 5,ooo jobs last month.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) NYSE: BRK-B) is in the process of selling $8 billion in notes today to help fund the acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI). And Standard & Poor’s just gave Warren Buffett a pre-sale slap in the face. S&P has lowered the rating of Berkshire Hathaway over how the terms of the merger change the financial standing of the giant conglomerate.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B) is about to price a very large debt offering. With as many European nations as we are seeing having debt downgrades or credit concerns on their sovereign debt, Warren Buffett should probably go ahead and get this behind him as soon as he can. After all, this is supposed to be an $8 billion debt sale from Berkshire. The underwriting group here is surprisingly small as the book-running manager is J.P. Morgan (NYSE: JPM) and the joint lead manager is Buffett’s favorite bank Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC).
It has been speculated that this may occur, but few were expecting this news this soon. Warren Buffett has been notified by Standard & Poor’s Indexes that Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B) will replace Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI) in the S&P 500.
When was the last time that Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B) was one of the more unusual volume movers? It is today, and you’d have to ask yourself when the last time a split had come out for that answer. Today is a first, virtually anyhow. The A-shares are still above the $100,000.00 per share level. But the B-shares are now trading ex-split to reflect the 50-for-1 stock split and down in the $70’s to aid in the game-changing Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI) buyout.
This week’s Unusual Suspects are not just about earnings season, despite the deluge and onslaught we are about to see. We have a watch for events this week in shares of Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACOR), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), The Blackstone Group, LP (NYSE: BX), Phillip Morris International (NYSE: PMI), Verizon Communications Inc. NYSE: VZ), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), and in Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B). The Cadbury plc (NYSE: CBY) buyout saga is close to coming to a head with Hershey Co. (NYSE: HSY) and Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) both up against news this week. We also have earnings previews for Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC), Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC), and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS).
There are many companies that deserved to be on this weekend’s slate of unusual suspects that have key current developments to watch in this coming week. Some are unusual trading activity, some are earnings related, and some are event related. This week’s unusual suspects are Alcoa, Inc. (NYSE: AA), Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A), Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: CYCC), Genzyme Corp. (NASDAQ: GENZ), Immunomedics Inc. (NASDAQ: IMMU), MannKind Corp. (NASDAQ: MNKD), QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM), and Stillwater Mining Co. (NYSE: SWC).
Warren Buffett is raising capital. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) has just filed with the SEC to raise up to $1 billion via a sale of debt securities. It is selling its own equivalent of a long-bond: Senior Notes due 2040, up to $750 million. It is also selling up to $250 million in Floating Rate Senior Notes due 2012. The notes will be senior unsecured indebtedness of Berkshire Hathaway Finance Corporation and will rank equally with all its other existing and future senior unsecured debt.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) has made one of its more unusual press releases. The company said that it has voted “no” on Kraft’s proposal to authorize the issuance of up to 370 million shares to facilitate the acquisition of Cadbury. This is on the heels of Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) paying more to acquire Cadbury plc (NYSE: CBY).
Warren Buffett has a different timeframe than most investors. Unless he sees something drastic to the long-term fundamentals, he maintains a near-forever outlook when he invests in or buys companies for Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A). What we wanted to do was peruse the Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway portfolio of common stock holdings and then see which stocks of the portfolio had the most implied upside in 2010 compared to consensus analyst price targets. The stocks which made the screen are Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC), ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP), Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), Iron Mountain Inc. (NYSE: IRM), Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT), NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NRG), SunTrust Banks, Inc. (NYSE: STI), US Bancorp (NYSE: USB), and Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC).
There was an interesting filing out during the Christmas holiday showing that Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) weren’t in the holiday spirit for much of 2008. There were 21,000 fewer employees at Berkshire Hathaway entities in 2009 compared to 2008’s 246,000 employees.
Updated throughout the day.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) is still unloading more Moody’s Corp. (NYSE: MCO) stock. A filing from last night shows that another 87,992 shares were sold at a weighted average price of $26.77 on December 18, 2009. This is a fraction of what has been sold before and was a mere $2.35 million worth of stock, and Buffett still holds some 31,814,610 shares of the independent ratings agency.
Stephen Burke, the 51-year-old president of 
It wasn’t that long ago that we gave a list of stocks that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) needed to dump to help pay for its Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI) acquisition. Moody’s Corp. (NYSE: MCO) was one of those stocks. He had already lightened up some since, and on Monday evening came a filing at the SEC confirming that Buffett was dumping more stock.
M&A activity picked up in the second half of 2009 as the market moved up and access to capital for big companies improved. Corporate debt offerings soared and banks began to make capital available for deals such as the proposed Kraft (NYSE:KFT) offer to buy Cadbury. Kraft has already lined up bridge loans for the potential buyout.
This was a wild week, and perhaps a disappointment that the news did not propel stocks even higher. There were many key movers though, and we have a very active panel of very active and widely held shares for traders and investors to keep an eagle eye on in the coming week. This coming week’s unusual suspects are Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST), Frontier Communications Corp (NYSE: FTR), Huntsman Corporation (NYSE: HUN), Somaxon Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SOMX), Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S), Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC), Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC), Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A), and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO).
Washington Post Co. (NYSE: WPO) has to be thankful that it is not just a newspaper company as most tend to think of it. Today, came an analyst rating action that was actually in favor of the newspaper, education, and media company. Standard & Poor’s raised its outlook on the company. How often do you see that in a company which most think of as a newspaper and media company?
SunTrust Banks, Inc. (NYSE: STI) is getting hit this morning, although perhaps not as harshly as the call might sound. Meredith Whitney put on her banker Scrooge hat and issued a SELL rating on the bank. She said the bank is at the wrong place at the wrong time.
