Bogus Home Appraisals May Derail Real Estate Recovery
A huge number of home value appraisals may be wrong, with most of them being much too high. That is causing banks to back away from mortgages. A house that has been appraised for…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
China’s Goal To Become World’s Largest Economy Back On Track
China’s drive to become the world’s largest economy appears to be back on track again. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development raised its forecast for GDP growth in the world most populous country…
The Boston Globe Will Stay Open, For Now (NYT)
The New York Times (NYT) and the largest union at The Boston Globe have reached an agreement that will almost certainly keep the paper operating, but that could change sometime next year. The Times…
Citigroup (C): Raises For The Elite
John Mack of Morgan Stanley (MS) made sure that he had a large base salary for this year, even though his firm nearly fell apart last year. The management of Citigroup (C) also wants…
Huntsman Thrashes The Banks
Apollo Management’s Hexion Specialty Chemicals offered $6 billion to buy chemical company Huntsman (HUN) in July 2007, a bid which would have given stockholders $27.25 a share. Over the course of the next year,…
Boeing (BA): Proof That Management Incompetence Needs Regulation
The federal government has set up a number of systems to effectively control the financial and credit systems along with most of the major firms that operate in the sector. The most aggressive, and…
CNN.com Keeps Its Audience Advantage Over MSNBC.com (GE)(TWX)(NYT)
What is true on the air is also true on the web. CNN.com has a larger audience that MSNBC.com. It also hold a large advantage over the largest website of any American newspaper, NYTimes.com,…
Madoff Client Jeffry Picower Netted $5 Billion—Likely More Than Madoff Himself
by Jake Bernstein, ProPublica It is rare these days to see Bernard Madoff’s name in print unaccompanied by the word “Ponzi.” Yet recent allegations raise the possibility of one key difference between Madoff’s crimes…
Media Digest 6/24/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: The head of a Congressional watchdog committee is pushing for a consumer protection agency. Reuters: China defended its export policies against a WTO complaint. Reuters: Citigroup (C) intends to raise the base pay…
Asia Markets And Europe Open 6/24/2009
Markets in Asia were higher. The Nikkei was up .4% to 9,590. The Hang Seng rose 2% to 17,871. The Shanghai Composite was up 1% to 2,922. At the open in Europe, The FTSE…
Despite Sell-Off, Some Techs on 52-Week Highs (ARUN, ELOY, PWRD, STAR)
There is an interesting line-up of tech stocks which hit 52-week highs today. This is despite the wave of selling and profit taking we have seen. We saw several hit highs on an intra-day…
Oracle Mixed Bag As Acquisitions Not In Numbers Yet (ORCL, JAVA)
Larry Ellison and friends over at Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL) just reported earnings. The enterprise software giant posted $0.46 EPS EPS and $6.9 billion in revenues. Thomson Reuters had estimates pegged at $0.44 EPS…
More Reverse Splits, or Just Closure, Possible or Needed in ETFs (FAS, FAZ, UYG, BAC, BHH, ARBA, IIH, AKAM, VRSN, UNG, USO, GLD, SDS, SPY, NYX, NDAQ)
We have been large fans of exchange-traded funds, exchange-traded notes, and other exchange-traded instruments which are open for trade throughout the day that are allowed to be invested in just like a stock. But…
Tesla Scores Major DOE Loan
Tesla Motors is getting a solid backer above and beyond any investment: Uncle Sam. The company announced that it has received approval for about $465 million in low-interest loans, from none other than the…
Existing Homes Sales Bump, Very Misleading
While existing home sales are not a true barometer of new home sales, there was at least a bump up in existing home sales for May. This rise of 2.4% to 4.77 million annualized…
Private Equity To Office Depot Rescue (ODP, OMX, SPLS)
Office Depot, Inc. (NYSE: ODP) has recovered substantially off of its March lows, but the stock is bruised and battered when you consider it hit $40.00 in late 2006. But this morning the office…
Boeing Burning Money With Another 787 Dreamliner Delay (BA)
Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) has announced yet another delay to the 787 Dreamliner. The aerospace giant has announced that first flight of the 787 Dreamliner will be postponed due to a need to reinforce…
Moody’s Takes Another Swipe At US Sovereign Rating, Sort Of
Before you think there is a reaffirmed “Aaa” rating from Moody’s Investor Services, this was spoken at a conference. Reuters reported that the Moody’s team head over the Sovereign Risk Group said that the…
What Van Hoisington’s Low Inflation Outlook Misses
By John Tamny of RealClearMarkets In a recent speech before the clients of research firm Applied Finance Group, Entropy Economics president Bret Swanson showed an ad from 1989 which featured “the most powerful computer…
A Surprise Upgrade of Motorola (MOT, PALM)
If you can believe it, an analyst is raising the rating on Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT). It is not even a boutique brokerage firm. Bank of America Merrill Lynch has raised its official rating…