Who Deserves Your Tax Dollars?
By Gabriel Beltrone of The Big Money In honor of tax day and in keeping with the spirit of the times, The Big Money is offering you a chance to choose which government-backed private…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
Heads & Tails Review For Bridgepoint IPO (BPI)
Bridgepoint Education (NYSE: BPI) was a quasi-stealth initial public offering when you consider how few IPO’s we have seen over the last 8-month period. As it was publicized less and received less attention than…
Dropping Oil Inventories Knocking ETF’s (USO, OIH)
We have just seen another build in crude oil inventories according to the Department of Energy data. The build is not in finished products, but the increase in crude oil inventories was +5.6 million…
Fertilizer Merger Wars Heating Up (TRA, CF, AGU, MOO)
The president and CEO of Terra Industries Inc. (NYSE:TRA) has apparently purchased 100 shares of stock in CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CF) and requested CF to provide him with a list of all CF…
Rio Tinto Talking Down 2009 (RTP)
The slumping global economy has cut demand for steel, and lower demand for steel has cut demand for iron ore. The CEO of Rio Tinto plc (NYSE:RTP) put some numbers on that today. Rio’s…
Finnish Trade Backs Royal Caribbean Cruiseliner Loan (RCL)
If you think it is hard to get a personal unsecured loan right now, imagine the difficulty in getting a loan for a giant cruise liner in the midst of a recession. This morning…
First Solar Shines Brighter in Nevada (FSLR, SRE)
First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) has signed a deal with a division of Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE) to build a 48-megawatt photovoltaic power plant that expands an existing 10-megawatt plant near Boulder City, Nevada. Construction is…
Starbucks Gets Unwanted Sell Rating (SBUX, MCD)
Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) has performed rather well in the most recent 5-week stock market rally. After all, shares hit a low of $7.06 last November and challenged the $8.00 mark just last month. …
Peabody Tanking Coal (BTU, KOL)
For the first quarter of 2009, Peabody Energy Corp. (NYSE:BTU) has reported EPS of $0.63 on revenue of $1.46 billion from 59.6 million tons of coal sold. Analysts estimates averaged an EPS of $0.93…
CPI: Businesses Not Passing Savings Down To Consumers?
The reading on inflation from the Labor Department on Consumer Price Index is out. The CPI for March came out at -0.1% for nominal CPI and +0.2% on the core CPI measurement of ex-food…
Fidelity National Financial Ups The Offering Ante (FNF)
Fidelity National Financial, Inc. (NYSE: FNF) has priced its secondary offering this morning, and the result is that it ended up selling more stock than what it had originally planned. The title insurance, specialty…
Top 10 Analyst Calls (CMG, FTO, GS, NTAP, OSG, SBUX, SYY, TK, WRI, YUM)
These are the top 10 analyst calls we have seen early this Wednesday morning from Wall Street: Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) Raised to Outperform at William Blair. Frontier Oil (FTO) Cut to Hold at…
Big Banks Work To Crater US Housing Market (JPM)(WFC)
After all of the assistance that the government has given large banks, the least that the firms can do is extend liberal terms to homeowners to support the housing market. According to The Wall Street…
A New Chance For Apple (AAPL) To Gouge AT&T (T)
The deal under which AT&T (T) is the exclusive cellular carrier with rights to sell the Apple (AAPL) iPhones in the US will expire soon. The phone company believes that the partnership is essential to…
Disclosing Bank “Stress Test” Numbers: Good Way To Cause Panic
The government is close to having the results of its “stress tests” of large US banks. It has taken the financial firms’ balance sheets and set up models for what will happen if the economy…
Yahoo! (YHOO) Layoffs And Concern About Microsoft (MSFT) Deal
The deal for Microsoft (MSFT) to take over the search business owned by Yahoo! (YHOO) and pay the portal company a share of the advertising revenue in the venture is looking worse as each…
Intel (INTC) And The PC World: The Investor Feels Betrayed
Intel (INTC), which is the largest maker of PC and server chips in the world, announced earnings that beat analyst expectations. No one would have known that by looking at the collapse of the…
Skype: Taking Junk Public
eBay (EBAY) announced that it would do an IPO of its Skype internet phone business. According to eBay’s CEO John Donahoe, “Skype is a great stand-alone business with strong fundamentals and accelerating momentum. But…
Media Digest 4/15/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
According to Reuters, Goldman Sachs (GS) would like to return to its old businesses and compensation practices, but it may not be able to. Reuters reports that the US is planning to reveal the…
Asia Market And Europe Open 4/15/2009
Markets in Asia were mixed. The Nikkei fell 1.1% to 8,743. The Hang Seng was off 1.3% to 15.374. The Shanghai Composite was up .4% to 2,536. At the open in Europe, the FTSE is…