Canadian-based fertilizer maker Agrium Inc. (NYSE: AGU) made an unsolicited offer for CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CF) earlier this week of one share of stock plus $31.70 cash for each CF share. The…
In mid-October, Exelon Corporation (NYSE:EXC) offered to acquire NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NRG) in an all-stock deal at a fixed exchange ratio of 0.485 shares of Exelon stock for each share of NRG stock. The…
In an amended 13D filing on Target (NYSE: TGT), Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital, a 7.8% shareholder, disclosed they are currently engaged in discussions with the company regarding the consideration by the Board of…
We covered last weekend about how the $1,000.00 gold was at an inflection point and looking as though it was either poised to pop to $1,200.00 on the speculation of fear or that it…
These are the top pre-market analyst downgrades and negative research calls we have seen this Friday morning: Adobe (ADBE) Cut to Market Perform at Wachovia. Autodesk (ADSK) Cut to Hold at KeyBanc. Limelight Networks…
These are the top pre-market analyst calls on Wall Street that we have seen this Friday morning: ANSYS (ANSS) raised to buy at Jefferies; raised to Overweight at Thomas Weisel. BMC Software (BMC) Raised…
The Commerce Department has just reported Q4-2008 GDP this morning, and as expected it was much worse then the original estimates. The problem is that the “already bad” expectations turned out to be too…
Whatever stock options Vikram Pandit, his management team and board have are almost certainly worthless now. News that the federal government will own 36% of Citi’s common shares through a complex deal have the…
Citigroup (C) may not have picked up much in its deal with the federal government. It shareholders will get crammed down. Tax payers will own more of Citi, about 36%, which is not necessarily a…
Dell’s earnings dropped 48% last quarter and now it will probably fire more people. The numbers were not a surprise. Independent research shows PC sales falling around the world as the recession sets in. Earnings…
American car companies can always hope that as the economy emerges from recession and car sales pick up that they will have a reasonably good chance to keep market share and return to being…
It has begun to occur to the financial industry and the central banks of the G7 and a number of smaller Western European countries that if some of the nations in Eastern Europe default on…
It is a corporate governance issue as much as anything else. Can one shareholder essentially “fire” most of a public company’s board without the approval of other shareholders? That it what the federal government…
The proposed budget that the Administration released yesterday runs 184 pages, if the sections called “Notes”, which are blank pages for calculations and thoughts, and the order page where anyone can put in a credit…
Once a quarter, the FDIC does something which seems to have little purpose. It releases its list of “problem” banks. These are institutions which face a high risk of failure because of their balance…
According to Reuters, Obama is prepared to put up to $750 billion into banks. Reuters reports that the government and Citigroup (C) has worked out an equity conversion deal that will give the government…
Markets in Asia were mixed. The Nikkei rose 1.5% to 7,568. The Hang Seng dropped .2% to 12,874. The Shanghai Composite dropped 1.8% to 2,083. At the open in Europe, the FTSE was down…
Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) is trading lower after its earnings, or at least after its losses. The software and design assistance company did beat expectations with $0.31 EPS as revenue dropped 18% to $49…
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) has just posted very disappointing earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter, as we expected. The PC-giant reported $0.18 EPS vs. $0.26 estimates and a 16% drop in revenue of $13.4…
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has concluded the sale of $1.45 billion distressed assets. It consisted of performing and non-performing residential and commercial construction loans in distressed markets. The sales to Diversified Business Strategies…