Nero Visits US Housing Market
Existing-home sales for October resumed falling and the median prices showed the largest drop on record. Existing home sales fell to 4.98 million annualized, lower than estimates of 5.0 to 5.13 million.
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
Bill Gate’s Investment Groups Boosts Stake in AutoNation (AN) to 10%
After the close Friday, Bill Gate’s Cascade Investment and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation disclosed they raised their stake in AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE: AN) to 10%, or 17,757,788 shares. The Gates’ groups held…
Shell Runs Into a Double Whammy (RDS.A/B)
Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A/B) has been hit with two issues at once. While neither is going to bust the company, multiple problems hitting at once is a bad omen. The oil and gas giant’s…
Is Berkshire Hathaway Finally A Cheap Stock? (BRK-A)
This weekend, Barron’s wrote an article noting that shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) were finally cheap. After closing at $90,000 on Friday and seeing a low of $74,100 last week, the publication…
Does Bank Of America (BAC) Get The Next Bailout?
The Paulson/Bernanke bailout is now spreading across the financial system like a prairie fire in a stiff wind. AIG (AIG) got one deal. A number of banks got a piece of another deal, the…
Top Early Bird Analyst Calls (JBT, XPRT, PTRY, SNY, ERIC, LLTC, MXIM, NSM, NFC, RTP, SAI)
These are some of the top pre-market analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations we are seeing early this Monday morning with more than two hours until the open: John Bean Technologies (JBT) Started as Buy…
Omrix Gets Acquired By J&J (OMRI, JNJ)
It looks as though not quite all the mergers are dead on the medical tech and biotechnology front. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) announced that it is acquiring Omrix Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: OMRI). The…
Synaptics Files to Raise Cash (SYNA)
Synaptics Inc. (NASDAQ: SYNA) filed late on Friday to sell up to $250 million in a mixed securities shelf. The company will be able to sell any combination of Common Stock, Preferred Stock, Debt…
Is GE Going To Raise More Cash? (GE)
After the close of trading on Friday, General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) filed an open shelf registration with the SEC which would allow it from time to time to sell securities. No size or…
Will US Government Open Hundreds Of Car Dealerships?
Hundreds of junior employees from Treasury may be asked to don cheap suits and take up residence at car dealers all over America. They can put "sale" signs on windshields and run streamers across…
The Recession And Weeding Out America’s Worst Management (MCD)(LUV)(JPM)(WFC)(GM)(INTC)(AMD)(DIS)(CBS)(HPQ)(WMT)(GE)
Most executives spend their careers trying to get noticed, both as a way to achieve promotion and to bolster their reputations which they hope will be remembered long after they retire. Mention Herb Kelleher,…
The US Now Owns Citigroup (C), Not Done Funding Bank
One size does not fit all. Citigroup (C) will get a bailout which does not look anything like the deal the government has made with other large banks under the $700 billion Paulson program.…
Media Digest 11/24/2008 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
According to Reuters, the US government gave Citigroup (C) a bailout worth over $300 billion. Reuters reports that the rescue of Citi failed to dispel concerns about the financial market as some indexes around…
Asia Market And Europe Open 11/24/2008
Most markets in Asia were lower. The Nikkei was closed for a holiday. The Hang Seng was down 1.4% to 12,484. The Shanghai Composite was down 3.7% to 1,897. In Europe, the FTSE opened…
Good Bank, Bad Bank: Citi & Uncle Sam (C)
The speculation has been brewing all week (longer actually, but let’s move on) where Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) was going. Many believed an ‘AIG-esque’ package was coming, and many believed a quasi-filing protection was…
Venezuela Pushes For OPEC Production Cuts
The finances of OPEC companies are being badly undermined by the drop of crude from $147 during the summer to under $60 recently. Several news reports have indicated that the national budgets in both…
A Vote For Selling Citigroup (C) To Goldman Sachs (GS) Or Morgan Stanley (MS)
There had been speculation for almost a week that the government has been trying to broker a marriage between Goldman Sachs (GS) and Citigroup (C). Goldman has apparently been cool toward taking on Citi’s…
What Happens To Citigroup (C) On Monday Morning?
It has come to this. Will the federal government allow the shares of Citigroup (C) to open for trading on Monday morning without a plan in place to support the bank or a buyer…
As GM (GM) Looks At Chapter 11, UAW Should Dust Off Strike Fund
The GM (GM) board is looking at a Chapter 11 as a way to get the car company out of its mess. Even if Congress approves funds for the car company, it might insist…
How Many US Banks Will Fail? A Bailout Stretching To Infinity
The FDIC seized three more banks and sold their assets: Downey Savings and Loan, PFF Bank & Trust, and Community Bank of Loganville. The agency now has 117 banks on its list of endangered…