Finish Line, Better Lucky Than Good (FINL, GCO, UBS)
If there is one company that needed to get out of its crazy merger, it was Finish Line. Inc. (NASDAQ: FINL). The company last year made a greatly leveraged buyout offer to acquire Genesco…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
Oil, A Record As Crude Nears $104, A Look Towards $125
The price of crude came very close to $104. According to the AP "That’s higher than the price of $103.76 that many analysts believe oil hit in 1980, when adjusted for inflation into 2008…
Safeguard Scores $100 Million Sale (SFE)
Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE) has signed and exit agreement regarding its ownership position in three majority-held and three minority-held partner companies through a transaction with Saints Capital. The partner companies being sold in…
Dollar Tree Reorganizes, Sort Of (DLTR)
Dollar Tree Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) has announced that it has reorganized its structure by creating a new holding company structure. The effective date is today. The company noted that the primary purpose of the…
Goldman Sachs Notes An Insurer Worth Zero In Run-Off (SCA, MBI, ABK)
Security Capital Assurance Ltd. (NYSE: SCA) has been terminated from coverage at bulge bracket firm Goldman Sachs after the company has seen shares plummet over recent months. The company noted that all three ratings…
Losses On Munis May Get Much Worse (MER)(C)
The muni markets are getting into more trouble as each day passes. According to Bloomberg "U.S. states and local governments may extend the worst slump in municipal bonds on record as they replace as…
Top 10 Pre-Market Analyst Calls (AU, APOL, CLF, DRI, ETR, EXC, EXPD, F, MELI, OSIP, STX, WDC)
These are not all of the analyst calls out there affecting shares, but these are the top 10 analyst we are focusing on this Monday morning: Anglogold (NYSE: AU) Raised to Buy at UBS.…
Europe Markets 3/3/2008 (BCS)(HBC)(ALU)(SI)
Markets in Europe were down over 1% at 6 AM New York time. The FTSE fell 1.2% to 5,811. Barclays (BCS) was down 3.3% to 461.75. HSBC (HBC) was up 1.1% to 774.5. The…
As Google (GOOG) Bites, Microsoft (MSFT) Winces
Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Apps software, which offers spreadsheets, word processing, and presentation features has signed up 500,000 customers by some accounts. The product is popular because it runs off of Google’s servers, saving storage…
HSBC (HBC) Has $17 Billion Impairment Charge
HSBC (HBC) announced that its net profit for 2007 rose 21% to $19.13 billion even after profits in North America were virtually wiped out by rising bad debt charges. According to MarketWatch "In the…
Intel’s (INTC) Small Chips May Have No Market
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) is introducing new tiny chips aimed at the mobile computing market. According to The Wall Street Journal the are "designed to be the calculating engine for pocket-sized gadgets that Intel calls…
Economists Get Depressed
The National Association for Business Economists has just published its poll of economists. It is done twice a year, and was conducted the first two weeks of February. According to Reuters "Of the members…
What If E*Trade (ETFC) Is Worth Zero?
E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC) is making its non-executive chairman Donald Layton CEO today. The move is puzzling since he is a former vice chairman of JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM). He was "installed" in his chairman’s…
Media Digest 3/3/2008 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
According to Reuters, the NABE semiannual Economic Policy Survey show that the subprime crisis and heavy debt are still the biggest threats to the economy. Reuters writes that Microsoft (MSFT) will expand its web-based…
Asia Markets 3/3/2008 Sharp Drop (TM)(CN)(PTR)
Most markets in Asia fell sharply. The Nikkei fell 4.5% to 12,992. Canon was down 5.2% to 4570. Honda (HMC) was down 5.8% to 3070. Toyota (TM) was down 3.3% to 5560. The Hang…
Financial Crisis May Not Have Found Bottom
Every morning traders wake up and hope that the financial services disaster has ended and that housing has reach a nadir. Better go back to bed. According to a study put together by four…
Air Force Tankers: The Case Against Northrop (NOC) And EADS
The theater which is congressional politics would have missed an entire act if the porcine members who are re-elected for their ability to bring home the bacon to their districts had not raised a…
Where Does Private Equity Invest Next? (C)(MER)(BX)(S)(MOT)
The business press has had its ear to the rail, and it has heard that more capital is headed toward private equity funds. Some of this money may be invested by the huge sovereign…
Starbucks (SBUX): Any Benefit From Re-Training?
The staff at most of the Starbucks (NYSE: SBUX) recently went though a few hours for training. The nationwide program was designed to make the people working in the stores do a better job…
This week on Stockhouse February 25 – 29
The Dow and the TSX have had a volatile week, spending most of it up on commodities and news of big buybacks Wall Street began a downward turn Thursday that continued with heavy selling…