Merrill Lynch’s Very Late Countrywide (CFC) Call
Merrill Lynch downgraded Countrywide Financial (CFC) to a "sell" today. It has had a "buy" on the stock since April 2005, according to Bloomberg. And, investors always thought analysts earned money to be ahead of the news. Countrywide has lost…
Merrill Lynch downgraded Countrywide Financial (CFC) to a "sell" today. It has had a "buy" on the stock since April 2005, according to Bloomberg. And, investors always thought analysts earned money to be ahead of the news.
Countrywide has lost 42% of its value this year as the crisis in sub-prime mortgages has spread to mortgages to homeowners with modest credit. The Merrill analyst who covers the stock wrote “We cannot understate the importance of liquidity.”
Thank you for that, and for warning shareholders after the company’s shares have already collapsed.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
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A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.