Shares of Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC) are currently trading at around $3.75, a premium of more than 85% to the recently announced deal for the firm to be acquired by JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) for $2 per share.
A few things come to mind. First, as recently as last week, CEO Alan Schwartz was essentially telling the market that there wasn't no darn iceberg, that if there was, he would have steered the ship clear of it, and that if they had hit an iceberg, everything would have been fine: "Bear Stearns' balance sheet, liquidity and capital remain strong," he said in a statement.
How could things have deteriorated so quickly that a takeover offer at less than 5% of the market price at the time of that statement was compelling? It seems likely that Bear Stearns's financial statement are completely unreliable at this point, leading me to this conclusion: Nobody knows nothing, and buying Bear Stearns here is mindless speculation based on nothing . And speculation that someone else will come along and pay 85% more than the Fed-backed bailout that the company's board has already set up, is all that is -- speculation -- and I wouldn't bet on it.
That's not a game I'd want to be playing -- there's just not enough information here for intelligent investing. I'd stay the hell away from Bear Stearns.
Closing Bell: Economic Catapult for Thanksgiving & Black Friday (WMT, TGT, GRMN, GOOG, MSFT)
Deere up on Q4 earnings performance
Reid Hoffman: LinkedIn will go public (at some point)
