Do Hewlett Packard (HPQ) printers tell the truth or lie? Do they print out what is actually there or what we actually want to be there?

In fact, HP printers do not print out what they are given; they make the image deeper, darker and richer than it really is. I was a little surprised when I read that. When asked, HP admitted they improve the photos and they are giving the customers what they want.

Continue reading Do Hewlett-Packard Photo Printers Lie?

Do Hewlett-Packard Photo Printers Lie? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 21 May 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Will Goldman Sachs Face Criminal Charges Soon?

Will Goldman Sachs Face Criminal Charges Soon? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 03 May 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Enron coming to Broadway. . . and then Hollywood?

Enron coming to Broadway. . . and then Hollywood? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

All it takes is a little patience. F. Scott Yeager, a former Enron executive, got some good news from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which ruled that it wouldn't revisit his case. So, he no longer has criminal charges related to financial fraud hanging over him. Yeager has been acquitted on all counts. This follows a June ruling by the Supreme Court, which tossed a previous 5th Circuit Court ruling that could have resulted in a new trial.

The ruling said, "Today, ... it is clear under our initial ... analysis the jury made a finding in acquitting Yeager that precludes prosecution on insider trading and money laundering." Samuel Buffone, who was one of Yeager's attorneys, stated that his client shouldn't have been indicted to begin with and didn't do anything wrong. It has taken them seven years to get to this point.

Yeager landed in hot water because he sold stock in Enron for more than $54 million before it began the plunge that would ultimately end with its bankruptcy in 2001. He faced 125 counts, was acquitted of five (four for wire fraud and one for conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud) and wound up with a hung jury for the remaining 120, which included insider trading and money laundering. He was later indicted again on 13 counts of insider trading and money laundering.

Continue reading Former Enron exec set free

Former Enron exec set free originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Former Enron exec gets 16 months in the pokey

Former Enron exec gets 16 months in the pokey originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Found an interesting article from the Associated Press while I was watching Gene Simmons Family Jewels last night (fun episode, Shannon on painkillers buying Ginsu knives and Gene trying to figure out how to stimulate the economy -- by ringing the opening bell). The article says Scott Painter and business partner Greg Brogger have started a group called SharesPost.

This vehicle was launched publicly in June and allows Painter to try and sell shares in companies he helped found, which includes car pricing start-up TrueCar.com. However, Painter wants to go further, backing an idea allowing insiders to sell shares in companies before their initial public offering (IPO). A couple of the companies Painter is interested in include Twitter and LinkedIn (sites you may be familiar with).

Continue reading Want to invest in a company before its IPO?

Want to invest in a company before its IPO? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• That National Association of Realtors is number 3. Does that make you question the policies that led to the surge in home prices in the first part of the decade? It should.
  
• Citigroup (NYSE: C) recently received tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer help: and is the 15th biggest contributor of all-time. Just saying. . . In case you're wondering, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) is number 40 and General Motors (NYSE: GM) is number 73.
• Amway -- whose business model is controversial -- is number 90.

Enron slipping off the top 100 campaign contributors of all time originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Enron's Jeff Skilling will be resentenced after conviction is upheld originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Harvard's business school (HBS) has been celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. And it looks to be at the peak of its power. That's unfortunate because five of its most powerful graduates have made significant contributions to absolutely wrecking the global economy. HBS admits people who are natural leaders. Unfortunately, many of the most powerful of these leaders have followed the path of destruction.

Here are five Harvard MBAs who wrecked the economy:

• George W. Bush ('75). The best thing I can say about Bush is that he said he was sorry for all the problems that occurred while he was in the White House. Unfortunately, he seems to believe he was a victim of events outside his control. One of his HBS professors said of Bush "He showed pathological lying habits and was in denial when challenged on his prejudices and biases. He would even deny saying something he just said 30 seconds ago."
• Hank Paulson ('70). As Treasury Secretary Paulson has consistently ignored the severity of the financial crisis -- In June 2006 he gave a speech at HBS in which he said, "this is by far the best global economy that I have seen in my career" -- but this September he was able to sell Congress on an ineffective plan to fix what he finally realized was an imploding economy -- a plan has kept changing. The economy has continued to crash despite his bone-headed efforts to save it.

Continue reading Five Harvard MBAs who wrecked the global economy

Five Harvard MBAs who wrecked the global economy originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We recently presented a look at some of the most notorious financial felons of contemporary times.

Since then, news has included the indictment of Mark Cuban for insider trading in a case that is somewhat reminiscent of Martha Stewart's case. According to the SEC, the billionaire entrepreneur asked his broker to sell all his shares of Mamma.com after the company's CEO confidentially told him of an impending stock offering that would dilute the value of all existing shares. By selling before the information became public, Cuban is said to have sidestepped losses of more than $750,000. Cuban insists, though, that no agreement existed to keep the information confidential.

And then there was the indictment in Texas of Vice President Dick Cheney, along with former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others. There seems to be a conflict of interest between the vice president's influence on the federal agency that oversees federal immigration detention centers and his substantial holdings in Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies. But does the lame-duck county district attorney, who was a no-show in court, have the authority to bring charges against federal officials with regard to federally run institutions?

Continue reading Financial Felons: Where are they now and is there a next generation coming?

Financial Felons: Where are they now and is there a next generation coming? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This post is part of a feature in which he wonder whatever happened to some notorious financial felons. See all 17.

Jeffrey Skilling was the Enron CEO who tried to pin the blame for its 2001 bankruptcy on anyone but himself. He was not able to convince a jury, however. When Fortune raised questions about Enron in 2001, Skilling dismissed those "who want to throw rocks at us." And in a conference call with a hedge fund manager, Highfields Capital analyst Richard Grubman, who had shorted Enron stock, Skilling called Grubman an expletive beginning with the letter A.

Now, Skilling -- whose sentence was double that of other Enron convicts -- was serving a 24-year sentence in Waseca Federal Correctional Institution in Minnesota. Last month, Skilling was moved to a low-security prison in Littleton, Colo. The poor fellow will be about 74 years old when he is released in February 2028 -- that is, unless he gets pardoned by the current president, he wins an appeal, or he gets out early on parole.

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College. His eighth book, You Can't Order Change: Lessons from Jim McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing, will be published by Portfolio on December 26, 2008.

Financial Felons: Jeffrey Skilling originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This post is part of a feature in which he wonder whatever happened to some notorious financial felons. See all 17.

There was one company that I believed in during my journalism career. It was a scrappy underdog challenging the establishment and made scads of money. Back in the day, it was sure easy to root for Enron, and Andrew Fastow was one of the reasons why.

Fastow was not suave like his boss Jeffrey Skilling -- whom I met several times -- and lacked the people skills of President Bush's pal Chief Executive Ken "Kenny boy" Lay. No, Fastow was a humorless number cruncher. His importance to Enron can not be overemphasized. As Time magazine notes, "Fastow had a skill Skilling needed; he did asset 'securitization,' a means for banks to sell off risk in the form of securities backed by mortgages or other obligations."

Wow, the roots of today's financial difficulties can be traced back to Enron!

There is nothing evil. about special-purpose entities. At first, Enron's initial investors did well because the deals were straightforward. CalPERS, put $250 million into an spe called jedi i, which invested in natural gas projects. Four years late, the California State Pension Plan CalPERS got back $433 million, a 73% return over four years.

Continue reading Financial Felons: Andrew and Lea Fastow

Financial Felons: Andrew and Lea Fastow originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This post is part of a feature in which we wonder whatever happened to some notorious financial figures. See the other 17.

As Wall Street implodes around us, the word "hubris" is getting tossed around quite a bit. Hubris -- also known as excessive, overweening pride -- has become the catchall explanation for most of the market's ills. Our financial system has gone up in flames, we're told, simply because so many CEOs and regulators thought they were too smart to fail, no matter how highly leveraged their subprime mortgage portfolios may have been.

Assuming this is true, let's call Joseph Nacchio a trendsetter. As the chief executive of Qwest Communications International (NYSE: Q), Nacchio was determined to construct the world's biggest, best, and most totally awesome fiber-optic network. (Mind you, this was back in the late '90s, when the telecom bubble was just a glimmer in the market's eye.) However, the plucky CEO was driven not by a personal commitment to excellence, but rather by spite.

Nacchio left his old job at AT&T (NYSE: T) because he wasn't granted a plum promotion to president, which he felt he so richly deserved. What better way to show up his former employer than to build a superior network and steal away market share?

Unfortunately, Nacchio's impure motivations were not the best recipe for success. To give you some idea as to how his plans for world telecom domination played out, check out this blog entry I wrote about Qwest and Joseph Nacchio as part of our series on the worst S&P 500 stocks of the past 25 years.

Continue reading Financial Felon? Joseph Nacchio

Financial Felon? Joseph Nacchio originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 23 Nov 2008 14:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Thanks to what former Enron CEO, Jeff Skilling, called bad "optics", some top Wall Street executives announced that they're foregoing their normal seven figure bonuses. But I think I am being generous in estimating that those potentially symbolic gestures will only shave a few billion off the Wall Street bonus pool for 2008. We could still be paying $20 billion in bonuses this year.

How so? After buying $159 billion worth of preferred stock in 24 banks, I have not seen any evidence that the Treasury required the banks to lend it out. There is nothing stopping the banks from using the money for paying bonuses. And while the original estimate of 2008 bonuses was down 20% from 2007 -- to $26.6 billion -- I am thinking that eliminating executive bonuses could lead to at least a $6 billion lower figure -- particularly if this cut provides bank CEOs leverage to reduce the amount of bonuses paid to lower level people.

So far, top executives from Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), UBS AG (NYSE: UBS), Deutsche Bank, and Barclays have said they will skip their bonuses for 2008. Ironically, the ethically challenged UBS has the most interesting idea -- starting in 2009, it will be able to claw back bonuses in the years after their award with a third paid immediately, while the remainder will be put into a participant's account and can be reduced if there is a loss at the division or the whole bank. I started proposing an escrow account along these lines in October 2007.

Continue reading Will our tax dollars pay $20 billion in Wall Street bonuses?

Will our tax dollars pay $20 billion in Wall Street bonuses? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld has been in seclusion since the company's bankruptcy filing last week, but get out your popcorn and soda: he's set to be in Washington this week to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Fortune's Patricia Sellers reports that "Fuld is supposed to explain what led to Lehman's collapse and explore the impact on financial markets and the U.S. economy."

For those of you who are playing along at home, there are essentially two possibilities for what Mr. Fuld will offer as an explanation:

• "I screwed up. We borrowed too much money to make bad investments that we didn't understand, and when the crap start to hit the fan, I was dumb enough to buy back stock instead of raising cash. Can you believe that? I take full responsibility for this mess and, no, I'm not giving back my money."
• "My company was destroyed by mean nasty short-sellers who spread mean nasty rumors about the company, and then drove down the stock through naked short-selling. If the SEC would have reined in market speculators and manipulators, we would still be alive and I'd still have that cushy leather desk chair."

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Fuld's explanation will be mainly the latter. But take it with a grain of salt: when former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling was hauled before Congress to explain that company's collapse, he said that "It is my belief that Enron's failure was due to a classic run on the bank, a liquidity crisis spurred by a lack of confidence in the company."

But the reality is that Enron and Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection because they didn't have enough assets to cover their liabilities. Period. And it's wrong to blame that on the few short-sellers who were prescient enough to see through optimistic and misleading "forward-looking statements."

Dick Fuld heads to Washington to explain Lehman collapse originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 21 Sep 2008 15:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I've put together a good-sized Enron memorabilia collection, inspired by the affordability. I was able to buy an Enron lunch bag on eBay for less than the cost of a similar nonbranded product at Wal-Mart.

The collapses of Lehman Bros. and Bear Stearns aren't anywhere near as interesting but the headlines have attracted a swarm of eBay listings. According to The New York Times, "When a big Wall Street firm goes belly up, one bet you can take to the bank is that memorabilia will be offered for auction on eBay within hours. "

If you're looking to support a charity instead of an opportunist -- or burned employee who, having lost his 401(k) grabbed a stack of mugs on his way out the door -- one seller sold a piece of toast with the initials "BS" and "LB" branded on each side. Proceeds benefit the Children's Diabetes Foundation in Denver. The price? A mere $15.50. A piece of toast that offers the ticker symbols of companies about to collapse would likely be worth far more.

As an investment, I don't think Lehman and Bear memorabilia are compelling: collectibles from the Enron and Worldcom blowups do not appear to have appreciated in value.

Lehman Bros. and Bear Stearns are toast -- and on toast on eBay originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 21 Sep 2008 11:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In this series, we take a look at the 25 stocks on the S&P 500 Index (SPX) that have turned in the worst performance during the past decade -- what went wrong, and what happens next.

Permit me, if you will, to draw up an analogy: Qwest Communications (NYSE: Q) is to Wall Street as Lindsay Lohan is to Hollywood. At first, the little redheaded upstart seems to come out of nowhere, and dazzles everyone with her amazing performance. Then, just as quickly as the newcomer rose to fame, she sinks into a massive meltdown, the scope and severity of which is shocking even to seasoned vets. Okay, so this little comparison probably won't find its way onto the SATs, but -- minus the "redheaded" part -- the similarities are kind of eerie.

What went wrong? At lucky number 13 on our list of SPX underperformers, Q shed 77% of its value during the decade that ended on June 30, 2008. The shares peaked at $66 in March 2000, and bottomed out at $1.02 in August 2002 - a 98.5% plunge, top to bottom.

When Colorado-based Qwest burst onto the Big Board in June 1997, it was a company with a vendetta. CEO Joseph Nacchio defected from his executive position at AT&T (NYSE: T) after it became clear that Ma Bell didn't see him as president material. Qwest was in the process of building a massive fiber-optic network, and the upstart was determined to grab market share away from the industry's old giants -- including AT&T, naturally.

Continue reading Worst 10-year performers: Qwest Communications hung up on Enron scam

Worst 10-year performers: Qwest Communications hung up on Enron scam originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 29 Jul 2008 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Q: Should I invest my 401(k) funds in company stock?

A: No.

A recent study revealed a very troublesome trend.

Most of the cash in the the retirement plans of some of the nation's biggest blue chip firms was sunk into company stock.

Since the Enron fiasco, employees are painfully aware of the dangers of investing their 401(k) funds in company stock. But it shouldn't take a meltdown like Enron to dissuade employees from making this mistake.

Don't be fooled into believing that, because you work at a company, you have some special insight into how that company's stock will perform.

Your paycheck depends on the economic health of your employer. Don't make the same bet with your retirement money.

You want a portfolio that has the right asset allocation for you and is globally diversified. If you invest in company stock, you are violating basic rules of investing by concentrating assets in one stock. This gives you much more risk, without a commensurate increase in expected returns.

Dan Solin is the author of The Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read (Perigee Books 2006) and The Smartest 401(k) Book You'll Ever Read (Perigee Books, June 24, 2008)

Tough Retirement Questions: Should I invest my 401(k) funds in company stock? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ken Lay's widow forks over condo fees: aww! originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This post is part of a series on some of the most memorable companies that have disappeared.

Whenever I hear a company chief executive talk about "creative destruction" or "breaking the rules" or some other business buzzwords, a chill runs down my spine. You see, I have heard this sort of talk many times before -- from a company in Houston called Enron.

I was one of the many journalists who drank the Enron Kool-Aid. It was easy to understand why. Enron was the underdog, doing battle against the stuffy electric power industry to free up markets for competition, which in turn would save consumers tons of money. Everybody would win -- at least in theory -- and Enron would make tons of money in the process. The narrative the company spun was compelling, and I bought it hook, line, and sinker.

I dutifully scribbled down electricity and natural gas prices from Enron traders when I covered energy markets. Enron traders were always a chatty bunch. Enron's trading floor seemed to beehive of activity when I visited it during tours escorted by the company's public relations staff. It sure looked high-tech and had almost as many Bloomberg terminals as there were in the Bloomberg offices where I worked as a reporter.

Only years later did I realize that the whole thing was a sham.

Continue reading Companies that vanished: My memories of Enron

Companies that vanished: My memories of Enron originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.