Greed is alive and well on Wall Street and traders sent that message loud and clear back to the Federal Reserve Board and Chairman Bernanke today, by sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 362 points, or 2.6%. In a straightforward Dow dropping, but not jaw dropping retort of "What have you done for us lately"? Apparently cutting rates by a half point last month and another quarter point yesterday to 4.5% was not enough.

The suggestion by Bernanke that the Fed might be done cutting and have an inflation- and dollar-protecting bias in the future was not well-received. Add to that Exxon Mobile (NYSE: XOM)'s untimely and unwelcome poorer than expected earnings report and you have the makings for some fear being stirred into the investment cauldron just one day after Halloween.

Seems like more than one immature and impatient trader doing his best impression of Charlie Brown last night felt they got a rock in his treat bag -- and when the traders got back to their desks this morning they were still reflecting on that rock when the markets started to fall like one. The only thing that seemed to bring the slide to an end was perhaps when the closing bell rang, forcing everyone to take their sad faces home.

Continue reading Dow Jones drops big as Wall Street sends the Fed a message

Dow Jones drops big as Wall Street sends the Fed a message originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Whittling Away at the Dow has been my longest multi-part blog to date. This is the seventh and concluding post of the series and for those that have been following along I hope there has been something of value for you in my comments. Among my surprises have been that there was so much value still left in the Dow given it's reaching new highs almost daily; I was surprised Disney was among the stocks that made the cut, and I was surprised at how few comments I received. You might notice that all six stocks that made the cut were from the top half of the Dow 30, perhaps I became tougher as I went along, but that's how it worked out. If you want to read the previous posts the following links will get you there: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, or Part 6. So here we go, whittling the six down to three. Here are the stars:

• Alcoa Aluminum (NYSE: AA): Aluminum
• American International Group (NYSE: AIG): Insurance
• Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT): Heavy duty construction and mining equipment
• Disney (Walt) Company (NYSE: DIS): Entertainment production, media and theme parks
• Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM): Petroleum exploration, refining, and sales
• Home Depot (NYSE: HD): Retail and wholesale hardware and construction materials

Continue reading Serious Money: Whittling away at the Dow - best values : Part 7

Serious Money: Whittling away at the Dow - best values : Part 7 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 08 Jun 2007 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Onward with my review of the Dow Jones Industrials. Ten stocks have been reviewed so far with three worth further consideration as potential value plays: Alcoa Aluminum (NYSE: AA), American International Group (NYSE: AIG) and Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT). You can link to Part 1 of this series or Part 2 if you want to catch up. Comments are always welcome.

Disney (Walt) Company (NYSE: DIS) on first glance looks like it may have some value hidden away. The raw numbers do not scream out at me but they cannot be ignored either. At a minimum this stock seems to be slightly under valued, given its strong brand and depth of content in a business where content is king, it has locked up many franchises. This includes the Pirates of the Caribbean: At the World's End now in theaters. It has an average P/E, a below average debt ratio, a modest dividend yield to go along with very low P/S 2.18 and P/B 2.36 ratios. Disney is worth consideration as a value stock.

DuPont EI De Nemours (NYSE: DD) is another mixed bag, although mostly favorable from a value standpoint. You have to like the below average P/E of 14.92, P/S of 1.77 and the generous dividend yield of 2.84%. On the other hand, it has a P/B of almost 5, which is higher than I would usually consider for a value play and the same is true for the P/CF of almost 12.29, which is a little bit pricey to me. It does report strong profit margins of 11.48% and a great ROE of 34.41. In comparing it to one of my stock picks Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) for 2007, which has a P/S and P/B of half of DuPont and a higher yield of 3.67% I think I will pass this one up.

Continue reading Serious Money: Whittling away at the Dow -- DIS, DD, XOM, & GE: Part 3

Serious Money: Whittling away at the Dow -- DIS, DD, XOM, & GE: Part 3 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 31 May 2007 13:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

ExxonMobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM) made headlines reporting an annual profit of $39.5 billion. So what?!

So what if a company capitalized at $440 billion earns less than 10% profit. Suppose you bought the entire company "lock, stock and barrel"; wouldn't you expect to make far greater than that? You would be taking on a massive amount of responsibility and risk! Currency risk, political risk (you go deal with Putin in Russia and Chavez in Venezuela, or worse in Iraq or Iran or Africa), workman's comp for oil derricks in the Gulf Coast and elsewhere, environmental risk, government regulation -- the list is endless.

When I invest, my anticipation is at least a 10% return. Who in the entire investment world would do this, unless of course you were buying bonds paying 5% to 7% without any work. The 70-year stock market average is about 10%.

There is nothing wrong with Exxon Mobil's profit, given its size. It would be sad if they could not make 10%, and consider that they only made this with very high oil prices! If the profits were so high and prospects so good, why isn't there a run on the stock?

Continue reading $39.5 billion ExxonMobil profits: no big deal

$39.5 billion ExxonMobil profits: no big deal originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 07 Feb 2007 17:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.