Okay, here is an absolutely brilliant idea. And no, I'm not being sarcastic. According to this blurb at The Hollywood Reporter, News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) is interested in doing a sequel to the classic 1987 film Wall Street.

Some of you younger investors out there might not be familiar with the movie, but perhaps you're familiar with the now-famous quote "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good." It was uttered by the loathsome Gordon Gekko, whose alliterative name almost oozes corporate scandal and villainy. That character was played by Michael Douglas. Wall Street was directed by Oliver Stone and it portrayed the evil side of capitalism, replete with insider trading and share-price manipulation. It's considered a classic, iconic fictional snapshot of the current zeitgeist at the time: the only thing that mattered was upward mobility and accumulation of as much net worth as conceivable without consideration for the little guy. It came out around the time of the '87 market crash, so it had that going for it.

This is why News Corp. needs to fast-track the project. According to this source from May of last year, a sequel to Wall Street was already in the works. Obviously, the fact that The Hollywood Reporter mentioned the project this week means that execs at Fox feel that the timing for a sequel is approaching an optimal point. In fact, they really should try to get it out into the marketplace as quickly as they can, and hopefully with Michael Douglas reprising his role as Gekko (Douglas' return is not set in stone at this point). Not only could the movie gross a decent amount at the box office, but think of the synergy potential here.

News Corp. is fighting a battle with General Electric's (NYSE: GE) CNBC as we speak. The Fox Business Channel wants to take away as many viewers as possible from the stock-market network. Problem is, CNBC is a very powerful brand in its arena. Of course, that doesn't deter the pit bulls at Fox. If you had to describe the media company with only one word, that word would, by necessity, be a hyphenate: ultra-competitive. In fact, Fox Business Channel recently slammed BloggingStocks' own Jim Cramer in a recent promo (see a piece on this subject by Zac Bissonnette).

Continue reading Would a sequel to "Wall Street" help Fox Business Channel?

Would a sequel to "Wall Street" help Fox Business Channel? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Amid growing concern about market manipulation by investors (hedge funds are most often cited), investors and businesses must now focus on proxy season and ways to prevent the effects of market manipulation from carrying over there. There is concern that funds will be able to sway elections by voting shares they don't own, or have to hedge to minimize their economic stake in the outcome.

For example, if a fund owned 100,000 shares of a company but had purchased put options, the actual exposure might be far less than the 100,000 shares would indicate. Yet they would still be able to vote those shares. This is of tremendous concern as a corporate governance issue, because it could be that many corporations will now be run by two groups: management with little stake in the company, and hedge funds with little stake in the company.

Gordon Gekko would not be pleased.

Proxy season brings market manipulation into focus originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 25 Mar 2007 15:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Anyone who reads my posts on BloggingStocks knows that I have lot of respect and admiration for that much-maligned group of people known as activist hedge fund mangers. The other day, I discussed a recent study that indicates that these investors are good for small shareholders. This week's issue of Barron's features an interesting piece on Ralph Whitworth and his fund Relational Investors, who played a key role in the ousting of Robert Nardelli from the Home Depot Co. (NYSE:HD). (On a side note, it may not have been quite as tough as it sounds. A $210 million severance package? Boy, they sure showed Nardelli who's boss). The piece also featured a prescient quote from Adam Smith, the 18th century philosopher/economist best known for writing The Wealth of Nations:

"The trade of a joint stock company is always managed by a court of directors...It cannot well be expected that they would watch over it with same anxious vigilance with which the the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own...Negligence and waste, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company."

Continue reading From Adam Smith to Gordon Gekko

From Adam Smith to Gordon Gekko originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 20 Feb 2007 14:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.