Continue reading Merrill & Wachovia give up the ghost

Merrill & Wachovia give up the ghost originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Stocks in the news: C, TWC, VIA, MSFT, GM, F, WFC, BAC, AAPL, NOK

Stocks in the news: C, TWC, VIA, MSFT, GM, F, WFC, BAC, AAPL, NOK originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 02 Jan 2009 08:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Here is a roster of some of the fallen ones.

Jimmy Cayne Former CEO Bear Stearns - latest compensation $32.1 million. He led Bear Stearns for 15 years. He resigned last January. Bear Stearns was acquired by JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) for $10.00 a share. He and his wife purchased two luxury apartments at the Plaza.

Richard Fuld Former CEO Lehman Brothers - Latest compensation $34.4 million. Subpoenaed by federal investigators to determine if he misled investors at Lehman. Executives at Barclays Capital (NYSE: BCS) bought Lehman's US assets.

Kerry Killinger Former CEO WaMu - latest compensation $4.5 million. He became CEO in 1990 and built WaMU into one of the largest US mortgage writers. He offered sub prime mortgages which led to WaMU's rapid growth. He was ousted in September when WaMU was sold to JPMorgan.

Continue reading In 2008 they all fell down. Who are they?

In 2008 they all fell down. Who are they? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This post is part of our feature on Money Losers of 2008. See all 20.

There's no doubt about it -- times are tough. People are struggling to find work and to pay the bills as the value of their homes and savings dwindle. The poor get poorer, and the rich get richer.

Or do they? It's all relative, of course, but world's billionaires have been taking some big hits too. We take a look at Sheldon Adelson, Kirk Kerkorian, and Lakshmi Mittal in their own separate posts, but here are some other billionaires who have lost billions this year (courtesy of Forbes and Business Sheet).

• Brothers Anil and Mukesh Ambani of India's private conglomerate Reliance lost $32.5 billion and $28.2 billion, respectively.
• Warren Buffett, the Sage of Omaha, lost $16.5 billion. Shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A) are down about 32% since the beginning of the year.
• Microsoft (NYSE: MSFT) founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen lost $12.3 billion and $2.6 billion, respectively, while CEO Steve Balmer lost $6.5 billion. Shares of Microsoft are down 46% since the beginning of the year.
• Larry Page and Sergey Brin, cofounders of Google Inc. (NYSE: GOOG), lost $11.9 billion and $11.7 billion, respectively, and CEO Eric Schmidt lost $3.8 billion. The share price of Google has fallen 55% since the beginning of the year.
• Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL), lost $8.2 billion. Shares of Oracle are down 21% since the beginning of the year.
• Media maven Sumner Redstone lost $7.2 billion. Shares of his private investment firm National Amusements fell 70% this year.

Continue reading Money losers of 2008: Billionaires who lost billions this year

Money losers of 2008: Billionaires who lost billions this year originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 24 Dec 2008 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Trillions of dollars have been introduced into the world economy since last July, when I thought it would be interesting to jump in and pick stocks prior to the carnage in the financial sector taking complete hold.

For the past eight months our government has been taking over financial institutions, absorbing debt, lowering interest rates, nationalizing some private companies, investing in others, and rebating taxes through stimulus packages to increase liquidity and spending. The Federal Reserve has essentially dropped the interest to zero.

The government was the last to announce that we are in a recession. Well, duh! However, recession or not the world is still open for business although less of it. Gold is down 30% from it's highs and oil having totally collapsed from $147 a barrel at the time of the original story to the low $30's now.

The original story was Serious Money: Tempting fate with 10 financials -- buying into a pool of financial stocks at a time when these stocks went unloved by all.

Continue reading Chasing Value: reviewing financial ruins MBI, MER, WB, WM

Chasing Value: reviewing financial ruins MBI, MER, WB, WM originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This post is part of our feature on Money Winners of 2008. See all 20.

This past year has been a pretty rough one for CEOs in general. The stock market has tanked since October of last year, dragging down strong companies' share prices to some extent and weak companies' even further. It has been even worse for most financial executives, who have been ousted as their stocks fall to roughly zero and their company goes bankrupt or is taken over by a stronger institution. While many of these CEOs have golden parachutes that open upon their dismissal, much of their compensation is in the form of the company's stock and when that value dwindles, they feel the pain as well. One of our other 2008 Money Winners, Alan Fishman, who walked away with more than $11 million for three weeks work at Washington Mutual, had 600K shares of WM that he saw evaporate.

James "Jamie" Dimon, CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), has not had this kind of trouble over the past year, which places him squarely in the minority among his peers and makes him a money winner. Strictly speaking, Mr. Dimon raked in a salary for this year of "just" $1 million. His bonus allows for an additional $14.5 million, and the way things have been going for JPM, I'd wager a hefty portion of my savings that he gets the full amount. Plus on top of that, he has exercised options worth about $40.1 million this year, bringing the grand total compensation to $55.6 million.

Continue reading Money winners of 2008: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon

Money winners of 2008: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 14 Dec 2008 17:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yesterday I wrote: The truth is that General Motors (NYSE: GM), Ford (NYSE: F) and privately held Chrysler are led by bloated egos, with cars being built by bloated unions that are now begging to be saved by a bloated government. See: Auto industry bailout: A bloated government to lead a bloated industry

Among the comments that I received yesterday Duane wrote, "Hey I got an Idea, let the oil companies bail out the auto makers...they are in bed together anyway!"

Before I could respond to Duane that his idea was not entirely mischievous and that some variation of this might have merit, someone else beat me to it, as Jerry followed with, "Right on! Bloated egos, bloated unions, poor quality, shoddy workmanship, inferior products, lack of vision, arrogance extraordinaire. BANKRUPTCY will offer a cure. bailout will foster bad behaviors. I like the idea of letting the oil companies bail out the gas guzzling car industry."

This got me thinking about the fact that the government is not likely to be any better at guiding the car companies then they have been themselves for all of the same reasons. So what else can we do? The answer is that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson should force the auto companies into bankruptcy instead of saving them and then sell them to Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM), Conoco Phillips (NYSE: COP), and Chevron Corp (NYSE: CVX).

Continue reading Auto industry bailout: Oil companies should take over!

Auto industry bailout: Oil companies should take over! originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Chasing Value: Wells Fargo is getting weird

Chasing Value: Wells Fargo is getting weird originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It's been almost a year since December 12, 2007, when Vikram Pandit took over as CEO of Citigroup (NYSE: C). His performance has been outstanding -- and not in a good way. During the last four quarters, Citi lost $20 billion. Sure Pandit has plans to fire 52,000 people and he's raised at least $45 billion from the U.S., along with guarantees on $277 billion worth of Citi's bad assets. But he botched the acquisition of Wachovia (NYSE: WB). And Citi stock has fallen 81% wiping out $138 billion in stock market value.

By contrast, John Thain, who took over as CEO from the Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) subsidiary Merrill Lynch, was far more agile as things cratered around him. Arguably, Thain had an even worse hand than Pandit when he took over Merrill Lynch because his predecessor had loaded it up with mortgage-backed securities at precisely the wrong time. But Thain could see Merrill's stock plummetting as it got trapped in a short play. And he salvaged shareholders' investment by selling to Bank of America.

Now CNBC's Charlie Gasparino reports that Pandit has about half a mistake more to make before he's out of a job. But this is not a problem for Citi shareholders as long as its board can convince Thain to leave Bank of America where he has taken on a sub-CEO role so he can get back into the big saddle at Citi. Count me among those shareholders who would be happy to see Pandit exit stage right as Thain enters.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He owns Citigroup stock and has no financial interest in the other securities mentioned.

John Thain for Citi CEO originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Citigroup (NYSE: C) is recently trading at $5.59 in pre-open trading, above its close of $4.71 Thursday. C November 5 straddle is priced at $1.18, December is at $2.83. C March option implied volatility of 187 is above its 26-week average of 67 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) is recently trading at $25 in pre open trading, above its close of $23.38 Thursday. JPM December option implied volatility of 140 is above its 26-week average of 61 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) is recently trading at $23.50 in pre-open trading, above its close of $22.53 Thursday. WFC purchase of Wachovia (NYSE: WB) for 0.1991 per share of WFC is expected to close in late 2008. WFC December option implied volatility of 137 is above its 26-week average of 60 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

Options Update: Citi, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo volatility spikes; C, JPM, WFC originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This is the third in a four part series which I hope gives buyers, sellers, shareholders and dare I say management a platform for discussion.

The most valuable asset eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) has is PayPal, the dominant internet financial transaction facilitator. When I started imagining what might happen if eBay started auctioning off its parts I envisioned that PayPal would be worth the highest premium.

I think there would be dozens of interested companies that would find it highly advantageous to acquire PayPal.

The reason eBay bought PalPal in the first place was that they had first hand experience trying to compete with it when it was a separate company, and even with its huge base of customers, eBay could not build much traction. As the old saying goes, "if you can't beat them, join them", or in this case buy them.

For starters, all of the major credit card companies would be very interested with MasterCard Inc'A' (NYSE: MA) and Visa (NYSE: V) leading the bidding and beleaguered American Express (NYSE: AXP) trying to find a way too.

Then there are the few prospering banks still left standing that would have to give this potential acquisition strong consideration. Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) which has already bought out Countrywide Financial and will soon add Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) would find this a must have. JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) has added Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) to its group of enterprises and might be best suited to expand the company given its growing resources. Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) that recently agreed to acquire Wachovia Corp (NYSE: WB) after staying on the sidelines most of the year might want PayPal, but I do not think it would pay up.

Continue reading Serious Money: eBay auction off PayPal -- create bidding war

Serious Money: eBay auction off PayPal -- create bidding war originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

From TheStreet.com Network

• GM Needs a Bailout, But It's No AIG
• AIG Gets Revamped Bailout Package

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: 'Cheap' is meaningless

Cramer on BloggingStocks: 'Cheap' is meaningless originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Market wrap: Unhealthy lifestyles rule in this screwy market

Market wrap: Unhealthy lifestyles rule in this screwy market originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Before the bell: Stocks to plunge; AAPL, YHOO, VMW, BA, MRK, WMT, MCD ...

Before the bell: Stocks to plunge; AAPL, YHOO, VMW, BA, MRK, WMT, MCD ... originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Wall Street's optimism in last week's preview about the earnings of tech stocks wasn't misplaced, as there were many more positive surprises than negative ones among the stocks we looked at. This week will bring plenty more data for investors in and watchers of the sector to mull over. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), for example, are expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial to post modest earnings gains from a year ago, to $1.11 per share (on $8.1 billion in sales), $0.72 per share (on $31.3 billion in sales), and $0.47 per share (on $14.8 billion in sales) respectively. All three of these companies ended the week closer to their 52-week lows than highs, and analysts on average consider them each a buy.

Here's a look at some of the week's biggest expected earnings gainers and decliners in the sector:

• Baidu.com Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU): $1.25 per share (+44.0%) on revenues of $134.7 million (+103.2%)
• Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM): $0.44 per share (+38.6%) on revenues of $1.3 billion (+33.8%)
• QLogic Corp. (NASDAQ: QLGC): $0.31 per share (+29.0%) on revenues of $170.0 million (+21.2%)
• FLIR Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: FLIR): $0.32 per share (+28.1%) on revenues of $275.2 million (+44.0%)
• Juniper Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: JNPR): $0.30 per share (+26.7%) on revenues of $927.4 million (+26.2%)
• Waters Corp. (NYSE: WAT): $0.75 per share (+17.3%) on revenues of $391.6 million (+11.1%)
• Flextronics International Ltd. (NASDAQ: FLEX): $0.29 per share (+17.2%) on revenues of $8.7 billion (+57.3%)
• EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC): $0.19 per share (+10.5%) on revenues of $3.7 billion (+12.9%)

Continue reading The week in preview: More hope for techs, doubt about financials

The week in preview: More hope for techs, doubt about financials originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Not that I necessarily thought the data would. Revenues from continuing operations decreased a whopping 23%, coming in at $16.7 billion. Net loss from continuing operations was $3.4 billion. This compared to a net profit of $2.1 billion in last year's similar quarter. The loss per share from continuing operations was $0.71. The big driver was, of course, a major collective write-down in the Securities and Banking category. Citigroup had to eliminate $4.4 billion of value in this area. Just about all the numbers in this report inspire no confidence. As market volatility to the downside worsens, assets under management are taking a hit. The Institutional Clients Group saw a major drop in its revenue base, diving 48%. And according to this source, this is the fourth quarterly loss for Citigroup in a row. In addition, JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) is now the largest bank in terms of assets. This major financial brand has taken quite the fall.

Citigroup is going to continue to have a tough time as the market and the consumer make their way through the credit crisis. The negative wealth effect that is surely coming (if it hasn't already arrived) will cause further deterioration in Citigroup's value. Earlier in the year, I was bullish on the company as a value play. I certainly no longer am. I see the bank's stock breaking through its 52-week low. I think the company will ultimately survive, but I can't say I'm entirely confident about anything in these days of surreality.

Disclosure: I don't own any company mentioned; positions can change at any time.

Citigroup's Q3: Par for the course, unfortunately originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The earnings crunch begins in earnest this coming week, with companies from Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) and PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE: PEP) to Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) and Harley-Davidson Inc. (NYSE: HOG) scheduled to report results for the quarter just ended. But with the ongoing turmoil in the markets, much attention is on the tech and financial sectors. This week will provide plenty to mull over on both counts.

Wall Street expectations for tech stocks are fairly optimistic. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial are looking for chip maker Altera Corp. (NASDAQ: ALTR) and software/service company iGate Corp. (NASDAQ: IGTE) to be the sector's biggest earnings gainers of the week. Altera is expected to report earnings of 30 cents per share (up 33.3% from a year ago) on revenue of $355.1 million. Altera had previously forecast flat sales for the quarter, and shares fell to a 52-week low last week. iGate is expected to report earnings of 14 cents per share (up 42.9%) on revenue of $55.6 million. India-based iGate recently spun off its Mastech consulting services. Shares are down 45.0% in the past three months, and also reached a new 52-week low last week.

San Jose-based Novellus Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: NVLS), on the other hand, is expected to report that net income tumbled 90.4% from a year ago to 4 cents per share, on revenue of $245.6 million. Novellus fell to a 52-week low early last week, and shares are down 44.5% year to date.

Continue reading The week in preview: Mulling over techs, financials

The week in preview: Mulling over techs, financials originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 12 Oct 2008 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Buy Procter, General Mills all the way down

Cramer on BloggingStocks: Buy Procter, General Mills all the way down originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Citigroup (NYSE: C) has dropped out of the bidding for damaged bank Wachovia (NYSE: WB). It may be glad it did. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) won the battle for Wachovia Corp. as rival suitor Citigroup Inc. walked away from compromise negotiations because of worries about the quality of some of Wachovia's assets."

Citi wanted the FDIC to put a safety net under the value of some of Wachovia's assets. Investors and analysts viewed the Wells Fargo bid as better because it valued Wachovia's share price at a higher level and did not involve any government guarantees at all.

The lack of government guarantees and the likelihood that Wachovia's balance sheet is getting worse each day could cause Wells Fargo to pass on a buyout just as Citi did. In a credit crisis as severe as this one, it is almost certain that the value of bank assets is dropping due to mortgage-backed paper and weak loans. Wachovia has been viewed as having a balance sheet that is worse than any other large American banks. That would make it likely that its situation has gone from being troubled to being desperate.

At this point, the odds have to be 50/50 that Well Fargo will either disappear or sharply drop the value of its offer.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com

Could Wells Fargo buyout of Wachovia fail? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Before the bell: Stocks to plunge; GE, MS, C, WB, WFC, GM, F, AIG, AAPL, RIMM

Before the bell: Stocks to plunge; GE, MS, C, WB, WFC, GM, F, AIG, AAPL, RIMM originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.