Archive for the 'Rants and Raves' Category
Dow below 12,000 — do I assemble out 11,000? Yes I do!
Earlier in the week I posted about finding the market bottom using that age-old handheld calculator, a white paper serviette. So, unfortunately it looks like I may be right again. Not precisely something I was hoping for, but whether it has to be, it has to be. I wonder whether my old serviette…
What’s going on by at eBay?
These are definitely some interesting times for e-commerce mega site eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY). In the past few weeks, the site has been under attack from some of its sellers who have launched a strike against the site in response to recent changes. While eBay denies any affect from the strike, t…
Suburban slums — city centers being revitalized
An extensive report in the Atlantic that concludes many suburban developments may turn into slums discusses the role reversal occurring within the city centers and their outlying communities. They attribute a wide range of factors main to that conclusion. These include a shift in demographics …
CEO Saviors? — DELL, SBUX, YHOO, now MBI
When things are not going as planned and you start to reminisce about the good ‘ole days, what better tactic than to reintroduce the old CEO for a moment tour of duty.
When Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) dumped Terry Semel, founder Jerry Yang took by the top spot again only to languish in the same mur…
Yale’s top investor bashes Jim Cramer
David Swensen has led Yale’s endowment to phenomenal results since taking charge in 1988. According to the New York Times, his advice for individual investors is simple: “use index funds, exchange-traded funds and other low-cost instruments, and stick to your long-term asset allocation — even when …
Serious Money: AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, ISRG — at what Price?
We spend a considerable amount of moment trying to figure out where value lies in the market. A lot of final years’ favorite high flyers have come back down to soil. Some of them are starting to resemble bank stocks. However, I have read nothing of Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) dabbling in sub-prim…
Delta should merge with Yellow Cab
With the news of impending M&A in the airline industry, based on my flight yesterday with Delta Air Lines Inc. (NYSE: DAL), the merger should be with Yellow Cab.
I was on a flight from JFK to Seattle, and the plane had finished boarding 10 minutes prior to takeoff when a flight attendant …
American debt and the Great Chinese intellect-Bender
Someone might want to explain that to me considering it defies nearly all palatable logic that I can apply to it. I read earlier that week that China carries a large debt portfolio and that about 70% of it is American debt. Additionally, China is buying up American debt at break-neck speed, whil…
American spending drops like a stone
I’m not certain why the story in today’s New York Times seems like such a surprise to everyone, The Times headline screams, “Americans Cut Back Sharply on Spending.” I’ve been expecting it ever since the subprime mortgage mess started to hit the news in the middle of final year. public have been…
Media World: Why Bill O’Reilly stuck up for Hillary Clinton
My media world makes no sense anymore.
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, the symbol to liberals of all that’s evil, rushed to the defense of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton after Chris Matthews of MSNBC pointed out that she owed her political position to the fact that her husband “messed…
GM voluntarily reports 2007 political contributions
General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) reached a milestone of corporate governance that month, as it released its first-ever contribution list to section 527 organizations. In essence, political influence dollars. GM apparently wants to further its efforts toward making corporate transparency for its s…
Consumer credit numbers prove we’re not scared yet
Consumers are still willing to run their lives based on credit, so says an Associated Press report. Consumer borrowing increased at an annual rate of 7.4% in November compared to an increase of just 1% in October - ah yes, the faux magic of a consumerist Christmas.
The truth of the matter res…
Hey Roger, “there’s no crying in baseball” or the stock market
Every duration I see a “grown up” going through what Roger Clemens is going through with his own personal doping scandal and the incrimination of the Mitchell report, I cannot help but think of the first rule of holes: whether you’re in one, stop digging. Yesterday Hillary was crying, and Roger has …
Hillary gets all choked up, creating a Republican sound bite
Some of you may view presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s getting all choked up about her passion for the fate of the nation as making her more human, more real, and less like a stiff politician. I, on the other hand think, she gave it all absent. She may have lost ground to Barack Obama in the …
