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Bud's Poem Page Sunni/Shiite/Iraq/Iran |
27 February 2008We are going to Asian markets were higher
Wednesday but European bourse indexes are under pressure at It was no surprise but Fannie Mae says it lost $3.6 billion in
the fourth quarter as home-loan delinquencies mounted. It also expects more
losses this year. Fannie Mae is the largest FNM opened at $25 down $2 then
jumped to $29 as shorts scrambled to cover on the supposedly positive news. We took
the opportunity to sell the shares we owned for a plus scratch at $29.25. We were
happy to sell at that price after being down $4 per share at the opening this
morning.
Investors Intelligence has 42% bulls versus 41% the week before but
interestingly bears have jumped to 37% from 33%.
In the perspective department, it has been reported that Citi’s
proprietary trading desk (the banks money) lost over $100 million in one days
trading on fifteen separate occasions in 2007.
The The major stocks measures opened
down about ¾ of 1% on Wednesday morning and reversed rapidly to the upside when
the FNM larger mortgage news was reported.
The rally is getting old in the tooth and to raise cash we are trading out of BMY, GE and We are left with a concentration in tech CSCO, INTC, SYMC, BRCM, DELL. And there are the stocks we are hoping to hold for the long pull- UNFI, GM, F, TLB, CWTR, S and CAB. DELL announces sales and earnings Thursday (tomorrow) night. Last quarter the street didn’t like the
earnings and the shares dropped precipitously. The action after this
announcement will be interesting.
Retail earnings announcements
begin in earnest next week.
European bourses indexes closed fractionally
lower as did The DJIA closed up 10 points at 12695. The S&P 500 lost 2 points to 1380 and the NAZZ gained 9 points to 2353 as Google and Apple closed higher for the first time in four days. Breadth was 5/4 negative and volume was moderate. New lows exceeded new highs by 10 on the NYSE and 30 on the NAZZ. Today was a tie between the bulls and bears.
26 February 2008Thoughts Asian markets were higher overnight
as are European bourse at Producer Price Index for January up 1% and core PPI was up 0.4%.Year
over year PPI up 7.4%. Core PPI was up 2.4% year over year. Inflation is in the
number.
Google is down another $15 this morning in the pre-opening as the
momentum boys and girls look for greener pastures. The trading gurus we read
are suggesting that the momentum kids are moving to commodity and ag stocks with their GOOG money.
A financial blog we read
yesterday reinforced thoughts we had been having that the rating agencies
didn’t predict that MBIA and AMBAC were going to get in trouble from
insuring CDOs and SIVs so why should anyone trust their judgments now. That is
an excellent rhetorical question and the answer is that this market is certainly
an emperor’s clothes market. The
market sees what it wants to see when it wants to see it. And we aren’t
complaining about the rally that has occurred because of the markets myopia.
But to use a tired metaphor this rally may be built on a house of cards.
Deutsche Bank downgraded GM this morning but kept Ford as a buy. DB is worried about GM’s
49% ownership of GMAC. We don’t see that as a problem. More folks are
downgrading Fannie.
Google and Apple are now
down enough (35% and 45% respectively) from their highs that December/January
margin buyers are in trouble. Also with the absence of the downtick rule the
hedge fund shorts smell blood and are piling in.
With the pullback this morning in stocks we are adding Broadcom to many accounts. BRCM makes chips
and stuff for the cell phone industry and has delayed the introduction of a new
type of chip. That has caused earnings to flounder and the share price to be
cut in half in the last six months. With $4 per share in cash and no debt and
selling at $19.50 we think it is a good if volatile addition. We are intent on concentrating
on the tech sector since we think it offers value and positive risk/reward.
Shares in chip maker Broadcom Corp. hit a long-term low Tuesday
February 19 as a UBS analyst saw delays in the company's new cell phone chips. Analyst
Uche Orji said recent checks suggested that the company's expected gain in
making chips for Nokia cell phones may not kick in until the second quarter of
2009, and not in 2008 as the market initially believed. Orji lowered his price
target to $35.50 from $39. In a separate note, Orji predicted that the company
would make gains against In keeping with our tech theme we are going to sell Pfizer for a plus scratch and buy an
equal amount of Symantec. That
raises a bit of cash to offset somewhat offset the BRCM purchase.
Oil tops $10 at We bought small of Cabella’s,
Chico Fas and Liz Claiborne in our large/aggressive accounts. We sold the Blackstone we bought yesterday for a quick
$1 per share gain. It was an anchovy. And we sold at $36.75 the initial purchase
of Verizon that we bought at $36.67.
That leaves us with a good holding of VZ at the $34 level. We also are selling AT&T for a scratch to $2 per share
profit. Both stocks are 10% higher than their lows of two weeks ago. The sales
raise cash in accounts which is prudent given the sharp three day rally.
With the rally this morning the
S&P 500 and the DJIA are now higher on the month. The two stock measures
have not posted a monthly gain since October.
Gold reversed its early morning
drop to gain $12 and close at $962. Oil closed at $100.93. Treasuries firmed
and the two-year closed at 2.04% and the ten-year at 3.87%.
European bourse indexes closed 1%
to 2% higher across the continent as did The DJIA closed up 115 points at
12685. The S&P 500 gained 10 points to finish at 1382 and the NAZZ jumped
18 points to 2345.
Breadth was over 2/1 positive and
volume was moderate.
New highs crossed new lows on the
NYSE (92/65) but were still in the minority (65/85) on the NAZZ.
The bulls won the day and are now even for the month.
Last Friday we commented that the
bears won the week. Actually the major market measures were higher on the week
because of Friday’s late afternoon rally. By the by, the NAZZ is down 13% year
to date and the S&P 500 is down 8% with the DJIA down 7% as the trading
week begins.
Asian markets were higher
overnight except Genentech received approval to sell Avastin for late stage breast cancer and the shares are 10% higher.
The WSJ has a negative front page
article on Goldman Sachs and there
hasn’t been an announcement on the AMBAC
deal that was rumored Friday and was the catalyst for the last half hour rally.
The news on GS and the lack of news also are negatively impacting the financial
stocks.
Lowe’s reported disappointing earnings but the stocks are trading
higher after opening lower as the retailers being to report their sorry tales
for their year end 2007.
Existing-home sales fell for the
sixth month in a row during January. Home re-sales fell to a 4.89 million
annual rate, a 0.4% decrease from December's revised 4.91 million annual pace,
the National Association of Realtors said. The median home price was $201,100
in January, down 4.6% from $210,900 in January 2007. The median price in
December was $207,000.
Many European bourse indexes
closed over 1.5% higher on Monday. We sold Tiffany
when it popped $1.60 on takeover rumors. Our guess is that retailers are not
going to be taken over during a recession. Since we bought it as an anchovy we are going to sell for a
trading gain.
With Goldman Sachs placing a sell on Fannie and Freddie
to go with Mother Merrill’s sale advice on Friday we decided not to be heroes
and eliminated our FRE holding for a
scratch gain in our large accounts. We are keeping our FNM holding for now at least.
We are replacing the FRE with Blackstone Group. BX is the famous IPO of last year of the buyout
firm. BX is currently priced at half
its IPO price and 60% off its high. Since Blackstone is perceived to be
connected to the sub prime stuff. Although they deny it we view it as another
back door way to play the financials.
Gold ended down $7 at $940. Oil
touched $110 in the morning trade but finished at $99.20 up 40 pennies.
Treasuries gave a bit of ground with the two-year closing at 2.12% and the
ten-year at 3.91%.
Google has been trading under $500 all day and Goldman has also been down all day. Apple is off $3 at $117 and acting like it is heading to $100. The
failure of these mo-mo stocks is necessary to get a bottom. That they are
failing with the overall market measures holding is confounding but positive.
S&P made positive comments about MBIA and AMBAC at Dell reports sales and earnings
Thursday night. At its current price, Dell
is trading at 7 times enterprise-value (EV) to four-quarter trailing cash from
operations, and 8 times EV to free-cash-flow. Balance sheet cash has grown from
$8 billion in October '06 to over $12 billion as of Oct '07, or $5.50 per
share.
The DJIA closed up 190 points at
12570 continuing Friday’s recovery. The S&P 500 rose 19 points to 1372 and
the NAZZ gained 25 points to 2330. Apple closed up and Goldman Sachs rallied
back to almost unchanged but Google closed on its low at $486 down $14 on the
day.
Breadth was 2/1 positive but
volume was only moderate so the bears are still in the game.
There were 80 new lows on the
NYSE and 75 new highs.
The bulls won the day.
Asian markets ended Friday lower
with Motorola has replaced its finance chief. Paul Liska succeeds Tom
Meredith, the director who served as interim financial chief and won plaudits
from Wall Street for helping Motorola make better use of its ample cash while
its main cell phone business plummeted.
We are wondering whether the
better use of the ample cash that won Wall Street plaudits may soon lead to a write-down
for investing in SIVs and CDOs. Just wondering.
Mother is not being nice. Merrill Lynch cut Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
to sell from neutrals. This is after both stocks are already down 60% ($40) from
their 52 week highs of $70.
It’s snowing in NYC so that means
the world is at a standstill. It is sort of like rain in Down is up. The December Producer Price Index, PPI, was adjusted
from down 0.1% to up 0.3%. And November was adjusted from up 0.4% to up 0.3%.
These adjustments are the result of the
revising of season adjustment factors which are used to make the numbers
meaningless. There was a lot of trading that occurred because of that negative
number in December and there are no re-dos in the trading.
United Natural Foods cut its profit target for the year on
Thursday, saying the benefits from buying a competitor are materializing more
slowly than expected. United Natural Foods now expects to earn $1.12 per share
to $1.14 per share for the year, versus the previous forecast for profit of
$1.40 per share to $1.45 per share. United Natural bought Millbrook
Distribution in early December. Based in On that news a Piper Jaffrey
analyst went from buy to neutral on the shares and they are down $7 in trading
today. We are using the
collapse to re-establish position in the stock at $17.50 which we sold at $24.60
a few weeks ago. The shares may go lower but we our comfortable owning the
stock at these levels which are 50% below the 52 week high and at a four
year low. As the press release reported UNFI expects sales growth of 20% over
the next year. Earnings will come around and the shares are priced at 14 times
2007’s disappointing earnings.
United Natural Foods distributes
natural and organic foods, and related products in the We have stocks that we are watching in addition to the
stocks we own and as news on individual companies and/or the markets as a whole
cause stocks to sell off as with UNFI this morning we are going to use the drops
to establish or add to positions. As we have been saying, the problems in the
economy are known and are being dealt with in some manner. It may not be a
manner which works initially but eventually the pendulum gets extended and
begins swinging in the opposite direction. In market miasmas such as the
present we can only look for values and buy them and keep a
cash position on hand for security and buying power.
Apple hit $205 in mid December.
Today it is trading at $118. That is called a correction from a parabolic rise. Shares in chip maker Broadcom hit a long-term low Tuesday as
a UBS analyst saw delays in the company's new cell phone chips. Analyst Uche
Orji said recent checks suggested that the company's expected gain in making
chips for Nokia cell phones may not kick in until the second quarter of 2009,
and not in 2008 as the market initially believed. Orji lowered his price target
to $35.50 from $39. In a separate note, Orji predicted that the company would
make gains against Texas Instruments in the wireless chip market. Broadcom's
production delays only postponed the inevitable, he said.
Broadcom shares fell $1.04, or
5.2 percent, to $18.96. Earlier in the day, shares hit $18.91, their lowest
point in almost three years. BRCM has $4 per share in cash and no debt on the
books and is down from a 52 week high of $44.
With the shares at $18.90 we are buying small amount on
our large accounts. If you wish to know
how nutty things were in 2000 we observe that BRCM sold at a price of $180 in
March of that year. We also added Freddie
Mac, Microsoft and Tiffany to
those accounts.
We would like to re-purchase MSFT
in more accounts but we don’t have a handle on what the Yahoo imbroglio means
to the intermediate term share price.
Google finally broke $500 to the downside this afternoon. The
momentum stocks are breaking down with GOOG off 33% from its high and AAPL down 40% from its high. We don’t
know what a proper valuation is for either of those stocks but AAPL is back to
24 times growing earnings and GOOG is at 30 times growing earnings so at least
the share prices are more reasonable at these levels but probably still not low
enough to tempt value investors.
First Solar is nuttily overpriced at $210 which is 100 times earnings
and up from its 52 week low of $50. FSLR is down from $280 but still needs to
get under $100 per share to show that the mo-mo traders have been broken. The
momentum traders need to surrender before a bottom can occur. (See our BRCM
2000 comment above)
European bourses closed lower on
Friday. Oil ended at $99 up 80 pennies
and Gold lost $3 to $946. Treasuries dropped as sotcjks
rallied into the close with the two-year ending at week at 2.06% and the
ten-year was 3.81%.
Standard and Poor's Ratings
Services cut its rating for GMAC Financial Services, saying steep losses at the
lender's mortgage arm are hurting the rest of the company's business.
S&P downgraded GMAC's credit
to "B" from "BB+." The new rating implies GMAC's credit is
"highly speculative," compared with the previous rating of
"non-investment grade." GMAC lost $2.3 billion last year because of
massive losses at ResCap, the company's mortgage business. ResCap recognized
steep losses on mortgage debt as flagging home prices forced a spike in unpaid
home loans. GMAC also announced plans this week to combine 20 offices in S&P emphasized that its rating for GM, which sold a 51 percent
stake in GMAC to Cerberus Capital Management last year, was not affected by the
cut.
CNBC is reporting that a deal to
rescue AMBNAC will be announced on Monday or Tuesday. That has given a bid to
stocks in the last half hour of trading. Coincidence?
The DJIA rallied from down 125
points at We’ll call it the CNBC Friday
Feel Good from Charlie Gasparino rally.
Breadth was 2/1 negative at New lows expanded to 150 on the
NYSE and 210 on the NAZZ on the morning sell off.
The bulls won the day in the final half hour with the major
measures closing positive and internals moving to neutral from very negative. For the week the bears remain in
control.
Asian markets were higher
overnight and European bourses are also up over 1% at Jobless claims were as expected
at 349,000.
Contraction in U.S. Mid-Atlantic
factory production accelerated in February as manufacturers pulled back in
anticipation of an economic downturn, according to the Philadelphia Federal
Reserve. The regional central bank said Thursday its business activity index
stood at minus 24.0 this month, down from an already weak minus 20.9 in
January, which had been its worst reading since the 2001 recession, and well
below forecasts.
Two hours into the trading day
and the rally has faded with the major measures now all lower.
We wrote the
following in answer to a client’s questioning of our recent trading: Thanks for the comments. We know that the double dose of
the accounts dropping in value coupled with the lousy real estate market is a
strain. And we too are adjusting to the fact that for the first
time since 1990 we missed avoiding a large down move in the markets. That we are not alone in having surrendered gains this
year is small comfort since we have been proud of the fact that for the most
part in our career we have been able to avoid losses in uncertain markets. The in and out trading we are doing
is similar to the trading we were doing
in the uncertain markets of 2000 to 2003. The difference is that then we
avoided the down turn and traded the minor rallies to our advantage. Because we
avoided the downturn in those years by trading, we think clients were not as
aware of the trading we were doing then as they are now when our usual year end
trading was the cause of our not avoiding the downturn. But as in 2000 to 2003 we think the willingness to react
by trading is a necessary component of surviving. We don't know what is out
there. Because of low commission and the penny spreads on stocks buying and
selling and moving in/out of stocks as the spirit moves us is easy and
relatively cheap to do. If these were normal times we would say that the
financial press is blowing smoke as it sometimes does such as when it predicted
the demise of IBM in the mid 1990s. But when large firms like Citi and Mother
Merrill can get it so wrong we have to be cautious. We do own a few stocks like Talbot's and Sprint that
we have decided to keep positions in no matter what because they have 5 times
the upside from these levels as downside. And we would like to own Cisco and GE and those types of stocks when the recession/market collapse
ends but we are treating the Ciscos as anchovies
as we adjust our market exposure. we have also taken on a few stocks with 4%
dividend yields (T, VZ, BMY, PFE) and our hope
is to hold them unless we realize a better than dividend yield trading profit
from them in the minor market moves we are trying to take advantage of while
the malaise runs its course. The desire to make back what we lost and earn some money
is juxtaposed against our distrust of the folks who have so screwed things up.
The financial system is the backbone of our economy and the folks running it
have for the most part botched it and sapped or confidence in it. We don't know the timing of what the future holds but
unless we are the Roman Empire in 400 AD we would guess that time of uncertain
length will eventually provide the opportunity to recover our losses and return
to positive results. We are comfortable with our present holdings and market
exposure. We are walking a fine line between minimizing risk and growing
account values. We will survive the turmoil but willingness to trade is core to
our strategy. Oil ended down $1.74 at $97.96.
Gold gained $10 to $948. Treasuries firmed as stocks sank and all maturities
closed higher on the day with the two-year at 1.98% after trading at 2.08%
earlier in the day.
On November 15 Google was at
$750. Today it closed at $500.
The DJIA tanked in the last hour
to close down 150 points on the day at 12280.
The S&P 500 lost 18 points to end at 1342 and the NAZZ dropped 27
points to 2300.
Breadth was more than 2/1
negative and volume was light.
There 75 new lows on the NYSE and
120 new lows on the NAZZ.
The bears are back.
An inflationary CPI number when
traders think the Fed needs to keep cutting ahs the major market measures down
1% in futures trading before the opening. Gold has backed off $4 and Oil is
trading with a $99 handle as Treasuries rise in yield. Stagflation seems to be
in the air and the bears are on the prowl.
Hewlett Packard announced very
good numbers last night but that good news for bulls has been lost in the
morning push lower.
January CPI was up 0.4%
and year over year it was up 4.3%. Core CPI was up 0.3% in January and 2.4%
year over year. Traders are guessing that the Fed is not going to like those
numbers.
Investors Intelligence ahs
bulls rising to 41% form 37% and bears falling to 33% form 36% in the latest
week.
Asian markets were down 2% to 3%
overnight and many European bourse indexes are over 1% lower at midday.
In the Oops Department:
Credit Suisse on
Tuesday when it announced that pricing errors by traders on
asset-backed securities would result in write-downs of $2.85 billion. The
write-downs, which will knock $1 billion from first-quarter earnings, come a
week after Credit Suisse announced fourth-quarter results that indicated that
it had been relatively unscathed by the turmoil in the credit markets and had
limited exposure to the sub-prime crisis, which has caused large losses at
other banks. The chief executive of Credit Suisse, Brady W. Dougan,
described the mispricings as “very disappointing,”
but said they most likely were “an isolated incidence.” The mispricings
came to light last week during a review as part of a $2 billion bond sale. The
traders involved have been suspended. Mr. Dougan said
an internal review would determine how much of the write-downs were linked to
the pricing errors and how much was a result of deterioration in the credit
market. The bank is also reviewing whether it may need to restate its 2007
results.
Another reason for the morning
sell off:
KKR Financial Holdings, a
publicly traded affiliate of buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis
Roberts, has delayed repayments to some of its short-term debt holders and will
try to restructure the agreement that governs the instruments. Shares of KKR
Financial were sinking 18% to $11.90 in pre-market trading Wednesday. KKR
Financial, a specialty-finance company, said in a filing with the SEC
that it has asked for more time to make payments to holders of the non-recourse
secured liquidity notes that were issued by two of its asset-backed conduit
facilities.
With
AT&T and Verizon both down over $5
per share in the last two days we are adding more shares to accounts. The
yields on these two stocks are 4.3% and 5% respectively and a Credit Suisse
analyst changed the rating to neutral this morning on the stocks from
overweight which is part of the reason for the further drop. Moreover all the naysayers are coming out of the woodwork to explain how
these two companies are going to lose their hold on the American public the
same way NTT DiComo did in Japan. They and the analyst are wrong.
The
trader thinking is that the slowing economy and price wars are going to inhibit
earnings growth at these companies. We think that most folks view cell phones
as a necessity and not a luxury and while there may be some short term effect
from the recession these two companies at these prices- which are 30% below
three month ago highs- are attractive. AT&T and Verizon
have the best nationwide coverage and that is why folks use their phones. We
are happy to have the chance to get back into VZ after it ran away from us to
the upside when we were trading it over the past two years.
We
are also adding Bristol Myers with a 5% yield and Pfizer with a
5.55 yield to accounts.
To
fund these purchases we are selling the SPDR Retail for a negative
scratch and the SPDR Tech for a 60 pennies loss. The XLK was a 10%
position so the 60 pennies amounts to dollars but the stocks we are adding are
down more on a gross basis in the last two days than the gross loss on the XLK
in each account.
In the Fed minutes released today
the Fed stated that it hoped decisive interest rate action would ease concerns.
The minutes also disclosed that there was a previously unreported conference
call on January 9.
At 1pm stocks are in positive
territory as today’s market activity ad movement mirrors yesterdays’ action.
Federal Reserve officials cut
their forecasts for economic growth this year by about a half
percentage point and raised unemployment projections after the housing
recession and financial-market turmoil deepened. Fed policy makers now expect
U.S. gross domestic product to increase by 1.3 percent to 2 percent in 2008,
compared with the 1.8 percent to 2.5 percent they predicted in October. The
fourth-quarter jobless rate will be between 5.2 percent and 5.3 percent, up
from a range of 4.8 percent to 4.9 percent in the last forecast.
The estimates, a median range of
projections by governors and regional-bank presidents, informed the Federal
Open Market Committee's decisions to lower interest rates twice last month in
the fastest easing of monetary policy in two decades. The quarterly forecasts
were released today as an addendum to minutes of the Fed's Jan. 29-30 meeting
in Washington.
Inflation, excluding food and
energy, will run at 2.2 percent this year, compared with 1.7 percent to 1.9
percent projected in October. Total consumer prices will rise by 2.1 percent to
2.4 percent; the FOMC projected an increase of 1.8 percent to 2.1 percent three
months earlier.
Oil touched $101 and closed at
$100.75. Gold gained $13 to $943. Treasuries were flat and European bourse
indexes closed negative by over 1% on the day as trading on the continent ended
before the U.S. markets rallied. Mexico and Brazil were open longer and closed
over 1% higher.
The DJIA gained 90 points to
finish at 12430. The S&P 500 gained 12 points to 1360 and the NAZZ regained
the 20 points it lost yesterday to close at 2330.
Breadth was 2/1 positive and
volume was about the same as yesterday.
There were 90 new lows on the
NYSE and 150 new lows on the NAZZ made during the mornings drop.
The
bulls finally won a day.
There is no obvious reason for
the pop higher this morning. A catalyst may be that Wal-Mart reported better than expected earnings. Foreign markets
were higher on Monday and Tuesday so there may be a catch up factor involved.
Bill Gates said that Microsoft will not raise its $31 bid
for Yahoo.
Verizon is offering unlimited After opening 150 points higher
the DJIA is giving back its gains and at the
two hours mark the DJIA is up 50 points with 5/4 breadth after being 3/1
to the good in the first half our of trading.
We are using the pullback to re-establish positions in Cisco, Intel, GE, and Dell in the accounts in which we bought
GM last week. We are also buying a position in Fannie Mae (FNM) which
is down from $76 to $29 and is yielding 4.2%. With its implicit government
guarantee FNM is a more cautious way to trade the banking/mortgage imbroglio.
Finally, we are also buying the SPDR
Retail Trust (XRT) in these
accounts.
Because we are returning to individual stocks that we
want to hold/trade we are going to replenish our cash by selling our SPDR Financial (XLF) for a scratch.
European bourses closed mostly
higher. Oil ended at $100.20 up $4.40.
Gold gained $24 to $930. Treasuries were lower in price with the two-year back
up at 2.03% and the ten-year at 3.87%.
Entering the final hour of
trading stocks have surrendered all their gains and the major measures are
negative. A lower close will not be a happy occurrence for bulls.
At the bell the DJIA was down 12
points at 12335. The S&P 500 was down 2 points at 1348 and the NAZZ lost 15
points to 2306 as Google was down $20
on the day, First Solar dropped $8
and Apple lost $3 among the momentum
names.
Breadth was 5/4 positive on the NYSE
and 5/4 negative on the NAZZ and volume was moderate.
New lows were 85 on the NYSE and
130 on the NAZZ.
The bears won the day.
Markets are closed Monday for the Presidents Day Holiday. This morning the bad news is in control
with the Empire State Manufacturing
Index which measures manufacturing in the With that news the major market
measures are trading down 1% in pre market futures trading. Best Buy lowered guidance because of
slow January traffic and since that is the premier electronics retailer slowing
news is affecting the markets negatively. Today looks like a bad news is bad news day.
OPEC is suggesting that it may
cut production since there is a surplus of oil in the system because of slowing
economic activity. So of course oil prices are rising this morning. We have
been saying all along that there is plenty of oil in the system and that 20% of
the price of oil right now is due to speculative activity by traders and not
real economic pricing. Oil prices rising when OPEC says there is a surplus is
an example of what we are suggesting.
Citi calling the kettle black is warning that UBS may have to write
down an additional $19 billion on top of the $12 billion it announced
yesterday.
Citigroup has barred investors in one of its hedge funds from
withdrawing their money, another black eye for the financial behemoth's
troubled foray into new types of investments. Citigroup suspended redemptions in CSO Partners, a fund
specializing in corporate debt, after investors tried to yank more than 30% of
the fund's roughly $500 million in assets. To stabilize the fund, which had an
11% loss last year, Citigroup last month injected $100
million. The fund's longtime manager, John Pickett, has left, following a
bitter dispute with Citigroup executives and complaints from investors that he
put too much money into a single investment that went bad. Alternative-investment
products such as hedge funds are a relatively small business for Citigroup,
which has about $2.4 trillion in assets. Citigroup's more than 80 alternative
products held $61.9 billion in assets as of Sept. 30, of which about $11.5
billion represented Citigroup's own capital. Still, the turmoil at CSO Partners
is an embarrassment as Citigroup tries to dig out from billions of dollars of
losses on mortgage-related investments. Citigroup's new chief executive, Vikram Pandit briefly ran the alternative-investments group, and some of the funds he
oversaw have been struggling. A large Citigroup hedge fund called Falcon
Strategies suffered a 30% decline last year as its bets on the credit markets
backfired. Old Lane Partners, a hedge fund now run by Citigroup that was
founded by Mr. Pandit and other former Morgan Stanley executives, has shown
lackluster performance, posting a 1.8% loss in January. As hedge funds boomed
earlier this decade, investment banks sought to get a piece of the action. They
bought stakes in existing funds and started some of their own. They hoped to
grab some of the cash pouring into these funds from large institutions -- and
rake in lucrative management fees. Investments banks also wanted in-house
alternative-investment products to offer to their wealthy individual clients.
Intel was weak yesterday after Goldman Sachs removed it from its
buy list saying that chip sales might be slowing in the economy.
Paul Krugman on Auction rate securities from the NYT:
A decade ago, during the last
global financial crisis, the word on everyone’s lips was “contagion.” Troubles
that began in a far-away country of which most people knew nothing ( Today, we’re witnessing another
kind of contagion, not so much across countries as across markets. Troubles
that began a little over a year ago in an obscure corner of the financial
system, BBB-minus sub prime-mortgage-backed securities, have spread to
corporate bonds, auto loans, credit cards and now — the latest casualty —
student loans.
Indeed, this week the state of Why has a crisis that began with
loans to a limited group of home buyers ended up disrupting so much of the
financial system? Because, ultimately, it’s more than a subprime
crisis; indeed, it’s more than a housing crisis. It’s a crisis of faith.
I know that sounds dramatic. But,
let me talk about what just happened to auction-rate securities.
Like many of the financial
innovations that are now being called into question, auction-rate securities
are complicated deals that seemed to offer something for nothing.
They seemed to offer the
borrowers — typically local governments or quasi-governmental agencies, like
the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Michigan Higher Education
Student Loan Authority — a way to borrow long term without paying the
relatively high interest rates investors usually demand on long-term loans.
At the same time, they seemed to
offer investors an asset that was as good as cash — readily available whenever
needed — but paid higher interest rates than bank deposits.
The operative word in all of
this, of course, is “seemed.”
Auction-rate securities seemed as
good as cash because they involve regular, well, auctions, held as often as
once a week, in which investors wanting out sell their positions to investors
wanting in. In principle, it was always possible for auctions to fail for lack
of enough willing buyers — but that wasn’t ever supposed to happen.
Meanwhile, these securities
seemed like a good deal for borrowers despite the fact that they contain a
penalty clause: if an auction fails, the interest rate the borrower pays jumps
up. (The Port Authority, which had a failed auction last week, just saw the
interest rate it pays leap from 4.3 percent to 20 percent.) You see, there
weren’t ever supposed to be failed auctions, so the penalties weren’t supposed
to be relevant.
Now, what wasn’t ever supposed to
happen has. In the last few weeks, a series of
auctions have failed, leaving investors who thought they had ready access to
their cash stuck, even as borrowers find themselves paying penalty rates.
The collapse of the auction-rate
security market doesn’t reflect newly discovered problems with the borrowers:
the Port Authority is as financially sound today as it was a month ago.
Instead, it’s contagion from the broader credit crisis.
One channel of contagion involves
monoline bond insurers, the specialized insurance companies that are supposed
to guarantee debt. These companies insured buyers of local government debt
against losses — but they also guaranteed a lot of sub prime-related
investments, which makes everyone wonder whether they’ll actually have the
money to compensate losers in other markets.
More important, however, is the
way the ever-widening financial crisis has shaken investors’ faith in the whole
system. People no longer trust assurances that fancy financial instruments will
function the way they’re supposed to — after all, they know what happened to
people who thought their sub prime-backed securities were safe, AAA-rated
investments. Why, then, should they believe that auction-rate securities are as
good as cash?
And loss of trust can be a
self-fulfilling prophecy. Now that new investors won’t buy auction-rate
securities because they no longer believe that they’re as good as cash, those
securities become a much worse investment.
Needless to say, all of this is
bad for the economy. I like to think of what’s happening as a sort of minor-key
reprise of the banking crisis that swept One simple measure of the
seriousness of the credit problem is this: although the Federal Reserve has
sharply cut the interest rate it controls over the past few weeks, the
borrowing costs facing many companies and households have actually gone up.
And the financial contagion is
still spreading. What market is next?
European bourse indexes closed
over 1% lowed across the continent. Oil closed up 26 pennies at $95.72.
Gold dropped $4 to $902 and treasuries were flat on the short end a bit better
on the long end with the two year at 1.92% and the ten-year at 3.77%.
The DJIA closed down 25 points at
12350. The S&P 500 was up 1 point at
1350 and the NAZZ dropped 10 points to 2322.
Breadth was 2/1 negative and
volume was moderate for an options expiration day.
New lows expanded a bit with 120
on the NYSE and 140 on the NAZZ.
The bears remain in control.
Asian markets were very strong
overnight with Jobless claims were down 10,000 to 348,000.
From Bloomberg:
UBS the large investment bank/broker won't buy auction-rate
securities that fail to attract enough bidders, joining a growing number of
dealers stepping back from the $300 billion market, said a person with direct
knowledge of the situation.
The second-biggest underwriter of
the securities, whose rates are reset periodically at auctions, notified its
8,200 Bank of America Corp. estimated
in a report that 80 percent of all auctions of bonds sold by cities, hospitals
and student loan agencies were unsuccessful yesterday. That may mean as much as
$20 billion of bonds failed to find buyers, based on the $15 billion to $25
billion of auction-rate bonds that are scheduled for bidding daily.
Auctions are failing as
confidence in the creditworthiness of insurers backing the securities wanes,
and as loss-plagued banks seek to avoid tying up their capital. More than 129
auctions failed yesterday.
UBS was the second-biggest
underwriter of municipal auction-rate debt after Citigroup in 2006 according to
Thomson Financial. UBS posted a $12 billion write-down today and said $30
billion of other sub prime mortgage stuff that isn’t doing so well either.
Auction bonds have interest rates
that are determined by bidding that typically occurs every seven, 28 or 35
days. When there aren't enough buyers, the auction fails and bondholders who wanted
to sell are left holding the securities. Rates at failed auctions are set at a
level spelled out in official statements issued at the initial bond sale.
Until recently, UBS and other
banks that collect fees for running auctions have stepped in with their capital
to prevent failures when bidding falters. These firms have grown unwilling to
commit their money to auction-rate securities after suffering at least $133
billion in credit losses and mortgage write downs stemming from the sub prime
mortgage collapse.
Auctions began stumbling three
weeks ago when banks failed to drum up enough demand for auction rate bonds
sold by borrowers including The failures show the widening
impact of the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble, which has caused rising
defaults on home loans and threatened the credit ratings of the insurance
companies that guaranteed structured securities -- such as collateralized debt
obligations tied to mortgages -- against default. The waning strength of some
bond insurers has caused investors to trim their exposure to debt backed by
companies such as Ambac Financial Group Inc.'s Ambac Assurance Corp., concerned
that it may be difficult to sell such debt should insurers' problems grow
worse. That has hurt borrowers such as the Port Authority, whose auction debt
soared to 20 percent on Feb. 12 from 4.3 percent a week ago even though there
is little risk it will default on its debt. Local governments are obliged to
pay the high rates until either the auctions start attracting more buyers or
they modify the bonds to some other kind of variable-rate debt or a fixed
interest rate. Bankers and borrowers have been working on conversion plans for
several weeks.
A Chinese facility that hasn't
been inspected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made the active
ingredient in much of the widely used Baxter
International blood-thinner that is under investigation after
reports of hundreds of allergic reactions and four deaths among the drug's
users, the agency said yesterday.
Auto loans at least two months delinquent hit a 10-year high in
January, said Fitch Ratings, signaling the continued spread of consumer
weakness to debts beyond homes and credit cards. The firm said 0.77% of With the major measures down 1.5% we are initiating
trading positions in many accounts in WB
at $33.65, XLK at $22.97, XLF at $26.75 and QQQ at $44.15. We also bought GM
in accounts at $25.88 to own unless….
Oil ended up $2.10 at $95.38.
Gold gained $3 to $912. Treasuries were weaker on the long end with the
two-year unchanged at 1.92% and the ten-year up 12bps to 3.81%.
We sold the QQQ
for a 5 pennies loss at With the markets moving down to the lows of the day
moving into the close we had the opportunity to get out even on the WB even and we did. We can always look
at it tomorrow.
The DJIA closed down 155 points
at 12376. The S&P 500 lost 19 points to 1348 and the NAZZ dropped 40 points
to 2333.
Breadth was 3/1 negative at the
bell and volume was moderate.
There were 85 new lows on the
NYSE and 105 lows on the NAZZ.
The bears are back.
Asian markets were mixed overnight
with Hoang Kong up 1%, January retail sales were up 0.3%
which was better than expected. Ex autos retail sales were still up 0.3%.
Investors Intelligence had 37% bulls and 35% bears in their latest
report. The large bear population and lowered bullish group should be a positive
for the markets.
Panera Bread wrote down $1 million of its investment in Goldman Sachs continues to be under selling pressure this morning
at We have also been looking at the PowerShares QQQ Trust as a trading vehicle.
We like the distribution in this trust a bit better than the SPDR Tech Index.
The top 10 Holdings: Microsoft 6.70%, Apple 6.55%, Qualcomm 5.18%, Google 3.83%,
Cisco 3.59%, Intel 2.97%, Amgen 2.79%, Oracle 2.77%, Starbucks 2.56%, Comcast 2.52%.
Total: 39.46%
Gold ended the day unchanged at
$912. Oil was up 50 pennies at $93.25 and Treasuries were slightly better. 1380, 1405 and 1430 are upside
resistance levels on the S&P 500 going forward.
The DJIA closed up 175 points at
12550. The S&P 500 gained 18 points to 1366 and the NAZZ rose 55 points to
2375.
Breadth was 2/1 positive and
volume was light.
There were 80 new lows on the
NYSE and 90 new lows on the NAZZ. A rally tomorrow my move new highs over new
lows.
The bulls won the day.
Warren Buffet has proposed to re-insure municipal bonds. This, in
effect, would assure that the municipal bonds insured by the monoline insurance
companies AMBAC, MBIA and FGIC would maintain their AAA ratings. The re-insurance plan would
actually hurt the insurance companies by reducing the profits they receive from
fees for guaranteeing the bonds. Unfortunately the insurance companies don’t
have the capital to maintain their AAA ratings which is necessary to insure the
bonds.
Buffet reported that one
insurance company has rejected his proposal and he hasn’t heard from the
others. Buffet is not doing any favors for the insurance companies but we are
sure that the municipal bond holders would be delighted.
And while nothing may come of
this it does show that there are solutions to problems if and when companies will
fess up and bite the bullet and pay for their mistakes. The Fed and the SEC need
to be involved (and probably are) in the process to move it along.
Asian markets were higher last
night except GM lost a ton of money but with a tax benefit it reported a few
pennies per share earnings. GM announced that it is going to offer buyouts to
76,000 union members to hire lower cost replacement workers. And so goes industrial
Sprint added an activist investor to its board. Ralph Whitworth’s
hedge fund owns 2% of Sprint.
They must have had their fingers crossed when they guaranteed support:
Standard Chartered Bank’s (a
large UK bank) plan to provide $7 billion of backing to a structured investment
vehicle fell through on Monday as deeper losses in the underlying assets forced
it to appoint a receiver for the SIV. Standard Chartered said Whistlejacket, a
SIV it manages and sponsors, had breached its capital note net asset value of
50 percent due to a fall in the value of its assets, leading to a so-called
enforcement event that requires the appointment of a receiver. The bank had
announced on Jan. 31 that it planned to provide $7.15 billion of liquidity to
support Whistlejacket in an effort to prevent a fire-sale of assets as
short-term funding matures. That now remains a threat. Standard Chartered said
it will discuss alternative liquidity arrangements with the receiver and said
the assets held good long-term value. These are the SIV vehicles that many
money funds (not ours) hold and can’t get out of and are hoping ……
In the first three hours of
trading the DJIA advanced 200 points on the back of the Buffet rescue plan and
oversold condition in the markets. Some momentum names like First Solar and Apple didn’t participate in the rally nor did Goldman Sachs (earnings
estimates were dropped by Credit Suisse this morning).
We bought the SPDR Financial
yesterday before the full impact of the AIG problems were know and were under
water with it the rest of the day. As this morning’s rally begins to fade we are selling our four trading
positions from yesterday and going back to cash to await another maybe better
entry point. We made a bit of a profit on all four trades which of course beats
a loss.
Standard Chartered walking away
from its SIV is more important than the markets seem to recognize. Because it
is a British bank we presume that the From Reuters: Luxury builder Toll Brothers says a member of its founding family is trying to walk away from an
agreement to buy a new condominium. The daughter of Vice Chairman and
co-founder Bruce Toll informed the company last month that she and her husband
"did not intend to make settlement" on a $2.47 million home they had
previously agreed to purchase, the company said in a regulatory filing. Toll Brothers went on to say that
it intends to pursue its rights under the agreement of sale with Toll's
daughter, Wendy Topkis. A company spokesman was not immediately available for
comment on the filing, which was made public on Friday. The company, hard hit
by the Treasuries closed a bit weaker
today. Gold was down $16 to $910 and Oil dropped $1 to $92.59. The DJIA closed up 133 points at
12373. The S&P 500 was up 10 points to 1349 and the NAZZ closed flat at
2320 as the momentum stocks sold off into the close.
Breadth was 3/2 positive and
volume was moderate.
There were 90 new lows on the
NYSE and 110 on the NAZZ.
The bulls won the day.
Asian markets were lower
overnight with European bourse indexes are
mildly lower at midday and Gold is up $7 at $925 while Oil ahs a $91 handle
which is lower. Treasuries are firm in the early going.
Yahoo rejected Microsoft’s
$31 bid and wants $40 and is reported to be re-opening talks with Time Warner
about some combination with AOL. The soap opera continues. A $33 price may end
it.
Effective February 19th,
the Tuesday after options expiration on Friday, and the Monday February 18th
President’s Day holiday Altria and Honeywell will be removed from the Dow
Jones Industrial Average. Both are at their recent highs. Maybe that is a
market call. Bank of AIG the large insurance company is off 12% this morning to a new
ten year low after it reported in an 8K filed with the SEC that its auditors have some issues with
AIG’s derivative pricing. AIG reported it would need to alter the way it values
credit default swaps involving collateralized debt obligations. CDOs are funds
that contain slices of bonds, some of which are backed by mortgages. The
insurer said auditors found it "had a material weakness in its internal
control over financial reporting and oversight" regarding how it valued
certain credit default swaps.
Bloomberg reports on the AIG
story: American International Group Inc., the world's largest insurer by
assets, said auditors found a ``material weakness'' in how the company values
its credit- default swap portfolio. The stock fell the most in 20 years. The contracts declined by about $4.88 billion in October and November,
according to data in a regulatory filing today. The drop was confirmed by
company spokesman Chris Winans. AIG had said in December that the value of the
``super senior credit derivatives'' fell by about $1.1 billion in those two
months. The stock retreated 11 percent to $45.16 as of AIG has lost about a third of its market value in the past year on
concern that the ``AIG is still accumulating market data in order to update its
valuation'' of the portfolio, it said in today's filing. The insurer said it believes it presently has ``procedures to
appropriately determine the fair value'' of the portfolio for the yearend
financial statements. AIG's third-quarter net income declined 27 percent to $3.09 billion on
losses linked to the The tech guru we have been
following and in whom we have confidence suggests that 1326 on the S&P 50
is an important support level and he expects it to hold with a rally to 1400 in the next few weeks
in the context of a bear market.
We would like to have some money in the markets for
trading purposes at this time as a function of the testing of the January lows
and a potential bounce higher and we are interested in tech and financial names
where the percentage rebound potential is the greatest as seen in the January rebound
off the SoGen lows. But we are leery of owning individual names because,
lately, for every Yahoo there have been two AIGs and we have no confidence that
elves are going to let us know which are which as they do for some of the big
boys and girls. And so we are buying the
SPDR Financial Index and the SPDR Technology Index in 10% amounts each in many accounts.
The SPDRs give us diversified holdings for trading purposes. The XLK and XLF are an effective way to try and participate in a counter macro trend
move. As a refresher these are the ten major holdings of each
XLK: Microsoft
10%, AT&T 9% , Cisco 6%, Google 6%, Apple 6%, Intel
6%, IBM 5%, Hewlett-Packard 5%, Verizon 5%, Oracle
3%.
XLF: BankAmerica 9%, Citi 7%,
JP Morgan 7%, AIG 6%, Wells Fargo 5%, Goldman Sachs 4%, Wachovia 3%, American Express 3%, US Bancorp 3% and Morgan Stanley 2%.
We are also repurchasing AT&T and GE at prices
lower than where we recently sold. Both pay good dividends for downside
support and have the potential to move higher in any pop.
European bourse indexes closed
lower. Gold was up $6 at $927 and Oil gained $1.84 to $93.75. The DJIA gained 58 points to
close at 12240. AIG, which was down
$5, accounted for a loss of 40 points in the DJIA. The S&P 500 rose 8
points to 1340 and the NAZZ was up 15 points at 2320.
Breadth was 5/4 positive and
volume was light.
There were 120 new lows on the
NYSE and 125 new lows on the NAZZ.
The bulls won a small victory
today.
Many Asian markets remain closed
for the New Year. Of those open, Thursday’s market were all over
the place with the DJIA down 75 points at the open, up 130 points in the
afternoon, down 20 points a half hour before the close and up 50 points at the finish.
Cisco earnings were fine but the company said orders had slowed in January
and was cautious going forward. The shares sold off $2 in the after hours
Wednesday night but then regained that loss to close basically unchanged for
the day on Thursday.
Jim Cramer, the gadabout market
maven, wrote the following on his website:
This market is so hard because really smart people are getting it wrong
every day. They are making big bets and getting it totally wrong. Do not feel
bad if you are one of them who is getting it wrong.
Don't be blind to opportunity, but do understand that I cannot recall a time
when people have been getting it as wrong as they are now on a daily basis.
Wheat traded over $10 this
morning which is up from $4 a year ago. Some hedgers are probably in trouble.
The commodity markets are not able to absorb the money available for
speculation. Markets without controls are not free markets they are chaotic
markets with no rhyme or reason.
A story making the rounds is that
the reason for the lousy retail sales numbers that were reported yesterday was
because gift cards were not being redeemed in their usual numbers and that
overall fewer gift cards had been sold this holiday season. That may be why Wal-Mart missed yesterday with only
0.5% same store sales growth versus an expected and forecast 2% growth for February.
Wal-Mart is suggesting that folks are saving their gift cards to buy groceries
and necessities.
Exxon
Mobil has won court orders freezing as much as $12
billion in petroleum assets controlled by This contremps may set off
another round of oil price jumps if Chávez decides to close down exports to the
Dell has decided to stop selling
most consumer computers powered by Advanced Micro Devices chips through Dell's
popular Web site. The big computer company says it still plans to sell
AMD-based machines in retail stores and over the phone. Dell's decision is a
setback for AMD, which took years to convince Dell to modify its strategy of
using only chips from Intel.
We sold
the AMD we own for another loss. It is off our screen.
Oil gained $3.65 to $91.76. Gold Gained
$13 to $923. Treasuries recovered from Thursday with the two-year at 1.93% and
the ten-year at 3.65%. European bourses closed mixed and The S&P 500 closed down 4% on
the week.
The DJIA was down 67 points on
the day at 12180. The S&P 500 dropped 6 points to 1332 and the NAZZ was up 12
points at 2304.
Breadth was 3/2 negative and
volume was moderate.
There were 90 new lows on the
NYSE and 120 new lows on the NAZZ.
The bears won the week and are winning the month and the
year too.
We have jury duty on
Thursday and part of Friday so our next post will be late Friday night.
Asian markets were lower
overnight with As we said yesterday, the market pullback on Monday and
Tuesday came after a 50% retracement (150 point move higher on the S&P over
the last two weeks ending February 1) of the original correction (1550 on
S&P to 1250) from the October 9, 2006 highs. The sell off of the last two
days retraced half of that 50% up move (we are now 75 points above the bottom
the S&P made two weeks ago) and this morning the major measures are moving
higher.
Now it is time to
deal with the money we have - not with the money we used to have or the money
we wish we had. The reality is that we need to work with our current resources
to build them over time.
We are not heroes and so - as we have for the past eight
years - we are going to raise cash on this move higher and get back to a hunker
down position under 20% invested in large/aggressive accounts and under 40% in
our smaller accounts. We would like to
be long term investors but our intuition is telling us that now is not the time.
The market is trying to decide what to do with the
information it has and the information it wishes it had. . Even though the major measures are higher this morning, the momentum
stocks are under pressures and in the red. Apple
is under $130 support and Google is
back down through the $500 level.
We don’t think stocks are going to run away from us on
the upside. And so we are using this morning’s 100 point rally to raise cash
for breathing room to see how the next week or two into options expiration
works out.
We began with Cisco
which reports after the bell tonight. We are selling our large cap tech stocks
and most other stocks with the hopes of returning at lower prices. Some of the
stocks we are selling are stocks that we bought in the last few days, some for
gains some for losses. That goes with the territory when we are in markets like
the present one where psychology is the main mover of stocks. With the pullback of the last two days the
market is now is no person land where only short term traders tread.
Bear Stearns downgraded No 1 U.S.
automaker GM to
"underperform" and Ford to
"peer perform."
In a research note to clients,
analyst Peter Nesvold wrote that the "facts are changing at an
accelerating rate; and when the facts change, we must change our view."
"Our downgrades reflect
renewed concerns that both the propensity and ability of the automotive
consumer to purchase vehicles is deteriorating at an accelerating rate,"
he added.
Last Friday GM reported a
surprise 2.6 percent increase in January High gasoline prices plus the
U.S. housing meltdown have raised concerns that the U.S. economy may be headed
for a recession, causing consumers to err on the side of caution and delay
big-ticket purchases such as new vehicles. As a result, many in the auto
industry have predicted a second straight year of lower sales.
Bear Stearns' Nesvold wrote that
in the case of GM "we expect heightened incentives and continued market
share losses for the foreseeable future into a fading product cadence and a
declining '08 market."
On Ford, Nesvold wrote "the
trajectory of the turnaround is encouraging... we simply believe it prudent to
keep some powder dry until the macro horizon clears."
Oil finished down $1.25 to
$87.15. Gold was up $13 to $903. Treasuries were a bit lower with the two-year
at 1.86% and the ten-year at 3.61%.
European bourse indexes closed
mostly 1% and higher across the continent. The DJIA closed down 65 points at
12200. The S&P 500 lost 10 points to 1326 and the NAZZ dropped 30 points to
2278.
Breadth turned 3/2 negative near
the close after being 2/1 positive in the morning. Volume was moderate.
New lows were modest with 75 on
the NYSE and 105 on the NAZZ.
The bears are in control.
The January ISM Non Manufacturing Index i.e., the service industries, was 41.
The Non Manufacturing ISM Employment Index
was 44. Fewer than 50 reflect contraction within the service industries which
account for 75% of economic activity and so that report released at Asian markets were lower overnight
ahead of the lunar New Year and A JP Morgan analyst downgraded Broadcom from "Overweight" to
"Neutral" on its weak profit margins. JP Morgan analyst Shawn Webster
said in a note to investors that he was putting his investments elsewhere until
profit margins improve. Factors influencing his downgrade include economic
difficulties and the company's limited market growth. Webster said Broadcom's baseband
investment was "massively" cutting into earnings as roughly 25
percent of the company's research effort is dedicated to baseband chips. Baseband chips typically
transform low frequency signals to a higher frequency for transmission in
communication equipment. "We believe the company's focus on baseband chips
leaves it exposed to execution missteps in its other lines of business,"
Webster said. He lowered his 2008 earnings estimate to 41 per share cents from
46 cents per share and his sales estimates to $4.24 billion from $4.29 billion.
Broadcom shares fell $1.21, or 5.2 percent, to $22.22 Monday. Shares have
traded in the last year between $20.52 and $43.07.
We are buying on the low. The shares are priced at 2.5 times sales. BRCM has no debt and $2 billion ($4 per share
in cash). surely they my not executed but cutting a
rating from basically buy to sell after the shares have dropped 50% doesn’t
give a lot of confidence in this analyst’s views.
Wachovia Bank was downgraded
yesterday and sold off $3. We bought an initial position at $35.90 in our
larger accounts and plan to add more lower. We have
been trading the stock and will continue to do so. It has CDO/SIV/ Mortgage problems
and the analyst who downgraded said they may cut their dividend.
WB has 100% upside plus good
trading potential.
Stocks are off 200 points on the early going. The move up
in the markets from the January SoGen
sell off low to last Friday was a 50% retracement of the move down from the
October 9, 2006 all time high. Technically, 50% quick retracement of waterfall
sell offs are considered to be hallmarks of Bear Market rallies and that is the
reason for the heavy selling this morning as traders try to flip from the long
to the short side of the markets. We aren’t so sure that the bear market scenario will play
out and are willing to hold what we purchased and add a few positions that we
missed the last time around or traded out of in the rally. We will become
concerned if the SoGen low doesn’t
hold but we have a ways to go to get to it. Backing and filling is also
necessary to test that low if stocks are going to hold and eventually go higher
and we think that is what is occurring.
Organic food maker Hain Celestial Group Inc. said Monday
its fiscal second-quarter profit grew 10 percent, as higher prices helped
offset increased ingredient costs. For the quarter ended Dec. 31,
Hain said its profit increased to $15.6 million, or 37 cents per share, from
$14.2 million, or 34 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding charges related
to a review of its stock options practices and the cost of opening a new facility
for its frozen meat-free foods business, Hain said it earned 43 cents per share
in the latest period. Revenue grew 20 percent to $276.2 million from $230.2
million a year earlier. Analysts polled by Thomson
Financial expected Hain to earn 43 cents per share on $266 million in revenue. The
company said growing "input costs," which include the expense of
buying ingredients, shrank its profit margins by a significant amount but were
counteracted by higher prices. Hain backed its fiscal 2008 forecast for profit
of $1.38 to $1.42 per share on $1.03 billion to $1.05 billion in sales. Analysts
expect a profit of $1.40 per share on $1.03 billion in revenue.
We bought shares yesterday and are adding more today. We
have owned Hain and traded Hain profitably before the recent purchases.
We bought Verizon
back in many accounts today at $36.95 to hold/trade? And we bought Texas Instruments at $29.95 in our
larger accounts for a trade.
We are buying Eastman
Kodak under $20. This is the first time in a few years that we have
owned the shares but we think its financial position and movement from film to
digital makes the stock attractive at these levels. EK is on a 25 year low and
down from $30 earlier this year. The company has $10 per share in cash and is
priced at one half of revenues.
On last Wednesday Eastman Kodak
Company reported fourth-quarter earnings from continuing operations of $92
million, or $0.31 per share, on higher year-over-year revenues, reflecting the
emergence of a new, more profitable company. Kodak also met or exceeded all of its key
financial commitments and strategic goals for 2007, most notably:
“I am thrilled with our 2007 performance, as it
is powerful evidence that a new Kodak has emerged and is producing solid,
value-creating growth,” said Antonio M. Perez, Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer, Eastman Kodak Company. “We delivered another strong quarter, and
another strong year of earnings growth, and met or exceeded every important
goal that we set for ourselves.
“In addition, we successfully entered the $50
billion consumer inkjet market and exceeded our first-year printer sales goal.
What’s more, third-party data indicates that Kodak is enjoying a 30% price
premium over the industry average. Clearly, our value proposition is resonating
with consumers and they are willing to pay a bit more for a Kodak printer
because they know they will save money every time they print. Consumer inkjet
is just one of several new product introductions that are receiving positive
customer response. The more I see of them, the more optimistic I am about their
success.”
Kodak’s digital revenue grew 15% in the fourth
quarter of 2007, driven by strong year-over-year increases in all key digital
businesses, partially offset by a decline in snapshot printing.
The company achieved $146 million in digital
earnings for the fourth quarter, driven by an expanded product portfolio,
intellectual property arrangements, and operational improvements, resulting in
strong full-year earnings performance across the company’s digital business
units. For the full year, the company delivered $176 million in digital
earnings, a $189 million improvement from the prior year, significantly
outpacing a $30 million year-over-year decline in traditional earnings.
Earnings from continuing operations before interest, other income (charges),
net, and income taxes were $130 million for the quarter and a loss of $230
million for the year.
On the basis of generally accepted accounting
principles (GAAP), the company reported fourth-quarter earnings from continuing
operations of $109 million pre-tax, $92 million after tax, or $0.31 per diluted
share, reflecting the impact of 19 million additional shares from contingently
convertible securities. This compares with earnings of $111 million pre-tax, and a loss of $15 million after tax, or $0.05 per
share, in the year-ago period. Items of net expense impacting comparability in
the fourth quarter of 2007 totaled $28 million after tax, or $0.09 per share.
The most significant items were restructuring costs of $68 million before tax
and $44 million after tax, or $0.14 per share, net gains on sale of property of
$116 million before tax and $89 million after tax, or $0.29 per share,
impairment of an investment of $46 million after tax, or $0.15 per share, and
various other tax-related items totaling $25 million, or $0.08 per share. In
the fourth quarter of 2006, items of net expense impacting comparability
totaled $158 million after tax, or $0.55 per share, primarily reflecting
restructuring costs and tax valuation allowances.
For the fourth quarter of 2007:
Other financial details:
Fourth-quarter segment sales and results from
continuing operations, before interest, taxes, and other income and charges
(earnings from operations), are as follows:
Other 2007 Highlights:
“Our corporate restructuring is
now over and Kodak is revitalized and ready to grow,” said Perez. “We have a
strong market position in a significant number of very promising digital
businesses, a competitive operating structure, a powerful brand, and extremely
valuable intellectual property. We are a new company with a strong emphasis on
sustaining profitable growth, and the talent and resources necessary to achieve
that goal. This positions us well for strong performance in 2008 and beyond.”
European bourse indexes closed
sharply lower on Tuesday with Many down 3% or more. The DJIA dropped 360 points to
end at 12268. The S&P 500 was down 44 points at 1335 and the NAZZ lost 72 points
to 2310.
Breadth was 4/1 negative on the NYSE
and volume was moderate.
New lows were 75 on the NYSE and 100 on the NAZZ demonstrating that
we are still within the range of consolidation and hopefully not more.
The bears are back. Nobody said it would be easy.
The Giants win means that the old
NFL won which is good for the markets. By the way as soon as Patriot coach
Belechek came on the field with that spiffy new red sweatshirt instead of the
old ratty grey thing he always wears we knew that the Patriots were in trouble.
He was tempting the gods of superstition by changing his usual uniform. He
lost.
For what its worth- which is very
little- according to minaynville.com the S&P 500 has rallied an average of
11% in the twelve months following the two previous super bowl wins by the
Giants.
European bourses are higher by 1%
and more at We are going to take some very short trading profits in
accounts to raise some cash. The major measures have re-covered 10% of their
20% loss and we may be in for some backing and filling. We sold AT&T, Boston Scientific, DreamWorks, Palm,
Texas Instruments, Schering Plough and Bristol
Myers. We are using the BSX money to buy and equal amount of shares of Coldwater Creek- for fewer dollars, of
course.
We also began re-purchasing Ford thus guaranteeing that it will go no higher for a while at
least. Ford has been a soap opera for us for the past year but we do want to
have exposure to it to go with our GM holdings. The Fed lowering interest rates
should eventually have a positive effect on auto leasing and sales.
European bourse indexes closed
mixed to higher as they gave up much of their morning gains on the punk action
of the Oil gained $ to close at $89.86
and Gold recovered to close down $6 at $906. Treasuries were slightly higher in
yield for the day with the two-year at 2.06% and the ten-year at 3.64%.
The DJIA closed down 120 points
at 12625. The S&P 500 lost 15 points to 1380 and the NAZZ dropped 30 points
to 2382.
Breadth was 3/2 negative and
volume was light.
There were 45 new highs and 52
new lows on the NYSE and 55 new highs and 65 new lows on the NAZZ.
The bears won the day but the
light volume and new high/new low ratio should give heart to the bulls.
This month is beginning on a much more positive note than
last month. Microsoft has made an offer to buy Yahoo for $31.50 per share.
We sold this morning at $28. We will let other folks make the last 10% on
this deal as it will take a year to close. And MSFT may raise its price but the
EU may quash the deal since their enmity toward MSFT is obvious and we are
content with our $10 one week 50% profit. We are buying MSFT
in some accounts at $30.90 since we think the deal makes all the sense in the world
for MSFT. And if the deal falls through all those shorting MSFT and pushing it
down will have to cover.
The January Employment report showed a loss of 17,000 jobs. But since
the December report was revised upwards by 64,000 jobs and November report was
revised downward by 55,000 we would take the January number with a good dose of
salt.
Average hourly earnings were up
3.7%.
As we posted last night Google’s great earnings disappointed
its fans and the shares traded lower in after hours. How Google goes today will
give a good idea of the tenor of the markets. Its share price finished the regular
session yesterday at $560 traded as low as $500 in after hours before going out
at $525 and is trading at $534 in the pre-market Friday.
Motorola announced last night that it is considering alternatives
for its various divisions. One consideration was reported to be selling or spinning
off its handset division which has been a profit drag the last two years after being
a cash cow for the previous years.
Motorola is trading higher on the
news. We are going to sell the shares we bought yesterday for a $1 gain. We
don’t understand why MOT would want to sell what was a very profitable division
right at the time when a new phone is supposed to begin reestablishing market
share. If the phone is good why sell?
The story is out and there is a 10% pop in the share
price and we are selling MOT and buying Palm
at $5.50 with the proceeds and so are increasing our cash to go with our YHOO
sale.
From CNBC we offer this story on Palm:
Palm continues to try and be
noticed amid all the action in the wireless sector. The latest batch of rumors
surrounds CEO Ed Colligan and his tenure at the company. They've been flying
since the deal with Elevation Partners was announced and the private equity
firm installed former Apple iPod superstar Jon Rubenstein as the executive
chairman.
A series of key product delays
and quality control issues dogged Palm: it became a take-over candidate, the
highly hyped Foleo mobile companion device was scrubbed, the
company kept posting disappointing earnings, Palm closed down all 34 retail
locations last week. It all looked bleak for Colligan.
I have to tell you I've known Ed
Colligan for years, dating back to his days at Radius. I've followed his
career, I've interviewed him quite a bit, I've talked to folks who work with
him, have worked with him, and I have found him to be a capable, engaging,
energetic guy who commands the respect of his peers, knows what he's doing and
is passionate about the opportunities ahead for Palm.
Ask him and he'll tell you that
the smart phone market is only just beginning, that trying to pick a winner
among all these big-name competitors when only 5 percent of the market has been
tapped is a fool's chore. He makes a compelling case in a compelling way.
Palm is coming
at the market completely differently than Nokia, Research in Motion
and the company's brand new Nuviphone
(very cool if you haven't seen this one) by offering smart phone status at dumb
handset prices. And that's why the company's Centro is so important to Palm's
future. Some might say Centro IS Palm's future.
No question Rubenstein's past at Apple could be the key to Palm's future as well.
But discount the knowledge and history that Colligan himself brings to the
party. Palm is having execution issues and the buck stops with Colligan. Who's
to say that Colligan, working with Rubenstein, can't get these problems solved?
The fact is, in this quarter-to-quarter Wall Street world, we all want instant
results, drastic action, something that shows someone's in charge and getting
the job done.
But none of us has the stakes in
this game that Elevation Partners has. Hundreds of millions of dollars
invested. And they seem more than patient, more than willing to give Colligan
his shot, despite calls for his head and rumors that he's done.
So I went right to the source,
and asked managing partner Roger McNamee whether there was any truth to the
rumors that Colligan is being shown the door. It's a question McNamee and his team
has gotten a lot lately. He tells me emphatically: "This rumor is
ridiculous. Ed is our partner in the transformation of Palm. He's doing a great
job! These people who think that closing the retail stores and killing the
Foleo are signs of weakness have no clue how to make a company great. Ed is
focusing Palm on all the right things. He and Jon Rubinstein are a tremendous
team. Together, they are going to do incredible things. If there are any real
stories I can help you with, let me know."
We are going to repurchase more Sprint shares in smaller accounts. They are cheap and we should
have held them.
Asian markets were mostly 2%
higher overnight and European bourse indexes are 1% higher at RF Micro Devices had lousy earnings (which they pre-announced) and said
sales would be lower this next quarter as The priced placed on Yahoo by
Microsoft should have a positive effect on the AOL division of Time Warner.
At From Bloomberg comes word that Mother did some naughty things: Merrill Lynch agreed to pay Springfield, Massachusetts, $13.9 million to settle a dispute over collateralized debt obligations that tumbled in value. The money will reimburse Springfield for the cost of the CDOs, securities tied to home loans and other debts shunned by investors as losses on sub prime mortgages mounted. New York-based Merrill said it agreed to the refund after discovering the purchase was made without the city's consent. ``My focus all along has been to recoup these funds for the taxpayers of Springfield,'' Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno said in a statement released last night. ``In my view, Merrill Lynch has now done the right thing.'' Local government agencies from Florida to Washington State have lost money buying securities such as CDOs that are backed by collateral no one wants. The market for CDOs has collapsed amid surging sub prime defaults that have hurt their credit ratings, making the securities difficult to sell. Merrill Chief Executive Officer John Thain said this week that the firm will cut back on packaging home loans and consumer debts into securities because demand for the products has eroded. Similar securities have also saddled Wall Street banks with at least $133 billion in credit losses and asset write downs, threatening to undermine the bond insurance companies that guaranteed the debts would be paid.
General Motors
reported a 2.6% rise in its U.S. light-vehicle sales for January and
nudged up its production
target for the first quarter, even as the U.S. economy struggles. GM's
production last month was off 5% from year-earlier levels. January sales at Toyota and Ford
dropped 2.3% and 3.9%, respectively.
Gold popped in the morning and
pooped in the afternoon closing down $19 at $909. Oil lost $2 to close with and
$89 handle. Treasuries were firm with the two-year at 2.08% and the ten-year at
3.60%.
European bourse indexes closed up
1% to 2% and more across the continent and The DJIA gained 92 points to 12743.
The S&P 500 rose 17 points to 1395. 1405 is the next and very important resistance
level. The NAZZ was up 24 points to 2413.
Breadth was 3/1 positive on the
NYSE and 2/1 on the NAZZ and volume was active.
New highs (47) almost crossed new
lows (57) on the NYSE more by new lows receding than new highs expanding.
And the bulls won the day and the week and are winning the
month.
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