Archive for 2005

  • Bayou Hedge Fund
    , August 29th, 2005 at 10:17 am

    Two weeks ago, Eric Dillon went to the offices of Bayou Management. He’s a money manager and he wanted to find out what was happening at the hedge fund. The fund had abruptly shut down, and despite promising to return everyone’s money, no money had been dispersed. Also, no phone calls were being returned. Dillon knocked on the Bayou’s front door, but no one came. He came in through an unlocked back door, and on the CFO’s desk, he found a letter that began, “This is my suicide note and confession.”
    The Wall Street Journal has the whole story. Also, Gretchen Morgenson wrote about Bayou on Sunday.

  • Foreigners are Pouring Cash into Emerging Markets
    , August 29th, 2005 at 9:48 am

    The Economist has an interesting article on the sudden interest in emerging markets.

    Between the beginning of June and the week ending August 17th, emerging-market equity funds took in a net $6.94 billion. That brings the year’s total to $8.74 billion, nearly three times 2004’s level and more than the previous high of $8.6 billion for all of 2003. Bond funds tell the same story, with total net inflows this year of $4.74 billion, a record.

    Many emerging markets are doing very well, plus the risk is much lower than it was eight years ago.

  • Google Watch
    , August 29th, 2005 at 9:19 am

    UBS lowers its earnings estimate due to the secondary stock offering.

    For 2006 and 2007, UBS lowered the earnings-per-share estimates on Google to $7.57 and $9.30, respectively, down from $7.60 and $9.43, citing the impact of an offering of about 14 million shares expected in the third quarter.

  • Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act
    , August 29th, 2005 at 9:05 am

    There’s another hurricane headed towards Wall Street. On October 17, the new bankruptcy law goes into effect. The old law is considerably more liberal, so many companies are expected to file before the deadline. Both Northwest Airlines and Delphi have said that they’re contemplating filing under the old law. The new law is aimed at reducing abuses of bankruptcy proceedings and it makes declaring bankruptcy more difficult. But like all laws, there will be unexpected side effects.

    Certain provisions of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act will give airlines and other troubled companies less breathing room than in the past to settle their debts and continue in business, rather than liquidate. Among other things, they will have a harder time deferring payment of utility bills to conserve cash. In addition, new restrictions on executive compensation will make it tougher to retain or hire the top-notch managers required to pull off a corporate turnaround.
    Some of the provisions may seem esoteric, but they are sweeping in their implications. For instance, the law imposes an 18-month limit on the incumbent management’s exclusive right to propose a reorganization plan. This ability to control the ball is the debtor’s most powerful means of persuading contending groups of creditors to compromise. Under the new arrangement, one faction might obstruct negotiations until it gets a shot at proposing its own, self-serving plan.

    One of the fears is that distressed companies will dump their real estate holdings to raise money. That could put undue stress on the overheated real estate market.

    The new law’s consumer-related provisions stirred considerable controversy. The no-less-important corporate rule changes received negligible attention, outside the circle of bankruptcy specialists. Now investors must live with the consequences. That will mean dealing with dramatically increased uncertainty, at least until the bankruptcy courts handle a fair number of cases under the new rules.

  • Katrina Slams Louisiana
    , August 29th, 2005 at 8:42 am

    Hurricane Katrina has made landfall in Louisiana and it’s already causing damage on Wall Street. For the first time ever, crude oil futures soared over $70 a barrel. More than 40% of U.S. oil production operations were closed down this weekend. The stock futures are currently pointing to a weak open today.
    Before Katrina is done, she could cost insurers $30 billion. Several of the major insurance companies should open lower today.
    The big concern right now is that Katrina is heading towards refining operations. Not only are operations shut, but we also expect to see a lot of damage. Naturally, gas prices could go even higher.
    If that isn’t enough, remember that September is historically, the market’s worst month. Septembers in post-election years are particularly bad.

  • A-Rod
    , August 28th, 2005 at 10:39 pm

    Alex Rodriguez has the best shot of anyone to break Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record. In 23 seasons, Hammerin Hank hit 755 home runs. A-Rod is already up to 38 this season which gives him a lifetime total of 419. Even though he’s only slightly more than halfway to Aaron, his start is pretty amazing. Earlier this year, Rodriguez became the youngest player to hit his 400th home run. On his 30th birthday last month, A-Rod had more home runs, runs batted in, runs scored and hits than the respective all-time leaders did by their 30th birthdays.

    Since the all-star break, A-Rod has actually picked up the pace. At this rate, he could hit another 10 home runs before the end of the season. If he then added another 46 next year, he’d move into a three-way tie with Willie Stargell and Stan Musial at 475. To be very optimistic, he could get his 500th homer before his 32nd birthday on July 27, 2007. Jimmie Foxx currently holds the mark for youngest to 500. Double-X did it just one month before his 33rd birthday. But Foxx’s career is a good reminder against projecting too optimistically into the future. Foxx’s home run output quickly dwindled and he ended with 534.

    When A-Rod only hit 36 home runs last year, I thought that was only natural because Yankee Stadium is so much bigger than the Ballpark in Arlington. But this year, A-Rod has adjusted very well to the Bronx. He’s currently hitting .360 at home with 23 home runs. If he stays healthy (that’s a big if), Rodriguez could hold several all-time marks before his career is done.

  • Be Warned: Mr. Bubble’s Worried Again
    , August 26th, 2005 at 1:18 pm

    Robert Shiller is worried about a housing bubble. I also think the housing market is overheated, but Shiller is far too much of a bear for me. He gets a lot of credit for “predicting” the stock market crash in his book “Irrational Exuberance,” but Shiller had been bearish since 1996. He’s a bear who’s always warning about a bubble.

    The problem I have with Shiller’s real estate analysis is that he’s compiled a chart going back to the 19th century. It’s very unfair to compare today’s prices to prices so long ago. Today, we have a very mature and sophisticated financial marketplace. There are countless regulations, plus, believe it or not, we have smarter consumers. Borrowers have dozens of options, and the mortgage market is gigantic. The old real estate industry was supported by thousands of tiny George Bailey-type savings and loans. To compare today’s prices to the real estate market of so long ago, ignores the huge advances that have been made.

    In Shiller’s world, it’s nothing but boom and bust. But you can have an asset soar and not always have a bubble. The stock market soared in the 1950’s. In fact, the period from 1949 to 1956 was probably one of the greatest bull markets of all-time. But people don’t think of it as a bull market because it never crashed. Also, just because an asset is overpriced, doesn’t mean it’s about to crash. Prices can stay high for a long time.

    The boom in real estate has been driven by important changes. We’ve had the lowest interest rates in decades, plus housing prices were cheap due to the surge in tech stocks. I don’t believe that everyone in American woke up one day and suddenly became “irrational.” I saw Shiller on the news today and he claimed the public’s opinion was one great big, “don’t worry, housing prices will go up for ever!” Bears always do this. I don’t know one person in 10,000 who would say that.

    We know housing prices have gone up a lot. They certainly can’t keep up this growth rate, and prices are probably due to fall (Shiller expects a 40% correction). But there are several ways out of a bull market besides a bursting bubble.

  • Petrokaz Bid May Face Kazakh Opposition
    , August 26th, 2005 at 10:36 am

    CNPC’s buyout of PetroKaz might not go so smoothly. The Kazakh government is not too pleased.

  • Walking on Sunshine
    , August 26th, 2005 at 8:03 am

    New York Sun

    Tropical Storm Katrina Brings Her Waves Closer to Florida

    Investors Business Daily

    Katrina and the Waves Set Oil on Course for $70

    KARE 11

    Katrina Bringing Her Waves to Southeast Florida

    Elites TV

    Tropical Storm Katrina Brings the Waves as It Nears Florida

    EITB

    Katrina and Its Waves Spread Across Southeast Florida

  • Dell on the Defensive
    , August 25th, 2005 at 12:50 pm

    Everyone seems to be attacking Dell lately. Business Week, in particular, has taken a strong anti-Dell stance. They have a story now on how HP is outmaneuvering Dell.

    Few investors would dispute the notion that Dell is one of the great companies in tech. The world’s largest computer maker’s earnings jumped more than 25% last year, outpacing a nearly 19% rise in sales. It has a clear playbook to push into higher-margin products and new geographic markets. So why are Dell shares down 16% since the end of last year, while those of rival Hewlett-Packard have soared more than 27%?
    HP is simply beating Dell hands down in managing Wall Street’s expectations. HP was long one of tech’s most mediocre performers — famous for big earnings disappointments and unfulfilled ambitions. But the stock lost its “Carly discount” after the divisive Carleton S. Fiorina was shown the door in April, and the new chief executive, Mark Hurd, began doing the right things.

    Please. HP has huge problems of its own. The company is laying off 15,000 employees, and it’ll be lucky if sales rise 5% this year. True, the stock is up this year in the sense that it’s less sharply off its high. Wall Street is applauding HP’s cost-cutting initiative. But Dell never implements one because it never has bloated costs.

    By contrast, Dell is becoming a victim of its own success. On Aug. 11 the company announced a second-quarter sales increase of 14.7%, far outpacing HP’s 10% rise. The Round Rock (Tex.)-based Dell said it cut prices too much and didn’t sell as much as it hoped to the federal government.
    Trouble is, the sales number was below its own earlier forecast of a 16% to 18% increase. Worse yet, Dell also ratcheted down its revenue projections for the current quarter ending in October. Dell’s stock immediately tanked 7.4%.

    This story is searching for a theme that doesn’t exist. Dell could have made up the sales shortfall with a minor price increase on each of its units sold.

    On Aug. 12, high profile Goldman Sachs analyst Laura Conigliaro downgraded Dell to “market perform” from “outperform” because of the lower estimate for future sales growth.

    That’s for people who haven’t gotten the hint. On the day of its earnings report, Business Week ran another anti-Dell story quoting, again, Laura Conigliaro.

    Clearly, Dell is still a fabulously successful company. It’s earnings grew 28%, and sales–while slightly low of expectations–still grew a brisk 15%. But the specter of slower revenue growth in the future has analysts worried that even Dell is running out of easy pickings–that even it will have to break a sweat to find customers willing to pay enough for plain old PCs to keep its financial formula in good working order.
    As with almost everything these days, there may be a “rise of Asia” component to this story. Laura Conigliaro, Goldman Sachs’ excellent hardware analyst, points out in a report titled “A Miss With Much Wider Implications,” that rivals such as Acer, Lenovo and BenQ are pushing prices down farther than even Dell may care to match. What’s more, much of Dell’s growth is coming from Asian customers, who typically buy cheaper configurations.

    A more serious problem that Dell is facing is a massive attack from blogs. Jeff Jarvis wrote about his experience with a new Dell and the company’s lousy customer service. Again, Business Week reports the gory details:

    The Jarvis affair seems to have struck a chord with other Dell customers. Daily visits to BuzzMachine have doubled, to more than 10,000, estimates research firm Intelliseek. Among the responses: “Dude, get an Apple.”

    This comes on the heels of a University of Michigan report showing that Apple creamed Dell in a customer survey.

    Customer satisfaction at Dell, the world’s largest personal- computer maker, declined 6.3 percent, based on the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index. Dell fell further behind Apple Computer Inc., which grabbed the top spot in 2004.

    I’d be much more concerned with a reputation for poor customer service. Initial reports show that Dell is taking this very seriously. I’m not so worried about Dell’s revenue shortfall. AMR Research rises to Dell’s defense:

    Wall Street is punishing Dell for missing its revenue target last quarter, but a closer look reveals a price management strategy in play, writes Laura Preslan and Mark Hillman of AMR Research.
    Dell has long been the poster child for using price to shape demand and keep the supply chain running smoothly.
    The ability to match available configurations to consumer discounts has set the company apart from its competitors. Look back to when Dell made headlines during the 2002 dock strike, offering flat screen monitors for a nominal price increase because they could be shipped via plane more easily than traditional monitors.
    Dell knows how to use price to shape demand.
    Nonetheless, doomsayers have claimed that Dell’s revenue miss signals its demise. Faced with a shrinking market, Dell, the only PC maker that has generated consistent revenue and profit growth for several years, is no longer able to keep up.
    Except for one thing: profits are up. In fact, profits are up by 28 percent to $1.02 billion in quarterly net income, and Dell took market share in every region. Clearly revenue growth is important, but in a rapidly commoditising business, profit is king. The less popular, but more accurate interpretation of Dell’s miss is that it bought customers with lower prices, but was able to increase profits, only cementing its leadership in price management.
    The effective application of price management discipline can create several outcomes, from higher revenue, to more customers, to increased profits. Dell grew quarterly revenue by 15% and net income by 28 percent. Add the marketing perspective of cementing loyalty with price and that buyers today become less price-sensitive over time, and Dell reveals itself to still be on top of its price management game.