Archive for June, 2007

  • Warren Buffett Talks to MBA Students
    , June 13th, 2007 at 10:34 am

    YouTube comes through again. I found this 10-part video of Warren Buffett speaking to MBA students.
    I don’t know the date, but it seems to be a few years old. Nevertheless, it’s a great talk. Buffett has a way of making complicated topics easy to understand.
    If you have a chance, I urge you to see the whole thing (about 90 minutes). Here’s part 1:

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  • Quotes at Yahoo Finance
    , June 13th, 2007 at 9:57 am

    Just in case you’re using Yahoo Finance this morning, Fiserv (FISV) is not up 150% today.
    They have yesterday’s close listed at $22.29, instead of $56.49. The stock is really down a few pennies. I think this is all part of Terry Semel’s masterplan to take down Google — build ad revenue through wrong stock quotes. Still, it’s better than Panama.

  • Quit Following Me
    , June 12th, 2007 at 1:54 pm

    The stocks of Lehman (LEH) and Bear Stearns (BSC) for the past year:
    lehbsc.gif

  • Hold Off Selling Stock
    , June 12th, 2007 at 6:52 am

    Mark C. Leeds in today’s New York Post reminds investors in the 10% and 15% tax brackets — which includes many retirees — to hold off on selling stocks this year. On January 1, the capital gains tax will fall to 0% for both brackets. As of now, the tax cut will last through 2011.

  • Rule Change Could Boost Wall Street’s Profits
    , June 12th, 2007 at 6:30 am

    Wall Street firms could see a big boost to their bottom lines this year thanks to a rule change. An SEC regulation passed in 2004 will allowed firms to set aside less money in reserve so Wall Street can better compete with financial firms in other countries.

    Investors are underestimating the benefits of “alternative net capital requirements,” a regulation passed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004 to keep Wall Street firms competitive with their counterparts in the European Union, said Brad Hintz, an analyst at New York-based Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Profits will get a boost in the second half of 2007, depending on how fast the five firms shift their capital, he said. U.S. commercial banks are receiving a similar break from the Basel II agreement, set to take effect as early as next year.
    “They’re all increasing capital at risk because the new capital requirements allow it,” said Hintz, a former chief financial officer at Lehman. “As the transition to the new capital rules is completed, they’ll have more room to do so, and that will help their profit.”

  • Just in Case You’re Feeling Sorry for Paris
    , June 11th, 2007 at 3:12 pm

    According to the chart, she’s doing just fine.
    HLT.gif
    Hilton‘s (HLT) stock fell in half after 9/11. I remember how people said that it will hurt travel companies. In retrospective, it had almost no impact and the sell-off was really a great time to buy.

  • Chinese Stocks 65% Overvalued
    , June 11th, 2007 at 1:10 pm

    Bloomberg notes that the Chinese stock market’s benchmarket CSI 300 “would have to drop 65 percent to match the average multiple for Chinese shares traded in Singapore.”

    On the mainland, investors pay 147 times earnings to own Fortune Ng Fung Food (Hebei) Co. Hong Kong-listed China Yurun Food Group Ltd. trades at 26.7 times profit. And in Singapore, People’s Food Holdings Ltd. is valued at 11.7 times earnings.
    “There is not that big a difference in their businesses, so there shouldn’t be such a difference in their prospects and valuations,” says Greg Lesko, who helps manage $900 million at New York-based hedge fund Deltec Asset Management.

  • This Just In
    , June 11th, 2007 at 10:23 am

    YouTube’s Chen: Better Content Needed

  • NYT Hearts Lloyd
    , June 11th, 2007 at 9:48 am

    Lloydie.jpg
    Jenny Anderson in the Sunday NYT writes a 2,500-word love letter to Lloyd Blankfein:

    Lloyd Blankfein’s makeover from frumpy gold salesman to chief executive has a bit of a reality-TV feel to it. Less than a decade ago, he could be seen in shorts at a golf outing, tube socks stretched to his knees, 50 pounds heavier, and toting his BlackBerry in the same plastic bag as his bagel with cream cheese. Today, he dons navy pinstripes and a power tie and, having just returned from a business trip to Turkey, enjoys conversing about the Ottoman Empire.
    Even with careful grooming, Mr. Blankfein remains a far cry from central casting’s idea of a chief executive.
    At 5 foot 8, he is balding, has eyes more mischievous than intense and blankets himself in a shield of one-liners. Why did he shed the weight and shave the beard? “I wasn’t going to make myself taller.” How does he feel about the markets? “I haven’t felt this good since July 1998” (a month before Wall Street went into a tailspin after the Russian ruble collapsed). And to a photographer shooting his portrait? “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have had my hair done.”

    Sheesh, get a room!

  • JoS. A. Bank’s Earnings
    , June 11th, 2007 at 9:34 am

    I may have gotten a lot of things wrong this year, but I’m happy to say that JoS. A. Bank (JOSB) was a great addition to our Buy List. The company just reported terrific earnings of 45 cents a share.
    The stock is already up 45.6% this year and will probably add some more today.