Archive for December, 2009

  • Bernanke Passes Senate Banking Committee
    , December 17th, 2009 at 11:23 am

    The vote was 16 to 7.

  • Danaher Guides Higher
    , December 16th, 2009 at 11:30 pm

    Some good news from Danaher (DHR). The company is raising its Q4 guidance to a range of 99 cents to $1.09 a share. The Street was at 97 cents a share (and had been rising). Still, Danaher has had a rough year. It looks like EPS will be down about 17% or so from last year.

  • The Best Time of Year for Stocks
    , December 16th, 2009 at 3:39 pm

    We’re soon coming up on the famous Santa Claus rally. I crunch all the numbers for the Dow from 1896 through 2007. Historically, the best stretch for the market has come between December 21 and January 7. Of the 15 best days of the year for the market, six are in this period.
    Over 111 years, the Dow has gained an average of 3.39% during that 17-day period. To put that in some perspective, the Dow’s annual gain is 8.32%. This means that more than 40% of the Dow’s yearly gain has come during this brief stretch which is less than 1/20 of the entire year.
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  • The Dump Bernanke Bandwagon
    , December 16th, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    There are now three senators who say they will vote “nay” on Time’s Person of the Year: Jeff Merkley, John McCain and Bernie Sanders. More may be coming.

  • Bernanke Named Time’s Person of the Year
    , December 16th, 2009 at 9:50 am

    Wake up, sheeple.
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    This will drive the conspiracy folks nuts. Or rather, even nuttier.

  • FactSet Drops on Earnings
    , December 15th, 2009 at 10:51 am

    Shares of FactSet (FDS) are down sharply today after posting earnings that were in line with expectations, which makes you wonder what the expectations really were. For their fiscal first quarter, FactSet made 74 cents a share and revenues were down a trivial amount. For the second quarter, which ends in January, the company sees EPS ranging between 73 and 75 cents a share. That’s a narrow range. The Street was at 75 cents a share.
    The stock is currently down about 7.6% today. I can’t say I’m complaining since the stock has traveled almost consistently upward all year.

  • The Buy List’s Four-Year Gain of 14.31%
    , December 14th, 2009 at 5:16 pm

    The Buy List just hit another new high for the year, plus we’re at another new relative strength high. Through today, our Buy List is up 43.61% compared with 23.34% for the S&P 500. That doesn’t include dividends.
    Since our Buy List has an overall dividend yield that’s a bit lower than the overall market, the dividend-adjusted return is slightly closer. Through today, the Buy List is up 45.04% compared with 26.26% for the S&P 500.
    For our total record of nearly four years, the Buy List has returned 14.31% compared with a loss of -2.83% for the S&P 500.

  • “Naked Access” now 38% of U.S. Trading
    , December 14th, 2009 at 2:40 pm

    From Reuters:

    A report says that 38 percent of all U.S. stock trading is now done by firms that have “naked sponsored access” to markets, the controversial trading practice said to imperil the marketplace, and which faces a regulatory crackdown.
    Naked access gives trading firms, using brokers’ licenses, unfetted access to stock markets. The firms, usually high-frequency traders, are then able to shave microseconds from the time it takes to trade.
    Aite Group, a Boston consultancy, found that naked access accounted for just 9 percent in 2005.

  • Oooh…Burn
    , December 14th, 2009 at 10:59 am

    Cadbury (CBY) is again not interested in being bought out by Kraft. Still, you have to admire Cadbury for calling Kraft’s (KFT) offer “derisory.” I couldn’t imagine an American company saying that.

    “Kraft is trying to buy Cadbury on the cheap to provide much needed growth to their unattractive low-growth conglomerate business model,” Cadbury’s chairman, Roger Carr, said in a statement. “Don’t let Kraft steal your company with its derisory offer.”

  • Women Are Better Money Managers Than Men
    , December 11th, 2009 at 9:32 am

    From DealBook:

    It seems that in the hedge fund industry, female fund managers come out on top — at least according to a new study from Bloomberg L.P. and the National Council for Research on Women.
    BusinessWeek notes that according to the research, from January 2000 through May 31, 2009, hedge funds run by women delivered nearly double the investment performance of those managed by men.
    On average, funds managed by women produced annual returns of 9 percent, compared with a 5.82 percent average annual return by funds run by men.
    Furthermore, in 2008, during the height if the financial crisis, funds run by women were down 9.6 percent versus a a 19 percent decline in those run by men.
    The study concludes that “on average, women tend to be more consistent investors, holding investments longer and processing a greater level of informational detail, including contradictory data, in making decisions.”
    “On the other hand,” the study said, “men tend to manage actively, trading often and basing decisions on overall schema.”
    “This research debunks the myth that women are less effective money managers than men,” the report said.

    So Would Lehman Sisters still be around?