Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
The market is pricing Greek debt at what it's actually worth, ditto for Portugese, Irish, and other bankrupt nations' debts. If the Fed had not been monetising US debt in various hidden ways, the markets would have priced US debt at what it's truly worth. Indeed, when the Fed buys GSE debt from the Chinese at face value in return for the Chinese buying treasuries at face value, this is tantamount to the Chinese buying treasuries at 50-75 cents on the dollar, the value of the junk the Fed buys from them to get them to buy treasuries.
The governments in the Western countries are eager to buy, on behalf of their taxpayers, assets (such as Greek bonds) at prices that greatly exceed their market value. This is a breach of their fiduciary rsponsibility to their taxpayers. I sincerely hope that their constituents, perhaps in Germany, will put an end to this irresponsible charade.
Dow Drops a Bombshell; Turns in Profit [View article]
Shareholders should wake up and demand big changes at the top. The company has been grossly mismanaged and nearly bankrupted. At the very least, there should be no executive raises, bonuses, or option grants until the dividend is restored to it previous level.
Dividends or No Dividends, That Is the Question [View article]
In the 70's and 80's, dividends used to be the primary reason investors bought stocks, before growth mania took over as the era of the great bubbles developed. As the back-to-back bubbles started in the 90's, pundits began to deride dividends as antiquated and stodgy.
Now that investors have finally perceived that the bubble era was just an illusion of unsustainable valuations growth, dividends are back in vogue. When people find that a stock is still worth what they paid ten or fifteen years ago, the only thing they have to show for their investment is dividends.
In the post-bubble era, dividends are back to stay, and companies that don't pay them, or reduce them, will see their stock values fall.
Dow and Rohm & Haas: Some Deals Are Too Risky These Days [View article]
Another example of the extent to which corporate governance has collapsed. Highly paid, but incompetent management, aided and abetted by an ignorant and irresponsible board, brings one of our great companies to the brink of ruin.
It seems inconceivable that anyone with any busines sense, would (a) pay such a premium for an acquisition, (b) sign an irrevocable deal for the acquisition without financing being in-place, and (c) predicate the financing on another deal (Kuwait) which, it turns out, was revocable!
If the shareholders of Dow Chemical do not fire the entire management team, along with the board, then they just deserve what losses they get.
Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News [View article]
The governments in the Western countries are eager to buy, on behalf of their taxpayers, assets (such as Greek bonds) at prices that greatly exceed their market value. This is a breach of their fiduciary rsponsibility to their taxpayers. I sincerely hope that their constituents, perhaps in Germany, will put an end to this irresponsible charade.
Dow Drops a Bombshell; Turns in Profit [View article]
Dividends or No Dividends, That Is the Question [View article]
Now that investors have finally perceived that the bubble era was just an illusion of unsustainable valuations growth, dividends are back in vogue. When people find that a stock is still worth what they paid ten or fifteen years ago, the only thing they have to show for their investment is dividends.
In the post-bubble era, dividends are back to stay, and companies that don't pay them, or reduce them, will see their stock values fall.
Dow and Rohm & Haas: Some Deals Are Too Risky These Days [View article]
It seems inconceivable that anyone with any busines sense, would (a) pay such a premium for an acquisition, (b) sign an irrevocable deal for the acquisition without financing being in-place, and (c) predicate the financing on another deal (Kuwait) which, it turns out, was revocable!
If the shareholders of Dow Chemical do not fire the entire management team, along with the board, then they just deserve what losses they get.
(Disclosure: Buy and hold investor in Dow)