stlplaceMarch 04 1999 to Mar 02 2009, courtesy of Google Finance.
Two thoughts pop up by looking at the charts:
1) We probably have not hit bottom yet;
2) The drop in mid 2008 till now is so sharp, 50% in one year 🙁
BTW, I think it’s a good idea to stay away from the market these days. Learn from the Oracle of Omaha.
(Update Mar07, 2009) I found a good example on performance comparison of regular ETF vs. leveraged ETF. In the past year, the finanicals ETF XLF lost about 75%, while the ultra financial proshares UYG (2 times bull) lost 95%. You can use google finance to draw the comparison.
MorningStar link here.
I remember years ago (in dot com era) there is a book named Dow 36,000. Obviously that predication was a laughing stock becaue Dow crashed in year 2000. No I am not trying to make a fool of myself, my title Dow 5,000 is merely to reflect today the Dow and S&P dropped to 12 year low again (source: bloomberg).
What is nationalization
This is my understanding. Usually a company has 3 types of capital: debt, preferred stock, common stock. In terms of ownership the equity holders (common stock holders) own the company. We say they borrow from the debt holders: in return they pay interest and principle to the debt holders down the road.
In the case of bankrupcy, debt holders have priority over preferred holders, preferred have priority over common, etc. (note all debt are not euqal too, some are senior than others, some are secured, some are not).
I have been a Borders customer for a long time, most times buying coffees while studying (reading books) there, from time to time I also bought some computer or finance related books, such as Effective C++, My Life as a Quant, etc. One benefit of buying books at Borders (compared to Amazon) is getting the book right away, vs. waiting and waiting (I normally use Amazon free shipping option which typically takes a week). We know time is money in many cases.
Recently I bought two books from Borders, one is Cocoa Programming on Mac OS X, another one os Pro C#, both with 40% discount (available to Borders members only, free to join). With the 40% discount, the books are about the same price at Amazon. For instance, the list price of Pro C# 2008 is $59.99, it’s $36 after 40% off (before tax). Amazon price is $37.79.
(Source: NPR Market Place)
Inventory
(Update Feb 29 2009) CNBC is putting up some nice words on Buffett today. After all, he lent $3 b to GE (the parent co. of NBC) last fall.
(Original) In these turbulant days, investors, ordinary and professional alike, look for directions from investor guru more than ever. Of course among gurus people pay attention, is Warren Buffett quarterly stock holdings change: people are interested in what he bought and what he sold, some (like yours truely) tried to understand his move and thinking, and follow him if makes sense. To avoid copycats, Buffett usually tries to delay his 13G filings as late as possible (within the deadline of SEC, or other regulatories). He famous sent a regular mail to Hongkong Securities Exchange after he sold the PetroChina stock, postmarked by the deadline of HSE.
(Update May 2020) I found from this website, it seems the US consumer saving rate went up a bit in last 5 years, from 6%, 8% to most recent 13% . I can understand the last part due to pandemic. In fact our restaurant eat out (to go, take out) shrunk a lot. My wife is stocking up groceries and cooking much more.
(Original Feb 2009) From Yahoo Tech-ticker.
I am sure car companies don’t like this, so as the jewery makers, Nieman Marcus, Saks 5th Ave. etc etc.
The most interesing point I heard from this clip is American consumers recently shift from overspent 6% (negative saving rate of 6%) to a saving rate of 3%.
This morning, Ingersoll Rand (NYSE: IR), the diversified industrial company makes procucts to air conditioner (Trane) to Schlage locks, reported its Q4 2008 earning this morning. Some highlights: it wrote down $3.7 billion (pre-tax, $3.4 b after tax) from Trane acqusition, or a loss of $10.56 per share. Interestingly, the stock went up about 15% in today’s trading. Why?
Some are saying the reason is the Q4 earning is above guidance (and street expectation).
Who is better positioned to weather the recession (or depression as some people like FT Martin Wolf said), American Express (NYSE: AXP) or Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS)? I got some DFS last week so my opinion maybe biased, but wait: I hold Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) which in turns holds significant number of AXP shares so I think I am ok here.
Fun aside, I think DFS is better positioned in this downturn because their consumer (like yours truely) continue to use them for daily stuff. On the other hand, American Express, which derives significant amount of revenue from high end consumers and business travel, has experienced and will continue to experience challenges in the near term. It’s about affordability or necessity.
I remember reading this last year, this morning I read it from Yahoo Finance. Here is the prospectus at SEC, and here is a glimpse at IPOHome. It looks like they are going to IPO on Feb 10 (from the roadshow, again from IPOHome).
I think most people heard about their product enfamil (Amazon, Wiki), the infant formula, whether one has kids or not. For instance, I don’t have kids now, but I bought some enfamil for my friends back in China last year. On first glance, this is a good IPO. If they trade around the $21 to $24 range (the IPO price range), I may get some. In this recessionary environment, I think most parents still feed their infants with best formula (if possible). This is especially true back in China.
Mead Johnson was a division of Bristol Myers Squibb before this IPO. Some background about this spinoff from the deal. The company plans to pay 20 cents quartly dividend. Like the EMC/VMWare spinoff, the parent company is only selling a minority stake (12.5%, according to Reuters). I think this combined with current market condition, is the reasons why this IPO did not receive much attention lately.
Snapshot: offering 25 million shares, range $21 to $24, expected date week of Feb 9. Dividend (proposed): 80 cents per year.