Archive for June, 2008

The Dow: 10,500 by the End of July?

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

For better or worse, dear reader, I am not going to abandon 30 years of hard experience and 60 years of research by the best scholars the discipline of Finance has to offer and make a forecast. I believe, and the evidence supports that unless you are looking at longer ...

Budwiser Fights for Its Life: When It’s Not All About the Money.

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

How I love it when family companies defend themselves in takeover battles! The sheer deliciousness of a struggle between family, tradition, big slow horses, and pride of place generally, and a group of folks who just want to make money is almost as good as a female wrestling tag team ...

The Rating Agencies: Buried in the Sand to the Neck as The Tide Creeps In.

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

God, but I’m good. Know how to tell? Just read the title of the May 24th post. OK, I’ll cite it myself – “The Rating Agencies: Are They Doomed?” Now we learn that the SEC is giving serious thought to cutting off the agencies’ government-mandated monopoly status. (WSJ, June 24, ...

The Puget Sound Energy Bid: “Macquarie Group, Let Me Introduce You to The Public Council Section of the Attorney General’s Office of the State of Washington.”

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

Macquarie Group is trying to do a thing that it has done with notable success over the past few decades. Buy a corporation that provides a service essential to the Commonweal through thick and thin, leverage it, and then sell it off to investors. Macquarie has been successful doing this ...