Wealth Today » Business

Wall Street Whacked In Its Pants Today

joshuak — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:20:32 +0000

The AP reported on a rough day on another rough day in Wall Street. It is one of the best articles I have read in awhile. Having dropped 800 points during the day, it finished at 370 less than last closing. Indeed it was rough. The article has an interesting statement : “[he] believes investors are sensing that what’s happening in the economy is a shift in the extent to which consumers and businesses take on debt.” I am interested in seeing how this will carry out. Will we have some way of engaging self-finance? It is obvious that will change banking, but how will it affect other markets. We can assume technology through forms of automation.

Also significant in the article is Joseph V. Battipaglia’s discussion on the deleveraging of economies and the open discussion that this phenomenon is occurring right now and very quickly. It will be interesting to see what will happen after the deleveraging of the economies, which is omitted from the article. I expect it to have some radical impacts on politics and perhaps even borders.

I also appreciate the candidness which fund manager Ryan Jacob openly admits that other big name players are still attempting to gain ground in the market, mentioning Buffett’s new checkmate and the melee over Wachovia.

You can find the article here.

Wall Street Battered by Brutal Reports

joshuak — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:46:51 +0000

Today, the Dow Jones dropped 340 points as the US government released its poor report on the employment status of Americans, revealing a further weakening economy. The Department of Labor’s report showed a reversal of continued decline in unemployment, with an increase of 15,000 applications for unemployment during August.

Also reported were further slumps in retail markets, that pointed to necessity spending by consumers and an abandonment of demand for luxury items.

Google Drops The Chrome Bomb

joshuak — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:43:43 +0000

Google’s launching into the browser wars head on with the announcement of Chrome. It’s a web browser that boasts some nice features.

sandbox tabs for security, meaning each tab will run in its own process in the operating system.
integrated with existing web based apps like Google Docs, Calendar, Gmail, etc.

The Windows binaries are available, but while they have stated it will be available for the Linux-based Android on the mobile platform, no current Linux binaries or source are available. I’m disappointed because I’m not sure I’m excited enough to reboot to Windows in order to find out.

This speaks volumes of their software development efforts for integrating their business into the entire user experience, from search engine to operating system, mobile phone platform, personal computers, web browser, office document suite, groupware service provider, ad content provider, automated electronic language translation and so much more… are the only things missing routers, peripherals, and servers?

Icahn Gets a Seat on Yahoo’s Board

joshuak — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:13:45 +0000

Today, Yahoo gave Icahn 3 seats on the board of directors, bringing the total to eleven. Icahn takes a seat as the second largest institutional shareholder. While Icahn has failed to get a majority of seats, the situation continues to be a disruption to their business. Icahn’s unable to negotiate on behalf of the company without Yahoo’s permission, and must be allowed to participate on any committee that deals with a possible deal topic. While Icahn has a history of success in these ventures, we still have yet to see if there will be any deal between Microsoft and Yahoo.

Dow Jacks Up Prices Again

joshuak — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:56:04 +0000

For the second month in a row, Chemical magnate Dow increased prices. This time by as much as 25 percent, compared to last month’s increase of 20 percent. Interestingly enough, they uncover a plan of surcharges for each truck delivery and railcar delivery. They offer consumers the same reason so many other business do when raising prices : rising fuel costs.

Dow Chemical Increases Prices By Twenty Percent

joshuak — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:50:30 +0000

Dow’s CEO, Andrew Liveris, blames the US Government’s long-standing policy of inaction towards the rising energy crisis for the company’s recent hike in prices on all products across the globe by up to 20%. Dow claims a 42 percent increase in cost of their energy and “feedstock” (the raw petroleum from crude oil) for the first quarter compared to a year ago. My concern : Dow’s extensive list of products and services is a far reaching bohemeth and this price increase will gouge into the pockets of other industries that are already hit hard by the increase in fuel prices.

Yahoo’s Buy-Out Offer Deadline Closes In

joshuak — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:53:50 +0000

Today’s the final day for Yahoo to respond to Microsoft’s takeover offer from February 1st 2008. The truth is, they have already responded. Yahoo’s told them that at $31 a share, they’re undervaluing the company. Yahoo feels the massive organization is worth $40 a share. Microsoft has threatened that to not accept this offer may instead cause them to receive worse offers in the future. It’s possible that Yahoo’s stockholders may vote pro-Microsoft members onto the board at the next opportunity. I still say we haven’t seen the last of it yet. It seems as though it will be tough for Yahoo to avoid it in the long term.

The Biggest Fortune Losers

joshuak — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:17:31 +0000

Fortune 500’s posted their Biggest Losers of 2007. Some I was not surprised by and some I’m rather shocked about.

General Motors (loss 38.73 billion USD)
Sprint/Nextel (loss 29.58 billion USD
Merrill Lynch (7.77 billion USD)
Advanced Micro Devices (3.38 billion USD)

We knew GM was having problems. With losing as much as ExxonMobil made in profits during 2007, I’m staggered by the irony. With Sprint, we all knew it was just a bailout of Nextel and to provide a transition as people move to more standard wireless connectivity. Merrill Lynch was hit hard by the falling real estate so we all expected it. The one I was surprised about was AMD. The CEO, Hector Ruiz, sees it like I do though. With the acquisition of ATI, AMD had to spend a little to prepare themselves for the future, calling 2007 a “transitional year”. This is going to mean excellent big things for them because of GPU and CPU integration, but the combination of the purchase and the slow release of Opteron and Phenom processors set them back shiny gem.