Wall Street bets on companies by buying their stock. It bets against them by shorting their shares. A short seller borrows shares, sells them and waits for the price to go down. When it does, the shares are repurchased at a… Read More
Analyst Articles
Wall Street is Wrong about Buffett’s Successor
Warren Buffett may well be the most-watched man in the world. No paparazzi are camped outside his house, but there’s a huge cult of investors that hangs on the famed Oracle of Omaha’s every word. So news that Richard Santulli had stepped down as the head of Berkshire Hathaway’s (NYSE:… Read More
Talk about a rough ride: The nation’s nine major airlines lost -$671 million in the second quarter. We’ve all heard plenty of talk about how no one is flying anymore. Maybe it feels that way, but the airlines are still bringing in plenty of revenue. The total top line for… Read More
How to Profit From Higher Interest Rates
Art Laffer is the dean of supply-side economics, which holds that the key to any macroeconomic ill is to let people keep their money rather than to tax them. I agree. So did President Reagan, whose landmark tax cuts in the early 1980s were… Read More
Warren Buffett has sold 16% of his 48 million shares in Moody’s Investors Service (NYSE: MCO), which he has held since 2000. It’s exactly the right move. Earlier in the week I wrote that this should happen after reading the lawsuit filed by the… Read More
Three (Post-Earnings) Predictions for Apple
Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) turns in its quarterly report card this evening after the closing bell. Its earnings, like any company’s, are all about the past. With Apple, the direction to look is forward. First, the basics: Apple… Read More
If You Own Moody’s, Sell
“In the coming year, the Securities and Exchange Commission will complete its examination of the [nation’s rating agencies] role in rating residential mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations linked to subprime mortgage loans.” So said… Read More
The Most Undervalued Stock in the Dow
Everything is relative, especially market valuation. A utility, for instance, with its steady, slow-growth business, is never going to command the earnings multiple of a rapidly growing biotech firm or high-tech upstart. That’s why it’s best to make valuation comparisons within industries. It’s also… Read More
We’re 11 days past the July 1 deadline, and California still doesn’t have a budget in place. Democratic lawmakers and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger remain at loggerheads about a $26 billion budget shortfall. Schwarzenegger says he won’t accept any more taxes. Without a budget, the state can’t spend money. Without… Read More
Las Vegas housing prices are in the toilet. The latest numbers show prices there have fallen -37.3% in the past year and -51.1% since 2006. The state of Nevada leads the nation in foreclosures — 10,000 in March alone — and seven out of ten Las Vegas mortgages are underwater… Read More