October 21-28, 2005 – Minyanville.com This Quarter’s Theme: Consumer Weakening I am getting the feeling that this holiday season is going to be ugly, or at least disappointing. Listening to earnings calls of companies I follow (don’t necessarily own their stock) I keep hearing this “consumer weakening” justification to their poor results. Arguably, their management [...]
Vitaliy Very interesting article on Wal Mart (WMT). Here’s my two cents. Capitalism, without a social context, is a pretty simple equation. From this perspective, go Wal Mart! On the other hand, people need to look at the social externalities of Wal-Mart’s economic model…the goods are cheaper if you don’t consider that their existence makes [...]
October 26, 2005 – Minyanville.com I got two words for that: Who cares? Care about them? Why? They didn’t care about you. They sucked you dry. You have no responsibility to them. For the last ten years this company bled your money. Did this community ever say, ‘We know times are tough? We’ll lower taxes, [...]
October 20th 2005 – Minyanville.com Thoughts on Abbott Lab’s 3rd Quarter Results I was more than satisfied with Abbott Laboratories (ABT) 3rd quarter performance. Its margins were depressed in the quarter as for several reasons: It took several charges (some of which should actually benefit the company in the future); sales of Mobic, a low [...]
October 19th 2005 – Minyanville.com In the first quarter of 2005 I put USB stock on double secret probation. After the second quarter I took it off probation. This quarter’s performance earns USB a get-out-of-jail-free card. As I’ve mentioned previously I have a checklist of things I look for in a bank. Specifically, growing assets [...]
October 12, 2005 – Minyanville I know very little about baseball. Football (a sport that is insulted in this country as soccer), hockey and chess (a spectator sport in Russia) are the national sports in Russia. This is a true story: about thirteen years ago I went to my first baseball game. I was patiently [...]
Lloyds? Lloyds TSB? Is that a property and casualty insurance company?†“No, a British bank.†“Oh . . . †I’d imagine this is the start of a typical conversation between Lloyds TSB’s management team and US investors, [at the time feeling like Yogi Berra when he said, “I wish I had an answer to that because I’m tired of answering that question.â€]
Lloyds TSB is the largest UK-based, non-multinational bank but new investors outside of the country confuse the company with that icon of risk UK commercial property and casualty insurer Lloyd’s of London.
Why I don’t Follow Russia Hi Vitaliy, I’m just curious as to why you don’t follow Russian market? Is this a choice (it is for me, and I missed the best stock market in the world for the last 6 years), or just “so happened”? Thanks, Alex MA- There are several reasons why I don’t [...]