Is there profit in water by the drop?
Water is the difference between paradise and hell. As far as I know that isn’t an old Moorish saying, but it should be. Driving through the fields of Andalucía last week, I remember looking out the right hand-window and seeing nothing but burnt brown earth and olive...I'm going dark next week but I'll be back on September 8
Next week I’m taking a real vacation. You know the kind where you actually don’t do any work instead of sneaking away while the kids are in the pool to pound out a blog post or two. That means no posts here or on my partners Moneyshow.com and MSN Money. I’ll be back...Are you contrarian enough to own farm stocks?
So when’s the farm rebound? The U.S. Department of Agriculture can’t cut its forecasts of farm income fast enough. Farm income will drop 38% in 2009 from 2008 levels, the USDA said on August 27. The forecast of $54 billion would mark a seven-year low in farm income...Want banks? Have you looked north, lately?
Looking for another way to invest the Canadian Loonie, which I called the world’s greatest currency, in my August 6 post? (See “The world’s greatest currency? The Canadian Loonie gets my vote. And soon some of my money”...Head to head: Petrobras vs. StatoilHydro
So which would you rather own, Petrobras (PBR) or StatoilHydro (STO)? On the surface that’s a no brainer. Petrobras is sitting on new deep sea finds in the South Atlantic that will, probably, double the company’s oil reserves. StatoilHydro’s production is concentrated...What I did with my summer vacation
This is a repeat post from August 18 for all those who missed my notice on publication plans for the rest of August. I’m going to use the next couple of weeks to try to make a big dent in my backlog of updates for the Jubak Picks 50 portfolio from my book. When...Natural gas pains: What's a value investor to buy?
Some company will eventually make a killing from today’s collapse in natural gas prices. But when? And which company? Value investors usually only need to identify a bargain and then hang on until the rest of the stock market catches up with their thinking. But the...Why we can't kill efficient market theory and why that dooms us to more market meltdowns
I remember watching in fascinated horror in October 1987 as the stock market crashed. On Monday October 19 the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 22.6%. $500 billion evaporated. As a young (well, relatively) business editor I got pressed into service calling up...Verizon vs. AT&T: The winner is the bravest cannibal
There are many ways to cannibalize a business. For example, there’s simple cannibalism where a company introduces a new product that eats the old. The hope here is that the new product will grow fast enough and carry high enough profit margins to make up for the...Asian stocks are looking expensive. Which could be good for U.S. shares
Asian stocks were rallying again as I wrote this about midnight New York time on Wednesday August 13. Nothing really surprising about what kind of companies were leading the move. Gainers included miners (BHP Billiton (BHP), the world’s largest mining company),...Trading halted in Fortescue Metals: more cash from China on the way?
Trading in Australian iron ore miner (and Jubak’s Pick) Fortescue Metal (FSUMF.PK) has been halted in anticipation of the release of news on Monday that the company has completed a ”commercial negotiation”. Speculation in Australia is that the news...Brazil adopts a China-style industrial policy–and the target is China
The Brazilian government has told Vale (VALE), the country’s largest iron-ore producer (and either No. 1 or No. 2 in the world) that it has to do more to build up the Brazilian domestic steel industry rather than just selling iron ore to Chinese steelmakers....Will the Fed's news be good or bad for the dollar?
Inquiring minds want to know: Will all the moving parts in the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee press release of August 12 net out as good or bad for the dollar? The answer is important to more than just currency traders: the dollar is likely to be the...Exactly how much time do Ford and GM have for a comeback? Two model years at most, I'm afraid
Now it’s a horse, errgh, car race. The prize, market share in the U.S. car market, will go to the company that can get new models out the door and into showrooms fastest. That, and not the fate of low volume $40,000 bragging rights cars like the all-electric Chevy...Psst! Want to make some money on the collapse in commercial real estate? Here's a fund manager who knows how
The commercial real estate sector is in chaos. And the market is still collapsing with delinquencies on commercial mortgages still climbing. (For more on the commercial mortgage meltdown see my post, “Danger to banks from commercial mortgages still...Danger to banks from commercial mortgages still climbing
Delinquency rates for commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS)–that is commercial mortgage loans backed by office buildings, retail stores, hotels, and apartment buildings–that have been packaged into securities and then sold to investors–rose to...Wednesday is Fed day: Here's what Wall Street is hoping to hear
At a little after 2 p.m. on Wednesday August 12 the Federal Reserve will be either naughty or nice. From Wall Street’s perspective, anyway. Naughty, according to Wall Street, would be a press release that confirms the Fed’s view that the economy is in a...Don't begrudge the banks their overdraft fees. Poor things, it's all that's keeping them afloat
I’m actually not kidding. Without overdraft fees, 45% of banks and credit unions wouldn’t have made money in 2008, according to research from Moeb Services. No wonder banks are jacking up their fees as fast as they can. This is the first recession since...Is the speed of China's economic growth a fiction?
Timing is everything. Any first year accounting student knows that the easiest way—in the short term–to make a company’s revenues and earnings look good is to change when a company recognizes a sale or an expense. Recognize a sale as soon as the sales person...Will Monday's second thoughts on the jobless numbers leak into Tuesday? And beyond?
Remember Friday, August 7? That day the stock market tacked 114 points, a huge gain for a market that was looking tired, onto the Dow Jones Industrial Average on news that jobless rolls, rather than swelling by 328,000 as economists had expected showed an increase of...China plays hardball on iron ore but the iron ore miners are the winners so far
China has so far refused to sign a long term contract with the world’s big iron ore exporters, Vale (VALE), BHP Billiton (BHP), and Rio Tinto (RTP). The goal was to get a big price break on iron ore prices. But it now looks like China’s tough stance has...Nobody has ever written about the world of debt like Thackeray and Balzac
Debt. It may go down in history as America’s greatest product. Certainly no country has invented so many varieties of it. Or contrived to spread debt, once the property of only the upper class and those who would aspire to the upper class, so democratically across...Payroll losses down–that's good. But consumer credit falls–that's bad–and so does the Baltic Dry index–that's bad too. The economic picture is clearly mixed
On Friday before the U.S. financial markets opened the Labor Department reported that only a net 247,000 workers lost their jobs in June. That was a big decrease from the drop of 443,000 in June. And way better than the 325,000 decline that economists had been...How's this for a resume? Lost another $15 billion for taxpayers; looking for well-paying financial post in private sector
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. On August 5 James Lockhart announced he is stepping down as the man in charge of the government agency that now effectively runs the mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE). The two companies are the biggest...Jobless numbers tomorrow–and on them hangs the trend in this market
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the July payroll and unemployment numbers tomorrow before the stock market opens. It’s a chance to give some badly needed new life to the “We can see the turn in the economy coming” optimism that has...Building a Loonie portfolio: 8 Canadian stocks, that is.
Want to give yourself some exposure to Canada’s commodities, Canada’s economy, and Canada’s currency,the Loonie? (See my 8:30 a.m. post today for the reasons that makes sense.) Here’s a quick eight stock portfolio to buy when the time is right....The world's greatest currency? Canada's Loonie gets my vote. And soon some of my money.
Not the yen, or the euro or the reminbi. Sure as shootin’ not the U.S. Dollar or the pound. Yep, it’s the Loonie, Canada’s dollar with the ghostly-voiced diving bird on it, that gets my vote as the world’s greatest currency. And not just at the...Now it's the retailers' turn to speak–I don't expect to hear much happy talk
On Thursday August 6 retailers will report same-store sales for July. The numbers are likely to be just more of the same ugly digits reported in June. Bad weather hasn’t helped. Labor Day doesn’t come until Septemvber 7 this year, delaying the back to...Wanna bet the mortgage crisis is over?
This from Reuters.com today: The percentage of U.S. homeowners that owe more than their house is worth will nearly double to 48 percent in 2011 from 26 percent at the end of March as home prices continue to fall, according to Deutsche Bank. The biggest damage will be...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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