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Posted
Sep 15 2009, 07:09 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This article is written by Minyanville's Glenn Curtis Wednesday after the close, Oracle (ORCL) is due out with first-quarter numbers. And I think this a decent time to belly up to the big-name California-based company. Here's why -- in no particular order:
1. I generally don’t like to chase stocks, but I think the fact that it's trading right near its 52-week high may turn out to be a positive. I suspect it will capture the hearts of momentum folks (retail and institutional), and as a result, this ball may continue to bounce.
2. As far as the first-quarter numbers are concerned (the estimate is currently $0.30), I believe it will beat by $0.01-$0.04. Ellison and crew know the score and the importance of meeting/exceeding expectations. And given the bounce-back in the share price, they’d all but wrestle a bull to make sure folks out there are left with a big grin after the first-quarter numbers are made public. Of course, its recent history raises my optimism, too: It's beaten expectations the last two quarters straight and in three of the last four quarters.
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Posted
Aug 24 2009, 04:02 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Steve Jobs worked at Apple (AAPL) for $1 a year in 2000, just before the launch of the iPod, which completely changed the company’s fortunes and made him astonishingly wealthy. Lee Iaccoca worked for $1 in 1978 when he took charge of crippled Chrysler.
The dollar-a-year tradition has fallen on hard times. The most recent apostle of the practice was Edward Liddy who took the chief executive’s job at American International Group (AIG) when it was deeply troubled. He had been the head of Allstate (ALL), so he probably did not need to make several million dollars. Liddy took the job as a public service, an action which seems to be both anachronistic and idealistic. Liddy worked hard to restructure the insurance company, but was derided mercilessly by Congress because AIG executives received large pay packages on his watch. The irony of this issue was that Liddy had nothing to do with the compensation agreements. Liddy was replaced by Robert Benmosche, the former chief executive of MetLife (MET). Benmosche presumably is wealthy enough to work for nothing, but insisted on being paid $7 million. The taxpayers who own 85% of AIG are appropriately enraged that AIG let Liddy leave.
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Posted
Aug 14 2009, 08:15 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 The economy tanked in 2008, but that didn't stop executive pay levels from soaring, according to The Corporate Library, a research firm that studies compensation plans.
The Corporate Library has come out with its list of the 10 highest paid chief executives of last year. And some of these folks made off like bandits even as the financial world came crashing down.
The highest paid executive was Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group (BX). Although Schwarzman's salary on paper was only $175,000, he ended up receiving a total of $702 million. That's because Schwarzman received a massive $4.7 billion equity grant in 2007, and is only now beginning to reap the benefits. Bing: More about The Blackstone Group
The second spot on the list belongs to Larry Ellison of Oracle (ORCL), who exercised 36 million stock options for a profit of nearly $550 million, according to The Corporate Library.
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Posted
Jun 30 2009, 12:25 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
It's official: California is broke.
For months, the most populous U.S. state has been in the throes of a historic budget crisis, as lawmakers have repeatedly failed to agree on how to resolve a $24 billion deficit.
What was once the country's richest state is preparing to issue IOUs to a host of creditors, according to the Financial Times. Among the dubious recipients of these IOUs: contractors, information-technology companies and food-service groups that cater to prisons. Funding for education and interest payments on its bonds are guaranteed by state law.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking a hard line with legislators, accusing them of offering up a piecemeal solution to the state's woes: "I will veto any majority tax increase bill that punishes taxpayers for Sacramento's failure to live within its means. It's time for the Legislature to send me a budget that solves our entire deficit without raising taxes," the Governator said Monday.
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Posted
Feb 17 2009, 03:13 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
It's crunch time for General Motors (GM). The automaker prepares to file the largest restructuring plan of its 100-year history, hoping to justify the $13.4 billion federal loan package it received in December, the New York Times reports. The 900-page road map to profitability crafted by GM will lead to more job cuts; the closure of more factories in North America; and the halving of its brands, with just Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC left standing. But these radical measures will be for naught, notes the NYT, if GM fails to persuade the United Automobile Workers union to agree to large cuts in retiree health care coverage.
Both GM and Chrysler (which also must submit restructuring plans today) are hinting at Chapter 11 filings "to frighten creditors and workers into discounting debt," writes BusinessWeek. That sets up a face off between the union and bondholders, with GM in the middle, says David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. With negotiations between the carmakers and the government expected to run beyond the Tuesday deadline, the Obama administration
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Posted
Oct 21 2008, 08:35 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
There are two major parts to this economic slowdown: Credit contraction and a slowdown in consumer spending. The credit contraction part is reasonably quick and sharply painful, much like getting hit over the head with a Louisville Slugger. A sizable chunk of Wall Street’s most prestigious firms have disappeared from the financial map.
Given the incredible velocity of the deleveraging process, let’s assume, for the sake of conjecture, that we're halfway through this phase of the epidemic. The second part, the consumer spending slowdown, will be more prolonged here in the U.S. and in most of Western Europe, and it's likely to emit confusing investment signals.
We've all seen or heard about the widespread hardship that U.S. consumers face. Furthermore, I believe this phenomenon is probably only just beginning, as credit is increasingly scarce, unemployment is rising, and inflation is still trending up. However, it's important to remember that the middle class is growing at around 20% per year globally, largely driven by quality-of-life improvements in countries like China and India.
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Posted
Sep 09 2008, 06:24 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
In community college Economics 101 students learn that there can be dips in bull markets. Usually these are caused by a single event like a change in the party that runs Congress. The same holds true for bear markets. Suckers jump in on one piece of news or another. The market spikes up. A week later, it's gone.
The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rescue pushed the market higher and may do so for a few days. In Asia, they know better. The rally never made it beyond the first 24 hours. Markets turned down in Day Two.
The overwhelming evidence is that almost no one benefited from the government taking over the agencies. The rest of the economy is in the toilet. A lot of data has come out in the last day underscoring that point.
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Posted
May 02 2008, 10:33 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
It's no surprise that Oracle's Larry Ellison tops Forbes' list of the best-paid CEOs in technology. Ellison is #14 on the list of world billionaires and gets big money from his company every year. His salary last year was only $1 million, but he got $182 million more through exercising stock options, according to Forbes.
Oracle shareholders can't be too upset. The company's total return in the fiscal year was 36.3%, according to Forbes. A year ago Oracle shares were in the $19 range. They reached the $23 mark in January and are now trading at around $21.34.
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Posted
Apr 22 2008, 04:43 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Once a year, the firm Millard Brown puts out its BrandZ 100 Most Valuable Brands. The data used for the list come from consumer research and financial data on the companies. The research house gives its methodology here.
For those who think Google is the top brand, give yourself a pat on the back. It has a brand valuation of $86 billion, up 30%. For those research mavens in the crowd, the figure makes absolutely no sense. Google has a market cap of $168 billion. Most of that would go away -- no matter how good the technology is -- if it changed it name to Dawdle.
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Posted
Mar 27 2008, 12:18 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's getting a $3 million tax refund on his huge Japanese-style estate, one of the most luxurious homes in Silicon Valley. The money he's getting back would have gone to schools, cities and the county he lives in, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Ellison's worth about $25 billion and received a $35 million salary last year. His 23-acre estate includes an 8,000-square-foot main house, a guest house and three cottages, a gymnasium, a man-made lake and two waterfalls. You can see a picture of the home under construction by clicking here.
The county assessor's office valued Ellison's home at about $166 million in 2005, but Ellison argued it was worth only $64.7 million, according to the Chronicle. He claimed the property faces "functional obsolescence" because there's a finite market for high-end homes like his. Plus, 16th-century Japanese architecture doesn't have broad appeal. And it's expensive to maintain the home's excessive landscaping and improvements.
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