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Posted
Apr 28 2009, 03:48 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
By the middle of the year, the federal government will own large, and in some cases, controlling interests, in two car companies and several major banks. There is a chance the the extent of rescue efforts and government ownership could move to auto parts suppliers and insurance companies. If the Treasury can pick up stock in Cisco (CSCO) and Intel (INTC), it can control most of the important sectors of the economy. That raises the issue of how the federal government gets all of that taxpayer money back.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) have done poorly on their “stress tests”. Each bank may be encouraged to raise more capital. As a number of analysts have pointed out, private equity has no interest in stakes in troubled banks, even at a steep discount to current market values.
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Posted
Jun 08 2009, 07:29 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
In a perfect world, all energy would come from electricity and hydrogen. Wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, and other renewable energy sources would provide enough electricity to power everything except air transportation. The “conventional” answer to transportation in the future was the hydrogen fuel cell. It doesn’t get any better than that. The fuel cell burns hydrogen and powers cars, trucks, and any other transportation vehicle. The hydrogen combines with oxygen to form water vapor. No other gases or pollutants are released.
The hydrogen fuel cell is an efficient generator of electricity, but it has one major problem: It needs hydrogen. So where does it get it? Therein lies the hydrogen myth. On Earth, there's no hydrogen to mine. You have to make it, and that requires wasting energy. You could conceivably mine hydrogen from the sun or Jupiter, but even Al Gore would probably agree that that would be tough to accomplish.
Last month, the Department of Energy (DOE) finally conceded that hydrogen won't be a part of the near-term solution to global warming, the peak oil crisis, or anything else you can think of. They're cutting back funding dramatically on hydrogen research. This is a triumph of physics over policy. In the long run, physics will always win, but we have way too many policy wonks in Washington without a clue about how the physical world works.
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Posted
Aug 05 2009, 04:01 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
General Motors' new chairman, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., says one of his major goals is to make certain that the No. 1 U.S. car company stays No.1. GM will find it very hard to measure up.
In an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal, Whitacre said being No. 1 is “the position we should strive for… (as) an American company that employs hundreds of thousands of people…We just want to be No. 1.”
If wishes were horses, all the beggars would ride. GM is losing ground to the competition at an alarming rate. In July it sold 187,582 vehicles, down 20% from the same period a year ago. Toyota (TM) sold 174,872, down 11% and Ford (F) sold 158,354, up 2%. The spread between the top three manufacturers has become remarkably small.
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Posted
Jun 01 2009, 07:52 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
It's official: General Motors (GM), the world's largest car company for more than 75 years, will drag its $82 billion in assets and $173 billion in liabilities into bankruptcy court.
The long-awaited move leaves the U.S. government as GM's majority owner. Washington is betting more than $50 billion in taxpayer money that its turnaround plan can transform GM into a slimmed-down, dynamic powerhouse in the rapidly changing global automotive industry -- despite mountains of debt, labor disputes, high fuel prices, and anemic sales.
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Posted
Aug 17 2009, 12:15 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This article was written by Minyanville's Josh Lipton This morning, longtime market pro Dennis Gartman weighed in with his views on the current Whole Foods boycott and controversy: “People who will go to a store wearing Birkenstocks and socks will take almost any outlandish position, and they’ve taken a position opposed to [CEO John Mackey’s] editorial in The Wall Street Journal last week that took Obamacare to task,” Gartman wrote. “When your own supporters are willing to abandon you, who will support you? It seems like a good question.” In his outrage-provoking WSJ piece, Mackey called for a move toward “less government control and more individual empowerment” rather than “a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system.” Bing: Whole Foods
Unsurprisingly, not all of Mackey’s Prius (TM)-driving customers agree with his views -- and some of those once-loyal, left-leaning patrons are now reportedly calling for a Whole Foods boycott on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. Of course, Mackey's certainly managed to alienate them before: see CEOs Gone Wild: John Mackey for more. Investors should boycott Whole Foods shares, but not because of its stance on health care reform.
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Posted
Apr 20 2009, 03:40 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The Chinese government has become more aggressive about buying foreign assets. Chinese leaders recently said they would begin to make investments in Europe through their sovereign wealth fund. The country has capital available to buy assets driven down by the recession.
Chinalco, China’s huge metals company, recently spent $19.5 billion buying into global mining giant Rio Tinto (RTP). Rio needed the money to decrease its debt. There is speculation that China wanted to secure access to minerals. To that extent, the investment was a “strategic” one on China’s part. The Australian government considered blocking the deal but did not. Perhaps debt-laden Rio made the case that it needed the money too much to help it through the economic downturn.
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Posted
Sep 04 2009, 09:49 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Volkswagen (VLKAF) wants more sales in the U.S., and will start building cars with more "American flavor," MSNBC.com reports.
That means bigger. And cheaper. VW is considering expanding into seven-passenger crossover SUVs in hopes of boosting its U.S. sales to 800,000 cars a year. Worldwide, Volkswagen wants to get to 10 million cars sold by 2018 (it sold 6.2 million last year). Volkswagen is hoping that it will appeal more to people who buy Toyota Camrys and Honda Accords, reports Dan Carney. Bing: Volkswagen fan clubs
It's also moving more car production to the U.S.
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Posted
Oct 01 2008, 11:52 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
One in five U.S. car dealerships could bite the dust in the next year, according to a study out Wednesday. Sales are down. Credit is harder to come by, and even the people who have good credit are leery of making big car purchases.
Potential investors are staying away, and no wonder. Car sales in this country have declined for 11 months straight -- the longest slide in 17 years, according to Bloomberg.
And September was a particularly ugly month. Carmakers are reporting results for the month, with negatives across the board. Ford's U.S. sales fell 34% from the month before, and Toyota was down 32%.
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Posted
Oct 07 2009, 10:19 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Could the Prius and other Toyota hybrids be banned from the U.S.? It seems unthinkable, but that's one possible ending to a patent investigation launched this week.
This case centers around Paice, a tiny Florida company that has patented a way to apply force to a car's wheels from the electric motor or the internal combustion engine. Paice thinks that Toyota (TM) is infringing on its technology, and is going after the automaker in court. The legal spat became much more serious for Toyota this week, when the U.S. International Trade Commission decided to investigate the matter. Bing: How do hybrid cars work?
The problem is that the ITC can stop any imports that infringe on U.S. patents.
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Posted
Feb 19 2009, 04:11 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Toyota (TM) wants General Motors (GM) to go out of business. Then the Japanese car company could take the No.1 market share position in America, perhaps over 25%, and make a fortune when the consumer gets back his appetite for spending.
All of that does make sense until analysts start to look inside the industry and see how the supply chain works. If GM falls, so do many of its suppliers. If the suppliers fail, Toyota loses its sources for parts. Toyota factories in the U.S. will have to shut down, and potential car buyers will need to keep the ir current vehicles or buy a horse.
According to Reuters,“A healthy U.S. auto industry is vital for a sound U.S. economy and by extension for Japanese carmakers.” That is only the tip of the iceberg and it is based on the fact that higher US unemployment will further undermine car sales. But, if the stimulus package works, the consumer’s ability to buy a new vehicle should improve.
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