GM’s shares are trading just above $10 a share this afternoon. According to the WSJ’s David Gaffen, GM shares haven’t traded below $10 a share since September 1954. Now that’s something you don’t see every day! Yesterday, GM rallied on…
The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article today (“Small Banks Reckoning Day Is Coming” (subscription required), Wednesday July 2, C2) on rising delinquencies on construction loans made to builders by regional banks. This chart of soaring delinquency rates on these loans…
A few minutes ago, as part of its continuing transformation agenda Starbucks (SBUX) announced that they will be closing 600 underperforming US stores. In addition, they said they will be opening less than 200 US stores in fiscal 2009, down…
Every weekend I write a client note in which I attempt to summarize the week’s action and highlight significant events. As I was writing it last night I was struggling to make sense of the huge selloff we saw last…
The new home market continues to be brutal as we saw yesterday with Lennar and today with KB Homes (KBH Earnings Release). I created the same chart for KB Homes of new home deliveries and backlog going back to 2003:…
Homebuilder Lennar (LEN) reported 2nd quarter earnings today and they were not pretty (LEN Earnings Release). I put together a chart of Lennar’s new homes delivered and backlog going back 5 years which pretty much tells the story: LEN New Homes…
Although downside risks to growth remain, they appear to have diminished somewhat, and the upside risks to inflation and inflation expectations have increased. – Fed Statement, June 25 After 7 consecutive cuts in the Fed Funds rate from 5.25% down…
Slow U.S. economic growth and an unprecedented increase in the cost of fuel have resulted in lower-than-expected U.S. package volume and an accelerating contraction in the use of premium air products. In addition, the anemic U.S. economy is negatively impacting…
Less than a month after announcing across the board price increases to combat rising energy and raw materials costs (May 28 Press Release), Dow Chemical (DOW) is at it again announcing additional across the board price increases of as much…
I’m back from my week off in Las Vegas where I played in two bracelet events (#s 32 and 36 – both $1500 buy in, No Limit events) at The World Series of Poker. The Washington Post did an excellent 3-part…