Oil is hitting new highs on a constant basis.  Hovering around $105 a barrel for about a week now, the large oil companies must be jumping up and down...

But is the joyful jumping justified? 

To be perfectly honest - I dont thinks so.  If you look at the balance sheets of the big time oil giants you will see that they are flooded with cash.  And we have all heard that cash is king and the more cash the better.

Well tons of cash could be good and it could be bad.  It all depends on the length of time that the cash has been on the books.  If the cash if coming in quicker than these companies can invest it, then it is a good thing.

However, if the cash has been sitting on the books for months, one has to wonder if these companies are having problems finding areas to invest in and if management really knows what to do.

They shou ... Read More »

THE FINAL NUMBERS

NEWS:  During the final hour of trading the Dow wiped out a 99-point loss to close with a modest loss. The industrials finished with a loss of 7 points at 12,258. The S&P 500 eked out a minimal gain of less than one point after being down as much as 10 points. The NASDAQ was the weak link, falling 12 points or 0.6% on the day.

THE BOTTOMLINE: A vey muted group of closing numbers today is overshadowed by the rally off the late session lows, a signal buyers were picking up some “value” plays in the final hour of trading. There are two key support levels you must watch this week on the S&P 500; 1310 is the closing low of 2008, set on 1/22 and 1270 is the intraday low, set the following day. The mid-afternoon sell-off brought the index to within 10 points of the first support level before it was able to boun ... Read More »

Verizon Wireless announced today that it is going to offer an unlimited voice plan for $139.99 a month.  This raised the hairs on all the wireless giant’s necks, as all hell broke lose during trading today – sending shares of AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon through the floor - losing 5.6%, 2.6% and 6.2% respectively.

Fears of a pricing war have started to run wild.  Now that a company has decided to break wireless “gentleman’s agreement” – ... Read More »

THE FINAL NUMBERS

NEWS:  A late session rally helped pare the losses and push the S&P 500 into positive territory. The S&P 500 managed a 1-point gain and closed the week up 1.5%. The Dow lost 28 points and gained 1.4% for the week. The NASDAQ had the roughest day, falling 10 points and only adding 0.7% for the week. The small-cap stocks continued to struggle also, falling 0.5% today and putting together a paltry 0.4% rally on the week.

THE BOTTOMLINE:  The resilience the market showed today in the face of more negative comments by blowhard Alan Greenspan regarding a recession and a worse-than-expected economic numbers was impressive. It has now been 4 weeks since the market fell several hundred points on the open and the Fed came to the rescue. Since that time the major indices have been able to remain above the l ... Read More »

Stocks shot up today when Warren Buffet announced an offer to reinsure $800 billion in municipal debt.  This offer was extended to three top bond insurers:  FGIC Corp, MBIA Inc and Ambac Financial Group.  It was a bold move – and I’ll tell you why…

Along with the $800 billion comes a 50 percent premium charge on top of what the bond insurers are already receiving from the d ... Read More »