Gumby Fresh (Free subscription) | 07/22/2008
Since Felix Salmon is on holiday: Cost of a FreddieMac/Fannie Mae bailout, according to the congressional budget office: $25 billion Cost of just one of Aramco's proposed chemical plants in Saudi Arabia: $26 billion .
MediaBistro.com (Free subscription) | 07/17/2008
Both Felix Salmon and the folks at CJR have picked up on the fact that even the Wall Street Journal 's "hedcuts" appear to be reacting to what feels like relentlessly bad news. Behold Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, in early June, and one week later when his own job was called into question. And then there's these of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson done two weeks apart. Of course, maybe this is all just...
Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 07/17/2008
Felix Salmon submits: Financials are on a roll right now: the XLF index fund , which tracks the S&P financials index, traded as high as $20.89 this morning, exactly $4 or 23.6% higher than where it traded at the same time Tuesday morning. That kind of volatility bespeaks short covering to me, which means that the growlings from the SEC might be partly responsible for this latest uptick. The problem...
Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 07/17/2008
Felix Salmon submits: The headline of the day, without a doubt, is at Bloomberg News: Pakistani Investors Stone Karachi Exchange as Stocks Plunge Complete Story »
SeekingAlpha Energy Stocks (Free subscription) | 07/17/2008
Felix Salmon submits: What would constitute price manipulation in the oil industry? Howell Raines doesn't blame speculators for high prices in his latest column; instead, he blames the oil companies themselves. Supply and demand? Sure, but as John Lee, a business journalist at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times for many years, reminds me, supply and demand in oil are not just "two pie...
Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
Felix Salmon submits: I think it was about the time that the SEC started trying to curtail short selling that I finally decided that we're in panic mode. The market's actually flat, as I write this, although Fannie (FNM) and Freddie (FRE) are down 20%, maybe because the Ackman plan actually makes quite a lot of sense. Ackman's idea is to wipe out the current shareholders, and then create new equity...
Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
Felix Salmon submits: Dan Gross says that if and when the federal government bails out Fannie (FNM) and Freddie (FRE), "the bailout will be a bargain for American taxpayers, because any cost of it will be overwhelmingly offset by the tangible and quantifiable economic benefits that taxpayers have collectively received over the years from the market's expectations that such a bailout would materialize...
Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
Felix Salmon submits: The top headline on the front page of the FT this morning: US loans rescue passes its first test Complete Story »
Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
Felix Salmon submits: Financial stocks are plunging right now: If Fannie (FNM) and Freddie (FRE) can be brought to their knees, then no bank is safe. And falling bank stocks are systemically very worrying: The equity cushion is an important part of the way in which banks protect themselves from runs and ruin, which means that a falling share price can become self-fulfilling. But I'm more sanguine...
Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 07/15/2008
Felix Salmon submits: Lehman Brothers (LEH) is now trading at $12 a share, which is less than its asset-management business alone is worth . So at this point it makes perfect sense for CEO Dick Fuld to go private , sell off Neuberger Berman, and basically get the rest of the bank for free. Yes, there would be question marks over how reliable a private Lehman might be as a counterparty, but there are...
Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 07/14/2008
Felix Salmon submits: Amazingly, the Paulson statement seems to have worked! Stock indices are in not-down territory, the dollar is up, Fannie's (FNM) up 10% in early trade, and even Freddie's (FRE) up 27 cents. Even if the stocks are trading wholly on option value, every indication is that the option value is higher today than it was going in to the weekend. Then again, at this point Fannie and Freddie...
Marginal Revolution (Free subscription) | 07/14/2008
Felix Salmon does the heavy lifting. Here's one tidbit from Felix's interpretation: We can't afford for Fannie and Freddie to go bust, and we're Republicans, so there's no way we're going to nationalize them. And no one could conceivably afford...
Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 07/14/2008
Felix Salmon submits: Hank Paulson is a tough guy. He's no pushover: Just look at that phone call to Jamie Dimon, telling him that anything over $2 a share was altogether far too much money to pay for Bear Stearns. So what are we to make of his statement regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? With apologies to Jack , here's the parse: Paulson: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play a central role in our housing...
Talking Biz News (Free subscription) | 07/12/2008
Felix Salmon of Conde Nast Portfolio writes about how some business newspapers are collaborating with other newspapers to extend their reach. Salmon writes, “Yesterday, Dealbreaker’s John Carney told me that for the past couple of months his daily Wall Street Journal has been delivered with a free copy of the New York Sun. That kind of [...]
Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 07/11/2008
Felix Salmon submits: The FT reports on how the Dow-Rohm deal got done so easily: Dow's $78 per share bid represented a premium of 46 to 47 per cent to Rohm and Haas' share price when the parties first started to negotiate, but as the company's shares sank, that premium widened substantially. Without that market pressure on Rohm and Haas' board, the deal might not have happened, one insider said....
