Donald E. L. Johnson

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    • Mon Nov 24th 15:19 PM
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      Watching the New York Times Struggle
      The only paper that has a good set of blogs and boards is wsj.com, and I'd give it a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being high.

      And for years I've been arguing the Times turns off half of its potential readers and therefore half of its potential ad revenue with it's unprofessional, biased reporting and editing and its shrilly left editorials and op-ed columnists.

      As long as Pinch, a Vietnam era radical and kid, runs the Times, it will continue to slide. Since he's still relatively young, the slide has a long way to go.
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    • Sun Nov 23rd 23:06 PM
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      GM: Bankruptcy Is No Longer an Option
      Simple Accountant is on to something. Hold a fire sale of the three companies' assets. Some private equity firm could come in and buy a nice headquarters, accounting, marketing and information technology system with the two or three plants it would need to produce a couple of the top brands. Then it could cherry pick the dealers it wants to sell its products and hire production workers, etc. it needs. It could write a new union contract or freeze out the UAW, which has destroyed Detroit.

      Say it did all of this for $5 billion and put $30 billion into the biz. It would make big bucks, having bought assets for pennies on the dollary, owing no retiree benefits and rallied greatful workers to its venture. Hell, the workers could buy into the biz.

      Buffett, Gates, Jobs and Hank Paulson can finance the thing with a little help from Harvard and Yale endowments. And maybe the Ford Foundation.
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    • Sun Nov 23rd 22:50 PM
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      Home Price Plunge Produces Sales Spikes In Many Cities
      Markets work! Keep the govt. out and the over supply will take care of itself as long as buyers can get mortgages. Great for people looking for affordable housing. Horrible for a lot of sellers, including the banks.

      Good roundup even tho too many of the stories quoted Realtors who always hype and inflate their reports on prices and sales activities.
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    • Fri Nov 21st 10:19 AM
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      Apple's Greatest Idea Yet
      AAPL is $83.64. PE is 15.57 and forward pe, for what it's worth, is 12.3, which means the very unreliable PEG is a very cheap 0.6. Relative strength on daily charts shows stock is oversold and has been since early Oct. Trading below 50- and 200-dma. Negative sar and macd. Bollinger band width still rising, which is bearish. Point and figure price price objective is $60

      Annual AT&T cost is, what, $1,200? How many out-of-work Apple enthusiasts will spend $1,200 on iPhone, another $1,200 on cable, Dish, etc. and $12,000 to $30,000 on housing, plus transportation, etc. Priorities?

      In this economy, the fundamentals are impossible to forecast. Thus, uncertainty could keep the stock in a trading range for some time, and price momentum is bearish.

      Morningstar estimates AAPL's fair value is $169, but M* has been very slow in lowering its fair value estimates. Stock is selling for only 2.3 times sales per share and for a relatively low 7.78 times cash flow? Why is the market pricing the stock this way?

      Again, uncertainty. I own some AAPL, but I won't buy more until the daily, weekly and point and figure charts are bullish.
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    • Mon Nov 17th 09:05 AM
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      GM Bailout Would Be Agony for Taxpayers
      I bot GM at $16.56 last June and have sold enough calls to reduce my net investment to about $13. So, I'm in the hole, and my only hope is that the company will avoid bankruptcy, allowing me to sell calls until I'm at breakeven. At this point I think the chances are that politicians will keep Detroit out of bankruptcy. But I think the companies and the country would do better if the auto makers were given the opportunity to reorganize under Chapter 11. The idea that 3 million would lose their jobs if auto makers filed for Chapter 11 is bogus and a lie.
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    • Mon Oct 13th 23:19 PM
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      Economic Outlook: Is It Safe?
      What is sad is that McCain is unable to articulate the risks the country faces in electing Obama. Even today's editorial in the WSJ, "Obama's 95% illusion" is written for MBAs, not for McCain or voters. I've tried to translate the editorial into English, but it's not easy.

      Congrats on a well-written and thoughtful piece and on your fearless use of the word "socialist."
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    • Mon Oct 13th 23:04 PM
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      CNBC's Gasparino Problem
      As I've blogged, Obama's tax credit scheme will be a fiasco. The real wingnut on CNBC is Steve Leisman (sp?) who is clearly backing Obama and is a typical CNBC liberal. I've become so irritated with Burnette's attempt to single-handly turn the market around with her chirping that I've gone over to Fox Business Network more and more. Gasparino can be annoying, but he's a good reporter, and more honest than anybody else on CNBC.
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    • Mon Oct 6th 15:53 PM
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      The Cramer Crash?
      Good comments by Cramer. He's saying what the Street is thinking, unwilling to sell mainstreet a pig in a poke. Individual speculators have a right to hear what the pros are thinking, imo.
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    • Sun Sep 28th 15:07 PM
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      W.R. Berkley Is Worth Betting On - Barron's
      The most important part of the article points out the weakness in the P&C markets. That and a close look at charts for insurers says these stocks will get cheaper before they bottom out. In addition to their cyclical downturn, insurers are being hurt by the economic slow down, and who knows when the economy will bottom out and turn up?

      Y is another BRK.A stock.
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    • Fri Sep 26th 10:47 AM
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      The 15-Point Plan to End the Credit Crisis
      Good piece. Is there a role for exchange-traded futures in mortgage backed securities?

      Is there a way to create standardized trading units that everyone can understand?

      Could the futures markets trade highly-rated MBSs and allow for the delivery of various grades at market-determined discounts for lower grade units?

      Is there a way for outstanding MBS units to be recast into standard, tradable units? Who would do the evaluating and recasting?
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    • Wed Sep 24th 14:35 PM
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      Bill Gross on the Bailout Plan
      Maybe Congress should specify that it will buy assets at 35% of par, take it or leave it. That would tank the stocks of the companies involved, punishing investors, executives and directors, and it would make it unnecessary for the gov to buy or take possession of the companies's stock.

      Gross just said on CNBC that Pimco would help auction the securities at no fee if other firms would do the same.

      As I've blogged today, the government and independent experts need to quantify potential risks and rewards in terms of potential unemployment, inflation, mortgage rates, etc., if a workable rescue plan isn't enacted.
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    • Tue Sep 23rd 11:33 AM
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      The Real Wall Street Doesn't Deserve to Be Ruined
      First, I've never owned AIG or the investment banks. Too risky, and I don't ride losers. I sell them. I'm ok because I'm a speculator, not a gambler. There is a difference.

      Second, I can be as much of a market purist as anybody, but what's made America prosperous is our ability to adapt and innovate as well as put people who make bad decisions out of work and crooks in jail.

      Third, my annualized returns since I got back into the market in a small way in early June are very positive. I'm making money, not just beating the averages.

      Fourth, anybody who doesn't see how the Paulson plan is intended to help main street doesn't understand the markets or the economy.
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    • Wed Sep 17th 12:47 PM
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      7 Attractive Dividend Stocks
      PFE's sinking. It's point and figure price objective is $8, down from $17.87. GE is at $22.62 and its objective is $13. It's being shorted on its huge financial exposure regardless of what it says. PAYX is sinking on weekly charts. It's at $32.12 with an objective of $52. PAYX rallies in anticipation of rising interest rates, which don't seem to be in the cards at the moment. I just sold BBT because it's a bank.
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    • Mon Sep 15th 12:35 PM
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      Weekend Reading: Evil! Speculators! Edition
      I agree with the opening post and have blogged accordingly.

      www.businessword.com/i.../

      My lede graphs:

      The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today proved that it intends to protect pension funds, endowments, mutual funds and other commodity futures index speculators and their Wall Street brokers from advocates of strong limitations on their ability to distort the oil, corn, wheat, soybean and other futures markets.

      In a long awaited 71-page report to Congress, the CFTC basically asked for more staff to study the problem of institutional speculation in the futures markets. The report is here.

      The CFTC’s report shows how highly-politicized commissioners and staff work. They are captives of the futures exchanges like CME Group (CME), which owns the Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, International Money Market and New York Mercantile Eschange. Oil and other commodities and financial futures are traded on these exchanges.

      Political gaming is reflected in the CFTC report, which says that the CFTC can’t determine whether instutional speculators drove up the prices of commodities to record levels earlier this year and then sent them reeling as Congress began to investigate their activities in the markets.

      Yesterday, two guys who trade and analyze the markets for a living, issued a much more honest and instructive report commissioned by three members of the U.S. Senate.
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    • Mon Sep 15th 12:26 PM
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      What's the BofA / Merrill Synergy?
      With BAC down to 28.59, the deal is valuing MER at about $24.+.

      Meanwhile, 15k MER wealth advisers (brokers) are telling clients, "Buy BAC."
      View article »