c smith

Healthcare Profits: Assessing Company Sensitivity to Obamacare

A better measure of sensitivity to ObamaCare is percentage of revenue which is "private pay"; i.e.; that which is not publicly funded via Medicare or Medicaid. Allergan, which derives the great majority of its revenue from elective and cosmetic procedures (which are not paid for w/public dollars) is the hands-down winner by this measure.

PNC Results Not as Rosy as They Seem

So what happens when BLK integrates BGI, the worlds largest (by far!) manager of ETFs? Let's see...$2.8 trillion of AUM, > $10 billion of annual revenue...$10 to $11 per share in earning power...looks like the $7.52 per PNC share you attribute to BLK might be a tad low...try by a factor of 3!

Ackman Shorts Realty Income, But Is It a Good Idea?

better get off the 'ol PNC short there Reg...between BLK eps and $100 million in "surprise" NIM accretion in the 3Q, you're getting squeezed pretty good

Wasted Lessons from AIG

amen to that one...get the basics right (peoples names, split values) if you want any credibility on the rest...


On Oct 16 06:23 PM y2k_free_radical wrote:

> I would think the author would also be aware that AIG's price quoted
> represents a recent 20:1 reverse split with the pre split price being
> around $2.00 after trading as low as $0.45 or so---DOC HARRY

Measuring CPI: Alice in Wonderland and the Bond Yield Paradox

Plus, to some extent (a) long term interest rates (b) steps taken by the government to channel money/debt directly to the "coal-face" to tide ordinary people over the inevitability of the "over-shoot", rather than handing it out to their cronies on Wall Street.

EXACTLY. Policymakers have two choices:

Choice One: Give the money to mortgage borrowers so they can make their payments. This money flows thru the income statements of the banks, building capital and making them feel more like lending.

Choice Two: Give the cash directly to the banks, in which case they will put it in the vault and keep it there because they know how much Swiss cheese they already have on their balance sheets and are scared to death of lending any more.

Which is better for all involved? Option one.

Countrywide / Bank of America REOs Fall to February 2007 Levels

seekingalpha.com/artic...


On Oct 09 01:15 PM c smith wrote:

> REO = Real Estate Owned
>
> Question: Has Countrywide (like other lenders) slowed the flow of
> delinquent properties into the REO category? For many banks, delinquencies
> continue to rise, but the REO line has not. This is because they've
> extended the holding period for bad property. In other words, they've
> put off foreclosure because they don't have the capital to absorb
> the kind of writedowns that come with moving a large number of homes
> to the REO category.

Countrywide / Bank of America REOs Fall to February 2007 Levels

REO = Real Estate Owned

Question: Has Countrywide (like other lenders) slowed the flow of delinquent properties into the REO category? For many banks, delinquencies continue to rise, but the REO line has not. This is because they've extended the holding period for bad property. In other words, they've put off foreclosure because they don't have the capital to absorb the kind of writedowns that come with moving a large number of homes to the REO category.

Be Happy About the Lack of Securitization

Let's see what is the best analogy here. We're going backwards from the jet age (securitization, which - even with all of its flaws - permitted gargantuan amounts of credit to be created) to the ox cart (direct, linear, one-to-one bank lending). That won't hurt too much, will it?

How long before we're back to reasonable levels of credit creation, say equivalent to the mid 1990s? Try another 10 to 15 years. Hope the Fed gets used to owning junk assets for the next decade or so!

seekingalpha.com/artic...

The Real Answer to Closed Carrier Networks Is More Competition

Someone, somewhere, needs to "pry it out of their cold dead hands".

Uh, since VZ paid a fair price for the spectrum at auction, just how is "prying it out of their hands" constitutional?

How about offering to buy it back? No one seems to realize that telecom networks DON'T BUILD THEMSELVES!

Some Thoughts on Net Neutrality in Wireless

However, this would need to be imposed *after* network build-out,...

A complete non sequitur. Nobody will build a network unless they can see a reasonable chance of getting paid for doing it. This is the entire "net neutrality" issue in a nutshell. Net neutral mean no network. End of story.

AT&T's MicroCell: What's That You Said, Ed Whitacre?

online.wsj.com/article...


On Sep 22 06:42 PM KateKate wrote:

> People, get real. So they built the network, so what? Now they're
> going to decide who pays to send data and who doesn't? Wrong.
>
>
> This is the big telecoms's last grasp at control before being reduced
> to a dumb pipe. Why is it that they only care about voice and multimedia
> traffic? Because they still dabble in those products. But nobody
> wants lame media products from the likes of Verizon. They want YouTube.
> Soon nobody will want voice from big telecom either, they'll want
> Google Voice or whatever comes next.
>
> Where was Ed Whitacre years ago when he made these statements? Why
> wasn't he pushing AT&T to deliver products like Google Voice?
> Because Ed ran to the government for protection instead of developing
> useful products.
>
> Where's Ed now? Running to the government to help bail out General
> Motors.
>
> Back then Whitacre was trying to preserve the voice model. Seems
> the phone companies were the last to find out that voice is just
> another form of data.
>
> If the carriers had a clue they'd offer priority packet service for
> certain kinds of traffic and ask for money to handle that data.
> Just like the post office has arrangements with other countries for
> priority mail.
>
> Instead of proposing solutions the telecoms cry to the government,
> stifle innovation, and enjoy their oligopoly.
>
> Their days of dominance are coming to a close.

AT&T's MicroCell: What's That You Said, Ed Whitacre?

Yes, the cable companies ARE going to take this sitting down, and Ed Whitacre's comments are perfectly consistent. CMCSA and TWX (and the other cable cos.) have already PAID to build at least a portion of the existing network, and therefore are perfectly willing to reciprocate with T and VZ for traffic. Traffic sharing arrangements have been part of the telecom network from the beginning, and will continue to be. What Whitacre (and any other sensible business person) cannot stomach is content providers like GOOG and Skype, who HAVE NOT PAID A DIME towards construction of the network, free riding on their investment.

What's Really Going on With Foreclosures?

Let us not forget we still have commercial real estate to contend with which even the Fed is worried about. That market is much larger than the residential market...

FALSE

Time to Change GSEs' Deal with Treasury

ANYTHING which keeps FNM and FRE out of runoff mode is a decidedly BAD idea. Wean the U.S. housing market away from these two miscreants over the next 5 to 10 years and put them both out of our misery as taxpayers.

Outcomes vs. Principles: Why Disclosure Doesn't Work

So now "the government" is supposed to protect us from other's financial irrationality? If so, we may as well shut down the entire financial system, because one man's deal of the century is another's "irrationality". Whatever happened to freedom and risk taking?