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Waste Management: Boring, But Solidly Profitable

You didn't even mention the alt energy aspect even though the report is filed under Alt Energy... ???

The company is very involved in the generation of syngas from landfill.

Decline in Venture Capital: A Follow-Up

Perfect examples of too much capital chasing returns. Personally I think Webvan and Pets.com weren't terrible models (FreshDirect exists, doesn't it?), but a pet vertical shouldn't be buying 30 second spots at the SuperBowl. The fact that they made it to and through the IPO, just shows how stupid retail is.

Time to Reenter GE

1. They say that GE is a reflection of the US economy. Funny that the comments here are a mirror image of the argument that people are having about the recovery generally.

2. Last year I sold at $22 and $15. I bought a partial position back at $5.75 (not including transaction costs). At the least, I know how to trade this thing.

I'm 100% absolutely terrified and at least 35% convinced this thing is a donut and I'm considering taking my profits and running like a little girl.

The article's called What Does Your Credit-Card Company Know About You?, but it's really more about understanding just how deeply bill collectors get inside your head. Interesting read.

There IS lending/credit still available ... Just depends on what kind of a risk they view you as.

GE Aims to Provide Energy Storage for Trains, Power Grid

NGK Insulators not NKG...

Anyone proofing this garbage? ANYONE?

The scam that is the stress test: The Fed is claiming that total losses will be less than one-quarter the IMF's estimate. That stretches credibility.

Wait... what?

Is This Rally in Whirlpool for Real?

It's one of the biggest ironies of this rally... the worst companies have rallied the most. Assuming this is a bear-market rally, they're going to fall the hardest after the turn. Unless it's not, in which case ... it's fairly priced?

The raging battle between John Thain and Ken Lewis may have ruined both men for good. (Charlie Gasparino)

Good riddance to both!

Two fewer egomaniacs destroying the banking system.

$9,000 gold?

Well you could... it just wouldn't be very nutritious.


On Apr 28 08:26 PM Illusional Delusion wrote:

> You can't eat paper money either.

Portfolio.com presents an in-depth portrait of Geithner, and says "the question now — you might call it the $100T question — is whether Geithner can shake off his bureaucratic past" and figure out what to do next.

3:1 against the guy has any clue at all

Apple (AAPL): FQ2 EPS of $1.33 beats by $0.24. Revenue of $8.16B vs. $7.96B. Sees FQ3 EPS of $0.95-1.00 vs. consensus of $1.12, and revenue of $7.7-7.9B vs. $8.28B. Mac sales of 2.22M (-3% Y/Y). iPod sales 11M (+3%). iPhone sales 3.79M (+123%). Shares +2.6% AH. (PR)

Intraday range was 121.2 - 125.35 and closed at 121.51 down 1.1, just off the low.

Currently trading 123.4 in AH

It's an inside move... I would hardly call that "surging".

In what promises to be the first of several contentious powwows, Vikram Pandit faces angry shareholders at Citigroup's (C) annual meeting, having run the show for just over a year. Expect other financial chieftains to be watching closely.

Although, of all the monkeys running the banks, Pandit is least culpable given his short reign at Citi.

General Growth Properties Files for Bankruptcy

I thought consensus was that we're in a new bull market and spring is in the air? No?


On Apr 16 04:38 PM Deepv wrote:

> The problem is all of you want to make money betting a long in the
> tooth consensus view which is the fundamentals of CRE are not good.
> Guess what? Half these things are already down 85-90% + over the
> past two years, many of which are match funded and well operated.
> The market is not that easier. Sure some will blow up and you will
> make money, but some will survive and kill you. Real estate is and
> always will be a valuable thing if you have holding power, expecially
> into the coming re-flation. Residentail housing is/was much worse
> than CRE yet many homebuilding related stocks are very decent performers
> vs market over past 2 years. In order to make money you need to
> be counterconsensus and correct or earlier in your insights.

General Growth Properties Files for Bankruptcy

www.proshares.com/fund...

NAV data is there. SRS closed yesterday at a .62 premium to NAV. I think the issue is more a matter of what drives NAV, not the premium/discount.

Anecdotally, the Fed announced it is considering adding CMBS to the TALF program. So I guess when I sarcastically commented the US government would have to become the largest mall owner in the country... I was really only half-kidding. Seems there's a duration mismatch problem for them though. More to come on this. At the end of the day, that paper is worth less than par. Full stop.

Why the Fed wants stupid retail American investors or taxpayers (if the PPIP works) to eat the losses instead of stupid institutional/sovereign Chinese investors is beyond... oh, wait...


On Apr 16 04:28 PM Thomas J. Gordon wrote:

> Dawase: you bring up an interesting point. srs can do all it's
> internal trades but does market psychology/trading strategies drive
> it to a discount or premium to net asset value (like a closed end
> fund). Does anybody know if srs trades at huge discount or premium
> to net asset value (the actual holdings of the etf?)

General Growth Properties Files for Bankruptcy

I am significantly better informed having read this. Thank you very much.


On Apr 16 03:54 PM Charles Lieberman wrote:

> GGP screwed up by expanding via acquisition and funding all the acquisitions
> with short-term debt. That was the cheapest way to do the deals,
> but also risky, because they became highly leveraged and mostly with
> short-term debt. We owned GGP in client income with growth accounts
> as this was happening and I watched the developments with more than
> casual interest. By depending so much on short-term debt, the company
> kept its costs down and profits rose very rapidly as it absorbed
> the malls and cut costs. So, the stock performed very, very well.
> The risk they accepted was that if interest rate rose, their financing
> costs would rise proportionately and crush profits because they were
> so highly leveraged. When rates were low, I expected them to lock
> those costs in by refinancing with longer term debt, even though
> it would have reduced their profits. They did not do so and when
> the stock kept going up and got a bit expensive; the combination
> of the two was an easy justification to sell out of our holdings.
> Oddly, they got into trouble not because of a rise in interest rates,
> but rather because of their dependence on short term finance. As
> the credit markets seized up, lenders were reluctant to continue
> lending to highly leveraged companies. The company was and still
> is profitable even today and enjoys very good free cash flow. They
> are not insolvent. Rather, they are not liquid and don't have enough
> cash to pay off maturing debt. And the cross default clauses made
> all of their long term due immediately, too.
>
> The above led to a lengthy impasse that has lasted more than 6 months.
> The company couldn't issue new bonds to pay off maturing ones and
> short-term lenders didn't want to roll over their loans. But the
> lenders did not want to push the company into bankruptcy and force
> them to sell assets--malls--at a time when the credit markets were
> illiquid and a buyer of the malls might be unable to borrow enough
> to pay a fair or good price. If the assets were dumped into the
> illiquid market, they would go for distressed prices and the lenders
> would lose a lot of money, because the cash provided by the asset
> sales would be inadequate to pay back all the loans. So while the
> lenders could have pushed GGP into bankruptcy at any time since last
> fall, they chose not to do so. GGP understood this situation and
> tried to push the lenders to roll their loans. They argued that
> they could service the loans since the company remained profitable.
> Neither got very far in these negotiations and it was never clear
> when this impasse might end.
>
> I thought the situation would be resolved only when credit market
> conditions improved, although someone might have gotten fed up with
> the impasse at any time, thereby triggering a bankruptcy filing.
> The lenders might hope to get full value for asset sales in a bankruptcy
> or GGP could sell assets and pay off loans at full value. This leaves
> open the question as to who makes all the decisions. By going into
> bankruptcy, GGP bought itself time to make these decisions and it
> puts off the lenders. However, bankruptcy gives the company far
> more negotiating power than before, I think. It may be able to use
> the courts to issue new bonds in the "new" restructured GGP to lenders.
> Since the company is profitable, they may be able to get away with
> issuing new bonds dollar for dollar for old bonds, since the lenders
> would not lose any money, just at higher interest rates. And the
> sweetener may be adding some equity into the pot for the bond owners.
> The company has stated it hopes to keep the entire mall business
> intact. So, it clearly hopes that it will not need to sell any properties.
> And the court may be very sympathetic, since it could "protect" the
> interests of the bondholders by giving full value back, just with
> longer term debt than the short maturities of the original loans,
> and it preserves all the jobs of the employees, which the court will
> like very much.
>
> From the above, you can see that this GGP situation is atypical of
> most bankruptcies when a company is losing money and can't pay its
> debts. This bankruptcy was caused by a bad decision--relying excessively
> on low cost short term debt--and a bad environment--where the credit
> markets froze and the company could not do even routine refinancing.
>
>
> The lessons or implications for the rest of the industry are fairly
> limited, I think. GGP's mistake was atypical. Most companies rely
> on a mixture of short and long term debt and most rely predominantly
> on long term debt, especially when they have a lot of debt. The
> primary lesson, an old one, is lock up your financing for the long-term,
> but most companies already do that. A corollary is do refinancing
> before your long-term debt matures. Firms are doing that in droves
> now. If you read Street reports, they talk about debt maturing through
> 2011 or 2012. That's a long ways off. But firms are already trying
> to get finance done early. And with the credit markets now improving
> by the day, this is becoming easier and easier and also less costly.
> The industry is not out of the woods quite yet. But the situation
> is clearly now getting better. Risks are greatest for those with
> debt maturing in the immediate future, i.e. 2009 and where the company
> is highly leveraged. But these companies understood their vulnerability
> and have been most aggressive in cutting costs and pledging unencumbered
> buildings to get deals done. As they make some progress, deals become
> easier to do, especially since the credit markets are getting better.
> A quantum improvement will occur, if the Treasury/Federal Reserve
> start buying commercial real estate loans, as they have indicated
> they plan to do.
>
> By the way, sophisticated investors have been playing GGP, sometimes
> in surprising ways. Bill Ackman of Pershing Square bought a ton
> of GGP common!! I was shocked at that. But he likely paid less
> than $1 per share and clearly expected the value to soar after a
> bankruptcy, since he was presuming the shares would not be wiped
> out. That strikes me as a reasonable bet, but still risky compared
> to buying a ton of the firm's bonds. If I controlled as much capital
> as Ackman, I would have bought the bonds, which traded at a small
> fraction of their par value. In fact, he could/should have bought
> a majority of the bonds. Best of all, buy ALL the bonds. Then he
> puts the company into bankruptcy himself, wipes out the shareholders
> and owns the entire company for a fraction of its asset value, so
> doubling or tripling his money in the investment with minimal or
> negligible risk. That would have been a grand slam home run. But
> as a hedge fund manager, he cares about leverage and maximum return
> per dollar invested, so he bought the common and surely hopes to
> make 10 times, or 20 times or more his investment. But, that's a
> tougher road.