Kilgore

Exxon Mobil Is a Buy

I don't know why you would describe the share buyback plan as "not smart". The company has a choice, it can either pay that same money out in dividends (and have shareholders be taxed twice on the same earnings) or it can return the money to shareholders by reducing the number of shares outstanding. For a company like XOM with such great long term assets, reducing the number of shares every year at a rate of 6-8% of total shares outstanding is the most prudent and shareholder friendly thing it can do.

My only fear with XOM is that too many of its best assets are in places like Nigeria, Azerbijan (sp?), ect., where social unrest could very easily lead to a nationalization of assets like is occuring in Venezuela.

Jim Cramer's Stop Trading! Is Steve Ballmer a Diabolical Genius? (11/19/08)

Is Cramer's performance record as a hedge fund manager published anywhere?

For that matter, are the performance records of any of the "Fast Money" guys published anywhere?

It would seem to be useful info for the numbers of people who listen to these guys.

Will the U.S. Make Money on the Bailout?

The only way the US wouldn't at least break even would be if all the major banks like GS & C turned out to have massive amounts of CDS exposure on their balance sheets that we don't know about. If that were the case, then, of course, the $700BN would just get flushed down the toilet.

But I really don't think Bush or Paulson would put taxpayer money at risk if the banks really had trillions of dollars of exposure to those swaps. It wouldn't make any sense.

Worldwide Housing Declines: U.S. Halfway Down the List

Well constructe,

using your logic, maybe we should say that US housing prices never budged from 2000-2006 because in Euro terms and gold terms, prices stayed flat.

Freeport McMoran: Cheap by All Metrics

I think that there's a huge amount of political risk associated with FCX that nobody seems to mention.

96% of the company's gold reserves and 40% of the company's copper reserves are in Indonesia - not the most stable country on earth. I think it's entirely reasonable to speculate that in the event of a severe worldwide recession, the government there could nationalize at least part of the assets

28% of the company's copper reserves are in S. America - another unstable portion of the world

Only 27% of copper in the USA

The remaining assets are spread out throughout Indonesia, S. America and Africa

Considering that Obama is talking about taxing big oil "out of principle", it's reasonable to speculate that some shrewd politicians in far flung parts of the world might start pointing out the injustice of American imperialiasm and how the developed world is still raping the developing world.

If all those assets were in Arizona, the price would be considerably higher.