Ax

Pfizer Ends 40 Year Run of Hiking Dividends

It's two years since the Lipitor news plagued Pfizer. Now, find something new to write about. It's really impressive you don't seem to find any new perspective on this drug company.

Updated FDA Calendar: Cypress Bioscience Looks Like a Buy

"Eli Lilly (LLY) filed a sBLA for Erbitux to be used in first-line, combination treatment for non-small cell lung cancer"

I think that even if the company Imclone is owned by Lilly, you should mention that the rights of the drug also belong to Bristol Myers (BMY)... This things should be mention in an article so investors are fully informed.

When Lower Mortgage Rates Don't Boost House Prices

"A 2006 study of mortgage rates and New York City housing prices going back to 1975 by Lucas Finco of Quadlet Consulting found no correlation between lower mortgage rates and higher housing prices, or vice versa. "The relationship between mortgage rates and home prices is pretty obscure," says Jack Guttentag, a professor emeritus of finance at the Wharton School of Business."

That is not even the right question to ask. It is impossible to even imagine that a lower mortgage rate would make prices rise again right now. We all know they are going to fall further, because the inventory is to high.

The main question is: does a lower mortgage rate clear up inventory faster? I'm inclined to that theory because it allows refinancing and it lures more "greedy" buyers back into the market. West would benefit from that, since the prices have fallen to a level where sales have gone up in the past year.

The Autos and Mentality That Ruined Detroit

I forgot to mention - great article Rick.

The Autos and Mentality That Ruined Detroit

I am pretty sure, that if gas was 1,5 dollars again, GM would build a tank, because the US consumer would really love a "big dog" safe car.

While the rest of the world was thinking about the consumer (how much would a car buyer save on gas), GM thought about how much money it can extort from the consumer (who wanted to drive a panzertank on a road). The theory at GM was: why should we make a fuel efficient car (that needs some f...ing engineering, cost restructuring, price competitiveness), when we can just built a monster truck and put a price of... 200.000 $ on it?

And so they did it. Well, now that f...king engineering must be done by the government, with a bail out. GM, Ford, Chrysler. I would personally bail out Ford, because this car company at least tried to compete in world markets, while GM... did absolutely nothing.

General Motors: Beginning the Endgame?

When I look at American cars from a european perspective, man, it looks like they are some 10 years behind. No style, large, awkward and fuel consuming.

Where is the German perfection of a BMW or Audi, or the classy style of a small, womanish FIAT Panda, or Stilo...

GM had a great electric car in the 80's. Look at the documentary "Who killed the electric car". It was perfect until someone had the brilliant idea to take it away from the consumers. And now the irony is... that the electric car is killing GM. The Toyota Prius and other hybrids are biting into the market share and the SUV's are just getting killed.

Maybe the Volt is the answer. Maybe. I am no mechanic or engineer, but GM looks like a company who needs to rethink WHY SHOULD THEY PRODUCE CARS in the first place.

Biogen Reports Another Tysabri Glitsch

I agree with the FDA stance on the drug, however it doesn't feel good to see the Tysabri scare going on all the time. Do we have to jump anytime there is a new patient that gets the PML infection? Of course not. The label states that quite clearly.

However... due to the fact that Tysabri looks like a drug, taht patient are willing to take even if the drug can cause this serious complication (PML) they do it because it improves the quality of life in a way that no other drug can.

I read some comment of people with MS and they were virtually begging the authorities not to withdraw the drug from the market. So I guess the patient population will continue to increase, although probably at a lower rate.

Too bad that in this stock environment where fear feeds on itself... the BIIB stock is headed lower.

Two Fight Back - Cramer's Mad Money (9/11/08)

You can go to the Morningstar sites and watch an interview with Miller and you'll see what his position was on Fannie and Freddie. They made billions in the 80's out of them, so he thought the history would repeat itself... and it didn't.

Pfizer Bidding for Bayer Makes No Sense

I agree. Licensing deals is the only way out from a long term point of view. They have the distribution capabilities. That's their asset. R&D has been a lagging factor for years.

A takeover of Bayer is nuts. Two dinosaurs merging don't make a horse.

A Bayer Buyout by Pfizer?

Pfizer denied that it was looking for a large acquisition. And I think they mean it. They want to buy rights and licenses for marketing drugs, since they are present in global markets with great distribution capabilities. That's their strategy. They will not shift away from that. They don't consider themselves as desperate so I really don't think they'll make a large acquisition.

They have only 3 year to limit the loss of Lipitor and their focus is on cutting costs and find great compounds and drugs. A big acquisition would be a relief for shareholders in the short run... but it would also mean that the company would lose focus. It is difficult to merge different business cultures in such a short period of time.

But if they do it, they should buy Biogen Idec.

Fannie/Freddie Bailout 'Disastrous Fiasco'

This bailout was necessary. Painful but necessary. Paulson is not some Marxist for god's sake! All this rants about some 200 billion injection into Fannie and Freddie are just ridiculous.
The war will cost some 2 trillion $ by the time you get out of Iraq and here you are... talking about some 200 billion which will help to stabilize the worlds financial markets.
The shareholders lost 90% of the money in one day. Who was bailed out here? The management was ousted. Oh yeah it is the tax payer who'll pay for that. Come on!
When the housing market will recover Fannie and Freddie will do just fine and the Treasury will get plenty of money out of it... it is just a matter of time if it succeeds.

The idea that some obscure market force would sort this thing out by itself is radical. It cannot be done. Well it can be done if you are prepared for a 7+ year depression with a housing prices collapse of 50+% a MBS default ratio of 60 or 80% and some 50% of banks going under... oh yeah, add some skyrocketing unemployment rate of 15+ percent and a fabulous probability of terror-like deflation for the next 10 years - you know like in Japan, where no one bought anything because he asked himself the question: "Why buying now, when tomorrow everything will be cheaper?"

Study Japan and their housing collapse and you'll see what can be the consequences instead of ranting about communists. A 200 billion bill will look like a cheap penny stock for all the things that went wrong here.

Fannie and Freddie should never be the public-private cyborg in the first place, and Greenspan shouldn't have cut rates to 1%... but hey! You don't have a time machine to change that. So get over it.

When a fox gets trapped into an iron trap ... she bites her leg off, so she can survive. Paulson bit the leg off. That's it.

The US is not out of the woods yet so you should pray that the bill will be only 200 billion, because it could get into trillions. And in that case the great depression will look like a picnic compared to this mess.

In this article there's plenty of intelligence... but some serious lack of common sense.

Speculation and the Price of Oil: An Unfriendly Note

Those 3 sentences are a fantastic introduction. Now you have laid down the crude, basic idea - that is your thesis. And it captures the reader in a blink of an eye.

Now all an uneducated reader as myself needs is the answer to:

"The question is how much, and I say that because of the mechanics of the paper markets, not much at all."

I don't know what are the mechanics of the paper markets, and I don't know where the "not much at all" comes from... so that is what a reader in the land of the darkness needs an answer to.

Now you get the 297 sentences and explain.

I mean, I don't need an explanation here, since I never invest in commodity markets due to the crazy speculative gambling casino that it has become. But that is how an article should be written in my opinion. At least in a non scientific journal as seeking alpha.

I'm pretty sure you would get better reviews from the investors community.

I wish you all the best.

Regards.

Ax

Speculation and the Price of Oil: An Unfriendly Note

Fred,

you can be a brilliant economist and a wonderful teacher. I am not saying you are not, because I have never read any of your works and I never attended your lectures. But this article could have been shorter and have more content. That's all.

Have a nice day.

Speculation and the Price of Oil: An Unfriendly Note

Fred Banks:

Try to do this task: Try to read your article every day for a period of 10 days... and ask yourself this question: "What are the things I could have left out, and still would deliver the main points to the reader?"

I mean in this article you have a sentence that begins with: "Needles to say..." If it is needless leave it out!

What is the purpose of this paragraph:
"One of my favorite daydreams features me standing in front of a blackboard somewhere, discussing e.g. speculation and the oil market, and suddenly hearing a sturdy, confident voice from some corner of the room informing me that I don’t know what I am talking about. It has been so many years since something of that nature happened, that should it take place in the near future, I probably would find myself immediately reaching for a double dose of aspirin or smelling salts, or asking if there was a doctor in the house who could check my hearing. The problem – as the late president Lyndon Johnson once pointed out – is that very few individuals possess an extensive knowledge of financial or financial-like markets, although in my teaching in half a dozen countries, I have never had the slightest problem explaining to first year students how speculation works in commodity markets."

Is there any value added here about oil speculation? You could have said it in one sentence, if you wanted - the problem is the lack of knowledge of financial markets. Why you couldn't do that? The paragraph is aimless in regard of the topic you are writing about, but is it absolutely NECESSARY to show the true nature of your self.

What it shows is your need for confrontation as you put it: it is your favorite daydream!

I suggest you try some creative writing where you will be able to express your true emotions. You will also get some tips about being articulate. Otherwise your readers will need aspirin in massive dozes and they will not be daydreaming about that.

As for your footballer story let me tell you one. Heidegger was laughed at and considered a clown by his critics. And yet, today everyone knows who Heidegger is, and no one knows the names of his critics.

There's a story you can tell to yourself after critics will tear you apart. Because if no one will tear you apart, then you really haven't written anything important at all.

But you like your article. So you will not improve your apparent lack of writing skills. You are just perfect.

A Chinese architect once said to me: "My aim is to work 6 hours and a half if my competitors work 6 hours. And if my competitors make 6 mistakes, my aim is to make only 5 of them."

So, yeah this is a crappy article. It could have been shorter by 2/3.

Speculation and the Price of Oil: An Unfriendly Note

I suggest you publish your articles (papers) here, instead of this crappy article which consists of cheap advertisements for your already published works. We need data, charts and the rationale that is derived from that data... This is not an ad campaign.