Money For Nothing-Chicks For Free
at 2006-07-09 19:47:55
If you are of a certain age you may recall this lyric from the Dire Straits from the early 1980's.
The Striking Price in this weeks Barron's is about the potential complexity of adjusted options. The article gives some examples of strange option adjustments but misses a key point. Often when options get adjusted for something like a merger, spinoff or special dividend the appearance is created that the options are giving away money for nothing, a lot of money.
Capital markets never give away a lot of money. If you see an option that is priced too good to be true, it is. What makes this tough is that people often think there is free money, and the phone rep at the discount firm won't be able to explain to you why you are wrong.
The Big Picture For The Week Of July 9, 2006
at 2006-07-09 19:47:55
 BusinessWeek had a midyear followup of its 2006 survey of market forecasts. The follow up had brief opinions from four people listed in the graphic along with their expectations for the Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2000. The graphic also lists their current asset allocations.
I think there are a couple of mistakes on the graphic based on the text of the article. First, Warren Bagatelle expects the Dow to finish the year at 11,150 and the S&P 500 at 1365 but the article says he does not expect much for the rest of the year. Something doesn't add up there, maybe he means 1265 which is where we closed on Friday.
T
It's cheap for a reason
at 2006-04-04 01:46:35
EXTR has been one of the cheapest networking stocks for a while, trading below 1x EV/Sales for some time. Trading in a range between $4 and $5ish for almost a year. EXTR has seen nice improvements in revenues for last few quarters, improving gross margins, better operating margin and even some buy-backs but the stock gets little respect. Today EXTR reported revenues that missed its own guidance.
Personal note
at 2006-04-04 01:46:35
Apologies to my regular readers for the long hiatus, my posts should pick up in frequency again. Also, want to thank Forbes for mentioning this site as one of the top Investment Blogs on the web.
Is JNPR calling?
at 2006-04-04 01:46:35
JNPR, as we all know by now, missed consensus estimates for the first time in last two years; resulting in a nice 21% hair-cut to the market cap. JNPR has been plagued by the acquisitionmania- acquiring five companies in last two years, starting with NetScreen and the most recent Funk Software. Recent acquisitions of Redline, Kagoor and Peribit contribued no growth during the quarter- that's
|
