A story reported in the New York Times recently talked about the failure of Integrity Bank of Alpharetta, Georgia. The Times reported that integrity Bank was the 10th US Bank to fail so far in 2008. And buried a little further in the story is the fact that another...
Exxon reported nearly $12 billion in profits for the previous quarter recently. $12 billion! More net profits in one quarter, than ever recorded in the history of mankind. And what did the stock do? It went down. Numbers like $12 billion generate emotional responses:...
Nearly 20 years ago, when I worked in Chicago, I became friends with a gentleman named Joe Lopresti. Today, Joe is the President of Arlington Capital Management. We've remained in touch and share our thoughts and outlooks on the market periodically. Joe recently put...
"Mr. Valentine has set the price!" Or, in this case Mr. Bernanke sets the price. This week the Federal Reserve announced that the "open spigot" of money available to investment banks will be closing January 30, 2009. This is six months away. What this means is that...
The line heard in every economic recession, and every single stock market pullback is: this time it's different. Which is usually one of the single best indicators to tell you that the market is putting a bottom in place, and we can only expect the market to move up...
I'm going to paint a word picture for you. Suppose you own a stock that gave three successive buy signals last summer -- in 2007. The stock ran from $28 per share up to $34 a share. Sounds good so far, right? But the stock then broke through the support line, was...
We don't make predictions at Mullooly Asset Management. And we rarely hold anyone else's predictions as credible. So keep that in mind with this post. With oil recently trading over $140 a barrel, there is an article from the New York Times -- that I think has been...
Another theme I'm surprised hasn't been discussed more often will be more foreign firms trying to make acquisitions of US-based companies in the next few years. Here's a few reasons foreign companies -- and US based firms -- may be interested in deals: The value of...
In the coming months and years, you will hear more publicly traded companies than ever before discussing the idea of GOING PRIVATE. Even with the mortgage mess, there is STILL access to capital. Management often gets fed up trying to build long term businesses and...
Ever heard of Bill Miller? He runs the Legg Mason Value Trust (LVMTX). Miller is literally splattered all over CNBC and other media outlets. He's a value manager, which means he likes to buy stocks at a discount, and then essentially sit on them, until they...
