Items Tagged With Investing Ideas/Stocks

Unilever: Selling Calls Where I'd be Happy to Get Out
Written By: David Neubert
2007-06-18 15:19:18
Unilever (UN- $30.14) has been a value (and disappointing stock) in my portfolio. Recently the stock has been moving up with the rest of Europe (and up as part of the currency effect of the declining US Dollar).

Vikram Pandit Makes Rock Star Status
Written By: David Neubert
2007-12-12 15:50:58
Together with Madonna, Sting and Prince, Vikram Pandit, my old boss at Morgan Stanley, has acheived rock star status. He's the only CEO I know of in the world who is referred to only by his first name.

I've been seeing a lot on CNBC and other media dissing the Citigroup Board for choosing Vikram Pandit as its (C - $31.53) CEO. I used to work quite closely with Vikram at Morgan Stanley and I found him to be a thoughtful, insightful, extremely level-headed and intelligent manager. He's one of the few managers I ever had who would understand every screw-ball idea I would throw at him. And believe me, I would dream up a lot of crazy derivative products.

He has a conservative management style and considers every angle of a decision before moving forward. I could almost see him going through his checklist on every decision, Profit Potential, Legal, Employee Morale, Reputation Risk, Credit Risk, Shareholders, Credit Rating, Sovereign Risk. I can see him thinking the same way going forward at Citigroup. Virkam was head of the Equity Division as we openned our Brazil office. He aksed good questions, but unlike several other divisions at Morgan Stanley, was not so risk averse that we walked away from the potential.

So, I'm hanging on to my Citigroup. If you've been watching my Citigroup stock purchases you know that I'm underwater on the position. But I think the market's harsh treatment of Vikram right now is a symptom of a "beat up Citigroup" crowd mentality.

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What is in Santa Claus' Stock Portfolio this Year? Nintendo and Apple
Written By: Thomas Chenoweth
2007-11-21 06:43:16
The Holiday season looks like it might be rough for retailers, given that the average American family will probably be spending a week's paycheck just on gas to get to Wal-Mart. So what will Santa Claus be busy lugging on his carbon emission-free sled? One of the CNET editor's top holiday gift picks, the Nintendo Wii.

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Whole Foods CEO Not Very Ethical
Written By: David Neubert
2007-07-12 18:30:43
We, here at The Panelist, really enjoy our "full disclosure" policy. We encourage our writers to disclose everything about their relationships to a company, no matter how remote. Beyond disclosing whether they own a stock, our writers often disclose their use of the company's products, or those of a competitor. They will even go as far as to mention if they would consider buying the stock or if they like the company logo.

Whole Foods (WFMI - $39.00) CEO John Mackey subscribes to the opposite philosophy. According to an article at the Wall Street Journal by David Kesmodel and John Wilke, Mr. Mackey was making comments about competitors and pumping up Whole Food earnings reports on the Yahoo investment forums. Bad boy. You don't have to disclose if you enjoy the hairstyle of the guy bagging your groceries at Whole Foods, but you should disclose that you work for the company, receive options, are privvy to insider information, own stock and are the main decision-maker about acquisitions of other companies.

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Why Microsoft Does Not Need to Raise Bid for Yahoo
Written By: David Neubert
2008-02-12 22:50:49
Legg Mason's star portfolio manager Bill Miller thinks that Microsoft (MSFT - $28.34) needs to raise its price in order to acquire Yahoo! (YHOO - $29.57). At $29.57, Yahoo is trading like Microsoft will up its price (remember, Yahoo deserves a big discount to the deal price because of how long the deal is expected to take to close).

It's a bad risk reward to bet on this.

Yahoo has roughly 1.4 billion shares outstanding. That means that every extra dollar Microsoft raises its bid costs Microsoft an extra 1.4 billion dollars (this doesn't include executive options that trigger in a hostile buyout). So even if Microsoft spends $200 million on advertising, shareholder lobbying and proxy filings for a lengthy proxy battle to fire the board, that is nothing compared to the $4.2 billion an extra three dollars would cost them. As a shareholder of both companies and a recent buyer of some additional Microsoft, I'd rather see Microsoft spend on the proxy fight. I think shareholders big and small will pressure management and the Yahoo board to give in early. The alternative is seeing the stock go back to $20.

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