Several hundred thousand crude oil contracts trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) on a typical day. Look closely at the details of the session’s activity and you’ll see prices like $68.08, the closing price for October crude on Sept. 1. You’ll probably notice that December 2010 crude settled… Read More

The odds are good that you’ve never met either Jonathan Seiffer or Jonathan Sokoloff. They’re worth knowing, or at least being aware of. These men may be the only people that can save a $4 billion company. Both have serious Wall Street resumes and deep experience with some of the… Read More

Wall Street just doesn’t understand Deere & Co. (NYSE: DE). No surprise there: There’s a Rolls-Royce dealer a few minutes from the stock exchange, but the nearest John Deere dealer is more than 50 miles away, and it mostly sells lawn tractors. The massive heavy-duty agricultural equipment, the large tractors… Read More

The government usually doesn’t make things easy. Take tax forms. Or consider the Postal Service. But rules were made to be broken. Washington’s latest pronouncement is turning the difficult task of making money in a recession into a walk in the park —… Read More

It happens every quarter, and it’s beginning to grate on me. While every other company is gauged by earnings, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) is measured by a different standard than the rest of the financial world. Read More

The man knew too much. And something else was wrong, too. As Joseph Wu talked to his guest, he wracked his brain. Wu was sure he had met this man before. But where? Sitting in Wu’s office, the two men continued to talk business. His guest was very well informed. Read More

Government spending cuts would utterly devastate most companies that rely on Uncle Sam for business. But there’s one company that would almost certainly earn hundreds of millions of dollars more if the federal government would make a very specific spending cut, one that lawmakers propose nearly every year. As the… Read More

I’m going to show you how to buy $2 billion worth of assets for pennies on the dollar. I’m not kidding. If you want in on the action, you just have to come to Houston. I’ll meet you at 600 Travis St,, Suite 5800, at 10 a.m. on Thursday. That’s… Read More

We all know that Congress is only too happy to “invest” our money. But how are they when it comes to managing their own? Not so great, as it turns out. A review of the personal financial disclosures filed by members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives gives some insight into just how bad these politicians are at managing money. The table below shows the 15 most popular stocks held by members of Congress, with the number of owners to the right: If $1,000 had been invested in… Read More

We all know that Congress is only too happy to “invest” our money. But how are they when it comes to managing their own? Not so great, as it turns out. A review of the personal financial disclosures filed by members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives gives some insight into just how bad these politicians are at managing money. The table below shows the 15 most popular stocks held by members of Congress, with the number of owners to the right: If $1,000 had been invested in each of the 15 most popular stocks held by Congress on Jan. 1, 2008, the entire portfolio would be worth $10,148 today, a loss of -32.3%. This exceeds the total loss of the S&P 500 index, which has fallen -31.7% in the same period. In fact, only one of the companies, IBM, has shown a positive return, though nine companies posted smaller losses than the benchmark, losses that could have been made smaller still with reinvested dividends. As you… Read More

We all know that Congress is only too happy to “invest” our money. But how are they when it comes to managing their own? Not so great, as it turns out. A review of the personal financial disclosures filed by members of the… Read More