“Amazon recorded $35.75 billion in sales in last year’s final three months, up from $29.3 billion in the year-earlier period. Analysts, however, were expecting $36 billion in sales and net income of $754 million, or $1.56 a share. For the year, Amazon reported sales of $107 million, topping the $100 million mark for the first...Read More
“Volkswagen AG shares plunged Tuesday on speculation a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit could potentially cost the company tens of billions of dollars in penalties, significantly more than the $18 billion previously estimated.” —Wall Street Journal (1/5/2015) In a post last Fall titled, “Calculating VW’s Financial & Legal Hit From Emissions Scandal,” my back-of-the-envelope calculations suggested...Read More
The King Queen Has No Clothes (Other Than Black) “U.S. Probes Theranos Complaints” —Headline; The Wall Street Journal (Dec. 21, 2015) If you’re not familiar with blood testing start-up Theranos, here’s the Reader’s Digest version: wunderkind founder Elizabeth Holmes drops out of Stanford at 19 years old, comes up with a revolutionary (and vastly cheaper)...Read More
“The Democratic Party was once a big brass band marching through the streets”loud, dissonant, there. “I’m not a member of any organized party,” Will Rogers famously said. “I’m a Democrat.” For generations Democrats repeated that line as a brag. They knew disorganized meant vital, creative, spontaneous, passionate”alive.” –Peggy Noonan, “Primary Preview: The Brawl vs. The...Read More
WSJ Headline: “Big Soda Fights Image as Public Health Enemy” Yup, apparently “Big Soda” is a real term. According to Wikipedia: “Big soda is a term used by the media and various activist groups to describe the soft drink industry as a collective entity. The term connotes the business and lobbying power of soft drink companies, much like...Read More
Price Discovery, But Now With Fewer “Patsies” “If you’re playing poker for half an hour, and you don’t know who the patsy at the table is . . . it’s you.” –Warren Buffett As super-cheap exchange traded funds (“ETF’s”) proliferate, Wall Street is fighting back. The latest salvo: a new academic paper suggesting that ETF’s...Read More
