October 2011 - Crackerjack Finance

Japanese leaders intervened for the third time this year as JPY strength below 77 yen/usd is clearly constraining a recovery in the world’s third largest economy. Japanese Finance Minister, Jun Azumi, announced a unilateral move with an additional pledge to keep selling in the future. The action took place because Japan believes the yen strength…

piggy bank

The personal savings rate is an item of contention and debate as the profligacy of the US Consumer has been in focus throughout the 2000s decade. During the height of the housing market boom, the savings rate got down to zero and at times was even negative. US Consumers in the aggregate were thought to…

eu leaders

After keeping the world on edge and pushing up against the brink of a European recession, details of the European fix are trickling out. It is sure to be a headline filled Thursday, Friday, and weekend. I won’t focus on the specific details because many of them still aren’t known and the ones that have…

greece riots

Economies don’t function well in a “crisis steady state”. In Europe, the business environment has been surprisingly good during the third quarter despite what seems like a concerted effort to induce a collapse. A number of consumer and industrial companies pointed out that growth hasn’t fallen off a cliff and if Europe can simply instill…

caterpillar

Caterpillar (CAT) reported very strong earnings this morning, beating estimates quite handily. EPS of $1.71 compared to consensus of $1.57 (a 9% beat). As important, the company outlined an environment consistent with global growth persisting and a strong outlook for 2012. Caterpillar’s organic sales grew by 34% this quarter excluding the recent acquisition of Bucyrus.…

Uniqlo is the main global brand produced and designed by Japanese parent company Fast Retailing (9983.JP). Uniqlo is an older brand with a domestic focus on market share in Japan. The company has done a great job of growing as a Japanese specialty retailer with its compartmentalized presentations and spartan, clean, and colorful styles. The…

factory

Lyondell Bassell Industries is a manufacturing company producing chemicals, fuels, and polymers used for clean fuel, construction materials, automotive parts and medical equipment. LyondellBasell announced a shareholder-friendly $2.6B special dividend ($4.50/share). I believe this reflects management’s confidence in the company’s financial condition and substantial free cash flow in the medium and long term. Management indicated…

mcdonalds

McDonald’s posted an excellent set of results this morning and the quality of the reported earnings was very high because it came at an abnormally high tax rate. McDonald’s global same store sales came in at 5.0%. The results continue to confound many analysts and investors who fear that McDonald’s growth is not sustainable –…

santa3

The back to school season was surprisingly resilient in August and September. We now have the full set of retail sales data available from company same store sales, the Johnson Redbook Survey, and Census retail sales. The back-to-school season varies by region and by state as school start dates aren’t uniform. Further complicating analysis is…

intel

Intel is a polarizing stock that most technology investors have a strongly positive or strongly negative opinion on. Taking a step back, Intel was clearly a premier growth stock of the 1980’s and 1990’s. An investment in Intel in 1986 at a price of $0.40 (not a typo) appreciated 100x by the end of 1999.…

This is being reported in the Guardian. If it is true and the plan gets confirmed it would be a set up for a lift-off.

Chess_tablebase_query

IBM posted a solid third quarter result that exhibited 16% earnings per share growth and enabled the company to slightly raise full year guidance (from $13.25 to $13.35). IBM has been beating quarterly consensus results by some 2-4% in consistent fashion. The 1.8% beat for the third quarter is likely causing most of the sell-off…

merkel2

German leaders are coming out with comments that indicate there will not be a sweeping fix to the Eurozone financial crisis when leaders meet at a summit on October 23rd. Angela Merkel has been credited as saying “dreams that are taking hold again now that this package will be solved and everything will be over…

Q3 earnings were reported after the close of market as earnings seasons kicks off. Google’s stock price has been volatile based on market fluctuations, Department of Justice concerns, fears about losing focus after the announced deal to acquire Motorola, and fear that a recession would slow search and display revenues. The above fears failed to…

Earnings season officially gets started this week, with reports already released from Alcoa, Pepsi, JP Morgan and a few others. Tonight Google will be reporting after the close – a stock I continue to view favorably. Next week the reports will pour in and by the end of next week we’ll have a pretty good…

dove

The Fed minutes released today at 2:00pm didn’t provide anything that was too much of a surprise. The general impression I felt after reading the 12 pages was that the Fed remains exceptionally dovish. Economic growth, while not rolling-over, remains disappointing, so the Fed is looking to remain accommodative. Inflation was discussed in dovish terms.…

ruby tuesday

Ruby Tuesday (RT) is one of the largest players in the US bar and grill segment. The restaurant chain consists of 841 restaurants with the vast majority of the restaurants company operated and 95 franchised. The secular trends have been working against the bar and grill segment based on healthy lifestyle trends and consumers moving…