Hi Newman,Originally Posted by Newman
Thanks for the response. Do you really believe that SIRI will take 3 more years before it shows a profit? Wow! Why are we still in this stock? If that is true, than SIRI deserves to be at 13 cents.
Re: Liberty. I also was considering the "Free" $30 million dollars to their bottom line that they receive just for giving SIRI the $250 million loan, and the $37 1/2 million in interest per year (250 mm @15%).
I am posting this in the event that anyone has any interest in CTB as a result of my previous comments.
UPDATE 1-Cooper Tire posts loss amid weak tire demand
Thu Feb 26, 2009 8:04am EST
* Net loss $2.44/share vs profit 83 cents
* Loss ex-items is much smaller than expected
* Sales down $130 million to $636 million
NEW YORK, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Cooper Tire & Rubber Co (CTB.N) said on Thursday high raw material costs and deflating demand for tires pushed it to record a quarterly loss, but it beat estimates, helped by improved pricing.
The net loss was $143 million, or $2.44 per share, for the fourth quarter, compared with a profit of $51 million, or 83 cents a share, a year earlier.
The fourth-quarter loss was more than double the loss of 94 cents a share recorded in the third quarter.
Sales sank $130 million to $636 million, hurt by falling volumes, which the company said were partly offset by improved pricing.
The results included restructuring charges of $76 million related to the impending closure of its facility in Albany, Georgia, and a $31 million charge for the impairment of goodwill in its international segment, the company said.
Excluding one-time items, Reuters Estimates calculated that Cooper Tire lost 88 cents per share, far less than the loss of $1.20 analysts were expecting.
(Reporting by Christopher Kaufman; editing by John Wallace)
Yep Keys, high raw materials are a problem for all industries that import. You can see it reflected in the DRYS stocks. They are so low now that it is ridiculous. Consequently I am buying all the DRYS that I can afford, because when the world doesn't move until the DRYS move. I believe they are the biggest indicator for world economy.
When the DRYS start to move we will know that things are starting to happen in a positive direction.
Stocks like DRYS, SBLK, OCNF, EGLE and so forth are eventual sure big winners.
EGLE was the biggest gainer the day before yesterday on the NAS. I would love to buy a few thousand shares of EGLE. I am buying all of the SBLK that I can afford. It is a terrific stock.
Last edited by billhart22; 02-26-2009 at 10:02 AM.
The futures are way up this morning for both the DOW and the NAS. Maybe yesterday was well spent bargain hunting and buying at the stocks days lows. I figure that if no bad news or comments from the administration comes out (i.e. Obama speaking) then the market has a good chance for a continuation of a bear market rally (which got halted yesterday).
Keep your eyes on: SBLK, ESLR, OCNF, CSUN, ABK, AIG, EMKR, EGLE, DRYS, and (F) just to mention a few.
Have a great morning,
Bill
A day doesn't go by without encouragement to the market (being sarcastic).
Another head-shaker of a day......don't worry.....be happy....don't worry....be happy......
There is just too much news for even the smartest of people to digest in one day.
Just grab your ankles and smile, because your are going to get it anyway.
keep an eye on su. look at the 6 month chart. bottoms out and peaks every month. today was a peak. wait for the buy. wish I had joined earlier i would have told you to buy ncx. i worked there.
Thank You and thanks for being here....we will check them out. Feel free to discuss stocks here...
Thanks,
The Gang
http://daytradingstockblog.blogspot....-february.html
Problem Bank list FDIC 2/26/09 February 26, 2009
Today, 2/26/09, the FDIC released a list of data on the problem banks in the USA. Below are some facts about the 4th quarter of 2008 regarding the banks. Keep in mind, the actual problem bank list is not published and is kept private to avoid a " run on the bank."
* 252 Banking are on the problem bank list issued by the FDIC
* Up 32% from 3rd Quarter where there were 171 Banks on the list
* Banking Sector took record loss of 26.2 Billion in the 4th Quarter
* 25 Banks failed in 2008
* 14 Banks have already failed in 2009
The Stock Market has taken a dip on this news, the Dow Jones is trading around the 7286 closing low of 2002.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...F1Y&refer=home
Obama Seeks $1 Trillion Tax Increase in Budget Plan (Update3)
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By Ryan J. Donmoyer
Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama proposed almost $1 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade on the highest-earning Americans, Wall Street financiers, U.S.-based multinational corporations and oil companies to pay for permanent tax breaks for lower earners.
Obama’s 2010 budget proposal, released today, would reinstate the top two Clinton-era tax rates of 36 percent and 39.6 percent, up from the 33 percent and 35 percent the richest Americans now pay. That would affect about 2.6 million taxpayers. The budget also would raise taxes on capital gains and dividends to 20 percent for top earners, up from the 15 percent set by former President George W. Bush in 2003.
The tax increases, which Obama vowed to impose as a presidential candidate, would take effect in 2011 and be the first on high-income earners since 1993. They also would reverse a course set by Bush of lowering the tax burden on the nation’s wealthiest people.
‘Obama Robin Hood’
“It’s a clear repudiation of Bush’s policy,” said Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland in College Park. “It’s more Obama Robin Hood.”
Obama’s budget would keep in place Bush’s tax cuts that benefit lower- and middle-income earners, and it preserves a sliver of policy that benefits the more affluent: A preferential tax rate on corporate dividends. Before Bush, dividends were taxed as ordinary income, at rates as high as 39.6 percent in the 1990s.
“It is a hugely positive step to keep that part of the ‘03 changes,” said Pamela Olson, who was the top tax official in Bush’s Treasury Department when the tax rate on dividends was reduced. “It’s good economic policy, good corporate governance policy and good tax policy.”
Obama also proposes to stop the scheduled repeal of the estate tax next year and to impose a 45 percent tax rate on a married couple’s estate valued at more than $7 million.
Higher-income earners, primarily families with more than $250,000 of income, would face an additional tax burden under a proposal to limit their itemized deductions. That provision would subject more of their income to tax.
Deductions Cap
The proposal would cap the value of deductions for things like charitable donations, mortgage interest and investment expenses at 28 percent for people in the top brackets, or 30 percent less than they would otherwise receive.
Senior Treasury officials speaking on background to reporters acknowledged the proposal would be controversial. They defended it, saying it still gives top earners a deduction worth twice as much as Americans in lower brackets receive.
In all, top-earning households would pay $636.7 billion in additional taxes over the next decade, Obama’s budget estimates.
Linda Beale, a tax-law professor at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, said “many will object to reinstituting phase-outs for itemized deductions because of the complications that creates.”
Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the No. 3 Republican leader in the House, said Obama can expect a wall of opposition to his proposed tax increase on top-earners. Roughly half of Americans earning $250,000 are small-business owners, and the proposed increase will stifle the troubled economy, he said.
‘Overwhelming Opposition’
“There will be overwhelming opposition from the American people and House Republicans to the idea that we should raise taxes during a recession,” Pence said in an interview. “Raising taxes in a recession is not a strategy for recovery.”
Representative Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican, said in an e-mail, “You cannot help the job-seeker by punishing the job creator.”
The higher taxes on individuals will largely be used to pay for expanded health coverage for lower-income Americans and to make permanent Obama’s tax breaks such as a payroll tax credit worth up to $800 that was adopted on a temporary basis in the $787 billion fiscal stimulus measure earlier this month.
“He’s being so generous at the lower-income level that making $200,000 is going to be like falling off a cliff,” said Dustin Stamper, an analyst in the National Tax Office at Grant Thornton LLP. “Say what you want about the Bush tax cuts favoring the rich, but this is just becoming punitive.”
AMT Lives On
Obama’s budget also assumes Congress will continue to index the alternative minimum tax for inflation. The AMT is a parallel system that can impose higher rates on families earning between $75,000 and $500,000 when their deductions are too high relative to their income.
Executives at private-equity firms, venture-capital firms, some hedge funds and other partnerships that receive a 20 percent “carried interest” in the firm’s profits would see their tax burdens nearly triple under Obama’s budget.
Most of their carried interest currently is taxed at the 15 percent rate for long-term capital gains. Obama is asking Congress to tax the profit share as ordinary income, arguing that it’s a form of wages; under his plan, most executives would pay 39.6 percent.
That proposal will likely reignite a debate that was waged by Congress in 2007 when the House of Representatives approved the change and the Senate never considered it.
Corporate Tax Increase
Obama proposed $353.5 billion in higher taxes on corporations over the next decade, the bulk of which would come from “reforming” rules that allow U.S.-based multinational corporations such as General Electric Co. to defer U.S. tax on profits they earn overseas. GE has about $75 billion offshore on which it has never paid U.S. taxes, according to its regulatory filings.
The Treasury officials said they were preparing a more detailed plan on overhauling the international tax rules, which they may make public in the next month.
Obama’s budget estimates that such changes and beefing up Internal Revenue Service enforcement of international tax rules would generate $210 billion in additional revenue over the next decade. He also proposed to limit tax shelters by requiring they serve a business purpose by redefining the tax code’s “economic substance doctrine.”
‘Last-In, First Out’
Obama’s budget would end a tax-accounting technique called “last-in, first out,” or LIFO, that primarily benefited oil and gas companies when oil topped $100 a barrel but is widely used across industries.
Republican senators in April 2006 floated such a tax increase but backed off after Exxon Mobil Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson called the proposal a “backdoor windfall-profits tax.”
In addition to oil companies, the repeal of LIFO would hit retailers, automakers and makers of non-automotive heavy equipment, textile makers, consumer products, drug companies, alcohol and tobacco manufacturers and wholesalers when times are good, according to tax experts.
The accounting method has been commonly used since the 1930s and is viewed as the most accurate measure of income for financial statement purposes, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan panel.
A plan to reinstate an expired oil and chemical excise tax to fund hazardous waste cleanup would generate $6.6 billion between 2010 and 2014, according to the budget.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Donmoyer in Washington at rdonmoyer@bloomberg.net;
Last Updated: February 26, 2009 15:49 EST
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...XqQ&refer=home
Obama Calls for End to Loan Subsidy for Sallie Mae (Update3)
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By Jonathan D. Salant
Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is urging an end to government subsidies for student loan providers such as Sallie Mae and Citigroup Inc., with the government becoming the sole provider of federally backed college lending.
The government now offers direct loans through colleges, as well as guarantees for loans made by private lenders such as New York-based Citigroup and Reston, Virginia-based Sallie Mae, officially SLM Corp. Obama proposed the change in the budget he submitted to Congress today for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said switching to government-funded loans would save more than $4 billion a year. “We want to actively invest that money in our students,” he told reporters today.
The proposal, which needs congressional approval, had an immediate impact on Wall Street. SLM fell $2.59 or 30.9 percent, to $5.80 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
“The market is shaken by this,” said David Long, an analyst with William Blair & Co. in Chicago. Federally backed loans are Sallie Mae’s “core business,” he said.
The Obama administration wants to use the savings from cutting student loan subsidies to increase spending on Pell grants, which help low-income families send children to college. The budget proposes spending an additional $116 billion over the next decade to increase the size of the awards and index them to inflation.
Subsidies Cut
In 2007, President George W. Bush signed legislation cutting subsidies to providers by $20.9 billion over five years.
Duncan said private companies would be asked to compete for government contracts to service the loans.
“The budget is a broad statement of purpose and does not address specifics or timing,” Sallie Mae spokesman Tom Joyce said. “In the months ahead, we will continue to work with the administration and Congress to implement the best solution for students, schools and taxpayers.”
“Confidence in the company is significantly diminished,” said Sean Egan, president of Egan-Jones Ratings Co. in Haverford, Pennsylvania. “The future has a larger cloud over it. Historically, students have had difficulty meeting their obligations and this just adds to the overall pressure on Sallie Mae.”
Floating-Rate Notes
Sallie Mae’s $850 million of floating-rate notes due in 2014 fell 6 cents to 58 cents on the dollar, their lowest price since November, at 10:48 a.m. in New York, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Credit-default swaps that protect against a default by Sallie Mae rose 11 percentage points to 25 percent upfront, according to prices from broker Phoenix Partners Group and CMA DataVision in New York. That is in addition to 5 percent a year and means it would cost $2.5 million initially and $500,000 annually to protect $10 million in debt for five years.
About 64 percent of federal student loans are made by private lenders, are subsidized and are guaranteed by the government, according to the House Education and Labor Committee. The remaining 36 percent are loans directly from the government to students, the method by which future loans would be made under Obama’s proposal. Colleges and universities now decide which programs they want to participate in.
‘Solid Plan’
Obama “has put forth a solid plan to make federal student loans more reliable, while saving taxpayers billions of dollars,” said Education Committee Chairman George Miller, a California Democrat. “In today’s economy, we must do everything we can to make sure that the federal student aid programs that students and families depend on are as reliable and efficient as possible.”
The Arlington, Virginia-based Consumer Bankers Association, whose members include Citigroup, criticized the proposal and called on Congress to reject it.
“We don’t believe that this proposal, which will increase the federal debt, is in the best interests of students, schools or taxpayers,” said Marcia Sullivan, director of government relations.
“We remain optimistic that Congress will continue to recognize the critical importance of private sector involvement in higher education financing for students and their families,” Citigroup spokesman Mark Rodgers said. “Healthy competition leads to choice, innovation and high standards of service.”
Obama’s proposed budget provides $46.7 billion for education, which he called one of the three major challenges the U.S. must address.
Education Is ‘Prerequisite’
“In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity. It is a prerequisite,” Obama told a joint session of Congress on Feb. 24.
Obama proposed a $500 million increase for education over the current fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. That wouldn’t include $81.1 billion in the $787 billion stimulus package Obama signed into law Feb. 17.
The budget calls for additional funding for early childhood education, new services for schools in economically depressed neighborhoods and more money to help schools where students’ educational performance is poor.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan D. Salant in Washington at jsalant@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: February 26, 2009 16:31 EST
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