Microsoft’s Depressed Stock Price Attracts Flock of Value Investors
At the turn of the century, few observers could have possibly foreseen that Microsoft would become a favorite bargain purchase for value investors in 2010. The dot com boom was in the process of peaking and any company even vaguely ...
Berkshire Hathaway May Bid for Direct Line
According to several newspapers including The Independent and The Times of London, Berkshire Hathaway has expressed an interest in bidding for Royal Bank of Scotland's Direct Line insurance business. RBS is facing an EU deadline to sell the Direct Line ...
Buffett Plans to Work Past 100 by ‘Thinking Outside the Box’
Warren Buffett turns 80 years old on Monday and apparently has not run out of puns just yet. Mr. Buffett has always indicated that he intends to work as long as he is capable of doing the job. Those who ...
HP Faces ‘No Constraints’ in Battle for 3Par
The month of August has been eventful for shareholders of Hewlett-Packard starting with CEO Mark Hurd's forced resignation amid charges of financial misconduct and ending with a classic takeover battle for 3Par, a small and unprofitable data storage company specializing ...
Berkshire Hathaway May Acquire Full Ownership of Wesco Financial
In a 13D filing today with the SEC, Berkshire Hathaway has disclosed its intention to acquire the remaining 19.9 percent of the shares of Wesco Financial Corporation that it does not already own. Wesco has been a majority controlled subsidiary ...
Sokol Complains About ‘Deceit’ Among Disgruntled NetJets Employees
Alice Schroeder has posted a letter that NetJets Chairman and CEO David Sokol sent to company employees yesterday in which he indicates that actions will be taken if "rumor mongering, deceit, and other forms of unethical behavior" persist in damaging ...
Fairfax Financial Bets on Deflation Thesis
Prem Watsa, Chairman and CEO of Fairfax Financial, has made a bold bet on falling prices over the next decade according to an article in The Wall Street Journal. Fairfax Financial is an insurance company based in Canada which many ...
BYD Faces Trouble Over China Land-Use Violation
BYD has encountered a few rough patches lately with cuts to its sales target for 2010 and second quarter profits that were significantly below consensus estimates. These developments have resulted in a sharp drop in BYD’s share price with the ...
Century Bonds Back in Vogue With Norfolk Southern Issue
Who would want to purchase a bond that will not mature until years after any purchaser is long dead? This is the question many are asking with the new interest in "century bonds" sparked by yesterday's $250 million reopening of ...
Bill Ackman to Speak at NYC Value Investing Congress
Bill Ackman recently agreed to speak at the 6th annual New York Value Investing Congress which will take place on October 12 and 13. Mr. Ackman is one of most closely followed value investors and has built a very impressive ...
Earthquake Forecasting: Beyond a Crystal Ball?
According to P&C National Underwriter, the next big California earthquake could occur in the near future. University of California-Irvine and Arizona State University researchers have examined seven hundred years of quake history and found that large quakes are much more ...
Contango Announces $85 million Capex Budget for Fiscal 2011
In a press release today, Contango Oil & Gas Company announced an updated capital expenditure budget of $85 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011. The company plans to drill four wildcat exploration wells in the Gulf of ...
Pension Obligations Could Still Sink General Motors
General Motors took the first step toward a new public offering last week with the filing of a massive Form S-1 with the SEC. While exact terms of the offering are not known yet, Barron’s has estimated that the IPO ...
Lou Simpson Plans to Retire from GEICO in December
According to an article in The Chicago Tribune, Lou Simpson is planning to retire from GEICO at the end of 2010. Mr. Simpson is President and CEO of Capital Operations. Tony Nicely is Chairman, President, and CEO of GEICO's insurance ...
A Selection of Popular Articles for Summer Hiatus
The Rational Walk will be on a mid-summer hiatus until August 23. In the four weeks since the site redesign, average daily traffic on The Rational Walk has more than doubled which definitely exceeded expectations. Since we have many new ...
The Giving Pledge Runs into Unwarranted Controversy
Warren Buffett and Bill Gates unveiled The Giving Pledge initiative in June which launched one of the most ambitious philanthropic initiatives in history and has the potential to generate hundreds of billions of dollars in gifts over the next few ...
Nouriel Roubini on Systemic Risks and Possibility of Double Dip Recession
In a recent interview with The Economist, Nouriel Roubini, Professor of Economics at New York University, discusses his views on systemic risks, regulatory reform, risks of deflation, and prospects for growth in China. Mr. Roubini is well known for his ...
Noble Corporation Forecasts Manageable Cost for Retrofitting Gulf Rigs
Noble Corporation predicts that additional capital expenditures necessary to comply with new regulations for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico should not exceed $10 million per rig. In the company's second quarter 10-Q report filed with the SEC yesterday, management ...
Revisiting Burlington Northern’s Plans for Capex
As we discussed last week in our coverage of Berkshire Hathaway's second quarter results, the company's newly acquired railroad subsidiary posted improved results for the quarter. Burlington Northern Santa Fe posted net earnings of $603 million on revenues of $4,094 ...
Wesco Financial’s Results Improve Despite Continued Weak Sales at CORT
Wesco Financial Corporation reported improved results (pdf) for the second quarter of 2010 with net income rising to $31.3 million compared with $12.9 million for the second quarter of 2009. The improved performance is primarily attributed to the stronger underwriting ...