Posts Tagged stock
Median Pay For Top Executives
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Business, Favourites on Июль 8th, 2011
The final figures show that the median pay for top executives at 200 big companies last year was $10.8 million. That works out to a 23 percent gain from 2009. The earlier study had put the median pay at a none-too-shabby $9.6 million, up 12 percent.
Total C.E.O. pay hasn’t quite returned to its heady, prerecession levels — but it certainly seems headed there. Despite the soft economy, weak home prices and persistently high unemployment, some top executives are already making more than they were before the economy soured.
Pay skyrocketed last year because many companies brought back cash bonuses, says Aaron Boyd, head of research at Equilar. Cash bonuses, as opposed to those awarded in stock options, jumped by an astounding 38 percent, the final numbers show.
Granted, many American corporations did well last year. Profits were up substantially. As a result, many companies are sharing the wealth, at least with their executives. “We’re seeing a lot of that reflected in the pay,” Mr. Boyd says.
And at a time of so much tumult in the media business, it might be surprising that some executives in media and communications were among the most richly rewarded last year. Read the rest of this entry »
Euro Area Backs Greek Aid, Looks to New Bailout
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Favourites, Trading Markets on Июль 4th, 2011
The euro area approved its share of a 12 billion-euro ($17.4 billion) aid payment for Greece and pledged to complete work in the coming weeks on a second rescue package for the cash-strapped nation to prevent a default.
Finance ministers agreed to disburse 8.7 billion euros of loans under last year’s 110 billion-euro bailout by July 15, rewarding Greek Premier George Papandreou for pushing an extra austerity plan through parliament. The International Monetary Fund is due to provide the rest of the July aid installment, the fifth under the 2010 package.
The spotlight now turns to a second bailout to which banks and insurers plan to contribute following German demands for taxpayer relief. Euro-area governments and investors will provide 70 percent of new aid that may total as much as 85 billion euros, with the IMF offering the rest, Thomas Wieser, an Austrian Finance Ministry official, said on June 30.
“The Greek authorities provided a strong commitment to adhere to the agreed fiscal adjustment path,” the 17 euro-area finance chiefs said in an e-mailed statement yesterday after a conference call that was joined by the IMF’s acting chief, John Lipsky, and European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet. “The precise modalities and scale of private- sector involvement and additional funding from official sources will be determined in the coming weeks.” Read the rest of this entry »
Wall St higher as investors bet on Greece plan
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Fund Markets on Июнь 27th, 2011
Stocks rebounded from three days of losses on Monday as investors bet there would be a near-term resolution to some of the uncertainty over Greece’s fiscal crisis, but the absence of a firm plan could limit the market’s upside.
The Greek parliament will begin to debate a deeply unpopular austerity program that must be approved in order to get the next bailout payment. A Greek minister warned of «catastrophe» if the measure is not passed in a vote later this week.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said his government had an agreement with French banks on rolling over Greek debt into new 30-year bonds, which helped ease tensions around the region.
Traders see a Greek sovereign default as unlikely, and the S&P 500 holding its 200-day moving average was viewed as a sign of technical support following two months of heavy selling that brought the index down about 7 percent.
«There’s still a lot of fear out there, but the absence of bad news over the past few days, coupled with the selloff late Friday, is creating a bounce now,» said Mitch Rubin, chief investment officer at RiverPark Advisors in New York. Read the rest of this entry »
Stocks Rise on Greek Aid Optimism
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Fund Markets on Май 31st, 2011
Stocks rose worldwide, paring the biggest monthly decline since August, and the euro gained amid speculation nations will pledge more aid to Greece. Commodities advanced, while Treasuries erased losses after U.S. economic reports missed forecasts.
The MSCI All-Country World Index increased 1 percent at 11:57 a.m. in New York, paring this month’s loss to 2.8 percent. The euro climbed to a three-week high of $1.4424, and the yen fell against its 16 major peers. Among 10-year bonds, German bunds added four basis points to 3.02 percent, Greek yields slid 31 basis points to 15.84 percent and Treasuries dropped to 3.05 percent from 3.10 percent. Oil rose, and wheat dropped.
European Union leaders will decide on a new aid package for Greece by the end of next month, Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker, who leads the group of euro-area finance ministers, said yesterday in Paris. More than $1.8 trillion was erased from the value of stocks worldwide this month through yesterday as evidence mounted that the U.S. economic recovery is slowing and EU officials struggled to contain the region’s debt crisis.
“Markets are focused on the debt crisis,” said Tom Mangan, who helps oversee $2.7 billion at James Investment Research Inc. in Xenia, Ohio. “We have had a pattern where the impact on the dollar is positive, U.S. bonds do better and stocks fade every time the Greek crisis rears its ugly head, and the other way around. This will continue until we get it resolved.” Read the rest of this entry »
LinkedIn Surges in First Day of Trading
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Favourites, Fund Markets on Май 19th, 2011
LinkedIn Corp., the largest professional-networking website, more than doubled in the first day of trading after its initial public offering.
The stock surged as much as $47.99 to $92.99 and traded at $81.76 at 10:18 a.m. on the New York Stock Exchange. The Mountain View, California-based company sold 7.84 million shares at $45 each, according to a statement released yesterday. The company had raised the proposed range for the share sale on May 17, to $42 to $45 each from $32 to $35. The sale raised $352.8 million. The ticker symbol is LNKD.
Members of LinkedIn use the site to search for jobs, recruit employees and find industry experts. While users can create personal profiles for free, paid subscriptions were introduced in 2005, giving recruiters more access to candidates and providing professionals ways to communicate with one another. The company gets 70 percent of revenue from business subscriptions, a model that’s similar to Salesforce.com.
“The valuation for LinkedIn is rich,” said Michael Moe, chief investment officer of GSV Capital Management in Woodside, California, in a televised interview yesterday with Bloomberg West. “To earn the valuation, it has to continue to grow very, very fast.” Read the rest of this entry »
The Real Reason Gas Prices Are Soaring
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Trading Markets on Март 31st, 2011
Have you ever wondered why when you go to the gas station to fill up the family car, the price of gas at the pump has just jumped 25 cents a gallon over the past three days? Perhaps you thought the oil companies were just being greedy. Or you believed the nightly news pundit who said that gas prices went up because the crisis in Libya was affecting supplies of oil. One professional oil trader says that you’d be wrong on both counts.
Dan Dicker, who has spent nearly three decades in the oil market, has a profoundly disturbing explanation of why the price of oil, and the gasoline that comes from the crude product, has risen so dramatically in recent months. It turns out, Dicker says, that the price has nothing to do with supply and demand for oil. It’s the financial market for oil, filled with both professional speculators and amateur investors betting on poorly understood oil exchange-traded funds, who have ratcheted up the price of gas to such sky high levels.
«There is no supply issue going on here — what you have is the perception of the possibility of a supply issue,» Dicker says. «A whole bunch of people are pouring money into an oil market trying to take advantage of what they perceive to be a real risk in supply. It’s a marketplace that I argue should not be allowed to be wagered on like a stock or bond.»
Dicker notes that Libya produces only 1.3 million barrels of oil a day, just a tiny fraction of the world oil market. Even if Libyan crude were lost to the world market in the current turmoil, and there is no sign that it is, Saudi Arabia has 5 million barrels a day to use in case of an emergency. Read the rest of this entry »
Buffett Fires Elephant Gun
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Investing on Март 18th, 2011
On Monday, business newswires buzzed with reports that the world famous investor, Warren Buffett, had agreed to purchase Lubrizol, a chemical company.
Under the deal, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway will purchase all outstanding shares of Lubrizol for $135 per share in a the deal valued at $9.7 billion, one of the firm’s largest acquisitions.
This move is a welcomed relief for Buffett fans who have been closely monitoring the multi-billionaire’s inflating pile of cash. In the period following his record-breaking purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, Berkshire has seen little action on the M&A front, leading many to ponder what Buffett had in store for his legendary firm.
Historically, Buffett has not been a fan of large cash positions. In a recent article, I noted that, during an interview with Charlie Rose, he likened cash to oxygen, explaining that it is important to have around but unnecessary to have in excessive amounts.
In regards to Berkshire Hathaway, he insists that his company always has necessary reserves on hand but does not view cash as a good long-term investment. Read the rest of this entry »
Stocks fall as worries mount over Japanese economy
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Fund Markets on Март 17th, 2011
Mounting concerns over the impact of the massive earthquake in Japan pushed stocks lower Monday. The earthquake and tsunami along Japan’s northeast coast killed thousands and has raised fears of a slowdown in the world’s third-largest economy.
All 10 company groups that make up the Standard and Poor’s 500 index fell. Utilities companies lost 1.5 percent, the most of any group, on worries that the disaster may lead to dimming prospects for nuclear power plants.
The S&P index, the basis for most U.S. mutual funds, fell 12 points, or 0.9 percent, to 1,292.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 89, or 0.7 percent, to 11,958. The Nasdaq composite fell 18, or 0.7 percent, to 2,697.
«Everything is linked now,» said David Katz, senior portfolio strategist at Weiser Capital Management. «There is no such thing as a catastrophe happening in any major country and it not affecting the global economy.» Read the rest of this entry »
Stocks drop on Libya, surprise Chinese deficit
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Fund Markets on Март 14th, 2011
The battle for control of Libya and weaker than expected Chinese economic data weighed on markets Thursday while a debt rating downgrade of Spain hit the euro, a day ahead of a crucial meeting of EU leaders.
Sentiment over the past few weeks has been driven by developments in North Africa, most recently in Libya, which in normal times produces a little under 2 percent of the world’s global oil needs.
Though the regime of longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi appears to be recapturing ground lost to rebels, investors remain cautious of staking out fresh positions given worries over oil supplies and how the crisis in the Arab world will spread.
The main impact has been in oil markets, sending prices up to their highest levels for around two and a half years. By mid-morning London time, the benchmark oil contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange was down 3 cents at $104.35 a barrel, while Brent crude in London fell 71 cents to $115.23.
Both rates are slightly lower than where they were on Monday but remain elevated and a threat to global growth prospects. That fear has hung over stock markets recently — equities are a leading indicator of perceptions for economic expansion. Read the rest of this entry »
Twitter Says No Plans for IPO or Fundraising on the Horizon
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Trading Markets on Март 8th, 2011
Investors looking to tweet about a Twitter IPO found their hopes shot down Thursday for at least the next 12 months. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone (pictured), speaking at a conference in Seoul, Korea, rejected talk of an IPO. He also punctured the widely reported notion, according to Reuters, that the popular microblogging social networking site was in talks to sell a 10% stake to JPMorgan Chase for $450 million — which would have jacked up the site’s valuation to $4.5 billion.
Twitter’s IPO denial is nothing new, and Stone’s comments that the company re are no plans over the next 12 months to raise further funds is not surprising after its $200 million funding round announced last December, which valued the company at $3.7 billion. But Stone’s comments suggested that investors may have a long wait and threw cold water on the notion that JPMorgan (JPM) is lining up to fund the company.
Stone’s comments sent users of the service into a tweet storm.
Geraldebner tweets: «Twitter has no plans to go public: founder: Biz Stone also dismissed reports JPMorgan Chase & Co. was in talks.»
D_K_BRANTLEY tweets: «Thank God — stop giving JPM business! «@NewYorkPost: Twitter says no plans for IPO; $450M sale to JPMorgan ‘made up»
Andrewquinn tweets: «Stone tells Rtrs no IPO or need for additional funds…says (surprise) they making plenty money as it is»
Stone, according to the Reuters report, said in reference to an IPO: «We have so many other things before we even think about that.» Read the rest of this entry »
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