This morning’s news that Freeport McMoran is acquiring two E&P businesses (Plains Exploration and McMoran Exploration) is the first real M&A activity since BHP’s acquisition of Petrohawk in the middle of last year. Subsequently BHP had to take significant write downs on their newly acquired assets and the fervor for buying E&P names steadily cooled. Some names in the sector are relatively […]
While various ideas are floated and journalists report on the state of negotiations, the market consensus seems to be settling on the idea that Congress and the White House will do enough to avoid the automatic tax hikes and sequestration that will follow if they fail to agree. The bounce in the S&P500 (SPY) over […]
Hewlett Packard (HPQ), a company that is earning records for large and expensive strategic errors, plummeted to new depths of incompetence today with their $8.8 BN write down of Autonomy, a software company they acquired in 2011. The list of enormous acquisitions about which nothing much positive subsequently emerged is shockingly long: Compaq in May 2002 for $25 BN; […]
The Fiscal Cliff is forecast to represent 2.9% of GDP drag in 2013 if nothing is done, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Although it was originally intended as a mechanism to force Congressional compromise around bringing the Federal budget under control, with less than seven weeks until the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts […]
MLPs have been weak recently. On Monday the Alerian MLP Index (AMZX) sank almost 2%, on a day when equities were broadly unchanged. For the month, MLPs are down 4.7%, although still up almost 6% on the year. Much of the damage has taken place since the election. As the chart shows, MLPs have lost 3.6% since President Obama won […]
Amazon asked me to write a piece for their blog promoting certain books, so I was happy to oblige. You can find it here.
Having been pushed into the background in recent weeks by the election, the Fiscal Cliff is now at the forefront of investors concerns. Basic game theory dictates that a resolution should not occur until late in December. Negotiators won’t know if they have extracted the maximum concessions from the other side if they agree too soon. […]
It turns out that a state of increasing anger at the demonstrated fragility of our energy infrastructure may not be the best place from which to write objectively about the subject; nonetheless that is what I’m going to attempt.* Dark evenings huddled around a gas fireplace hoping the laptop’s battery lasts the length of the […]
The entire eastern seaboard of the United States is waiting tentatively for Hurricane Sandy’s arrival. Our patio furniture has been safely stored indoors. Batteries and candles are well supplied in anticipation of the inevitable power loss, and with preparations done we wait for the slowly arriving worst storm many of us have ever seen. So […]
For investors, 2012 has been a year so far of disasters that did not occur. The Euro did not implode; Greece was not unceremoniously dumped out; Israel has not attacked Iran; and other perhaps even less likely mishaps did not occur. Consequently, it’s been a good year for equity investors if you had the long […]
