| Zacks: Brokerage Firm’s Stock Recommendations Still Prove Profitable
"On average, most of the stock recommendations by the participating brokerage firms last year could be found in the insurance, drug and computer services/software industries," says Jim Licato, Senior Editor of Zacks.com, the online unit of Zacks Investment Research. The top 13 ranked brokerages for 2006(12/31/05 to 12/31/06) are as follows… .
Goldman - cheap at twice the price?
What is the answer to the Goldman Sachs conundrum? The world's most illustrious investment bank has recently been made to look, well, cheap by those upstart alternative investment managers. With the likes of Fortress going public, and jumping to a nose-bleed worthy 30 times earnings, and Blackstone set to follow with a valuation that could reach $40bn or more, the coming out of the cream of the hedge fund and private equity world has crystallised their value - and put Goldman's on around 10 times into rather harsh perspective. Thorold Barker has a suggestion, writing over the weekend in the FT. Goldman, he points out, has $147bn of 'alternative assets under management, compared to Blackstone's $79bn - and asset management is only one part of the Goldman business. There are of course various possible reasons for the discrepancy.
Buffett's Rail Stakes, American Home, Gazprom: David Wilson
April 10 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett has at least two good reasons for investing some of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s money in North American railroads. Here's one: Shares of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Inc., the second-largest U.S. rail owner, and its biggest competitors aren't all that costly relative to earnings even after a four- year advance. And the other: Companies on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border are increasingly buying back stock. The repurchases lift earnings per share and demonstrate that railroads are confident about their prospects. Buffett must be optimistic as well. Berkshire amassed a 10.9 percent stake in Burlington Northern and displaced Marsico Capital Management LLC as the Fort Worth, Texas-based company's largest shareholder.
Yesterday's $14M Closing Passes 125000 SF
IRVING, TX-A first-time buyer in North Texas has tucked away the win for a 125,000-sf class A-minus office building at the gateway to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The deed changed hands yesterday for $14.1 million or $115 per sf. "The key thing about this deal is the price per sf. It would cost well over $250 per sf to replace today," Ted Gibbons, president of Investment Realty Advisors Inc. in Bellevue, WA, tells GlobeSt.com about the acquisition of 8505 Freeport Pkwy. The six-story building is 95% leased, with 80% of the office space as the North America headquarters for Hanson Aggregates Inc., with nine years left on its Las Colinas submarket lease. Gibbons says the buyer is a private investor from South Florida. The seller is a limited partnership with Naples, FL and Minneapolis ties, which had the NAI Welsh team of Bob Pounds, Tim Prinsen and Betsy Budge in the Twin Cities region marketing the 8.3-acre property.
A timely exit for many publicly held companies
After 45 years in accounting for public companies, Sonny Durham is relieved he now works for a private concern.
Durham, former chief financial officer of Sunair Electronics, put together the transaction that took private the once publicly held radio communications business with headquarters in Fort Lauderdale. "I was personally glad for the opportunity to get out of the public arena. For a small business, it was becoming very demanding," he said.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the post-Enron law that placed new auditing and governance requirements on companies, has been blamed for many departures from the public market. At Sunair, for example, a tightening budget made it more difficult to add the staff needed to comply with federal reporting requirements, said Durham, who is part of the management team that took the business private.
China Drives Metals Boom
Sydney, Apr 10, 2007 (ACN Newswire) - While there are signs of a rebound in the US economy after the stronger than expected jobs figures for March, the real driver for world metal prices remains China.But there are signs that country's economy is not responding to attempts by the authorities to slow activity and that investment and output are continuing to grow at levels well above official forecasts.That poses the danger that world metal markets are becoming overheating and a sharp fall is around the corner, especially with the likes of nickel up 50 per cent or more this year and copper, up a quarter or more in price in the past month.We saw this again overnight in New York where copper futures surged to a new five month high.Traders said that Comex copper futures for May delivery rose 12.9 USc, or 3.8 per cent, to $US 3.506 a poundthe highest close for a most-active contract since October19 last year.Traders said it was a combination of the surprise US jobs figures and continuing demand from China.The latest price rise means copper prices have jumped26 per cent in the past month and have hadcontinuous weeks of price rises.Official stocks monitored by the Shanghai Metals Exchange show that reserves of copper almost tripled since reaching a low of 22,731 tons on Nov.
$34m injection to boost farm productivity and cut pollution
Efforts to boost farm productivity and curb agricultural pollution are set to swing into action after an injection of $34 million in public and private sector research funding. The Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FoRST), the government's research funding body, said yesterday it was teaming up with three industry bodies to pump the money into two AgResearch projects aimed at increasing agricultural output while easing the sector's environmental impact. FoRST said it would provide the projects with $4.3 million a year for four years, with Dairy Insight, Fonterra and Meat and Wool New Zealand together matching that amount. The development comes because of industry disappointment at the level of funding committed to agricultural research by the government in last year's Budget and pressure by agricultural lobby group Pastoral 21 to increase government investment in primary sector research.
• NEWPORT BEACH CITY COUNCIL PREVIEW
The main site under consideration for a new city hall appears to be an Orange County Transportation Authority park-and-ride bus station on Avocado Avenue at San Joaquin Hills Road. The council will vote on whether to hire Los Angeles firm DMJM Design to create a site plan for the parcel and do rough cost estimates for moving the bus center and building a city hall.It would cost $42,000 to hire the firm, which would come up with several options for the site.WHAT TO EXPECTThe council probably will vote to do the site plan, because there aren't a lot of other options for where to put a city hall at the moment.JOHN WAYNE CENTENNIALWith the city's own centennial out of the way, another big 100th birthday is coming up: John Wayne's. The Newport Beach Film Festival and the city's conference and visitors bureau will hold a retrospective of several Wayne films and a dinner at the Balboa Bay Club to celebrate the man a city staff report called "undoubtedly the most well-known person ever to reside in Newport Beach."The council will decide whether to spend $75,000 to become an official sponsor of the festivities.
Loan from 401(k) has big negatives
Your 401(k) or 403(b) savings are meant for retirement. But if you're scraping together a down payment for a home or the old car is set to expire, you could borrow from your 401(k) for these short-term needs.
Most employers -- 85 percent, according to the Profit Sharing/401k Council of America, a nonprofit association of companies and plan participants -- allow workers to take a 401(k) loan. Roughly a quarter of employees who are eligible to borrow take out a loan.
The main question is whether you should.
The pros
The loans are convenient. There's no credit check. To apply, you often just submit a form online, and the funds are distributed within a week, sometimes in as little as three days, said David Wray, president of the council.
Vodafone Selects Ericsson for European-Wide Managed Services ...
STOCKHOLM, Sweden--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vodafone has selected Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) to manage the supply and distribution of spare parts for its mobile networks across several of its major European operating companies including Germany, Spain and Portugal. Under the multi-million Euro deal, Ericsson will assume responsibility for the logistics, warehousing, repair and replacement of multi-vendor spare parts in the selected operating companies. This is expected to deliver greater cost efficiencies to Vodafone through lower average prices for the management process of spares, as well as enhanced service levels. The agreement will cover the end-to-end management of spare parts for 2G, 3G and transmission equipment in the selected European operating companies. The initiative forms part of Vodafone's cost reduction strategy as each Vodafone operating company currently runs its own spare parts operation.
|
