mheslep said:Well Walmart was known for hiring smart 20 somethings to manage the super stores - $100k/yr. But good grief, this thread is not all about jobs for PFers.
cheap retailers will do really well in a rescession, low prices and no name brands tend to sell better if people have no money. Add in chinese manufacturers who can now be squeezed a little more.If Walmart is so great, why do they have such a low dividend/yield.
I'm surprised GE are doing so well, with their leasing and GE captical business they are more of a bank than a manufacturer so you would have expected them to have that income invested in high yield sub-prime mortgages. Either their fund managers were very conservative or very lucky!Based on yield GE is a much better investment.
The description in that article bears no resenblance to the reality of how investing works. I have an IRA and a 401K, both invested in S&P index funds. My money is my money - the company I invested with (two different ones) do not get to do whatever they want with it and I can easily move the investments to another company.jal said:If you want to know what is wrong with our financial system…read the following and do your evaluation.
http://www.counterpunch.org/martens11132008.html
A Credit Crisis or a Collapsing Ponzi Scheme?
Right...OmCheeto said:Most people pay insurance on their house so that if it burns down, the insurance company will buy them a new one.
So why is one a legitimate investment and the other is not? Either way, you are betting on the possibility of a fall. Just so we're clear on this, that "someone else's money" is their clients who are paying them to invest in the hedge fund. They are doing exactly what they are paid to do! Where do you see a crime?Hedge fund managers use someone else's money to pay insurance so that if someone else's house burns down, the insurance company is supposed to buy the hedge fund manager a thousand houses?
Just because there's no law against doing something doesn't mean you're not a crook.
Because dividends are falling out of fashion since they cut into a company's ability to grow.Astronuc said:If Walmart is so great, why do they have such a low dividend/yield.
It's great for the employees if the alternative is not having a job. And it is good enough that people line up by the thousands for jobs when they open. And other businesses? Welcome to capitalism, Astronuc. That's how it works.Walmart is great if one owns 100,000 or 1 million shares. It's great for the Walton family and upper management. It's not particularly great for most of the employees, or other retail businesses, or domestic manufacturers.
Huh? Do you do any investing? People don't buy stocks to earn money off dividends anymore, they buy stocks to earn money from growth. Walmart's share price is even with where it was 5 years ago, while GE is trading at just over half what it was 5 years ago. GE is a company with limited growth potential, so the dividends are all people have to hang their hat on. Walmart's growth potential is so large that you don't want it to pay you dividends and cut into that growth.Based on yield GE is a much better investment.
Market Cap: 159.19B
P/E (ttm): 7.86
EPS (ttm): 2.036
Div & Yield: 1.24 (7.60%)
russ_watters said:Because dividends are falling out of fashion since they cut into a company's ability to grow.
The Career Path of Brad Anderson, CEO, Best Buy
Born in Sheridan, WY
Son of a Lutheran minister
Below average high school student
A.A. degree, Waldorf College
B.A. degree in sociology, University of Denver
Attended Northwestern Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota
Commissioned salesman, Sound of Music stereo
Store manager, Sound of Music
Sales manager, Sound of Music
Vice president, Best Buy
Executive vice president, Best Buy
Board of directors, Best Buy
President and COO, Best Buy
CEO, Best Buy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Pandit#CareerAfter a year of red ink, a months-long plunge in its share price and a $25 billion government rescue, you might think the worst was over for Citigroup.
It is probably not.
Citigroup, which a decade ago set out to rewrite the rules of American finance, is bracing for still more pain now that a recession is at hand, The New York Times’s Eric Dash writes. Loans that the financial giant made to consumers in good times are going bad in growing numbers. For the moment, profits seem as elusive as ever, analysts say.
Once the most valuable financial company in America, Citigroup is withering along with its share price, which this week sank into single digits for the first time in a dozen years. The company is also shrinking in another painful way: by cutting, and cutting, and cutting jobs. Another round of pink slips is expected next week.
As Vikram S. Pandit completes his first year as chief executive, many analysts say Citigroup has lost its way. Insiders say the company is racked by office politics at a critical moment in its history.
Mr. Pandit is struggling to regain his grip on the company, which operates in scores of countries, after his attempt to buy Wachovia was upended by Wells Fargo. That misstep left Citigroup grasping for a new strategy to lure deposits and build up its branch network in the United States.
“Citi doesn’t have a credible management team, they don’t have a credible board,” Christopher Whalen, managing partner at Institutional Risk Analytics, told The Times. “If you look at their loss rate, it is almost inevitable that Citi is going to be asking the government for more money next year.”
. . . .
I believe the main argument in favor of shorts is in fact to counter corrupt behavior, a balance of power theory if you will. Consider: your cattleman's endeavor begins to publicly sell stock. They then immediately have an interest in talking up the value of that stock, as does everybody else that has bought the stock. Even the competitors generally go along, as they hope for a rising tide floats all boats gambit. It is the short seller that has the motive to come in and say 'you guys are full of it, your cows are sickly, and the boss is embezzling'. It was the short sellers who first began to rain on the Enron parade.edward said:I have a big problem with a fund that is betting huge sums that another persons endeavor will fail. There is way too much of a chance for some kind of corrupt behavior.
I said the big, high volume super center stores. And then add bonus.edward said:The only people making $100K at Walmarts are the Pharmacists.
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Wal-Mart_Stores,_Inc/Salary
http://www.indeed.com/forum/cmp/Wal--mart/Wal-Mart-Salaries-Bonuses-Benefits/t9640Store Manager starting pay $90,000-$100,000 <depends on store volume> Bonus 0%-100%
...
A store manager's salary ranges from $80-$110K/yr, depending on sales volume.
I expected readers of the future to be outraged that back in 1986, the C.E.O. of Salomon Brothers, John Gutfreund, was paid $3.1 million; I expected them to gape in horror when I reported that one of our traders, Howie Rubin, had moved to Merrill Lynch, where he lost $250 million; I assumed they’d be shocked to learn that a Wall Street C.E.O. had only the vaguest idea of the risks his traders were running. What I didn’t expect was that any future reader would look on my experience and say, “How quaint.”
You needn't assume evil behavior in order to justify short selling. They moderate bubbles. Without shorts, the market would have gone higher than it did and would have fallen faster. I think buying on margin is the greater culprit.mheslep said:I believe the main argument in favor of shorts is in fact to counter corrupt behavior, a balance of power theory if you will. Consider: your cattleman's endeavor begins to publicly sell stock. They then immediately have an interest in talking up the value of that stock, as does everybody else that has bought the stock. Even the competitors generally go along, as they hope for a rising tide floats all boats gambit. It is the short seller that has the motive to come in and say 'you guys are full of it, your cows are sickly, and the boss is embezzling'. It was the short sellers who first began to rain on the Enron parade.
This is not to grant the shorters some kind of halo, they need rules just like everyone else.
Jeremy Hobson: Citigroup plans to start raising interest rates on credit cards for some of its customers. The move is intended to make up for a decline in credit card revenue due to fewer offers going out and smaller payments coming in. It's perfectly legal, but analysts say an interest rate hike of a few percentage points won't solve Citi's problems, problems made worse because of where many of Citi's consumer deposits are.
Felix Salmon (Portfolio.com): One of the huge differences between Citibank and any other American bank is that most of Citibank's deposits are abroad./p>
Salmon: That means they're not insured by the FDIC and that means that the people who have money on deposit with Citibank have good reason to want to move that money somewhere safer.
And with an ever tumbling stock price, Salmon says, a run on the bank becomes much more likely. That's why Citi's unsuccessful offer to buy Wachovia was such a big deal. Citi wanted more branches in the U.S. so it could hold more FDIC-insured deposits. Eileen Fahey is a managing director at Fitch Ratings. She says Citi is now at a competitive disadvantage because other U.S. banks have acquired their rivals.
Eileen Fahey: All of those benefiting from larger deposit bases in the U.S. and Citigroup's been challenged on that front.
The challenges appear more dire by the day. A number of Citi's executives reportedly bought over a million shares of the company's stock yesterday. That wasn't enough to boost the value or investor confidence that Citi can rebound on its own.
. . . .
mheslep said:It was the short sellers who first began to rain on the Enron parade.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...ctice-that-should-be-stamped-out-874717.html" What is short selling, and is it a practice that should be stamped out?
By David Prosser, Deputy Business Editor
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Why are we asking this now?
It has emerged that Morgan Stanley, one of two huge investment banks that has been helping HBOS to raise £4bn from shareholders, was at the same time selling the company's shares short – betting that the Halifax Bank of Scotland group would fall in value. Morgan Stanley has not broken the law, or breached any City rules, but its dealings have certainly raised eyebrows. And this is the latest in a series of controversies in recent months relating to short selling.
...
Is short selling just another example of City excess?
Yes...
* Making money as companies lose their value is simply profiting from other people's misery
* Short selling is very often associated with murky – and even illegal – market practices
* Hedge funds, often owned by a small group of traders, make massive profits from driving down share prices
Is short selling just another example of City excess?
No...
* Betting on a share-price fall is no less legitimate an investment than gambling that the market will rise
* City regulators already police the financial markets to curb illegal practices and catch those who flout the rules
* Some instances of short selling are just a way of reducing the risk of very large "long" investments
Note: the only Eurozone country to show positive growth for the last quarter was France. France also hasn't seen a collapse in housing prices or loan defaults as they never had a housing bubble or a loan financed feeding frenzy.Astronuc said:The Eurozone is officially in recession for the first time in its history, i.e. since the Euro was adopted.
We'll have to drop pretty far to get back down to their level. Don't hold your breath.Art said:Note: the only Eurozone country to show positive growth for the last quarter was France. France also hasn't seen a collapse in housing prices or loan defaults as they never had a housing bubble or a loan financed feeding frenzy.
Russ pay note. It seems slow and steady can indeed win the race.
Well you are on your way with a 0.3% drop in GDP for the 3rd Qtr. http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/glance.htmruss_watters said:We'll have to drop pretty far to get back down to their level. Don't hold your breath.
Art said:Note: the only Eurozone country to show positive growth for the last quarter was France. France also hasn't seen a collapse in housing prices or loan defaults as they never had a housing bubble or a loan financed feeding frenzy.
Russ pay note. It seems slow and steady can indeed win the race.
The US has been slipping for some time now. In the early 90''s it had a per capita GDP lead of 34% over the UK. In Jan this year the UK overtook the US for the first time in 100 years. France which had a similar gap in the 90's is only 8% behind the US now and obviously if they can avoid the level of recession the UK and the US will suffer this gap will close quickly.misgfool said:France has no hope of catching US in it's own game. US is way too flexible and dynamic. And as long as there exists a stubborn state called France Europe has no chance.
The wealth will shift to Canda, Australia and S Africa. The nice thing about gold is that you can get more of it.Price of gold $10,000 /oz.
This solution will put the wealth into the hands of those that have gold. That means that the wealth will shift to India, and far east.
GDP is a poor measure of a country's wealth or standard of living.Art said:France which had a similar gap in the 90's is only 8% behind the US now and obviously if they can avoid the level of recession the UK and the US will suffer this gap will close quickly.
Not true, but if you really think so, could you provide an example of a country with a high per capita gdp and a poor standard of living?mgb_phys said:GDP is a poor measure of a country's wealth or standard of living.
Yes... and he has a pretty high standard of living, doesn't he?An ad-executive in a New York apartment with a $M mortgage, taking out huge credit card loans to buy foriegn cars counts as a boost to GDP.
And he has a far lower standard of living than that ad-exec.A french farmer living in a house his grandfather built, growing food and selling it locally counts as nothing.
France still has a ways to go to catch up.Art said:Well you are on your way with a 0.3% drop in GDP for the 3rd Qtr. http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/glance.htm
That might carry some weight if France's public debt wasn't larger than the US's as a fraction of GDP.It doesn't seem to have sunk in with some people yet that those countries who financed growth through massive borrowings are poised on the edge of total economic collapse.
According to the OECD France's household indebtedness as of 2006 was 89% of annual income whereas the US's was 140%.russ_watters said:That might carry some weight if France's public debt wasn't larger than the US's as a fraction of GDP.
I'd be the first to agree that per capita GDP is far from perfect as a measure of the standard of living as it says nothing of how the wealth is distributed or the quality of life but is still the best figure available to draw comparisons between one country and another.mgb_phys said:GDP is a poor measure of a country's wealth or standard of living.
An ad-executive in a New York apartment with a $M mortgage, taking out huge credit card loans to buy foriegn cars counts as a boost to GDP.
A french farmer living in a house his grandfather built, growing food and selling it locally counts as nothing.
Inarguably? If people have the option of commuting vs walking to work and chose the walking distance job Id agree. If a person walks to some grinding, back breaking job, say on the farm, only because they have no other means of transportation then I would not agree.Art said:...An example of how it can produce a perverse result; Compare a society where people live within walking distance of their jobs against a society where people need to travel long distances to work. The cost of the car and the fuel needed to get to work add to GDP whilst the walker adds nothing and yet the walker's circumstances are inarguably better than the long distance commuter's when it comes to quality of life.
? 2007 GDP per capita numbers: UK $34,139, US $45,489, or 33% greater in the US. Certainly this gap was not closed as of January 2008. Do you mean some other metric instead?Art said:The US has been slipping for some time now. In the early 90''s it had a per capita GDP lead of 34% over the UK. In Jan this year the UK overtook the US for the first time in 100 years. ...
Japan? The rent on 20m^2 apartment in the middle of Tokyo contibutes a lot to GDP but not a lot to your standard of living.Not true, but if you really think so, could you provide an example of a country with a high per capita gdp and a poor standard of living?
Right up to the point that he losses his job.An ad-executive in a New York apartment with a $M mortgage, ... Yes and he has a pretty high standard of living, doesn't he?
That may describe all that is wrong with the US economy ;-)A french farmer living in a house his grandfather built, growing food and selling it locally counts as nothing. ... And he has a far lower standard of living than that ad-exec.