“Say-on-Pay” is Generally Toothless

February 1, 2011

Last week, the SEC passed a rule that it is selling as a “Say on Pay” for corporate executives.  The SEC says that: Under the final rules, companies subject to the federal proxy rules are required to provide shareholders with an advisory vote on executive compensation. In particular, the rule amendments, which implement the Dodd-Frank […]

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Merrill Lynch Gets Sued, Settles with the SEC

January 31, 2011

The SEC recently sued (and settled with) Merrill Lynch over two types manipulating its clients’ assets.  First, Merrill was executing trades for itself after its customer put in a larger order to buy or sell, something Merrill told customers it would not do.  Although this sounds a lot like insider trading, this doesn’t seem as […]

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SEC Requires Issuers of Asset Backed Securities to Disclose Repurchases. This is a good thing.

January 21, 2011

On January 20, 2011, the SEC finalized a rule that requires issuers of asset-backed securities to disclose repurchases.  What the heck does that mean?   Well, asset-backed securities are securities made up of pooled together mortgages, car loans, etc.  For instance, once you give a mortgage to your house, it is packaged with other mortgages into […]

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Is Apple and/or Steve Jobs Committing Securities Fraud?

January 20, 2011

Steve Jobs is probably the best known active Chief Executive Officer in America. He is Apple Inc.’s public face, a celebrity of sorts and is widely known as one of the creative forces of a large, popular company with over 920 million shares outstanding. Earlier this week Jobs announced that he would be taking his […]

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Sanofi Upping its Bid for Genzyme?

January 15, 2011

Via the NY Times Dealbook Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE: ADR) may be raising its bid for Genzyme (GENZ) $7 per share.  This would result in a roughly $1.8 billion offer increase (outstanding shares x price).

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Dropping Knowledge: What Exactly is Stock?

January 15, 2011

“Stock” is a general term that refers to some sort of equity interest in a company, public or private.  When organizing a corporation of any type, that corporation is financed by equity (stock), debt (bank loans, bonds, debentures) or, usually,  some combination of both.  We’ll get to the debt side later, so when we are […]

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Hef’s Taking His Company Back

January 13, 2011

Months after his first bid to privatize the portion of Playboy Enterprises Inc. (PLA) that he doesn’t already own, and ostensibly in response to Penthouse’s parent’s higher offer, Hef upped his offer for the remaining PLA shares.  Although his offer is less than what Penthouse was offering, the Playboy Board accepted Hef’s offer.  Playboy’s announcement […]

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Bank of America Bad Mortgage Buyback

January 9, 2011

Last week, BofA announced that it will buyback $2.6 million in bad loans that it made, and transferred to Fannie and Freddie.  Shouldn’t all banks do the same?  See NY Times story here.

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Eek. Jobs Still Hurting

January 9, 2011

See bad news about unemployment here. – via Barrons

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SEC Charges Portfolio Managers For Utah Muni Bond Fund

January 9, 2011

According to a SEC press release, the SEC charged two portfolio manages for charging undisclosed “monitoring fees.” [The managers] began charging municipal bond issuers “credit monitoring fees” in 2003 on certain private placement and non-rated bond offerings without informing Aquila management or the TFFU’s board of trustees. The fees, which ranged between 0.5 and 1 […]

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