General Motors will have a new CFO starting January 1, 2010, so financial issues needed to be worked out by the end of this year. GM’s new chief financial officer will have a salary of $750,000 a year and will get up to another $5.45 million worth of stock starting 2012 if GM successfully sells shares to the public.
The amount is in contradiction with the laws, as it exceeds the limits imposed by the US government to all companies which received government aid. These issues were d… (read more)
Eco Factor: Low-emission car designed to run on a hybrid engine.
A hybrid low-emission vehicle from Ferrari has been rumored for long. Italy’s Quattroroute magazine thinks that the auto maker is working on a hybrid based on the 599 GTB Fiorano platform that could appear at the Geneva Auto Show in March.
Congratulations to Anne Taylor (comment #275) winner of the fabulous pink watch from RedTango! Wear it with Moderncat pride!
Chinese investors love their manipulated, weak yuan, just like American investors love their manipulated, weak dollar.
This weekend, the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao promised a continuation of stimulus and a weak yuan policy and boom, the Shanghai market took off like a rocket.
While you were sleeping the exchanged gained 1.5%. Other Asian indices similarly took off, with the Nikkei gaining 1.3%.
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Eco Factor: High-speed electric train.
The world’s fastest high-speed train has been launched in China that averages at over 217mph. The new train is faster than all other trains in the world and will link Wuhan in central China to Guangzhou in the south, covering a total distance of 663 miles. The service will reduce the travel time from over 6 hours to just 2 hours and 45 minutes.
If you believe the “last updated” section of Sprint’s Pre support page, it’s apparently been public knowledge that webOS 1.3.5 is arriving today (December 28th) since Tuesday last week (the 22nd), so this may not be news to some of you. But for the rest? webOS 1.3.5 is coming to Sprint today! What goodies does it bring to the table? Try these on for size:
- Improvement in battery life optimization when in marginal coverage areas.
- QCELP capability fix to allow play and audio of video sent via MMS.
- Launch Google Maps or Sprint Nav when tapping an address from contacts.
- Minimized package of MR size through binary difference. Customers can now download over 2G connections if necessary.
Fingers crossed that other carriers are not far behind.
This article originally appeared on The DIV-Net December 21, 2009.
Linked here is a detailed quantitative analysis of Emerson Electric Co. (EMR). Below are some highlights from the above linked analysis:
Company Description: Emerson Electric Co. primarily makes backup power equipment for telecom and Internet providers and users, climate control components, and electric motors.
Fair Value: I consider four calculations of fair value, see page 2 of the linked PDF for a detailed description:
EMR is trading at a discount to 1.) and 3.) above. The stock is trading at a 13.0% premium to its calculated fair value of $36.97. EMR did not earn any Stars in this section.
Dividend Analytical Data: In this section there are three possible Stars and three key metrics, see page 2 of the linked PDF for a detailed description:
EMR earned three Stars in this section for 1.), 2.) and 3.) above. A Star was earned since the Free Cash Flow payout ratio was less than 60% and there were no negative Free Cash Flows over the last 10 years. The stock earned a Star as a result of its most recent Debt to Total Capital being less than 45%. EMR earned a Star for having an acceptable score in at least two of the four Key Metrics measured. The company has paid a cash dividend to shareholders every year since 1947 and has increased its dividend payments for 52 consecutive years.
Dividend Income vs. MMA: Why would you assume the equity risk and invest in a dividend stock if you could earn a better return in a much less risky money market account (MMA)? This section compares the earning ability of this stock with a high yield MMA. Two items are considered in this section, see page 2 of the linked PDF for a detailed description:
EMR earned a Star in this section for its NPV MMA Diff. of the $637. This amount is in excess of the $500 target I look for in a stock that has increased dividends as long as EMR has. If EMR grows its dividend at 6.4% per year, it will take 3 years to equal a MMA yielding an estimated 20-year average rate of 3.72%. EMR earned a check for the Key Metric ‘Years to >MMA’ since its 3 years is less than the 5 year target.
Other: EMR is a member of the S&P 500, a Dividend Aristocrat and a member of the Broad Dividend Achievers™ Index.
Conclusion: EMR did not earn any Stars in the Fair Value section, earned three Stars in the Dividend Analytical Data section and earned one Star in the Dividend Income vs. MMA section for a total of four Stars. This quantitatively ranks EMR as a 4 Star-Buy.
Using my D4L-PreScreen.xls model, I determined the share price would need to increase to $44.74 before EMR’s NPV MMA Differential decreased to the $500 minimum that I look for in a stock with 52 years of consecutive dividend increases. At that price the stock would yield 2.95%.
Resetting the D4L-PreScreen.xls model and solving for the dividend growth rate needed to generate the target $500 NPV MMA Differential, the calculated rate is 5.7%. This dividend growth rate is less than the 6.4% used in this analysis, thus providing a margin of safety. EMR has a risk rating of 1.25 which classifies it as a low risk stock.
EMR has a strong competitive position within its major product categories and a reputation for providing consistent returns to investors. EMR’s advantages include globally branded platforms, new products in the pipeline, a strong balance sheet and free cash flow. The stock is currently trading above my buy price of $36.97, but given its strong dividend fundamentals, I will give it consideration as my asset allocation allows. For additional information, including the stock’s dividend history, please refer to its data page.
Disclaimer: Material presented here is for informational purposes only. The above quantitative stock analysis, including the Star rating, is mechanically calculated and is based on historical information. The analysis assumes the stock will perform in the future as it has in the past. This is generally never true. Before buying or selling any stock you should do your own research and reach your own conclusion. See my Disclaimer for more information.
Full Disclosure: At the time of this writing, I was long in EMR (3.7% of my Income Portfolio). What are your thoughts on EMR?
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After managing to secure a Top Safety Pick from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the International Car of the Year (ICOTY), Ford’s Taurus managed to get the highest ranking from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for driver and passenger in front and side crash tests.
The new Taurus is the Ford safety flagship with top safety ratings and advanced crash-protection and crash-avoidance technologies that you may not find in luxury vehicles … (read more)
Eco Factor: Sustainable development to harvest renewable energy and conserve water.
Architects all over the world are busy designing developments that are sustainable and have minimal impact on the delicate ecosystem. Designers over at Mithun Architects have unveiled the design of a stunning mixed-use development for downtown Austin, Texas, that represents a comprehensive approach to sustainability.
Michael Schumacher’s return to Formula One seems to have led to plenty of controversy within the Ferrari fans and the Daimler officials all together. If the first one we can understand – the German ace had spent 13 years at the Scuderia until 2009 and his leaving for rivals Mercedes GP was widely regarded as an act of betrayal towards the Italian tifosi – the second seems to be money related.
Specifically, Schumacher’s contract for the 2010 season is seen as something at least exa… (read more)
Well, the first bit of news here is immediately apparent — the heretofore untitled tablet device coming out of India has now been given the name of Adam. After ruffling a few feathers a week ago with its extremely ambitious battery life projections and admittedly mouthwatering Tegra plus Pixel Qi combo, Notion Ink is back with more details on the project. We understand the company is now discussing 3G testing with Indian and US operators (its 3G bands are compatible with AT&T’s networks), and there’s also a planned landing date in June. Can’t say we’re too excited about a launch six months from now — other Pixel Qi devices may well beat the Adam to market — but there’s also the pleasantly small matter of the price, which in this case is projected to be an aggressively low 15,000 rupees (about $321). CrunchPad part deux? Only time will tell.
[Thanks, bala]
Notion Ink’s Adam gets a name, June 2010 release originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 05:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Well, lookie here: it’s not up on Palm’s support site yet, but Sprint is showing a release date of December 28 — that’s today, by the way — for webOS 1.3.5 on the Pre. This is a pretty nifty little upgrade, you might recall — nifty enough to get none other than CEO Jon Rubinstein to name-drop it during the company’s most recent earnings call — thanks to the removal of the platform’s troublesome app storage limit, better performance, better battery life (particularly in weak cell coverage), and a host of bugfixes sure to put a smile on your pretty face. Let us know how those updates go, alright?
[Thanks, Gon Kim]
Sprint says webOS 1.3.5 is hitting the Pre today originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 04:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Renault recently started production of the Sandero hatchback in Russia, with operations to be handled by Avtoframos, a joint venture established by the French carmaker with the Moscow government. Production of the Sandero – which is going to replace the Logan sedan in the local market, if we are to trust the recent rumors – will reach its maximum capacity in February next year, while the first units will be delivered in the next few months.
According to insideline.com citing vario… (read more)
Auction house Bonhams just announced several rare examples set to go under the hammer at its Retromobile sale, due to be held in Paris on January 23, 2010. The collection offered for sale will comprise 100 lots, among which 28 collectors’ motorcars will be offered in the public domain for the first time.
One of the most interesting lots ever to be offered at the Retromobile auction is the touring Bugatti which was found at the bottom of a Swiss lake after seventy years. The Bresci… (read more)
Article Tags: Copenhagen Conference, Doug L. Hoffman
Once again the leaders in the fight against anthropogenic global warming have come together to hold an international fear fest, supposedly to save mankind from the ravages of climate change—or to save the planet from mankind, depending on who you talk to. The predictable result: more strident warnings of disaster, pledges of more far reaching actions from politicians, and no real change. After jetting into Denmark, expending the carbon equivalent of more than 200,000 trees, the carping climate crowd has jetted back home until the next act of this farce takes place in Mexico City in 2010.
The traveling circus that is the anti-AGW movement began with the 1992 Rio climate summit, which set the tone for all subsequent global warming passion plays. “It is a tale … full of sound and fury; signifying nothing,” to quote from Macbeth. Kyoto, in 1997, kept the tradition alive by also being long on promises but falling short on real world results. It, like Copenhagen, was rescued from total failure by producing a weak final agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, mostly due to last-minute intervention by then American Vice President Al Gore.
The Kyoto Protocol was an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol was that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These amounted to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. The Clinton-Gore administration never submitted Kyoto’s agreement for ratification, the US Senate having denounced its terms 95 to 0. The US was not alone in not ratifying the treaty, most of the signatories have managed to procrastinate for 12 years.
Source: theresilientearth.com
The Malaysian Prime Minister has said that the World Future Energy Summit will play a significant role, alongside Copenhagen, in accelerating the uptake of renewable, the future of the energy sector. He will be one of the speakers the Plenary Welcome …
BEIJING — China’s utilities will be required to buy all the power produced by wind farms and other renewable sources under a new law meant to promote the industry and reduce heavy reliance on coal. Legislators approved the measure Saturday as an …
The Federal Reserve, not surprisingly, figures in a number of non-fiction accounts of the financial crisis. Now comes the fiction: Union Atlantic, a first novel by short-story writer Adam Haslett, 39, to be published in late January, that revolves around a bank that figures it is too big too fail.
Set outside Boston, home of a huge bank called Union Atlantic, the plot features — among other things — the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, widower Henry Graves, and his increasingly crazy sister. After some badly conceived trades put the survival of Union Atlantic at risk, its CEO comes face to face with Graves (even though a Boston bank ordinarily would be the province of the Boston Fed).
Let me start by saying, Graves tells the banker, that if you or your board is under the impression that Union Atlantic is to big to fail, youre mistaken. Theres no question here of a bailout. If you go under, the markets will take a substantial hit, but with enough liquidity in the system we can cut you loose, I hope you understand that.
This, of course, was a bluff, Haslett writes, in a first novel that the publisher says was finished during the failure of Lehman Brothers last fall. Henry had already begun receiving calls from the Treasury Department.
As in the 1995 Bruce Willis movie, Die Hard: With a Vengeance, the New York Feds underground gold vaults make an appearance in the novel, this time as an improbable — though accurately described — backdrop to a conversation between Graves and a whistleblower from the bank. The New York Fed president, though, doesn’t figure in the book’s sex scenes.
Raghuram Rajan, an economist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has built a reputation for prescience. Back in 2005, at a gathering to honor then Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, he presented a paper asserting that the financial developments of the past couple decades could lead to disaster. It was an unpopular position that garnered harsh reviews at the time. Now people listen more attentively to what he has to say.
Mr. Rajan, who served as the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2003 to 2006, spoke with The Wall Street Journal about the implications of the U.S.s dismal economic performance in the 2000s — how it has affected perceptions of the U.S. model of capitalism, and how that model might change as a result.
Has the decade of the 2000s — with the downfall of Enron, the bursting of the Internet bubble and the Great Panic — discredited the U.S. model of capitalism?
The rhetoric has changed considerably. People dont say that the U.S. is the place to emulate any more. The U.S. used to be pretty good at giving lectures in the past, so now of course other countries are taking the chance to thumb their nose at them.
Some people are concluding that capitalism doesnt work. The problem is that they dont have anything reasonable to replace it with. To say that we needed more regulation is not to say that markets dont work.
You travel around the world advising governments and central banks, many of which have aspired to the U.S. model. How has their attitude changed?
People in other countries are taking this crisis as the opportunity to do something about the threat that American capitalism posed to their cozy existence. The insider economy is gaining ground, with its national champions and various forms of protectionism.
Ill give you an example. I was in India, chairing a committee on financial-sector reforms. One of our proposals was that we should consider reducing the dominance of national banks in the system. The response was actually, now were ahead of the curve, look how the U.S. has nationalized its banks.
How do you expect the U.S. model of capitalism to change as a result of the crisis? Can it regain its credibility?
Given the other models that weve tried in the past, this one seems to work pretty well. Its sort of like democracy — the greatest good to the greatest number of people.
The question is how you get the benefits without the excess volatility thats now in the system. I think thats what we will tackle over the years. We are going to question whether we need a better safety net, we are going to question whether finance should be as risky as it has been.
We may well want to choose more safety and less risk, but we should go into it with open eyes. We cant have the dynamism and at the same time expect a lot more security.
Can we know if the tradeoff of which you speak — less dynamism in return for more security — will work? Does the field of economics have any way of forecasting the outcome?
The truth is nobody knows. Were fiddling around with so many things. You want to keep enough incentive to take risk to get the dynamism, but in practice youre typically going to make mistakes. This is really the history of how we regulate. Each time the pendulum swings, we get some stuff that we later realize is too much and other stuff that we think is absolutely necessary in a modern economy.
Having earned an unprecedented edge on the automotive market this year, China extended its offensive into the railway sector and set a new speed record for long-distance passenger trains over the weekend. Simply put, the trip between Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong province and the city of Wuhan, which normally took 11 hours, can now be done in less than three.
The train which managed the feat is part of a new long-distance passenger train service. Called Harmony express,… (read more)
