CREDIT CARD
ALERT
Joel Margolis: “Don’t know if
you’ve seen the latest efforts by banks to make money. It used to be that they would send you teaser
rates with your credit cards and then in small print say that there was a 3%
fee ($5 minimum and $50 maximum). Now they’ve eliminated the maximum, so
that if you got a teaser rate of, say, 1.9% for $20,000, the previous fee of
$50 is now up to $600.”
F I’m not sure
how widely this applies, but it’s one more reason to double check the fine
print before going for any of these deals.
SELL FMD? BUY?
If you own this one, Barron’s, Saturday, has a detailed
assessment likely to send the stock lower.
It makes me very nervous to think of you losing money (or giving back
paper profits). Then again, I hate to
see you dumping the same day everyone else does – that’s often the exact wrong
time to sell. (The old adage, “buy on
the rumor, sell on the news” is reversed in the case of bad news. And a negative story in Barron’s, widely read
by investors, is
bad news. So the adage would have you buying
at bargain prices when people dump their shares. But you know what? Wall Street has an adage for everything –
including “quit while you’re ahead.”) So
the truth is, I don’t know what you should do. My guru has read the article and remains
unfazed. If it drops far enough, I may
buy more. But everyone’s situation is
different.
GLDD – DON’T SELL
YOUR WARRANTS
A write-up over at the Value Investors Club
(250 serious investors who share their ideas with each other) sees Great
Lakes Dredge
& Dock (GLDD) as attractive – reassuring to those of us who bought warrants. The company sits on a record backlog from its international business, goes this argument, and here at home, revenues
have been artificially depressed because, with the war, “Federal funding for
dredging projects was cut in half after being stable and growing for the prior
50 years.” “We’re not positive when the
domestic dredging will rebound, but it’s reckless for it to be so low for as
long as it’s been. We feel it’s only a
matter of time.”
Whether enough of this will
become evident before February, 2009, to further buoy the price of the stock
(and with it, our warrants), remains to be seen.
But if you
bought them with money you can afford to lose, hang on.
BOREF
Anon: “You’re really starting to embarrass
yourself with your Borealis posts.
Honestly, give it a break. You made a mistake, it’s OK. Let it go.
Move on. You’re systematically
discrediting your site and I likely won’t return. For your own sake, please be
careful not to become a flake. Sorry to be so blunt.”
Mike Wallin: “Any chance of selling some WheelTug
things to Jet Blue? That way, they could
tow the planes to their destination instead of keeping the passengers hostage
on the tarmac for hours.”
F Now, now, Mike.
MEANWHILE, UP
IN CANADA
While Delta and Borealis work to maybe get those planes a-tuggin’ (a speculative venture, unquestionably, but I’m not
sure why it’s “embarrassing”), the little Canadian outfit that Borealis
subsidiary Roche Bay has teamed up with to exploit its iron ore deposit harbors
hopes, expressed in this
press release Friday, of raising $20 million to move things to the next
stage.
Hopes and $4.50 will buy you a venti Frappuccino, I know.
But man can’t live by index funds alone.
(At least not this man.)
AND IN KENTUCKY
Linda Crown: “This
remarkable young woman was forced to leave the Coast Guard Academy because she
is gay. She’s now on a bus with other
LGBT men and women traveling through the country attempting to [dialog with students
at religious colleges].”
F Jesus wouldn’t
have let them congregate, either – click here.