In spite of the recent selloff in the energy sector, most of these stocks are still trading with big gains on the year. This stands in sharp contrast to stocks from the financial sector, which have suffered steep losses as big banks have been forced to liquidate assets and raise capital to support their balance sheets.
Because these two groups of stocks have functioned as polar opposites during this stretch, it has provoked many conversations about which is currently the more attractive investment destination; high-flying energy stocks or beaten down financial stocks.
Its All About Earnings
When you take a look at the earnings picture, this argument becomes very one-sided.
Crude prices have recently dipped lower, but they are still very high when compared to historical norms, and this will translate into big earnings for energy companies. We can see this dynamic expressed through analyst estimates.
Encore Acquisition Co. (NYSE: EAC) shares are still trading up sharply on the year in spite of the stocks recent sell off, but estimates have risen in tandem with the stock price, with the current-year estimate advancing to $5.07 per share per share from $3.63 per share 90 days ago. This kind of earnings power provides plenty of fundamental strength for more share appreciation.
Several independent economists have said they expect a big U.S. bank to fail. It may be easy to ignore them because they are not affiliated with any of the large institutions that monitor financial companies. But now the former chief economist of the IMF says one of America's big banks will probably not make it.
According to Reuters, "The worst of the global financial crisis is yet to come and a large U.S. bank will fail in the next few months as the world's biggest economy hits further troubles, former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said." Rogoff is currently an economist at Harvard.
The analysis pointing to the bank failure is based on the facts that the credit markets and housing situation will get much worse. Current earnings from banks and brokerage houses indicate that the prediction may well be true.
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says lower gas prices mean the numbers are too low.
People are missing this retail move. They are missing it because the market is deciding right now that the guidance companies are giving is just plain wrong given the $3.50 at the pump (although premium's a lot more expensive). They are also recognizing that the strong are surviving and thriving and taking share in a radical fashion -- witness Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) (Cramer's Take), which must be killing Sears (NASDAQ: SHLD) (Cramer's Take) and the mom-and-pop shops out there.
When I met with Lowe's last year, they told me that they have picked up share in every downturn. They did not know when the downturn would end or when you would see the results, but they were confident that the longer the downturn lasted, the more likely they would be to have pulled away from their competition.
In December, 2002, ten of the most prominent brokerage firms in the country agreed to a massive settlement. The charges involved well-documented claims that analyst reports issued by these firms were deceptive. The firms sold out their retail clients to curry favor with their underwriting clients.
The industry unleashed a massive PR campaign. It convinced you that it saw the error of its ways. They had "reformed." You could trust them again with your hard earned assets.
And you did. Money flowed back in the coffers of these firms and others.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Wachovia Corporation (NYSE: WB) is now the sixth major Auction Rate Securities (ARS) issuer to agree to buy back these long-term securities whose interest rates formerly reset in weekly auctions -- until those auctions failed in February. There seems to be a difference of opinion -- between New York's attorney general and the SEC and Missouri -- regarding the terms of Wachovia's deal.
Andrew Cuomo of New York thinks Wachovia will redeem $8 billion worth of ARS in November and will pay a $50 million fine. The SEC and Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan said that Wachovia will buy back $5.7 billion by November 28th. The SEC said Wachovia will buy back an additional $3.1 billion in ARS in June 2009 according to the Journal. Wachovia seems to be leaning more to the two-step process outlined by Carnhan and the SEC.
Meanwhile, today's announcement leaves unredeemed the customers from the following top 10 municipal ARS issuers (their 2007 municipal ARS totals are in parentheses):
Each time Wachovia (NYSE: WB) management says things are getting better, news leaks out that they are getting worse. It has become tiresome and dangerous to the health of the bank's investors.
Now the firm's money management unit, Evergreen Investments, may have to be sold. According toReuters, it could be worth $5 billion. At some point, Wachovia will run out of stuff to sell. With mortgage default rates accelerating, that could happen sooner rather than later.
What this says is that Wachovia may be beginning to understand that its worst problems are not behind it. If so, the bank stock's recent rise is a sucker rally and investors are about to get beaten like red-headed mules. A month ago, Wachovia's shares were just above $9. Now they change hands at almost $16. It would be hard to find a growth stock that has done as well over that period.
Housing is still troubled. Foreclosures are still rising. Wachovia at $16 won't last.
Bloomberg News reports that two more big banks -- JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) have made offers of $7 billion to 30,000 holders of Auction Rate Securities (ARS) -- those long-term securities whose yields reset in weekly auctions until the auctions failed this February. JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley also agreed to $60 million worth of fines. This brings to five the number of large firms that have settled so far. The Wall Street Journal reports that of the big firms that have yet to settle, Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) is proving to be among the most unhelpful to its clients.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal's James Stewart, who first got me writing about the ARS catastrophe, has finally broken his silence. And he seems to think that the ARS mess is much worse than he originally thought back in February. Stewart was shocked that brokers were unloading this toxic waste on customers so they could get it off of their books and out of the accounts of their executives. Stewart's reaction struck me as surprisingly naive -- particularly considering his long track record of reporting on Wall Street misdeeds.
Nevertheless, the problems with the frozen ARS continue to stress out investors who fell victim to Wall Street's chicanery. Among the top 10 municipal ARS issuers, the following have yet to offer any restitution to ARS holders (the value of their 2007 ARS issuance is in parentheses):
Bloomberg News reports that banks' subprime write-downs have hit $500 billion. The last time I checked, that figure was $400 billion. Bloomberg reports that New York University economist Nouriel Roubini forecasts such losses will ultimately total $2 trillion. I wonder if he would revise his estimate upwards.
Recently banks have been taking write-downs for their Auction Rate Securities (ARS). Bloomberg reports about $1.9 billion has been set aside so far to cover ARS losses. It notes that UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) set aside $900 million to cover potential losses and Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) and Wachovia (NYSE: WB) each estimate that their ARS buybacks will cost $500 million.
Write-downs have been going hand in hand with capital raising. But banks and brokers have not been able to raise enough capital to offset the losses. Bloomberg calculates that they've raised "$353 billion of capital to cope with the write-downs. The gap between the losses and capital infusions, which stands at $148 billion, has regularly narrowed to about $80 billion as capital raising follows write-down announcements."
Can banks and brokerages raise another $1.7 trillion to keep up with the write-downs that Roubini forecasts? I sincerely doubt it.
CNNMoney notes that Morgan Stanley said it would offer to repurchase all ARS "held by individuals, charities and small and medium-sized business with accounts of $10 million or less at the bank." Morgan Stanley will begin to start buying back $4.5 billion worth of ARS on September 30th and will "make its best effort to provide liquidity solutions" for institutional investors by the end of 2009. But New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo is not satisfied with Morgan Stanley's proposal.
Meanwhile, the list of big ARS issuers that have not settled grows shorter. Here are six holdouts (with their 2007 municipal ARS issuance in parentheses):
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says all that money has to go somewhere, and this is a likely destination.
Clash of the ideals! Oil's down, and what can you buy when there's so much bad bank news? What can you buy when Wachovia (NYSE: WB) (Cramer's Take) is boosting reserves and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS)) (Cramer's Take) is still being pursued by authorities and JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) (Cramer's Take) says July stunk and UBS (NYSE: UBS) (Cramer's Take) is so tarnished that you can't believe it was once the most conservative blue chip out there.
The answer is tech, of course!
Wait a second. Would anyone mind if we actually had a reason to buy tech beyond the Kindle, the device that made Citigroup gaga about Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) (Cramer's Take) -- not that you needed a device to do that.
Sure, we have pre-seasonality. Remember, you are supposed to buy tech at the end of the summer, not that anyone waits that long.
How the World Spends Its Money Ever wondered how global consumers spend their hard-earned incomes? Data from the World Bank's most recent study breaks global individual consumption into 11 buckets--from food and clothing to health care and recreation. While just 6% of U.S. income goes to food China residents spend 24% and Ethopians a whooping 55%. At the other extreme, Americans spend 18% of its income on healthcare, which is much higher than most other countries. How The World Spends Its Money - Forbes.com
U.S. stock futures were mixed Tuesday morning following more negative news out of the financial sector: J.P. Morgan announced a $1.5 billion write-down, UBS a loss, while Wachovia and Morgan Stanley are dealing with auction rate securities. However, oil futures declined further to near $113 a barrel, offsetting financial sector woes and pushing stock futures higher. Russia halted its attacks on Georgia, signaling a cease-fire could come near. [Update 9:09: Seems lower oil wasn't enough to offset financials' concerns and futures now indicate stocks could start flat to lower.] JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it suffered more substantial third-quarter losses related to the hard-hit mortgage sector than it did in the second quarter and had to take a $1.5 billion write-off on mortgage-backed securities and loans.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) said late Monday that it will offer to buy back up to $4.5 billion of auction-rate securities from retail clients, following similar announcements from rivals. The broker also said it will make whole any losses suffered by retail clients who bought auction-rate securities through the firm and try to provide liquidity solutions for institutional investors.
Yesterday the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 225, so I decided to peg the financial stocks I wrote about investing in as a pool. We are often accused of bragging on the good days and having memory loss on the bad so I wanted to be transparent and forthright on the downside.
To my surprise the financial stock pool is actually up 9.96% on average. Six stocks increased in value, two were down and two stocks were even money. The big winner was MBIA Inc (NYSE: MBI) up over 68%!
In the same time frame the DJIA has gone from 11,397.56 to 11,431.43 (even) and the S&P has gone from 1263.2 to 1266.06 last night, for basically no change either.
The market is rebounding as I write so I expect the news is even better. Although, this pool of stocks beat the market so far in the short run, I hope to track this group for a year, or at least until Major League Baseball's spring training opens in 2009.
After nearly six months of stalemate, things are finally starting to happen for holders of Auction Rate Securities (ARS) -- the $330 billion of long-term debt whose yield used to reset in weekly auctions. This morning, The Boston Globe reports that UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) is poised to announce that it will redeem $19.4 billion worth of ARS and pay $150 million in fines, split between Massachusetts and New York. UBS follows Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) and Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MER), which yesterday announced plans to redeem over $17 billion worth of ARS.
Why should you care? If you have money frozen in these securities, the reason is obvious. If not, what's happening here suggests three lessons for investors:
Don't buy without knowing. Before you buy anything a broker is trying to sell you, read the prospectus, find out how the broker will be compensated for the sale, and if you don't understand what you're buying, don't buy it. Many people bought based on broker pitches that ARSs were cash equivalents, highly liquid, and yielded slightly more than money market funds. It turns out that ARS auctions started failing publicly last September.
If your money becomes illiquid, make alot of noise. ARS investors contacted government officials and the media in an organized way. The public attention led to investigations by legal officials. That attention uncovered UBS e-mails demonstrating that brokerage firms decided to dump the toxic waste from their own books to the accounts of their individual customers -- even as their executives dumped the securities from their own portfolios.
Michael Vodicka, Zack's Investment Research. 
Several independent economists have said they expect a big U.S. bank to fail. It may be easy to ignore them because they are not affiliated with any of the large institutions that monitor financial companies. But now the former chief economist of the IMF says one of America's big banks will probably not make it.
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In December, 2002, ten of the most prominent brokerage firms in the country agreed to a massive settlement. The charges involved well-documented claims that analyst reports issued by these firms were deceptive. The firms sold out their retail clients to curry favor with their underwriting clients.
The 
U.S. stock futures were mixed Tuesday morning following more negative news out of the financial sector: J.P. Morgan announced a $1.5 billion write-down, UBS a loss, while Wachovia and Morgan Stanley are dealing with auction rate securities. However, oil futures declined further to near $113 a barrel, offsetting financial sector woes and pushing stock futures higher. Russia halted its attacks on Georgia, signaling a cease-fire could come near.
Yesterday the 
After nearly six months of stalemate, things are finally starting to happen for holders of Auction Rate Securities (ARS) -- the $330 billion of long-term debt whose yield used to reset in weekly auctions. This morning, 
Slow approach to raising bank capital loses the race against write-offs
Cramer on BloggingStocks: The SEC's waffling will be deadly
How Fannie and Freddie will fail
