The Ticker

Lehman's Day of Reckoning

Tweet Share on Facebook

June 9, 2008 Comment

Lehman Brothers' shares fell more than 9 percent after the bank announced it would have to raise $6 billion in capital and post a big $2.8 billion during the first quarter.

It's mostly bad news.

Yves Smith of the Naked Capitalism.com blog points out that's 10 times expected losses of around $300 million.

Potash, Innophos Look Like Smart Ag Plays

Tweet Share on Facebook

By Kirk Shinkle

June 6, 2008 Comment

Fertilizer stocks this year have been among my favorites, and they've continued to climb on the back of incredible demand for food around the globe. After a short break starting in late April, shares of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan are rallying again. They're up 52 percent, extending a stunning 200 percent jump over the past year.

Will gains continue? Steven Halpern of TheStockAdvisors.com (via BloggingStocks) points to Ticker Tape Digests' Leo Fasciocco, who sees earnings momentum continuing and a target price of $265 a share for Potash. They're around $219 today.

Tags:: stocks,; investing,; farming

Ugly Jobs Report, $150 Oil Forecast Rocks Stocks

Tweet Share on Facebook

By Kirk Shinkle

June 6, 2008 Comment (2)

It feels like summer today outside on Wall Street. Too bad traders are acting like it's early March (again) after the economy's most worrisome sectors—banking and the consumer—showed new signs of trouble ahead. A huge, half-point jump in the unemployment rate to 5.5 percent is the latest headwind for stocks, and shares of retailers and other vulnerable sectors continued to falter under the threat of lower consumer spending.

Wal-Mart, the nation's biggest retailer and one of the best-performing stocks in the sector since this slowdown started, saw shares fall after hitting a new 52-week intraday high Thursday. Options traders seem to be weighing just how much more upside there will be. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF slipped more than 3.5 percent.