Thoughts

I Still Like Yahoo!

YHOO's results were slightly disappointing and the market's weakness seems overdone.

As the dominant firm in display advertising, Yahoo! generates stable and significant cash flow and it is rich in private Asian assets. Yahoo! is likely to be acquired in the fullness of time. If anything, the quarter could hasten a corporate transaction.

Similar to other commodities, the price of cotton has climbed to an all-time high today, doubling in the last five months.

We are in the nascent stages of cost-push inflation.

It's possible that corporate profit margins have peaked and are vulnerable to mean-regression.

Are consensus S&P profit forecasts safe?

Meredith Makes Nice

After her clash with the municipal bond community, Meredith Whitney is now making nice with Wall Street.

It remains my view that Yahoo! is a 2012 turnaround story that is supported by the underlying values of the company's Asian assets. Currently, those private assets are knocking the ball out of the park.

Tough Call on Financials

Is the recent weakness in financials simply profit-taking or a more dire foreshadowing of lower stock prices?

Run, don't walk, to read Bloomberg's fascinating account of the Goldman Sachs/Facebook deal.

Why the Gold Plunge?

I'm hearing that the schmeissing in the price of gold stems, in part, from a hedge fund leveraged to the hilt in the commodity that is now liquidating.

long YHOO