Disco Inferno Burns Housing Bears
There is an old joke on Wall Street…
Q) How do you know a CEO is lying?
see answer at bottom
While we don’t know if Robert Toll is fibbing, he is likely to score a slot on “Dancing With the Stars” after his comments today boosted housing stocks to six-month highs:
Toll Brothers Chief Executive Robert Toll’s comments Tuesday that some of the luxury home builder’s markets appear to be “dancing on the bottom” provided a lift for the battered sector’s shares a day before a big industry conference.
The CEO, known for his candid views on the housing market, said nearly a year and a half into the current downturn, “we may be seeing a floor in some markets where deposits and traffic, although erratic from week to week, seem to be dancing on the bottom or slightly above. Marketwatch
Housing bulls and bears alike might want to stay tuned as we prepare to grill Wayne Nef from Sniper Research over the investment merits of the these Battleground Stox.
Coming soon...
A) His lips are moving
Rubbernecking on Wall Street
The urban legends spawned last week over the smash-up of uber-banker Robert Greenhill’s (GHL-NYSE) Porsche Carrera GT included everything but Greenhill selling a kidney to pay for a loaner car.
However, the blogs detailed wild stories about how the one-in-1,500 Porsche was destroyed by a friend, who in turn rush ordered a replacement, which would have set him back $440,000. It turns out this detail was wildly inaccurate. Instead, the official story according to the Post is the car was destroyed by Christopher Numme, Greenhill’s mechanic, who was returning the car after completing service on it. (dealscape)
We have never met a financial journalist who could afford a Porsche Boxster, much less a Carrera GT. Thus the inaccuracies. But even mini-ballers on Wall Street know that Porsche ceased Carrera GT production about 200 units shy of the planned 1,500 production run due supply and demand issues.
German women are gorgeous...and German men are pragmatic. With resale prices on the Carrera GT plunging faster than the Nikkei circa 1991, the bean counters in Zuffenhausen pulled the plug last spring in order to protect their customers who were already long the supercar.
Economics 101. Duh.
Given the imbalances in the marketplace, paying over 400k for a Carrera GT is nothing more than hyperbole. Those of you looking to treat yourself after the bonus check clears should call this guy...and tell him StockJockey sent you.
Of course we are not miracle workers. If you need a Manhattan parking spot you are going to have to call Seinfeld.
Ol’ Man River(bed)
Ol’ Man River, that Ol’ Man River
He must know somepin’, but he don’t say nothin’
He just keeps rollin’, he keeps on rollin’ along (Show Boat)
We are not big fans of Broadway musicals...our lowbrow tastes run more toward train wrecks than paddlewheel steamers.
The Street was split on the prospects for Riverbed Technologies (RVBD-NASDAQ) last we checked in. But Ol’ Riverbed just keeps rolling along...Indeed, the stock has offered up a pot of riches. It is arguably the most successful deal of 2006, given the 240% rise in the shares since its IPO a scant 51 trading days ago.
But it seems the good ship Riverbed has attracted naysayers as well. The rise in the short interest could mean we have stumbled upon the next installment in our Battleground Stox series. Not much of a contest thus far; the bears buttocks have been firmly paddled. No doubt they are skeptical about Riverbed’s valuation, which seems mighty rich to us too.
But shorting a stock purely on valuation is an iffy proposition at best. Hopefully, for the shorts, the bear case includes more than a valuation call. Perhaps they are counting on a follow-on offering to finally throw a little cold water on this red hot stock. We should note that more than 5% of the float changes hands every day...and the ample liquidity should offer opportunities for the shorts to jump ship. Certainly some already have.
Still, the SS Riverbed is chock-a-block full of riverboat gamblers warily eyeing one other across a poker table.
The question is, who will blink first?
Outside Looking In
Former journalist turned sell-side analyst turned pariah turned blogger Henry Blodget has been chronicaling all things Google (GOOG-Nasdaq) for quite some time at his Internet Outsider blog.
A mere six years ago Blodget was riding high, making big bucks at Merrill Lynch and enjoying his coronation as King of the Net stocks, having displaced Morgan Stanley’s Mary Meeker as Institutional Investors #1 ranked Internet Analyst.
Henry was not long for Wall Street however, and got out of Dodge before the Lynch mob in Merrill’s retail account base could string him up for his numerous sins.
Henry held on to a pile of cash after paying some fairly hefty fines and proceeded to reinvent himself as a blogger free to speak his mind. Is this a great country or what?.
His most recent post might be of some interest to those of you who rely on Yahoo! finance and/or Google finance.
Remember Google Finance? Half a year ago, Google Finance debuted to rave reviews, startling the snoozing market leader, Yahoo, into action. Rumor has it that in the past six months the Google Finance team has even launched more impressive innovations. But have they? Who knows? To check out Google Finance, you have to type “Finance” into the search window (or stumble into the Finance section by searching for something else that happens to be contained within it). And who wants to bother to do that when you can stay on Yahoo and just click a link. Who can even remember to do that? Internet Outsider
Love or hate him, you might want to occasionally read him.
