Thursday, March 23, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
When people start blaming short sellers for the downfall of a company – or the world's woes – it's often the time to wonder why... It's a lazy and frequently wrong argument, but more often... it's a diversionary tactic. I learned that firsthand when I was a journalist, spending much of my time talking to […]
Monday, March 20, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
If there's one concern about mixing artificial intelligence ('AI') and medicine, it's that it will over diagnose and lead to under and over treatment... But another concern outside of specialized health care publications isn't getting much attention... It's that unregulated AI is starting to be used as a tool in insurance pre-authorizations – in some […]
Wednesday, March 15, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
I was talking to a friend earlier this week about all things Silicon Valley Bank ('SVB') and he said that 'people need to relearn what risk is'... He was referring to the way SVB was handled, telling me... The fact that guys who don't know how to run a bank just put us back into […]
Monday, March 13, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
One theme I've been hammering away at since the bubble burst has been how the market had fooled the seemingly smartest of the smart... As I tweeted back in March 2021... Source: Twitter/@herbgreenberg The latest example, of course, is the failure of SVB Financial (SIVB), whose Silicon Valley Bank was the bank to the stars […]
Tuesday, March 7, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
In the decades of writing newspaper columns, online columns, and essays like I do here at Empire Financial Daily, I've learned that you never know what will resonate... And I'm often surprised what the trigger will be... such as my recent Empire Financial Daily essay on the novel move by coffee giant Starbucks (SBUX) to […]
Monday, March 6, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
This is a stunning statistic... It's from a recent report by my friends at Kailash Concepts headlined, "The Art of Stock Picking Returns." As the report puts it... Over 33%, or ~1,000 of America's largest listed companies, lose money or cannot afford to pay their interest expense. Let that sink in. That's right... More than […]
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
Betting against Starbucks (SBUX) CEO Howard Schultz has proven over the years to be a losing bet... He beat the shorts in the early days of the chain when critics (including yours truly) said the company's business model of opening stores across the street from one another made no sense... and that the coffee was […]
Monday, February 27, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
The market has seemingly become so efficient, with so much information flowing so quickly in so many places, that it's as inefficient as it has ever been... Here's what I mean... The efficient-market hypothesis, as it's called, claims that stock prices reflect all available information. Economists have been squabbling over it for decades, often using […]
Tuesday, February 21, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
Are dual-class stocks as anti-shareholder as they might appear to be? In the February 16 Empire Financial Daily regarding Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google, I joked that if it hadn't been for the dual-class structure of its stock, activists probably would've been on the company's doorstep yesterday. The very nature of the structure, with founders controlling the […]
Thursday, February 16, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
In a normal situation, activists would be tripping over themselves to take stakes in Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL)... Especially after the value of its stock plunged by around $100 billion in a single week, following its perceived missteps in the out-of-the-blue chatbot battle with fellow tech giant Microsoft (MSFT). But like several other tech companies, […]
Wednesday, February 15, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
I go out of my way not to talk about politics because there's simply no upside... And I'm not about to start now, other than to say... I have been a registered independent since I was a journalist, and I'm about as centrist as centrist can be. I tilt left on social issues but to […]
Tuesday, February 14, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
Let's not kid ourselves... Most investors want moonshots. That's not investing, of course... The folks on Wall Street call it "speculating." But it's really just another form of gambling – buying companies with no profits but big promises in hopes of a really big payday. We all do it – or have done it – […]
Monday, February 13, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
I built a career quoting people who said the world was about to end, except... so far it hasn't. But thanks to many of those same people, my readers got a heads up on plenty of upheavals before they happened. Among them was the financial crisis. Thanks to some good sources, I was raising red […]
Friday, February 3, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
A recent headline in The Economist couldn't help but catch my attention... Bypassed: are heart surgeons dying out? The sub-headline was equally compelling... For years, they swaggered atop the medical profession. Now the machines are coming for their jobs So was the cover photo... A few quotes in the story were equally eye-catching – including […]
Thursday, February 2, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
The big question in the early innings of conversational and generative artificial intelligence ('AI'), such as ChatGPT, is... how good are its responses? CNBC recently had a great conversation about this with longtime tech investor Roger McNamee, whom I used to quote decades ago when he was a fairly unknown tech analyst for mutual fund […]
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
Well, that didn't take long... It has been a mere two months since chatbot ChatGPT came out of nowhere to be everywhere... and the stock promoters are up to their old tricks. The "Dash for Trash," as it has been called, is off to the races – this time with artificial intelligence ("AI") as the […]
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
Private equity has met the enemy... and it's staring at itself in the mirror. Think about it... Before the bubble burst, private equity was buying anything and everything that wasn't nailed down: car washes, dental offices, housing contractors, trash haulers, urgent care centers, hospices – the list goes on. And maybe no industry epitomizes what's […]
Monday, January 30, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
I've been on Twitter for 15 years, and lately at times I've been feeling like things are different... Ever since the new owner took over – you know who I mean, that guy who makes electric vehicles ("EVs") and spaceships – the vibe has been anywhere from wobbly to downright weird. I've found myself increasingly […]
Saturday, January 28, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
Between overhyped initial public offerings ('IPOs'), crypto scams, and meme stocks, it has never been easier to lose money in the markets... At the same time, the prices of everything – gas, food, your electric bill, and just simple takeout – have shot higher. While there have been recent signs of relief, inflation is still […]
Friday, January 27, 2023
By Herb Greenberg
The good news about all the buzz, banter, and hype surrounding chatbot ChatGPT is that it'll soon die out... That's how these things always go. First something nobody has ever heard of comes from nowhere, then it's suddenly everywhere. It happens in predictable waves – usually starting in social media, then industry media, and finally […]