Archive

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Not Every Company Adjusts Earnings, Like This Very 'Boring' One

By Herb Greenberg

Some businesses are so straightforward and boring that they don't have to twist anything to make the numbers look better than they are... Consider Fastenal (FAST), an enormously successful company that distributes screws, nuts, and bolts. A business doesn't get more boring than that... I mentioned the company in the most recent issue of my […]

Friday, September 16, 2022

Friday Night Dumpster Diving

By Herb Greenberg

Friday nights aren't just for high school football in Texas... It's when public companies often wait to file bad news with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), which they hope will go unnoticed since by the time the news drops everybody on Wall Street has gone home. They've been doing it for years... no, make […]

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

The Congressional Gravy Train Chugs On

By Herb Greenberg

I go out of my way to steer clear from writing about politics, but I'm finding it hard to sit still on one story in particular anymore... I'm talking about members of Congress trading stocks. Last time I looked, there was supposed to be some kind of bill ready in August that banned lawmakers from […]

Friday, September 9, 2022

Getting Sucked Into the 'Doom Loop'... And Thinking About Inefficient Stocks

By Herb Greenberg

One of the most liberating things I've done in a few decades is 'cut the cord'... No, not to cable... though I have no idea why I still have it. I'm talking about writing almost exclusively about stocks that will fall, companies that will fail, and – when I wanted to stare into the abyss […]

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

What Questions Should Investors Ask?

By Herb Greenberg

One of my favorite investment podcasts is On the Tape, featuring Dan Nathan, Guy Adami, and Danny Moses... It's the perfect complement to Hard Money's Million Dollar Podcast, featuring my colleagues Enrique Abeyta and Gabe Marshank. And I don't just say that because I work with Enrique and Gabe... It's because if you merge the […]

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

An Entertaining and Compelling Tale of a Corporate Crook

By Herb Greenberg

I sometimes get asked to read pre-publication versions of new books but often don't have time or an interest in the topic, so I politely pass... But when Gary Weiss asked me to read the so-called "galleys" of his new book on the notorious electronics chain Crazy Eddie, in hopes that I would write a […]

Tuesday, August 2, 2022

New Home Sales See a Return to 'Normal'... And a Comment on Opendoor

By Herb Greenberg

During the boom, you would be lucky to get yourself on a wait list for a new home, even starting in the millions – let alone get one – here in Southern California... They couldn't build them fast enough. But as the longtime sales manager for one SoCal developer told me the other day, using […]

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Random Musings on Cars, Restaurants, Inflation... and the Mailbag

By Herb Greenberg

Random Musing No. 1 – I bought out my lease on my car over the weekend... This Mercedes SUV has been the best car I've owned and there's no reason to replace it... especially given the state of the auto market, which remains a seller's market. Plus, no way am I paying those absurdly ridiculous […]

Friday, July 22, 2022

You Knew Newspapers Were Dying, But the Numbers Are Stunning

By Herb Greenberg

When Jim Cramer lured me away from newspapers to join TheStreet.com in 1998, people thought I was making a mistake... I was one of the first somewhat high-profile print journalists to make the shift to online from print... leaving a six-day-a-week column I had written for 10 years at the San Francisco Chronicle for a […]

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

How Carvana Became a 'Zombie Stock'

By Herb Greenberg

I've known smart people on both sides of the Carvana (CVNA) trade – investors who were long and short... Anybody long – for a good part of four years – made a bundle on the online used-car retailer, which is known for its multistory car vending machines. But as the company's results and near-round trip […]

Friday, July 1, 2022

An Inflection Point for the Market? Also, the Moral of Bed Bath & Beyond

By Herb Greenberg

Editor's note: The Empire Financial Research offices are closed on Monday in observance of Independence Day. Look for your next issue of Empire Financial Daily on Tuesday, after the Weekend Edition. There's a broad consensus that 'you ain't seen nothing yet' when it comes to this market... Everybody has a reason... higher interest rates, the […]

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

When Pension Funds Go Out on the Risk Curve... And a Desperate Move at Kellogg

By Herb Greenberg

There's a saying that I was thinking about the other day when I was reading a story in the Wall Street Journal... "Reaching for yield." That's when, for the sake of making even a little more on a supposedly conservative fixed- income investment, you buy something with a higher yield. But with higher yield comes […]

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

The Fed's Disconnect With Reality... And Readers Weigh in on PBMs and Drug Pricing

By Herb Greenberg

It's a question you hear over and over again... Is the U.S. Federal Reserve out of touch with the average American? There may be something to it, at least based on my firsthand experience... This was years ago – many years, in fact (back in the late 1980s) – but I'm willing to bet it's […]

Friday, June 10, 2022

Scrutinizing the 'Legal' Drug Cartel... And a Comment on GoodRx

By Herb Greenberg

If you take drugs for anything chronic, you'll fully understand what I'm about to say... When I saw the recent news that the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") was going to investigate pharmacy benefit managers ("PBMs"), I thought, "It's about time." Talk about cartels... In the murky world of drug pricing, the PBMs are the middlemen […]

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

When You Know ESG Has Gone Too Far... And Is This Private Retailer Growing Too Quickly?

By Herb Greenberg

A recent move by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ('SEC') is coming not a moment too soon... Specifically, the agency is on the scene to focus on bogus claims of environmental, social, and governance ("ESG") by mutual funds, exchange-traded funds ("ETFs"), and other investment vehicles. The SEC is purportedly planning to crack down on […]