Friday, July 30, 2010

TGIF

I make a lot of jokes about my influential readers and new readers, but today I saw stories in both the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal that seems to imply my readership is truly huge and influential. In June I wrote a blog making recommendations for all CFOs - viz, Chief FInancial Officers of major corporations. Here's the link ->

http://viewfromthebunker.blogspot.com/2010/06/attention-cfos.html

Lo and behold, in today's FT I saw this story: "US banks are taking advantage of improving earnings and growing investor demand to raise billions of dollars in debt at historically low interest rates, a move that could boost the sector’s profits in coming years."

And this story in the WSJ: "The global corporate-bond boom is gathering steam as companies rush to take advantage of some of the lowest borrowing costs in history. Companies from global giants McDonald's Corp. and Kimberly-Clark Corp. to Indonesian telecommunications company PT Indosat Tbk are rushing to sell debt. This month has been the busiest July on record for sales by U.S. companies with junk-credit ratings. Asia's debt market is on pace for a record year."

How about that ! CFOs worldwide read this blog and followed my advice, given many weeks ago. Combining this readership with Ben Bernanke, Rush Limbaugh and many others in the Ruling Class, it seems this blog rules !!!

Now if only my Ruling Class readers would listen and change their despicable behavior !

Investors

Don't buy any of those bonds being sold - they are long term certificates of confiscation. The rates are ridiculously low. Wait.

The stocks of those big companies able to sell such favorable debt for long term maturities will eventually benefit from their issuance. Mrs. B favors the big blue chip stocks that pay fair dividends and are not stagnant. Their earnings yields are excellent now and they are diversified worldwide, thus not unduly dependent on US growth.

Actions

Doing nothing. Krypto is just sleeping on the couch ... she is truly a couch potato dog.

Word of the Day

"Afflatus" - noun [$10] found in Goethe's Faust.
Afflatus means a divine, creative impulse, inspiration.
Sentence: (A) (Goethe, in Faust, Prelude in the Theatre)
"Why talk of mood, divine afflatus
That ne'er to waverers occurs ?"
(B) (Bman) Ideas for blog posts do not come from afflatus, but from much reading, hard thinking and paying attention to the world.

1 comment:

Bunkerman said...

GDP weak but with revisions, not too bad. Yesterday's claims stunk.

More slogging in the mud.