Lou Gutheil

UBS (SIX:UBSN) proved this morning that the banking crisis is not over, announcing that it would be cutting another 10,000 jobs  worldwide by 2015.  Apparently the cuts are starting immediately. Although the company has denied the reports, it is alleged that some workers were unable to gain access to the bank with their electronic passes […]

Despite overtures from News Corp over the weekend Pearson PLC (LSE:PSON) announced the betrothal of its daughter, Penguin Group, to Random House, the son of German publisher Bertelsmann SE.  The marriage is expected to take place in September 2013, but a precise date has not been set. According to the pre-nuptual agreement, the couple will […]

Last week the publishing industry was all a dither over the possibility that Pearson PLC (LSE:PSON) was in discussions with Germany’s Bertelsmann regarding mating its Penguin Books division with Bertelsmann’s Random House division.  Analysts were generally viewing the potential merger with as a boon for investors, generally seeing the combining of two of the five […]

Seventy-two percent is an interesting number.  Just say the words “seventy percent” and most people will envision in their minds a large portion of something good.  The number means something entirely different on a report card.  It conveys a sort of mediocrity.  If that report card is a corporate quarterly report and the 72% is […]

Perhaps the biggest financial news of the day is not the trend of the FTSE 100 nor the rise or fall of a single company’s share price.  It’s not even the continuing saga of the banking scandals.  It’s Ford Motor Company’s announcement of the imminent closure of its Transit van assembly plant at Southampton and […]

(A stealth team of traders is huddled in a dark corner of the London Stock Exchange.) “Men, we’re going to synchronize our watches to 11:59.  On my mark.  3 – 2 – 1 – mark!” KABOOM!!  It was the sound of the RB  ‘stock rocket’ engines igniting as the company released it’s 3rd Quarter results. […]

As we approach the end of 2012, providing of course we get past 21 December when the Mayan calendar seems to indicate that the world will end, the replacement of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) by the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) will take place.  There are some signs that the industry is nervous about the […]

With the negative publicity of the infamous Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico now fading into the past, BP (LSE:BP.) has been able to focus on its 2nd worst nightmare, a partnership gone terrible wrong with the Russian oil giant, TNK-BP.  Several months of negotiations have produced an agreement with Rosneft, another […]

The global economic crisis has investors so uptight that Thursday’s accidental early release of Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) 3rd quarter results stirred a frenzy among traders. The market reacted to the early report, which revealed a 20% decrease in profits year-on-year for the quarter, with the share price dropping 9% from $705.58 to $681.79.  Chicken Little was […]

No, this is not an attack on the British banking system.  God knows, it probably couldn’t survive another attack.  It is however, about the continuing fallout from the banking crisis, incompetency at management levels, and skulduggery in executive offices.  It is not a rehash of all the things we already know.  It is a reminder […]