Palangkaraya Post News

Monsanto said Thursday that several of its executives, including Hugh Grant, its chairman, president and chief executive, established stock-trading plans.

Terry Crews, executive vice president, chief financial officer and vegetable business chief executive, and Robb Fraley, executive vice president and chief technology officer, also established the plans.

Under these plans, the Monsanto executives have directed investment brokers in the sale of shares and exercise of stock options in order to diversify their personal financial portfolios.

All the executives have previously satisfied their Monsanto stock ownership requirements, including Grant at an amount equal to five times his annual base salary, and Crews and Fraley at amounts equal to three times their respective annual base salaries, Monsanto said. All three hold stock in excess of their Monsanto stock ownership requirements.
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A news release issued this morning by Washington law firm Phillips & Cohen LLP claiming victory in a trial against Unum regarding Social Security Claims is misleading and filled with inaccuracies. The jury actually sided with Unum on the majority of claims. The two claims that were decided in favor of the plaintiff resulted in a total award of less than $3,000.

“This is a blatant attempt by Phillips & Cohen to try to influence public opinion in a situation where they were unable to claim victory in a court of law,” said Chris Collins, senior vice president and general counsel for Unum US. “What makes this even more ridiculous is that Phillips & Cohen, while claiming to be lead counsel, was rarely in court, never asked a single question and never called a single witness. Phillips & Cohen was already chastised by the judge at the beginning of this case for issuing an improper news release, so their credibility is at question.”
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Ken Trester started trading options when the first exchanges opened in 1973. He has been a computer science professor at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, CA, where he also taught a course on stock options trading. Ken is also widely quoted in publications such as Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities and Barron’s. Ken is the editor of Fast Options Profits and Maximum Options, both of which provide options trading recommendations for beginning to intermediate traders.

We’ve heard a lot about politicians and Wall Street executives employing a “C.Y.A” strategy to divert blame from them and on to somebody else during the current financial crisis. But when it comes to options trading, a “C.Y.A.” strategy means something a little different.

In the options context, C.Y.A. stands for Cover Your Assets (rather than the more colloquial meaning ascribed to the term C.Y.A.). The “cover” when it comes to options is the practice of writing covered calls. Covered call writing is perhaps the most elementary and conservative of all option strategies. It is so conservative, in fact, that it is the only option strategy allowed in retirement accounts. (more…)

Investors have been selling their mutual funds in record numbers. According to Morningstar’s Market Intelligence data, a net amount of $49 billion left mutual funds in September alone. We’ve been tracking redemption data since January 2000, and that’s the largest one-month outflow that we’ve seen to date. Yet, it looks like October is on pace to beat it. Looking at the first half of this month and only the portion of the mutual fund universe that has reported asset figures to us, we believe a more severe outflow picture is brewing for October. The heavy redemptions are likely due to the widespread losses that haven’t been isolated to a few asset classes but have spread to more conservative asset classes and funds.

The heavy redemption activity that we’ve seen has implications for funds and shows a repeat of investor behavior that seems unlikely to pay off for anybody.

Lots of Redemptions and Little Cash
Many funds are carrying a small amount of cash and, at the same time, facing large shareholder redemptions. The average domestic equity fund held just less than 5% in cash as of its most recently disclosed portfolio. That means that they have little dry powder sitting around on the sidelines with which to buy depressed securities and meet redemptions.
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Wall Street joined world stock markets in a precipitous plunge Friday, with the Dow Jones industrials dropping more than 400 points in the opening minutes of trading. The growing belief that the world will suffer a punishing economic recession has investors furiously dumping stocks.

The massive decline was caused by increasingly grim news from overseas. In Japan, shares of Sony sank more than 14 percent after it slashed its earnings forecast for the fiscal year. In Germany, Daimler’s stock dropped 11.4 percent in morning trading after it reported lower third-quarter earnings and abandoned its 2008 profit and revenue guidance.

Japan’s Nikkei stock average fell a staggering 9.60 percent. In Europe, Germany’s benchmark DAX index was down 10.76 percent, France’s CAC40 dropped 10 percent while Britain’s FTSE 100 sank 8.67 percent after the government said its gross domestic product fell 0.5 percent in the third quarter, putting the country on the brink of recession.
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