Category: Engen
-
Tesla (TSLA): Musk’s automotive Three-Card Monte
Over the past year, Tesla (TSLA.NASDAQ) pillaged the public markets, splitting its stock with glee much to the chagrin of short selling groups like TSLAQ. But in the wake of Elon’s champagne wishes and caviar dreams, share price faded, exposing a nagging question, “What powered Tesla’s rise in the first place?” Fundamentals Tesla had a…
-
Germany’s corporate codetermination – cunningly co-committed or cataclysmically codependent?
Elizabeth Warren’s Accountable Capitalism Act (ACA) threatens to level the corporate playing field in America by bringing labor into the boardroom. Understandably, industrial lobbyists have crawled out of the rot of Washington’s woodwork to lambaste the ACA as a useless partisan ploy bent on destroying U.S. entrepreneurial spirit. So, is corporate codetermination cunningly co-committed or…
-
![Pepsi, Nestle and Amazon: asymmetric risk and monopoly control]()
Pepsi, Nestle and Amazon: asymmetric risk and monopoly control
Two hundred years after the Sherman Anti-trust Act brought about the fall of Rockefeller’s monopoly control, Bernie Saunders and Elizabeth Warren pushed for America to once again decide whether Pepsi (PEP.NASDAQ), Nestle (NESN.SWX) and Amazon (AMZN.NASDAQ) are agreeable corporate spouses or abusive partners slipping in after a trial separation, but in the age of post-modern…
-
![Icahn’s noxious no-brainers and America’s share buyback binge: Is value extraction a sham?]()
Icahn’s noxious no-brainers and America’s share buyback binge: Is value extraction a sham?
Icahn’s traveling roadshow is only marginally better than the criminal activities of Bain Capital. These vicious business vultures swoop in, gain control of the shares, get the company to load up on back-breaking debt to commence a share buyback scheme which they sell into and walk away from long before the company’s books explode all…
-
![The U.S. Fed and market liquidity or welcome to the everything bubble]()
The U.S. Fed and market liquidity or welcome to the everything bubble
A translation of this article is available in Chinese at our partner website, NAI500 here. Before I get into the U.S. Fed and its market liquidity shenanigans, I should explain something that changed the way I view the world, kinda like the time I discovered Disney shoved lemmings off a cliff for ratings, almost making…
-
![Amazon.com (AMZN.NASDAQ): Corporate welfare over welfare capitalism]()
Amazon.com (AMZN.NASDAQ): Corporate welfare over welfare capitalism
Jeff Bezos started Amazon in his garage with a couple hundred grand from his parents. This ex-hedge fund manager turned internet titan and evil king-making gnome has often been lauded for his customer-focused business strategies, aggressive business development and industry prowess, but how challenging is the journey when you’re a 1500lb gorilla on someone else’s…
-
Biogen (BIIB.NASDAQ) and the brain death of big pharma
Ever since the greasy arrogant squirrel-faced grin of Martin Shkreli turned our collective stomach, big pharma has come under fire for their pricing practices. Pharma execs, often paid up to 300 times more than their average employee, shot back that research and development costs were crippling and all that needed to be paid for with…
-
![The emperor’s new clothes or welcome to debt-fueled consumer-driven economics]()
The emperor’s new clothes or welcome to debt-fueled consumer-driven economics
Remember Han Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes? It starts off about seeing something and saying nothing, but then ends with deliberate denial. It seemed as though Anderson’s satire came to life when analysts proclaimed retailers would enjoy a busy Christmas because the latest consumer sentiment index (CSI) was up. The CSI is based on…
-
Slack’s (WORK.NYSE) sad performance and the scourge of Silicon Valley
When Slack (WORK) listed on the NYSE this year, it was the first tech unicorn to grace American markets through a direct listing rather than the traditional Initial Public Offering (IPO). This historic event came on the heels of a growing dissatisfaction in Silicon Valley over Wall Street’s preferred path to public trading. In fact,…
-
India, Italy, Brazil, China and Spain or how sovereign debt smashed BRICS and deflated the EU dream
The financial crisis of 2007 wiped trillions off our global financial ledger. National economies reeled in the wake of banking’s biggest boo-boo since Reagan’s deregulation of the American Savings and Loan industry triggered the failure of almost two-thirds of the 3,234 savings and loans institutions in the United States from 1986 to 1995. Now, sovereign…
