| Dollar Thrifty shares plummet
Shares of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc. plunged 37 percent Monday following news late Friday that the company expects its 2007 profit to be lower than forecast.
The Tulsa-based rental car company saw its share price drop $9.62 to close at $16.40 on the New York Stock Exchange. More than 3.4 million shares were traded.
It was the biggest drop since Dollar Thrifty's initial public stock offering in December 1997, according to Bloomberg data.
The stock price also reached a new 52-week intraday trading low of $16.27, in contrast with a 52-week high of $55.30 last Feb. 14.
The 52-week high coincided with rumors that Dollar Thrifty and Tulsa-based Vanguard Car Rental USA Inc. were in merger talks. Such a deal never materialized.
The Breakdown of Wall Street Alchemy
The trend is striking because it shows that the credit crunch is starting to affect the financing plans of companies, not just in the highly leveraged sector but in the investment grade arena as well. It also casts fresh doubt on the ability of the European corporate bond market to challenge the US." February 13 - Bloomberg (John Glover): "Half of the loans backing leveraged buyouts in Europe risk breaching investor safeguards or defaulting as company earnings and debt projections miss targets, Standard & Poor's said... 'There is a heightened potential for defaults,' S&P analysts led by Taron Wade... wrote. Fifty-three percent of the companies owned by buyout firms in S&P's study have more debt than forecast, making them vulnerable to default... In LBOs, firms borrow about two-thirds of the acquisition price, piling the debt onto the takeover target." February 13 - Bloomberg (Stephanie Bodoni): "Luxembourg Finance Minister Jean-Claude Juncker is 'worried' European economies will endure for 'some more time' the consequences of the financial-market turmoil...
Enraged Investors Turn on UBS's Ospel
Mr Ospel resisted calls for his resignation, saying: "I intend to ensure that UBS gets back on the road to success." UBS has been the worst casualty of the credit crunch among Europe's major banks. In a series of announcements, it has been forced to take $18bn (£9.1bn) of charges after its investment bank got burnt trying to compete with Wall Street rivals in racy credit markets that collapsed last summer. The writedowns caused UBS to post a loss for 2007 -- the first since the bank was formed nearly 10 years ago. In a further blow, the bank is also facing a claim for losses by HSH Nordbank, a German lender, on $500m of collateralised debt obligations that HSH alleges UBS "dumped" on it before the market imploded. The world's biggest wealth manager is raising SFr13bn to shore up its capital position and retain the trust of rich, cautious clients in its core private banking business.
Caucus: Still entering data
Marty Neilson, chair of the Boulder County Republican Party, said Thursday that she didn't have accurate records of turnout for past caucuses handy, but said she was very confident that the county GOP set a record in 2008."It was excellent - the energy was high and there were so many people getting involved," said Neilson. "Even though many of them didn't understand the process, and some would like it changed, I think it got them excited about becoming involved in the party and in the process."Anecdotal testimony after local Democratic and Republican caucuses has suggested that some people would have preferred a Presidential primary to a caucus. Crowds were incredibly large at some locations - about 19,000 Democrats and 3,500 Republicans caucused in Boulder County alone - and some witnesses have suggested that a certain number of people attended for the Presidential preference poll and left afterwards.
Salmond’s bold new era of progressive nationalism
LOOKING BACK on 2007, it seems amazing that no-one seriously expected the SNP to win the May Scottish elections." Or so I wrote in this column 12 months ago in a piece imagining how Scotland would look in a year's time. Truth is, I genuinely didn't believe that the SNP would win Holyrood, even as I was forecasting it. The thinking among the Scottish political classes was that, whatever the polls said, the voters would turn back to Labour on the election eve. Many did, of course, but not enough. And the history of Scotland, and the UK, has been rewritten as a result. May 3, 2007, was an extraordinary night, and no-one who cares about Scottish politics will ever forget it. As Labour and the Nationalists fought it out, hour by hour, seat by seat, the election nearly descended into chaos.
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