July 2008

Blackrock's Chief Investment Officer Bob Doll joined me on The Opening Bell today to discuss the state of everything from the economy to earnings. He honestly sounded pretty upbeat and was equally as surprised as I was by Plosser's comments the other day. Plosser is the Philadelphia Fed president who dissented on cutting rates and believes the Fed needs to begin raising rates to fight ... read more

This morning on The Opening Bell Darryl Jenkins, an independent aviation analyst, joined me to talk about the state of the airline industry and what the airlines can do to cut costs. He was a great guest and put everything (rising jet fuel, capacity, shortened routes) in perspective. I really liked him and was surprised by what he said could be an opportunity for airlines to print money. Check ... read more

One thing is clear about our almost daily coverage on the merits of the job the SEC is doing and whether or not they have to reconsider the “Uptick Rule,” or extending the number of institutions protected under this new emergency naked short selling order: people care. I want to thank all of you for responding to these blogs on the SEC and what you think needs to change. I would much rather ... read more

Are you like me? My brain is in overdrive. There is so much to talk about, I don’t know where to begin. What a time to be covering these markets. Every day is a new roller coaster ride! You just don’t know what to expect and that’s a classic reason why you shouldn’t invest in the short-term. Look at the market. When I started the day, the futures were pointing to a much lower opening. ... read more

Much to our surprise many of the airlines have reported better-than-anticipated numbers. Now that’s not to say that they haven’t been awful or reported multi-year losses, but there have been some upside surprises. One great surprise has been the private jet companies who have been a beneficiary of all of the disgruntled travelers. One beneficiary has been JetSuite, a private plane company ... read more

This morning as I was perusing different business websites and I came upon this article “11 Reasons America’s a New Socialist Economy” from Paul Farrell of MarketWatch. It’s a pretty harsh look at what he believes conservatives have done to this economy. Paul looks back at the birthplace of conservative economic ideology, Nobel economist Milton Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom,” ... read more

In this week’s edition of Americas Greatest Business Rivals, we pitted two heavyweights in the motorcycle industry against one another: Harley Davidson vs. Honda. Take a look. ... read more

Will employers that currently match employee contributions to 401(k) plans be a thing of the past? Some say yes. Some say no. Given the current economic climate and the fact that health care costs are rising, one study conducted by Yale and Harvard says that the money companies use to match contributions could be better used elsewhere and save companies money. According to my colleague at Dow ... read more

If you had a chance to read last week’s blog, you’ll know that I was somewhat irrationally exuberant about Batman’s “The Dark Knight.” Apparently so was everyone else as the movie shattered almost every record in the books, making it the single highest grossing weekend surpassing Spiderman 3 which was released in May as opposed to July of last year. Box Office critics will tell you that ... read more

As a follow-up to the interview with former SEC Chairman William Donaldson, I interviewed Robert Shapiro from Sonecon and our own Charles Payne who said this naked short selling has been going on for years, unenforced and has cost investors and companies billions of dollars. I think everyone mutually agrees that short selling is good for the market and a necessity as far as volume is concerned ... read more