Bulls versus Bears

…Tata-Farmers…Coca-Cola-Huiyuan…Boeing-Machinists

Fannie-Lehman: 0:0

Another edition of dumb and dumber (Fannie’s capital better than market perceptions: Lehman; Reuters):

Who is dumb?

Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM).

Why?

Because they think they are led by a sophisticated management team and allowed them to successfully mismanage the company with all its liabilities.

Who is dumber?

Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH).

Why?

Because they think they are sophisticated enough to make intelligent investment decisions and ‘defend’ Fannie. Just like they thought they were right about the entire mortgage market and we all know what happened to that assumption.

Both think they are something which they are not which is why they successfully deliver on what is expected given the background of their management team…which is failure!


Google-Microsoft: 0:1

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) increased its efforts to take market share away from its biggest foe Microsoft (Microsoft: MSFT) with the launch of its own browser Chrome (Google takes aim at Microsoft with new Web browser; Associated Press).

Google deserves respect for their attempt to develop a web browser from scratch and tailored to the needs today but Microsoft with the release of IE 8 will continue to dominate the browser market with a market share of over 70%. IE 8 may take be able to increase its market share if they have severely increased the speed.

Maybe Google should have just stuck with its strong support of Mozilla Firefox. On the other hand Google faces plenty of challenges and they need to try to defend their position.

Maybe Chrome will deliver once bugs are fixed and it comes out of beta…


Tata-Farmers: 0:1

Tata Motors of India decided to suspend its Nano car factory due to some serious problems with farmers who sold their land to Ratan Tata’s company (India’s Tata stops work indefinitely at Nano plant; AP).

Is this a case of a wealthy business man who is stingy or poor farmers who are greedy?

Well, since Ratan…ok…since Mr. Tata decided to capitulate at least for the time being it seems that not enough money was paid to the farmers but should the factory remain closed and Tata Motors relocate the plant to a business friendly state in India the farmers and the workers (which probably includes the sons of the farmers) will lose the most.

The markets punish idiocy and if farmers were not compensated a sufficient amount in order to safe money and be unethical and profit-driven only than it was more that just idiotic and once again back-fired.

Tata could lose millions and worst of all their already not so great reputation will suffer even more.


Coca-Cola-Huiyuan: 1:1

The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) made a $2.5 Billion offer for Huiyuan Juice Group of China which, if approved, would be the biggest deal in China’s food and beverage industry to date (Coca-Cola offers to buy Huiyuan in $2.5B deal; AP).

The deal presents a win-win situation for both parties involved and most likely the deal will be approved by regulators.

Finally a case of an intelligent management team…


Boeing-Machinists: 0:1

The Machinists Union approved the continuation of their second strike in three years against Boeing (NYSE: BA) but many were angered after a 48-hour contract extension which was requested by Washington (Boeing pact extended despite strike vote; AP).

Boeing, one of the Poster Childs of Corporate America, slowly but surely is on their way to join other so-called high profile companies as the laughing stock of tomorrow.

Lost contracts, major production problems, and strikes…a sad but true story…there is plenty of potential at Boeing but the leadership should be replaced in order to take advantage of those opportunities.

Boeing seemed to have loaded their Dreamliner and their corporate future on a ship…and the ship is sinking…