Almost like clockwork, Chesapeake Energy (CHK: chart, web, Y!) offered up $1 billion worth of new shares after the markets closed on Wednesday.  The stock is sitting down 21% this morning after shareholders absorb their latest dose of dilution.

I can’t say I’m surprised, as Chesapeake has been forced to come up with cash anyway the company can.  It really all started when CEO Aubrey McClendon was forced to liquidate his entire portfolio of Chesapeake shares after a brutal margin call.  The $1.6 billion paper loss due to hedged oil and gas that was below market prices in the …

It’s too bad a cartoon has more financial sense than our U.S. Government.

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.  Easy money.”

You had to see this one coming. Today Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP, a law firm, announced that a class action has been submitted in New York on behalf of people or entities that bought and held shares of certain funds offered by the Reserve Short-Term Investment Trust, including RYPQX.  You can be included in the class action suit if you held shares between July 27, 2007 and September 16, 2008.

The complaint alleges that many of the Fund’s purchasers were sold their interests in the Fund by TD Ameritrade and its employees who consistently …

Read more…

In light of the ongoing financial turmoil that surrounds our economy these days, there have been all kinds of terms thrown around the airwaves that seem to do nothing but provide confusion to the regular Joe.  So I thought I’d start picking out a few of these less familiar terms and explain, in English, what they really mean.

Take Credit Default Swaps (CDS) for instance.

A credit default swap is essentially a contract by which a buyer of the contract makes regular payments to the seller of that contract, and in return will get a payoff if a credit instrument, such as a bond or other financial note, goes into default.  You …

You might have it bad, but you don’t have it “Buffet Bad”!

Last week Provident Energy Trust (PVX: chart, web, Y!) announced that while they had successfully closed the sale of their U.S. oil and gas business, they would also be cutting the monthly dividend to $0.09 Canadian, or about $0.07 USD.

Although that certainly smarts, I can’t say that I’m surprised.

Provident has traditionally been a very conservatively managed trust.  They look to increase their reserves with the smallest amount of risk (i.e. expanding production through infield drilling and acquiring proven reserves), and they really don’t take off any more than they can manage, and manage well.  A case in point was the …

Two days ago, my good buddy MJ posted a comment on the post regarding how I voted.  One of his questions was how the Republicans would have faired against Barack Obama if Romney were their man instead of McCain.

To be honest, I’m not sure it would have mattered.  Taking a step outside my own viewpoint and looking at the overall campaign Barack Obama ran, I’m not sure the Republicans had a big name they could put up against the man from Illinois and stand a fair chance in the same economic environment that McCain had to operate in.

As I mentioned in a quick response to MJ, …

To be honest, I’m not at all happy with how the election turned out.  However, I’m not sure I would have been “happy” if John McCain would have won, either. But the people voted, and I accept that, and political affiliations aside, I think it’s pretty cool that we have an African American President.

Perhaps it’s not that I’m not happy with the results, maybe it’s that I’m uneasy.  Yeah, that’s a better term.

I find it troubling that we’ve elected to the office of the President of the United States a man that has unarguably affiliated …

Yesterday I went to vote for the best man for the job; only to find out he wasn’t even running.