Rethinking Schering

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

I started reading over the Schering-Plough (SGP: chart, web, Y!) 2007 financial report in an effort to do some more research.

Interestingly enough, I’m starting to rethink my position on Schering. SGP had really fallen out of favor with me since the whole Vytorin mess really blew up, and the stock price sunk to $13.83 per share for its 52 week lows.

After digesting some of the numbers though, I don’t think things look all that bad… at least not bad enough to justify the $18 share price.

Back in November of last year, Schering bought Organon BioSciences (OBS) for about $16.1 billion.  Effectively, that entire acquisition …


Ignore the market, it will get better.

Sunday, April 13th, 2008

Between the lousy weather and the battered down stock market, it’s been a very mundane weekend.  I’ve taken to, in large part, ignoring the day to day happenings in the stock market, and I think I’m a bit more sane for doing it.

Blogging about many of the financial headlines these days doesn’t seem to interest me as much… Are we in a recession or not?  Who cares?

For the last week, I’ve been checking in on the overall market trends about once a day, versus once an hour or so.  My investments are tied up in fairly secure long-term, proven companies, so it’s not like I’m hunting for the straw that …


Auction update.

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

A week ago, I attended a land auction to see if I could pick up some additional oil production. I’m not sure what land is going for in your neck of the woods, but around here it’s gone crazy!

Tracts 1 through 3 and 5 were primarily farm land, with acreage ranging from 30 acres to 300 acres. One of the tracts had some oil royalties attached to it that only amounted to about 200 barrels per year.

The farm land alone went for nearly $2,000 per acre. Unreal.

Tract 4 was what I was interested …


What do you mean by “Risk”?

Thursday, October 25th, 2007

I read a post by Robert Frank at The Wealth Report blog hosted by The Wall Street Journal Online today that left me scratching my head.

It might be my engineering background that had me thumbing my nose at the post, but generally it’s my propensity to question what they’re not telling you that really had me intrigued.

The author noted that as evidenced in the book “The Millionaire Next Door,” it’s those who pinch their pennies, drive old pickup trucks and make conservative investments that end up getting ahead in the financial game.

The author goes on to …