Thursday, June 16, 2011

Pandora's Box of Painful Respect

Yesterday

CNBC: Pandora's CEO

3:24: We respect that investors every day, every second will set the price.

3:30: Well, we respect operating margin and cash flow.

3:50: Again, we respect the need for operating margin and for cash flow.

11:28: ...in terms of operating margin and cash flow, which we respect enormously...

14:00: We deeply respect operating margin and cash flow...

It was a relatively long interview. He said the word "respect" 5 times by my count and I have listed them all. It reminds me a bit of one of my favorite quotes.

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you. - Eric Hoffer

Similarly, you can tell what a CEO fears most by observing the means he uses to comfort you. This is just an opinion of course, but I think CEO Joe Kennedy fears operating margin and cash flow.

Today

Pandora's stock retreats to below IPO price

Thursday's harsh reversal of fortune left Pandora's stock below its IPO price of $16. The shares fell $4.16, or 24 percent, to close at $13.26.

Pandora's box

Today, opening Pandora's box means to create evil that cannot be undone.

7 comments:

Mr Slippery said...

There once was stock called Pandora
An internet stream with an aura
When the IPO popped
Then suddenly dropped
Investors were left in Gomorrah

Stagflationary Mark said...

Mr Slippery,

Hahaha!

Come and listen to a story about a man named Joe
A poor CEO, barely launched his IPO
Yesterday he was shootin' for the moon!
But up in the air popped a giant balloon

Bubble that is, stock froth, US foam.

mab said...

Jamie Dimon wants some RESPECT!

And as a innovator in the credit card fee extraction industry, he feels he deserves it. Jamie was also instrumental in creating the financial basket case Citi with Sandy Weil. And let's not overlook JPM's derivatives book - the largest in the world. RESPECT indeed!

http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/11/01/JamieDimon.pdf

And what about RESPECT for the law? Well, now that housing has collapsed and is on Government life support, Jamie wants standard mortgage rules (except for MERS and JPM's illegal foreclosures of course).

And then there's RESPECT for accounting rules. Rather than mark to market, Jamie prefers that banks be given "significant judgement" in valuing assets (especially JPM's monster Heloc assets!). Jamie spent more than any other financial institution lobbying CONgress on financial reform.

Jamie Dimon and all of Wall St. are hopelessly out of touch with reality. Thanks to the Fed and a venal CONgress, Wall St lives in a pretend world where they don't have to deal with their incompetence and fraud. Sadly, the productive majority do.

There's little hope. The knowledge of economic stewardship has been lost. The financial looting apparatus was "saved".

Stagflationary Mark said...

mab,

Respect? The whole banking system is a dangerfield!

mab said...

The whole banking system is a dangerfield!

Haha! But I think the danger has passed. We did have "stress" tests after all. And all of our too big to fail banks passed, although some had to raise capital (while their newly issued bonds were guaranteed by the U.S. Gov't of course).

One thing not to keep in mind is the European "stress" tests. Ireland's big banks passed those with flying colors and then need a massive bailout shortly thereafter. Go figure! It turns out that it wasn't just the Irish banking system that was in deep financial trouble, the entire country was bankrupt!

EconomicDisconnect said...

I changed my blog look so we are not twins anymore.

Stagflationary Mark said...

mab,

It stands to reason that if banks are too big to fail, then they can't fail. Woohoo!

GYSC,

I'll do a post just for you!