Yesterday the Financial Times ran an interactive audio/video piece on the many financial CEOs that took it on the chain over the last year. It’s a sad piece but worth a quick look-see.
This week our Off the Record picks come from our special focus on Gold & Precious Metals. We spoke with analysts and CEOs in this space who gave us their anonymous picks in this space:
For the complete Gold & Precious Metals report, including a complete examination of this space, and where it’s headed in 2009 in addition to more stock picks, click here.
In our special focus on Gold & Precious metals, we spoke with analyst Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital. While Mr. Schiff is a gold analyst, he talked to us a little bit about the current economic crisis in broader terms and what it’s going to mean for the world at large.
According to Mr. Schiff, “the global economy…is going to be better off without having to support the US economy.” He claims that whole idea of countries lending resources to the US and supplying the US with resources was predicated on the idea that the health of global economy depends on the strength of the American consumer. According to Mr. Schiff, the current financial crisis is going to prove this to be a fallacy- which will lead to a boom in global markets, that begins- unfortunately- with inflation in the US and around the world.
Schiff sees this outcome as inevitable, and that the US is going to have to “learn what it means to save and produce and save and it’s going to be a very difficult transition.” that will be fought tooth and nail by the government.
When asked about whether the shift to the new administration was going to help the US economy, Mr. Schiff had this to say:
Mr. Schiff: No. They’ve just made it worse. As far as I can tell, Barack Obama is committed to a course of total economic destruction. He doesn’t realize that. He doesn’t understand what the problem is, and he doesn’t know what the solution is. He thinks that this collapse is the problem. However, this is the consequence of the problem; this is the tough medicine working. The problem is the bubble economy that we lived under for many, many years and any attempts to try to re-inflate it are not only destined to fail, but they’re going to make the situation much worse.
For the complete Gold and Precious Metals issue, including a complete overview of this sector and how its performing in this turbulent climate, as well as stock picks, click here.
Heidi Moore wrote a piece in today’s Deal Journal in which she examined the assessment of a number of top CEOs for their management and deal making skills. Moore’s piece focused on a number of other articles recently written by academics, her own colleagues at the Wall Street Journal and management gurus who have separately assessed a number of the top CEOs. Check out the story or least take a look at the CEOs mentioned.
Klaus Kneale has written a brief apologist piece in Forbes on chief executives and the particular problems they and their companies currently face. According to Kneale,
The title of chief executive has become fraught with peril. All blame, no reward. Every chief executive, good or bad, is overpaid. (According to whom? Everyone, apparently.) Grabbing the reins of a distressed company will be a sure-fire way to get publicly villainized and possibly sued. Turnaround artists who are chief executive candidates will ask, “Can I have the same powers and responsibilities but a different job title?” No.
Check out the short piece, it’s worth a quick read. While I don’t personally agree with Kneale’s conclusions I have found it useful to read how he views their role.
The recent news from Apple that Steve Jobs has issued a last minute cancellation of his keynote at the upcoming MacWorld event stirred new speculation on his health and what it might mean to Apple. Rather than explore Jobs’ health status for which I have nothing new to bring to the issue, the real question remains what it might mean for Apple should he leave. While many people have viewed the loss of Steve Jobs as Apple’s CEO as near cataclysmic, Justin Scheck and Nea
l Wingfeld of the Wall Street Journal wrote a piece that was far more circumspect over the consequences of Jobs leaving the company. According to the story,
What if that situation does change? There is reason for optimism, based on the evolution of the team that develops Apple’s hardware, software and services, some people familiar with the company’s internal workings say. Some of them believe the group is now strong enough that, barring an exodus of top talent, the company could keep churning out innovative products without Mr. Jobs.
Mr. Jobs did not respond to a request for comment….
In one possible sign of confidence in the management team, an unprecedented number of executives presented during the company’s press event to unveil its new MacBook lineup in October, though Mr. Jobs still dominated the event.
… Mr. Crow contends that Mr. Jobs has now hired or elevated enough people whose product vision mirrors his that the company could continue to thrive. Mr. Ive is particularly in tune with Mr. Jobs’s thinking, he notes. Mr. Jobs’s sensibilities are also so deeply ingrained in lower-ranking designers and engineers that “a lot of people there will say ‘gee, what would Steve think about this,’ when Steve really isn’t thinking about it,” Mr. Crow says.
Rick Devine, an executive recruiter in Silicon Valley with Devine Capital Partners, thinks Apple could continue to thrive in a post-Jobs world, predicting that the company will depend more on execution in the coming years than the kind of radical reshaping Mr. Jobs engineered over the past decade. Mr. Devine helped recruit Tim Cook, now Apple’s chief operating officer, to the company more than a decade ago.
The authors make a good case for further success at Apple even without Jobs as long as key management talent remain. To get the full story check out the entire article.
For our top picks this week, we’re looking somewhere many investors overlook: our neighbor to the south, Mexico. This week here at TWST we did an interview with Juis Luis Gomez Pimienta, as well as other portfolio managers involved in managing The Mexico Fund. They recommended the following companies, all of which are core holdings in The Mexico Fund:
For the complete investing strategies report, including a full interview with the managers of the Mexico Fund, as well as portfolio managers from a variety of different specializations, click here.
Yahoo’s CEO guessing game to replace Jerry Yang continues unabated. First it was Jon Miller of AOL, then Arun Sarin
, former CEO of VodaPhone, and on and on. According to Nicholas Carlson of Silicon Alley Insider the latest name to resurface is John Chapple, the former Nextel CEO and ally of Carl Icahn. According to Carlson,
Everyone we’ve talked to recently is betting on former Nextel CEO John Chapple, who joined the board with Carl Icahn in August.
Unless Yahoo/board has a potential deal in place, I am skeptical of Chapple’s chances for the position. I anticipate a surprise appointment. Stay tuned. For more: Bloomberg India.com All Things Digital Boomtown Silicon Alley Insider
For our other special focus this week on Homeland Security, we spoke with analyst Brian Ruttenbur of Morgan Keegan & Co. about the state of this space. He told us of one area in Homeland Security that investors should look for opportunities: Asymmetric Warfare.
TWST: Are there any other areas that are of interest at this point, Brian?
Mr. Ruttenbur: Asymmetric warfare — giving the tools to first responders or to the soldiers out in the field to make their intelligence quicker, smarter and bringing it all back into a central network. Predator drone is one example, but there are a lot of examples out there with night vision equipment and other things like that. Asymmetric warfare started with the Defense Department and is now overlapping into homeland security to make our border patrol and other law enforcement agencies leverage their time and their abilities just as soldiers do.
For the complete report on Homeland Security and Defense Technology, including a complete overview of both spaces and stock picks, click here.
Karl Moore, a reporter for Canada’s Globe and Mail’s Report on Business, recently interviewed Michael Useem, a senior professor and the director at The Center of Leadership and Change at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. Useem discusses the nature of leadership in today’s world. His quick synopsis of the key elements of leadership is quite inciteful. Check it out either in video or text.
