Responsiveness

Bankers and actors

The penny dish

The M&A market
The M&A market is plagued by two things right now - sellers who have unrealistic value expectations and buyers who have unrealistic value expectations. There's a big gap. And it's true across corporate M&A, real estate, autos and the like. For those of you about to email me with the name of the latest deal that got done, I'm not saying there is no M&A activity - just that in general it's hard to reach a deal. One side has to give at some point. Which will it be?

A "V" or a "W"?
Is the much-talked about "V"-shaped stock market recovery happening? Sure it is. Just take a look at the chart of the S&P 500 below. The "V" is obvious and has a long tail heading off to the right. Kind of like someone wrote a "V" on a piece of paper and then kind of dozed off and her pen kept going to the edge of the page. Have investors dozed off also? Maybe. We're in midst of t

Running and writing
This morning I went running for the fourth time this week. Not bad for my first week out running since before the summer began. Waterskiing is so much more fun to do in the mornings but so much more difficult when it is 30 degrees outside. Some may say that about running too but to them I say, nonsense. I read an article the other day about the "activation energy" required to get outside and exercise in the winter months. The term is from chemistry and relates to the level of energy needed to start a reaction. Sometimes you need only a little, sometimes a lot. When it comes to exercise outside, generally you need less in the summer when it is warm and the days are

Down market?
A colleague of mine said of another company's stock performance yesterday, "Not bad in a down market." A down market? The S&P 500 is up 62% from its low on March 9. Hardly a down market, but interesting how that perception lingers. Which means it is still a good time to buy stocks.

Mysterious figure
I'm reading a book about Buddhism called Buddhism Plain & Simple by Steve Hagen. Say what you will about Buddhism or the book or whatever - this post isn't really about any of that. It's about an image on p.28 of the book that had me stalled for a week. Literally. Here is what the author says in the paragraphs preceding and following the image:---Truth or Reality is something vague, mysterious, or hidden. You don’t have no go to someone else to find it --- not to a teacher, o