by Ron Carleton | Dec 29, 2009
We hope everyone is having happy holidays. Last time, we defended Lehman Brothers from Andrew Ross Sorkin’s attack in Too Big to Fail. We’ve stolen some time from the seasonal festivities to take another look at the numbers, and we still feel there’s a strong case to...
by Ron Carleton | Nov 18, 2009
There are lots of measures of liquidity. The classics are the current ratio and the quick ratio, but they’ve fallen out of favor because they don’t include cash flow, a critical component of liquidity. Cash burn is too recent to be classic, even though...
by Ron Carleton | Mar 19, 2009
There’s a new book about the collapse of Bear Stearns. It’s House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street by William D. Cohan, and it is getting good reviews. The New York Times calls it “…high drama that is gripping…” The story may...
by Ron Carleton | Jan 26, 2009
Over the past 15 year, many businesses have adopted sophisticated inventory tracking systems and just-in-time inventory policies. As a result, they have gotten much more efficient in their use of inventory, as shown in this chart: Source: Wachovia Economics This...
by Ron Carleton | Jan 20, 2009
The 2007 year-end selling season was not good for the home furnishings retailer “Linens ‘n Things.” Quarterly sales were up 0.6%, but only because the company opened four new stores. Ignoring the new stores, same store sales were down 1.0% for the...
