Written by: Aaron Katsman | March 19, 2009
The Israeli Shekel continued it’s huge spike against the US dollar this week, rising more than 4%, as news that the US Federal Reserve will buy bonds. According to Globes: “The shekel-dollar exchange rate is down 1.84% to NIS 4.048/$, and the shekel-euro rate is up 2.13% at NIS 5.521/€. The US Federal Reserve Bank yesterday left its Fed Funds rate unchanged, as expected, but surprised many investors and economists in announcing its will buy about $1 trillion in securities - $300 billion of US government bonds as well as $750 billion mortgage-backed securities. The move is intended to lower longer term interest rates and support the US economy. The move pushed Wall Street to rises yesterday, and has pressured the dollar on global markets.”
It’s sure nice to be able print money at will, and heck, those that are currently printing will be long gone when the children and grandchildren have to pay the piper.
Written by: Aaron Katsman | June 24, 2008
Aaron Katsman
IsraelNewsletter.com
The Israel financial daily Globes is reporting that email animation company Incredimail (MAIL) wants to reprice options for 5 senior managers. The company which works in the space of email animation, clearly has a problem distinguishing between reality and fiction. The stock is down more than 40% YTD, there was a management shakeup, issues with Google (GOOG), and senior management wants to reprice their options? I don’t know, are they planning to sell the company for some kind of premium and attempt to make a boatload of money on the transaction, while all investors will see is a slightly lower tax loss?
According to the article: “The options are held by Incredimail CEO and director Ofer Adler, who is the company’s largest shareholder, president Yaron Adler, the company’s second-largest shareholder, chairwoman Tamar Gottlieb, and directors Yair Zadik and Gittit Guberman.”
I would understand if the company wanted to reprice employee stock options (ESOP) as they would want to retain their employees, but senior management? My hunch is that most investors wouldn’t mind if senior management was let go. Why should these executives profit when investors have seen tremendous losses? Why should 2 directors and the chairwoman get their options repriced? (Continue »)
