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Oppenheimer Holdings (OPY) is an interesting stock here. It trades for only 4x its earnings power.  The company is a good stable business consisting of mainly a retail brokerage with 2,000 financial advisors.  Management runs the business conservatively.  The stock has been pummeled recently due to an earnings miss in the March quarter caused by a recent acquisition of CIBC’s institutional business.  Last year, Oppenheimer earned $5 per share, and we think the CIBC acquisition could add $2 in earnings power.

Background and Recent Corporate History

By Jason Simpkins
Associate Editor

The price of oil edged up again yesterday (Tuesday), before settling at $137 a barrel flat, as concerns about short-term supplies continues to overwhelm Saudi Arabia???s recent pledge to boost production. With Saudi Arabia offering some, albeit limited, cooperation, Congress has turned its ire on speculators and investment banks.

Conservative investors may wish to evaluate public stocks in terms of values as they might be viewed for a private acquisition.

That would minimize the risk of buying into a bubble and the “greater fool” approach to investing, which assumes that someone will pay you more for something you paid too much for in the first place.

Of course, conservative investing based on takeover value also greatly reduces the universe of eligible stocks, because by far most stocks are priced beyond private takeover value.

Conservative investors may wish to evaluate public stocks in terms of values as they might be viewed for a private acquisition.

That would minimize the risk of buying into a bubble and the “greater fool” approach to investing, which assumes that someone will pay you more for something you paid too much for in the first place.

Of course, conservative investing based on takeover value also greatly reduces the universe of eligible stocks, because by far most stocks are priced beyond private takeover value.

By Jennifer Yousfi
Managing Editor

Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB) just became the latest in a string of hard-hit financial firms to slash its dividend to preserve much-needed cash.

Yesterday (Wednesday),the Ohio-based regional bank slashed its dividend to 15 cents down from 44 cents, becoming the 17th company to reduce or eliminate its dividend completely this year, Bloomberg News reported.

Fifth Third certainly wasn’t the first bank to have to resort to this unpopular measure, nor will it be the last.