Filed under: Google (GOOG)

Valleywag reports that married Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt and his girlfriend Marcy Simon– for whom he found a job at Google in New York — have broken up. It now reports that he’s dating Kate Bohner who — if her video is to be believed — is fond of dolphins.

Bohner has had quite a career. She attended Wharton; worked in mergers & acquisitions at Lazard Ltd. (NYSE: LAZ); has been a writer for Forbes; and a CNBC correspondent. Bohner was also briefly married to Michael Lewis — acclaimed author of Liar’s Poker and Moneyball.

If Valleywag is right, this would not be the first time Bohner has dated married men. According to my brother, William D. Cohan’s book, The Last Tycoons, Bohner dated a married Lazard executive Steve Langman while she worked in London. Langman left his wife — who was eight months pregnant. Rumors about the number of her dalliances with Lazard bankers tallied to “about 15.”

If Valleywag is right about Bohner and Schmidt, I don’t know how he finds the time to manage Google. And if his wife divorces him, Schmidt could find himself holding far fewer Google shares.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.

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Filed under: Management, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple Inc (AAPL), Employees

When Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced in August that CFO George Reyes would be retiring from the company, one would have thought potential CFO candidates would have been sending in resumes to Google’s headhunters within minutes. After all, Google enjoys about as much brand cachet as Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) in the tech world, which is no small feat. Also, the company is leading the internet search market by a long shot and is making Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) quake in its boots for the first time in a long time. Add that with one of the most enviable corporate cultures in the world and you’d think anyone in tech would want to work there.

So, why doesn’t the search leader have any replacement for the CFO? No CFO successors have been identified and Reyes is tilling on until one is found. With its stock hovering around the $700 recently, do potential CFO candidates not see the stock option form of compensation as very valuable or something? Is is because Google’s CFO most decidedly plays second fiddle to the triumvirate of founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin along with CEO Eric Schmidt? Both of the above are probably true along with some other reasons. Reyes sure does not come off as a right-hand man to Schmidt, which is typically the very visible role of any Fortune 500 CFO. Not at Google, though.

Is Google just taking a little longer than normal to interview CFO candidates and make the best decision? Possibly. A major CFO decision like the one Google faces doesn’t take a month or two. With the company’s burgeoning markets in several internet areas (as well as TV, radio and other markets), the incoming CFO has quite a task to perform, as Reyes knows. Add in Google’s very non-traditional culture where risk-taking is almost preferred over a scripted financial decision-making process, and most bean counter lifers probably see the opportunity as turn-off. Anyone know a CPA who isn’t anal about number tracking and decisions based on spreadsheets? There you have it. It may work for computer programmers, but not for accountants.

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Filed under: Other issues, Middle East, Commodities, Oil

It’s hard to picture an oil sector projecting production in Iraq as a significant factor in global oil supply, but that, in fact, is what some analysts in the sector are doing.

While the policy debate on the political merits and national security impact of the Iraq war continues at full-throttle in the United States — the issue is almost certain to be a factor in the 2008 U.S. president election, many political analysts agree — Iraq’s oil sector continues to make slow, but nevertheless steady progress.

With the decline in successful sabotage against Iraq’s petroleum facilities, oil output has increased by 400,000 barrels daily to about 2.4 million barrels per day, inching closer to Iraq’s production of 2.8 million barrels per day before the removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003, The Christian Science Monitor reported Monday.

Continue reading Could Iraq’s oil output ease global supply concerns?

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Filed under: Internet, Microsoft (MSFT), salesforce.com inc (CRM), Initial public offerings

Constant Contact (NASDAQ: CTCT) launched its IPO back in early October, and the stock is since up about 35%. The company provides on-demand email marketing solutions primarily to small businesses.

Now, investors will have another email play — ExactTarget has filed for an IPO.

However, ExactTarget’s services are focused more on medium- and large-sized businesses. Some of the customers include Expedia.com, Florida Power and Light, USA TODAY, Liberty Mutual Group, Papa John’s and Wellpoint (NYSE: WLP).

Continue reading ExactTarget looks for an IPO bull’s-eye

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Filed under: Internet, Scandals, Countrywide Financial (CFC), Housing

Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC) has joined an elite class of companies headed by Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) — corporations whose behavior has rendered them the target of so much controversy that their critics have launche websites for the express purpose of trashing them.

DontDepositAtCountrywide.info is, as the name suggests, calling on people not to deposit money with the company until “until it ensures that all subprime borrowers with interest rates that have reset in 2006 or 2007 can keep their homes!”

Obviously that request is insane — there are always foreclosures and it’s unlikely that people who bought homes they couldn’t afford will — or even should — be able to keep their houses.

However silly the site’s message may be, it does have some good resources for those looking into Countrywide: links to news stories critical of the company, lawsuits against it, and resources for homeowners having trouble with their mortgages.

For the record, I’m as critical of Countrywide and super-tan CEO Angelo Mozilo as just about anyone — but the idea that all subprime borrowers are entitled to keeping their homes is ridiculous.

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Filed under: After the bell, Forecasts, Good news, Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE)

Savient Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: SVNT): After last week’s success with their gout drug, these shares haven’t stopped rising. They reached a new high of $21.36 against 52-week low of $10.58.

Trane Inc. (NYSE: TT): A nice big buy-out from Ingersoll-Rand Company Limited (NYSE: IR) sent shares up to $45.27 from 52-week low of $32.09.

Varian Medical Systems, Inc. (NYSE: VAR): The FDA approved new proton scanning product. The stock Traded up to $52.05 from 52-week low of $37.30.

Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. (NYSE: CCE): Still moving up after last week’s strong forecast. Hit $26.93, up from 52-week low of $18.78.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

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Filed under: Forecasts, Middle East, Politics, Presidential elections

What does the coming year hold for the economy? BloggingStocks’ Peter Cohan considers five issues that will factor heavily in 2008.

2008 is an election year in the U.S., which means that nothing significant is likely to change in terms of government policy. The one wild card in that assessment is whether the Bush administration will go to war in Iran - or take some other radical policy move — since it knows it has very little time left.

Assuming nothing significant changes, the biggest economic story of 2008 is likely to be the repercussions from the deepened collapse of the housing market and all the credit markets that plunge in its wake. There are no firewalls in place to keep the drop in CDO, MBS, and SIV values from spreading to the entire global financial system.

The question is whether the U.S. policymakers will be able to do anything effective to stop the damage.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

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Filed under: Wal-Mart (WMT), Marketing and advertising, Scandals

Zac Bissonnette has written extensively about how penny stocks, or stocks trading below $5, promote themselves through big name lab connections, big name celebrity connections, ads on CNBC and how sometimes, just sometimes, they have to settle with the SEC. As somebody who’s made and nearly lost a small fortune playing penny stocks, I’ve decided to get people to stop whining about the ugly side of this niche and learn to profit from it!

And, I mean profit from it legally — that being to buy these stocks when they’re being hyped and to short sell them when the hype wears off. The old Manhattan two-step. While I prefer to short sell, these stocks are already priced so low, the risk-reward ratio favors buying them. That’s right; I’ll gladly buy into companies I know to be questionable because my time horizon is short and I know no matter how often Zac and other people write about this subject, there are new suckers all the time. The great fool theory and all that. Time and again, these suckers naively throw their hard-earned cash into these long shots without bothering to learn about the risks involved. Since you’re reading this, you’ve already proven that you’re not just another sucker and that’s good — congratulations!

So, go on, follow these stocks and learn to play the hype game — BloggingStocks willing, I’ll be writing many more articles to help demystify this greatly misunderstood niche. I think you’ll find that while penny stocks are more volatile than stocks like Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), they are surprisingly liquid and the games they play are surprisingly similar to the games played by respectable Wall Street companies.

Timothy Sykes writes for the blog timothysykes.com, is a former hedge fund manager, the star of Wall Street Warriors and author of the book, An American Hedge Fund: How I Made $2 Million as a Stock Operator & Created a Hedge Fund.

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Filed under: International markets, Forecasts, India, China, Middle East, Oil

What does the coming year hold for the economy? BloggingStocks’ Peter Cohan considers five issues that will factor heavily in 2008.

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are estimated to be between $2 trillion and $15 trillion. That’s a wide range, but even at the low end, it’s a lot of money. The SWFs are potentially economic and political Trojan horses. They are using the current problems in the credit markets as a chance to buy stakes in U.S. banks for relatively paltry sums. It remains to be seen whether they are getting in at the bottom or whether they’re foolishly buying in way too soon.

However, if they get big enough stakes in strategic industries in the U.S., they will be in a position to influence U.S. policy. For example, if the funds do not like U.S. Middle East policies, they can threaten to withdraw their capital. If that capital is hard to replace, the U.S. will find itself needing to choose between imperiling the survival of its banking system or changing its foreign policies.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

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Filed under: Earnings reports, Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Options

Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) is expected to report Q4 EPS of $6.61 on December 18th according to Thomson First Call. GS call option volume of 34,474 contracts compares to put volume of 19,127 contracts. GS December 210 straddle is priced at $13.50. GS January option implied volatility of 51 is above its 26-week average of 41 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

Options Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

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