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Weekend Viewing: "Innovation During Crisis"

See some signs of hope in dark economic times as panelists explore some of the mind-boggling innovations that are changing our lives and can shape the future of the country. Even in the midst of economic free fall, there are signs of hope.

As of January 2009, the United States has built a flying car, found ways to turn algae into fuel, synthetically reproduced organs, had face-to-face conversations with people on the other side of the planet, and built robots to do our house cleaning for us.

Tune in to find out how some of the smartest people in California are trying to innovate us out of disaster.


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David Sokol in "Cap and Trade"

MidAmerican Energy Chairman David Sokol gives the administration a failing grade on cap and trade. For those who do not know who Sokol is, he very well may be one of the successors to Berkshire’s (BRK.A) Warren Buffett


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Dow Chemical Raise $6B in Debt Offering

Let’s do the math, $8.25 billion raised in a week (through debt and equity offerings). No Dow Ag sale and the stock is up 16% from this week’s lows. Can we put the talk of selling it to bed forever now?

The release:

The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW – News) today announced that on May 7, it priced a $6 billion underwritten public offering of debt securities, including $1.75 billion aggregate principal amount of 7.6% notes due 2014; $3.25 billion aggregate principal amount of 8.55% notes due 2019; and $1 billion aggregate principal amount of 9.4% notes due 2039.

Of the $6 billion in notes to be offered, $1.35 billion aggregate principal amount of the 8.55% notes due 2019 will be offered by accounts and funds managed by Paulson & Co. and trusts created by members of the Haas Family. These investors received notes from Dow in payment for 1.31 million shares of Dow’s Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series B, at par plus accrued dividends. Dow will not receive any of the proceeds from the sale of notes by the selling noteholders.

Dow intends to use the net proceeds received from the offering for refinancings, renewals, replacements and refunding of outstanding indebtedness, including repayment of a portion of the Company’s term loan borrowings.

Together with the common stock offering which priced on May 6, the over-allotment option which was exercised on May 7, and upon consummation of this debt offering, Dow will retire all remaining Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series B from the Company’s capital structure. Eliminating these shares is immediately and significantly accretive to net income available for common shareholders. Dow will not receive any of the proceeds from the exercise of the over-allotment option.

“Today, we announced yet another oversubscribed offering – the second one this week,” said Andrew N. Liveris, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “Coming on the heels of a very successful equity issuance, this bond offering clearly shows investor confidence in the Company’s strategic direction and our ability to generate significant value over the long-run. And with a substantial amount of proceeds going to pay down our term bridge loan well ahead of our plan, this is further evidence of the Company’s commitment to financial flexibility and maintaining an investment grade rating. The success of our equity and debt issuances this week also allows us to make the right decisions for our shareholders on the assets we will dispose of, the timing of these dispositions, and their valuations.”


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Greenlight Q1 2009 Letter

I love the quote at the end, “A nation that is afraid to let its people judge truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people” John F. Kennedy.


Greenlight_Capital_-_Q1_2009Free Legal Forms


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Friday’s Links

iPhone, The Budget, Hedge Funds, CNBC

– Price Cut?

– Santelli!!!!!


– Not so weak..

Ouch



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Capital Strucutre Explained (video)

For those who don’t know and are afraid to ask. Thought this does a good job explaining it.

Capital structure from Marketplace on Vimeo.


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Dow Equity Offering Well Oversubscribed

Still no need to sell Dow Ag. Liveris is correct in saying that at $15, as constituted and with plan to rid itself of many of their commodity businesses, shares are a good value. That being said, the the current constitution is drastically altered, that may not be the case.

The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) announced today that on May 6 it priced a public offering of approximately 130 million shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $15.00 per share.

Total potential gross proceeds to Dow and the selling stockholders from the offering is approximately $2.25 billion, including an over-allotment option of 15 percent.

Of these shares, approximately $1 billion in gross proceeds will be through shares offered by Dow and $1.25 billion (including over-allotment shares) will be through shares offered by accounts and funds managed by Paulson & Co. and trusts created by members of the Haas Family.

Excluding the over-allotment option, the Haas Trusts and the Paulson funds are each selling $454.4 million of their shares of Dow’s Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series B to Dow for the shares being sold by them in the offering.

“This over-subscribed equity issuance, and the clearing price of fifteen dollars per share, shows the strength of the Dow name in the equity markets,” said Andrew N. Liveris, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “In addition, by retiring more than $900 million of perpetual preferred in our capital structure, we have created a significant de-leveraging event that at the same time is meaningfully accretive to common shareholders.”

The clearing price represents a 1.3 percent decline from the closing price on May 6 of $15.19, and an 8.1 percent decrease from the closing price on Tuesday, May 5 of $16.33.


Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long DOW

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General Growth Properties Files 8-k

Some great information in here regarding tenants, lease schedules and debt schedules

General Growth Properties 8-k

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Finance Business & Law general growth prope


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General Growth Properties Reports Earnings

There is a lot here so I will try to make it easy.

Here is the basics:

General Growth Properties, Inc. (the Company) released today its first quarter 2009 operating results. For the first quarter of 2009, Core Funds From Operations (Core FFO) per fully diluted share were a loss of $0.38, Funds From Operations (FFO) per fully diluted share were a loss of $0.52 and Earnings per share – diluted (EPS) were a loss of $1.27. In the comparable 2008 period, Core FFO per fully diluted share were $0.74, FFO per fully diluted share were $0.73 and EPS were $0.01. The declines in Core FFO and FFO are primarily attributable to provisions for impairment, termination income and restructuring costs related to the development of alternatives to address our current liquidity and financing situations.

Got it? Good, now ignore it, all of it. I included it so as to not be accused of glossing over the reported numbers. Ignore it.

What do we really want to know? What is the health of the malls looking like? Earnings from here on out are going to be impacted negatively by various restructuring costs so they are not going to accurately reflect the health of the business. For that we need to go to the NOI or “net operating income” section.

Here it is:

Retail and Other Segment

NOI for the first quarter of 2009 was $608.6 million, a decrease of approximately 4.1% from the $634.5 million reported in the first quarter of 2008. Minimum rents in the first quarter of 2009 declined approximately $2.7 million as compared to the same period of 2008 due to the 2008 sale of three office buildings and two office parks. Temporary tenant revenues, other revenues (including sponsorship, vending, parking and advertising) and overage rents declined in 2009 due to decreases in occupancy and the overall weakness of the retail economy. Weaknesses in certain of our tenants’ businesses also led to an $8.6 million increase in our provision for doubtful accounts in 2009 as compared to 2008.

In addition, other revenues declined in 2009 due to a loss on sale of outparcel land of $3.9 million whereas 2008 had outparcel sales gains of approximately $4.3 million.

  • Revenues from consolidated properties were $ 757.6 million for the first quarter of 2009, a decline of 5.1% compared to $798.3 million for the same period in 2008. The majority of this decline is due to the items impacting FFO discussed above.
  • Revenues from unconsolidated properties, at the Company’s ownership share, increased to $152.1 million or 3.8% compared to $146.6 million in the first quarter of 2008. This increase was primarily due to the completion and commencement of operations at the Natick Collection in 2008.
  • Total tenant sales declined 6.1% and comparable tenant sales declined 6.7% in 2009, both on a trailing 12 month basis, compared to the same period last year.
  • Comparable NOI from consolidated properties in the first quarter of 2009 declined by 4.4% compared to the first quarter of 2008. Comparable NOI from unconsolidated properties at the Company’s ownership share in the first quarter of 2009 increased by approximately 3.7% compared to the first quarter of 2008. In the aggregate, comparable segment NOI decreased 3.3% as compared to the first quarter of 2008.
  • Retail Center occupancy decreased to 90.9% at March 31, 2009, compared to 92.5% at December 31, 2008 and 92.7% at March 31, 2008.
  • Sales per square foot for first quarter 2009 (on a trailing twelve month basis) were $427 versus $438 for the fourth quarter 2008 and $460 in the first quarter of 2008.

Results here have deteriorated a bit as one would expect given current economic conditions. But, the declines were in the 3%-5% range, occupancy rates are still 91% and sales per square foot have fallen just 7% from last year, a much smalled number than would be expected given the economic carnage that has happened since last spring.

In short, operations are holding up well.


Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long GGWPQ

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RHI Entertainment Reports Q1

Solid quarter considering what happened in Q4 2008. The key here is the 30-50 feature still expected for 2009. It also means year results will be heavily weighted to the backside. Investment thesis unchanged by these results. Book value =$11.55 a share vs $3.34 share price

Results:

“We are enthusiastic about our prospects for 2009 as market signals suggest that our cost value proposition continues to hold its appeal,” said Robert Halmi, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer of RHI Entertainment, Inc. (RHIE) “This quarter shows that we are effectively managing our operations, bolstering our relationships with key broadcasters and cable networks, and solidly positioning our company for growth. We also remain committed to meeting our longer-term objectives of paying down roughly $200 million in debt over four years, continuing to monetize our library, reducing overhead, and further diversifying our product mix through series programming, all of which will serve to strengthen the underlying fundamentals of our business.”

Mr. Halmi continued, “Our financial results for the first quarter reflect the natural seasonality of our business as the majority of our revenue is booked in the second half of the year. As we expected and planned for, the unfavorable market conditions that we experienced in the fourth quarter of 2008 carried over into 2009. The good news, however, is that demand for original movies and mini-series and library content from broadcast and cable networks began to come back on line in January. Since that time, we have ramped-up our production and sales efforts accordingly. Production orders from NBC, Sci-Fi, Spike and Lifetime give us confidence that we are on track to deliver a solid slate of 30 – 35 films this year. Additionally, our recent trip to Europe for the annual international MIP sales conference gives us confidence that our library remains in high demand from customers looking for high quality and attractively priced content.”

Three Months Ended March 31, 2009

Total revenue for the three months ended March 31, 2009 was $13.0 million, a reduction of 41 percent from $22.2 million in the first quarter of 2008.

Library revenue decreased 25 percent to $13.0 million in the three months ended March 31, 2009, versus $17.3 million in the first quarter of 2008. The decrease was largely due to the weak market for television content purchases in the fourth quarter of 2008, which reduced the Company’s ability to recognize library revenue in the first quarter. RHI began to see a ramp-up in demand for library content during the first quarter.

Also contributing to the decrease in library revenue was a $1.5 million reduction related to the distribution of programming on ION during the three months ended March 31, 2009 compared to the prior year period as a result of a weakened advertising market.

There was no production revenue during the first quarter of 2009, compared to $4.9 million in the prior year period. RHI significantly slowed down its production activity in the fourth quarter of 2008 due to the difficult economic conditions and did not begin any films for the 2009 slate during that quarter. As a result, no original MFT movies or original miniseries were delivered in the first quarter. This compares to five MFT movies delivered during the comparable period in 2008. The Company has since ramped-up its production process in response to increased demand beginning in the first quarter of 2009 and at present, there are eight mini-series and eighteen MFT movies in various stages of production, most of which will be delivered this year. For the full year 2009, the Company expects to deliver a slate of 30 – 35 films.

Cost of sales for the three months ended March 31, 2009 was $13.4 million, compared to $17.6 million during the comparable period of 2008. The decline in the gross profit percentage was primarily driven by costs associated with minimum guarantees under the ION arrangement and distribution expenses. The lower revenue in the first quarter of 2009 covered less of these fixed costs, resulting in the decline in the gross profit percentage. It should be noted that while the rate of margin on library revenue recognized in the quarter decreased slightly, due to the mix of films, the Company has no reason to believe that the full year margin on the 2009 slate and library product will not be consistent with prior years.

Selling, general and administrative expenses decreased $1.9 million to $11.0 million in the three months ended March 31, 2009, from $12.9 million in the same period in 2008. A significant portion of this reduction relates to severance costs incurred in the prior year period, offset by costs associated with operating as a public company. The Company has however, begun to see the benefits of its continued focus on tightly managing its overhead costs.

The Company reported a loss on Adjusted EBITDA of $34.3 million for the three months ended March 31, 2009, compared with a loss of $15.2 million in the first quarter of 2008, largely driven by decreased revenue and a ramp up in production spending during the first quarter of 2009.

Net Loss for the first quarter of 2009 totaled $12.7 million, compared to a loss of $20.2 million in the same period of 2008. The Net Loss in the first quarter of 2009 reflects the $9.3 million in non-controlling interest in loss of consolidated entity. Loss per share for the three months ended March 31, 2009 was $0.94.


Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long RHIE

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Thursday’s Links

Threats, “Cram Down”, Funny?!?, Yankee Stadium

– I am stunned more people are not talking about this

“News” vs “Opinion”

– Question: I thought this was hysterical, am I twisted?

– Why did they ever move???

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General Growth Enters New DIP Plan

This is a much better deal for the company that the one they had with Pershing and Bill Ackman.

From the WSJ:

Bankrupt mall owner General Growth Properties Inc. has reached an accord for $400 million in emergency financing from new lenders, replacing proposed financing from activist investor William Ackman’ Pershing Square Capital Management LP.

General Growth disclosed in bankruptcy filings Wednesday that it will receive the financing from lenders including Canpartners Investments IV LLC, Delaware Street Capital Master Fund LP, Farallon Capital Management LLC, L, Perry Principals Investments LLC and Whitebox Advisors. Some of the lenders also own General Growth bonds.

The new debtor-in-possession, or DIP, pact replaces the Pershing proposal announced when General Growth and 166 of its U.S. malls filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on April 16. The Pershing deal called for Pershing to loan General Growth $375 million on an 18-month term at an interest rate of LIBOR plus 12%. In return, Pershing was to receive warrants to buy 4.9% of General Growth’s equity if and when the mall owner emerges from bankruptcy. In addition, General Growth could have repaid the $375 million by issuing Pershing additional stock.

Mr. Ackman didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment Wednesday. Pershing bought 7.5% of General Growth’s stock at prices of less than $1 per share in the months prior to the bankruptcy filing. Pershing also put nearly 20% of General Growth’s stock under swap contracts with various investment banks.

In outlining the new DIP agreement in its filing on Wednesday, General Growth pointed out several changes made to mollify creditors’ objections to the Pershing pact. First, the new DIP lenders will get a junior lien on cash collateral at General Growth’s corporate level rather than the senior lien proposed for Pershing. The new lenders get no warrant for post-bankruptcy stock as Pershing would have. Yet they can convert their loan into 6% of General Growth’s post-bankruptcy stock or debt.

The new DIP loan has an interest rate of Libor plus 12%, as the Pershing proposal did. Its term

Broken down it looks like this:

  • Term extended from 18 to 24 months
  • Amount from $375 to $400 million
  • No warrants in new pact
  • Loan falls from senior to junior level claim on cash at corp. level
  • Interest rate same
  • Pershing as well as new lender group are also bondholders

So, what does this mean for current shareholders? Not much really. It help post BK as the term extension will reduce funding needs out of the gate and the removal of the warrants means perhaps less share dilution although with the way the new loan can convert into 6% or new stock or debt, it remains to be seen how that shakes out.

Here is where it does matter. Ackman now even more of an incentive to make sure the shares he does have remain whole or at least partially whole. This is not to say he lacked incentive before but with 4.9% of the post BK shares as well as another potentially $375 million worth of shares to pay off the DIP financing, he was slated to have a nice chunk of the new entity. Without that guarantee, the fate of the shares he now holds and has under swap contracts becomes far more important.

The new DIP lender also have no equity interest that I was able to find from SEC filings. Note: they may have equity holdings through other entities, but not through those doing the DIP financing.

This bears watching, is good news for the company but is not earth shattering news for current shareholders. It will lead to some entertainment down the road though.


Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long GGWPQ

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News Corps. Reports Strong Q3

These result are fantastic in the current environment.

Keys:
Fox News subscriber growth and ad rate growth nearly doubled operating income
Entertainment large releases coming this summer
$2.5 billion in cash
300 million shares repurchased raise EPS in quarter from $.94 last year to $1.02 this year

News Corp. Q3

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Housing’s "Recovery": Where Will Demand Come From?

If housing is to recover, we need buyers, and lots of them to soak up the existing inventory. Or I guess we could just keep bulldozing them into the ground.

Anyway, this from Zillow.com:

U.S. home values continued to slide for the ninth consecutive quarter, declining 14.2 percent from a year ago, and falling 21.8 percent since the market peak in 2006. Additionally, one-fifth (21.9%) of all homeowners in the United States is in negative equity, and one in five homes sold in the past 12 months was a foreclosure.

So, homes are more affrodable, good news right? Dig deeper folks.

From the Big Picture:

About a third of homes have no mortgages whatsoever. The unencumbered properties improve the homeowners equity data from the Fed’s Flow of Funds report. Add in 33% of homes with 100% equity and it skews the data. The total looks better.

before you say “So What?” co the following: We know that those homeowners that do not have mortgages — i.e., 100% equity — cannot default. So if we want to understand the potential further mischief real estate land can cause, it is the mortgaged properties we should be watching. Back out the third of home owners that have no mortgage — the 33% of homes with 100% equity — and the Fed’s measure of 43% net equity drops precipitously.

What is the number then? 67% of homes with mortgages have an equity of 15%. The worse number? 37% of the homes with mortgages are underwater.

Has anyone been able to secure a mortgage today on a new purchase for under 20% downpayment? Simply put, when you subtract broker commissions 2%-5%, it is safe to say selling home “a” and buying home “b” with the proceeds are over unless the buyer is doing a significant trade down or putting up near 10% of the new purchase price themselves.

This rolling of equity into a new purchase was a huge part of the bubble in housing as prices appreciated. It is gone for the most part now.

Here is the dilemma. Falling home prices are making homes more affordable, of that there is no argument. The problem is that falling home prices also sap equity from those sellers looking to use it to afford the next purchase. When you add tighter lending and higher down payment requirements you further restrict demand as you eliminate more marginal buyers from the pool.

Now, lets add the 2 million additional homes estimated to be foreclosed on this year, and another near 3 million people to become unemployed as the unemployment rate creeps to to the 10.5% level  now estimated. The pool of potential homes buyers? It is becoming a puddle…

“BUT”, you say. “what about the mortgage free homes, they may sell and the proceeds used to buy new ones”. What about that?

From Realtor.com

According to an analysis of census information by USA Today, there are 123 areas of the country where 40 percent or more of home owners don’t have a mortgage.

Many of those areas also never had any sort of boom in prices, either because they are in declining areas that have suffered job losses and dwindling population or because they are thriving retirement communities.

Cities with the highest percentage of owner-occupied properties that are mortgage free:

  • Bluefield, W. Va.: 57 percent
  • Sebring, Fla.: 56 percent
  • Odessa, Texas: 54 percent
  • McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas: 54 percent
  • Weirton, W.Va.-Steubenville, Ohio: 53 percent

Unless anyone thinks they convince me why/how economically depressed residents of Odessa, TX or retirees in Sebring, Fla. are going to pack up and move to Southern California and buy enough homes to soak up huge inventories, lets just put that argument to bed now.

Housing busts take years to work through, not months or a couple quarters. Please keep that in mind when using housing in projections….we are nowhere near done with this yet.


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True Religion: An Update

This is an update to a Feb. 26 post on True Religion (TRLG) when shares cost $11.

In that post I said:

At its current market cap, True is valued at just under 1 times 2009 sales and just over 1 times 2008’s. Too low.

What if the recession deepens and profits actually fall? Say they fall 10%? Will the stock then trade for 5 times those earnings? Or is it likely the current price reflects a general feeling profits may fall more than currently projected and any shortfall in results will be met with a stagnant share price? Who knows but my impression is that the latter is most likely.

Think about it. If you owned the company outright and someone offered you $8.62 for it ($11 share price – the $2.38 per share you have in the company’s bank account) would you take it or tell the potential buyer where to stick it? Me too. Now reverse it. If someone owned it and offered the company for $11 and included in the price was the $2.38 in the bank would you jump at it? Me too.

Today True released results:

Net sales for the first quarter increased 19.1% to $63.6 million compared to $53.4 million in the first quarter of 2008. Growth within our consumer direct and international businesses was partially offset by a decline in our US wholesale business. Gross profit grew 27% to $38.7 million or 60.9% of net sales from $30.5 million or 57.1% of net sales in the first quarter of 2008.

Our gross margin benefitted from the ongoing segment mix shifts towards our higher margin consumer direct business and the increase in our international segment’s gross margin. This was partially offset by the planned decline in our outlet stores gross margin.

And:

Operating income for the first quarter increased 15.0% to $13.1 million or 20.5% of net sales compared to $11.4 million or 21.2% of net sales in the prior year period. The year-over-year reduction in operating margin was primarily driven by the decrease in our consumer direct segment’s operating margins.

Turning now to our segment information, within our US wholesale segment, sales for the first quarter decreased 11.0% to $28.9 million versus $32.5 million in the prior year period. The decrease in the US wholesale segment’s net sales is due to a decline in sales boutiques and majors partially offset by an increase in sales to outside customers. Michael will expand on these trends in his comments.

International sales in the first quarter increased 26.0% to $11.2 million from $8.9 million in the prior year period. The year-over-year increase is primarily due to increased sales of Japan as well as increased sales to our European and North American distributors.

Consumer direct net sales which include our branded retail stores and e-commerce site increased 95.8% during the first quarter to $23.1 million from $11.8 million in the prior year period. The growth in our consumer direct segment is attributable to the expansion of our retail stores which totaled 49 at the end of the first quarter of 2009 compared to 18 retail stores at the end of the first quarter of 2008. Our total square footage at the end of the first quarter was 88,700 square feet compared to 31,900 total square feet at the end of the first quarter of 2008.

Nothing short of fantastic….

For the rest of the year:

While it is still early in the year, we are optimistic that the earnings from these favorable trends will offset the impact as the increase in the effective tax rate and the stock-based compensation accounting method change. Therefore, we continue to expect that the company’s 2009 earnings per share will be between $1.73 and $1.81 per share with an encouraging outlook, thanks to the improved sales order trends.

Now it trades at $20 a share or 11 times the low end of their estimates. Cash per share has risen to $2.92 and debt remains a non issue.

Did I buy some back then? No. Am I kicking myself? Yes. Is there a natural instinct to go buy some today because of the this missed chance? Yes. Will I? No. Before you do something rash when investing, stop, take a breath and look at what you did do.

What did I buy instead of True? In the Feb/March time frame I bought General Growth Properties (GGWPQ) (avg. $.49/today $1.02), RHI Enterntainment (RHIE)(avg. $2.02/today $3.44), Dow Chemical (DOW) (avg. $7.25/today $15).

Note: Dow Chemical shares have been owned for years and avg. cost for all shares is different, the cost referenced reflect just those shares bought in the mentioned time period for comparison.

So on an apples to apples comparison, we are doing just fine. Am I still upset that the cash I have sitting in the account was not put to use in True? Yup. But, looking back at what I did do diminishes that angst and DOES give me confidence that I am finding great value picks out there, even if I do not always pull the trigger for whatever reason.

Should we get the sell-off I expect, the chance of me letting this one slip away again are pretty slim…

Earnings call transcript

Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long GGWPQ, DOW, RHIE, none