Stock Investing

Mumbai: At least four more banks are slated to join the core group of lenders that syndicated a $7.5 billion (around Rs35,475 crore) loan for Bharti Airtel Ltd, India’s largest mobile telephony firm by subscribers, to acquire the African asset of Kuwaiti Mobile Telecommunications Co. KSC (Zain), according to an official of Standard Chartered Bank Plc (StanChart), the lead arranger of the loan.

State Bank of India on Thursday closed its $1 billion five year overseas bond at 260 basis points over Libor, an investment banker said. Away in New York on a road show for the loan, SBI chairman OP Bhatt could not be contacted.

This will take the total syndicators to 15 from the present 11.

Between them, the members of the syndication will buy around $1 billion from the existing syndicators. W

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Watch out for falling rocks! That’s what we believe the latest Leading Economic Indicators Index is warning of. If stocks, also a leading indicator, had not already priced in some degree of trouble, we would change “rocks” to “stocks.” That said, it seems enough economists, strategists and investors of all sorts are still betting on a decent recovery, and so falling stocks remain a strong possibility as well.

“The Greek” earned clients a 23% average annual return over five years as a stock analyst on Wall Street. While writing for Wall Street Greek and others, he presciently predicted the financial crisis and housing and banking failures of the Great Recession.

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Surprisingly, there are about 45 stocks trading on the New York Stock Exchange which trade for less than $3 a share. Of course, some of these are on the verge of delisting, many are on the verge of bankruptcy, but you may find a few gems on the list of NYSE stocks under $3, just published by WallStreetNewsNetwork.com.

As an example, with the recent oil spill, WSP Holdings Ltd. (WH) might be worth taking a look at. The company makes casing, tubing, and drill pipes for oil and natural gas exploration, drilling, and extraction along with pipelines. This China based company has a forward PE of 12.4, and trades for around 1.36 per share.

Phoenix Companies Inc. (PNX) is a provider of life insurance and annuities. Full Post…

Thursday afternoon, the Hartford Financial Group declared its quarterly dividend of five cents per share, maintaining the amount paid to shareholders last quarter. Based on the current stock price, investors can expect a yield of about 0.9% going forward.

In other dividend news, Coca Cola ( KO – news – people ) maintained its quarterly dividend of 44 cents per share. McDonald‘s ( MCD – news – people ) maintained its quarterly dividend of 55 cents per share. Schlumberger ( SLB – news – people ) maintained its quarterly dividend of 21 cents per share. Baker Hughes ( BHI – news – people ) maintained its quarterly dividend of 15 cents per share.

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I have nothing new to add to all the discussion about AAPL (Apple) you can find in nearly any blog or newsletter today other than to underscore what an amazing product, company and stock it is. We tend to focus on the stock’s movement in after-hours trading today after release of their earnings report. Or we look at their year-to-date 19.53% appreciation – not shabby considering the fact that the market as a whole is down 2.84% YTD. Or we drool when we see the 64.73% move over the past 12 months, an amazing move on its own, let alone compared with the 13.92% the market turned over the same period.

If all this outstanding performance isn’t enough for you to start kick yourself and making you want to quit this stock market game altogether if you don’t own the stock, then take a look at what Steve Jobs and Company has turned in since he sold his firm Next to Apple and returned as CEO in 1996.

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