Sharing Knowledge in Smallcaps

[BullNBear52]

I sent you a PM regarding Edward Jones. Apparently someone took offense to my last post about them specifically.

I imagine full service brokers are still necessary for people who don't have time to manage their own money but back in the day when discount brokers didn't exist I found that they were always pushing what was in their own portfolio. Remember the EF Hutton ads?

I like to buy what I know and try not to wander too far from that. Guys like Peter Lynch and Warren seem to have practiced the same philosophy. And I guy locally. I held on to DUK for years just for the divy then the CEO pulled a fast one with his last merger when he bought Progress Energy. Classic move by a CEO. Buy the competition then fire the guy you promised the job to; to win regulatory approval.

https://www.investingdaily.com/15440/duke-energy-fires-former-progress-energy-ceo-after-merger-closes/

When Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) and Progress Energy announced their merger agreement in January 2011, the Carolina companies assured Wall Street that the merger would close by the end of 2011. Well, it didn’t work out that way because in December 2011 FERC rejected the companies’ “virtual divestiture” plan for the Carolina wholesale power market and made them go back to the drawing board.

The merger finally closed on July 3, 2012, seven months later than planned, but the bad feelings caused by the merger delay claimed a prominent victim: Duke Energy CEO Bill Johnson, the former CEO of Progress Energy, whose term as CEO lasted only 24 hours. Bad feelings toward Johnson may also be related to two disclosures Progress made shortly after the merger agreement with Duke was announced: (1) Progress’ Crystal River nuclear power plant in Florida needed $1 billion worth of repairs; and (2) Progress’ planned construction of a new nuclear power plant in Levy County, Florida would cost $22 billion rather than $5 billion.

But Jim Rogers, former Duke CEO who was supposed to be the Chairman of the Board under the merged company and has now returned to the CEO position, doesn’t have clean hands either, having been responsible for a $1.3 billion cost overrun at the Edwardsport, Indiana coal gasification power plant, not to mention an influence-peddling scandal aimed at recovering these cost overruns from Indiana ratepayers in exchange for offering a job to an Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission official.

So why punish Johnson but reward Rogers when they have both proven to be incompetent? It may have something to do with the fact that the merged company’s 18-member board of directors is composed of 11 Duke Energy representatives compared to only seven from Progress. The known devil is better than the less well-known one.