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Herman Cain says he would have been winning right now
From the NYSE Listed Company Manual:
The company can regain compliance at any time during the six-month cure period if on the last trading day of any calendar month during the cure period the company has a closing share price of at least $1.00 and an average closing share price of at least $1.00 over the 30 trading-day period ending on the last trading day of that month.
I could not agree more about Obama's campaign skills, and about the Teaparty Trash. They misjudged the common sense and decency of the average American when they jumped on that bandwagon.
There's no professional politician that would have been a strong Republican candidate this year. You may think I'm joking about this, but I honestly think that they missed the boat by not looking elsewhere in our society: former sports stars, movie stars, people in the arts, business people, the military, anywhere but in the ranks of Republican politicos.
If they wanted to tap a genuine populist vein, that would have been the way to go, not to the Teaparty.
We must be using different brand calculators.
According to my calculations, for the past 30 trading days (including today) FBC has an average closing price of $1.0146.
There are five more trading days left in September.
If we can maintain the average above $1 and close above $1 next Friday, then the deficiency is cured.
Stephanie- I'm a Yellow Dog Democrat and have been my entire life, so in many ways I don't give a crap who the Republicans nominate.
But truthfully, given the divisive, hateful state of the country and the amount of misinformation (read lying) spewed during the last election and in this one, a strong ticket could have won.
As much as I hate to say that, IMHO it's true.
It makes me wonder how their top brass can be so tone deaf and stubbornly misguided when it comes to picking candidates.
McCain-Palin, and now these two?
Romney: if you've always wanted to see what a totally desperate billionaire looks like, you've now got your chance.
At present China has 6 workers for every retiree. In 25 years the ratio will be 2 workers for every retiree.
The economics of the entire corn-based biofuel industry is problematical (it takes oil to manufacture ethanol!) in the best of times, when good weather produces plenty of corn.
With the drought, and the resultant rise in corn prices, everyone from the UN to the European Commission is saying that we need to stop turning corn into fuel and thereby taking food out of people's mouths.
Perhaps the future is more with the new generation of biofuels derived from waste products, grasses, the inedible parts of plants, algae, etc.
Analysis: Brazil ethanol returns to US as biofuel rules pave way
[Meanwhile, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has asked the U.S. to suspend its production of ethanol. The Director-General of the FAO: Jose Graziano da Silva of Brazil.]
http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/sns-rt-us-ethanol-brazil-exportsbre88j14j-20120920,0,3369514.story
Reese Ewing Reuters
3:29 p.m. CDT, September 20, 2012
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian ethanol is rushing back into the United States after a three-year ebb, drawn less by the severe drought that has inflated corn costs than by biofuel regulations that could more than triple next year's shipments.
Even as corn prices shot to record highs above $8 a bushel while sugar futures languished at near two-year lows of 19 cents per lb, Brazil's sugar-based ethanol production was still more costly than U.S. corn-based domestic supply, traders say.
Brazilian ethanol is competitive in the U.S. market, thanks only to credits from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which requires that fuel companies use 500 million gallons (1.9 billion liters) of so-called advanced biofuels to blend into gasoline this year. The EPA recognized Brazilian ethanol as advanced in February 2010.
Brazil has the only ethanol industry with the scale to meet the current U.S. advanced fuel mandate. The question is whether it can ramp up capacity for next year, when the EPA is expected to triple the requirement to 1.75 billion gallons.
"Brazil will not likely be able to meet that kind of increase in one year," Plinio Nastari, president of the Brazil-based sugar and ethanol consulting firm Datagro, said. "But this holds huge potential for mills here."
Brazil's main center-south cane region is half done harvesting a 510 million metric ton crop, up from 494 million last year. Nastari said Brazil would need an extra 60 million metric tons of cane to export an additional 1.25 million gallons of ethanol to the Unite States.
Martinho Seiiti Ono, director of SCA - one of Brazil's biggest ethanol brokers, however, said Brazil has the potential to meet a more than threefold increase in U.S. demand.
"If the U.S. offers mills better returns than they get on sugar, it's possible to ship three times as much," Ono said.
Brazilian sugarcane industry association Unica on Thursday raised its estimate for ethanol exports this season by 38 percent to 2.55 billion liters (675 million gallons).
Ono said 500 million gallons of those exports would reach the U.S..
Even if Brazil cannot fully fill the tripling of mandate, the increased demand from North America could push sugar prices higher, given that corn stocks won't recover soon to ease the cost of U.S. ethanol production.
While Brazilian ethanol is doing little to ease the burden on U.S. fuel companies to meet much larger EPA mandates for standard renewable fuels -- separate from the targets for "undifferentiated advanced biofuel", which only includes fuels with a low environmental impact -- they may herald the rebirth of an industry in deep distress.
Brazilian ethanol exports -- up 41 percent so far this year -- spiked in July and were on course in September to register an all time record month, Brazilian trade ministry data showed. U.S. data show ethanol imports, almost all of which come from Brazil, have averaged 63,000 barrels per day (bpd) over the past seven weeks, the second-highest rate since 2006.
"Exports have been very strong," said Julio Maria Borges, the head of local ethanol consultancy Job Economia. "Returns from ethanol exports to the United States are good -- they are on par with sugar."
CORN VS SUGAR
The complex economics of global ethanol markets opened a new chapter this summer. The price of corn surged on the worst U.S. drought in half a century, which in turn pushed up ethanol by 15 percent. U.S. ethanol plants consume 40 percent of corn.
Meanwhile, sugar prices have slumped 20 percent since August due to a glut in the sweetener. But ethanol prices have still not dropped sufficiently in tandem to make the biofuel competitive on the U.S. market without the EPA credit to advanced biofuel imports.
Unlike in 2008, when Brazilian ethanol exports reached a record nearly 5 billion liters, this year's shipments required an extra incentive to make the cane-based fuel competitive: RINs, the renewable identification numbers that the EPA gives to ethanol producers and importers to make sure mandates are met.
RINs on Brazilian ethanol are worth 37 cents a gallon, down from 80 cents in June and $1.20 a year ago, traders say, providing the financial incentive for fuel firms to import.
Without that subsidy, Brazilian ethanol now arriving in New York Harbor at $2.98 per gallon would not compete with U.S. corn-based ethanol at $2.60 per gallon, traders say.
The cost of U.S. corn-based ethanol will need to rise further to make Brazilian ethanol competitive if RINs weaken.
Many of the production cost increases in the past few years for Brazilian ethanol and sugar are structural. The industry has seen taxes and labor costs rise and getting product from the mill to the port remains the Achilles' heel of the country.
STRUCTURAL COSTS
The EPA is due in November to decide whether to go through with raising the renewable fuels mandate for this category of advanced ethanol to 1.75 billion gallons next year.
Traders say it is still unclear whether it will go ahead with the full increase given the supply limitations in Brazil, the only supplier of consequence of advanced ethanol.
If the EPA carries through, the increase would help revive Brazil's once booming ethanol industry, which has seen investments in new capacity fall from as much as $15 billion a year to hardly anything since the financial crisis caught the sector over leveraged in unbridled expansion.
More than 10 percent of Brazil's roughly 400 mills have shuttered in the past few years, which has further limited the sector's capacity to produce ethanol and sugar.
It remains to be seen whether local mills can maintain this level of ethanol exports through the rest of the year, especially with spring rains around the corner that will slow ports, cane crushing and eventually lead to the shutdown of mills for the interharvest period.
Mills are investing in expanding their cane output, but it is not clear if they can keep pace with the EPA's schedule for boosting advanced biofuels use in the coming years.
Brazil cannot fully meet its domestic demand at present due to drought and poor investment in its cane belt. The government reduced the blend of anhydrous ethanol in gasoline almost a year ago from 25 percent to the current 20 percent. And officials are keen to raise the blend again as soon as they deem supplies sufficient to support local demand without stoking inflation.
Moreover, the country imported 1.2 billion liters (320,000 gallons) of U.S. corn-based ethanol in 2011 to supplement domestic demand for the fuel, but that trade dried up after the drought ravaged the North American corn crop.
"If Brazil could occupy more of the gaps in the U.S. ethanol market, it would, but we've got our own problems," said Arnaldo Correa, the president of commodities risk analyst Archer Consulting.
I don't see a buyout happening in the near future because I'm not really sure that FBC is interested in selling based on their current PPS.
That said, one thing that makes smaller regionals like FBC very attractive buyout candidates is that as the economy recovers, their asset quality is improving faster than their stock prices reflect.
If a larger institution wanted to buy, now is the time to get the best deal, and one might make FBC "an offer they can't refuse."
delete- duplicate post.
Just doing it manually, including today, I get an average of $0.968 for the last 30 trading days.
Just did some quick calculating.
Today was the 12th trading day of September. We are currently at an average closing price of $0.9983 for the the month.
If we close tomorrow--the 13th trading day of the month-- at $1.02, the average would be $1 exactly. Let's assume that's going to happen!
After that we can withstand some dips. As long as we consistently stay above $1 and post a closing price of $1+ on Friday, September 28, then no reverse split.
If that happens, then we might see a fairly dramatic move beginning on Monday, October 1.
I agree.
From the Proxy:
However, NYSE rules permit us to cure any non-compliance with the continued listing requirements by taking action at the Annual Meeting and implementing such action promptly thereafter.
I think the confusion is between the words approve and do.
The reverse split will almost certainly be approved on Tuesday. They will wait to do it--if necessary--until the last trading day of the month, to see what the month's trading average was and what that day's closing price is.
They have until Oct 22nd to cure the deficiency in the PPS.
As Mike posted:
If the stock closes at $1.00/share or higher the last trading of day of Sept, and has a closing average for Sept of at least $1/share they will not need to do the R/S, and will not do one.
Curious that there have been no 10b5-1 sales during September
I have a very long-term investment horizon for this one, so the daily or weekly PPS fluctuations don't overly depress or excite me, but maybe...just maybe... this is actually the start of the long-awaited breakout.
Today's casual neighborhood conversation: A group of us standing around outside talking, one guy says, "Obama's helping the Muslims kill our people."
My very diplomatic reply, "You are a f***ing idiot."
Another day in suburbia.
IMHO this is going to do very, very well after the RS.
Just sitting back and patiently waiting, not obsessing over small daily PPS moves.
So they are just lying about a partner? Nobody is really discussing this possibility with them now? All a cleaver ruse ?
The cleaver ruse is the most desperate gambit of all and I must admit, it gets me every time. I mean, if you want it that bad, I give, you win.
What a freakin idiot! I hope that was the end of him!
Romney uses our ambassador's death to criticize Obama. Just disgusting.
It shows that money can't buy class, nor mask an unbridled thirst for power. He's been brought up his entire spoiled life to feel that he deserves to rule the common people.
What's his idea of a foreign policy? Ask the Angel Moroni to smite his enemies?
LOL...I'll play with Garnick's Hand...Not some Sally on a blog. Give up already, you are looking more and more like an idiot....
... we could go lower and close that gap at $3.41 but there are no guranatees
Darn, I thought I saw a guranatee the other day.
That piece appeared in which peer-reviewed journal?
PPHM redux. Getting old.
Who's running this assylum?
An apt label for many iHub boards.
I'm going to take genisi's advice and not even try to understand this () but I'm guessing that many writers will attempt to explain it in layman's terms, like this from Reuters:
ENCODE has also shown that a gene is not the simple stretch of DNA that makes a protein, as students are taught. Instead, the functional unit is an amalgam of sequences from both strands of the double helix, interleaved like two halves of a deck of cards in the hands of a Vegas dealer.
STEM etc I shy away from stem cell companies because depending on what cells you use, the company and field can get rocked by politics and who's particular values need to be kept happy (embryonic the biggest wild card.)
Appropriate bioethical procedures for approval must always be followed for research but the criteria for evaluation should be driven by objective metrics rather than theologically entrenched emotionalism.
Let's hope that all political candidates will agree to defer on such matters to scientists...
However things as they are right now are quite estelar. Dont you think?
I don't know, but I'm sure Estelle is happy.
Long drought shrinking popcorn harvest
[I never realized that there was a specific type of corn used for popcorn.]
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2012/09/05/long-drought-shrinking-popcorn-harvest.html
By P.J. Huffstutter
REUTERS Wednesday September 5, 2012 5:49 AM
CHICAGO — For more than half a century, the Shew family has harvested mountains of popcorn kernels to be buttered, salted and munched by movie fans.
But as a crippling Midwestern drought sends commodity prices soaring, the family’s farmland in west-central Indiana is suffering. Plants are listing, stalks are spindly and corn ears small.
It’s an ill portent for the snack-food world. All across the Midwest, where rows of popcorn normally thrive alongside fields of soybeans, U.S. popcorn farmers have watched in horror as stifling, triple-digit temperatures and weeks without rain withered crops.
“This is the worst season we’ve ever had,” said third-generation popcorn purveyor Mark Shew, who runs the family’s farm in Vigo County. “In some places, they’re going to be down to counting kernels at the bottom of the storage bins.”
The situation has had popcorn buyers — from small mom-and-pop shops to larger food chains — scrambling for months to line up their supplies for this fall. Their options are limited.
Retail prices have jumped this summer: from about $20 for a 50 pound bag to $30 or higher, said Tim Caldwell, owner of Pop It Rite, an Illinois-based popcorn-industry expert and snack-foods consultant. Wholesale prices have started to creep up, too, he said.
While consumers might have to pay more for the snack at the grocery store soon, some analysts say the chances of prices rising for a bucket of movie theater popcorn are slim.
“The popcorn portion of the product is a very low percentage of the price, and the prices are already so high, I think consumers would balk if they went up any higher,” said Bob Goldin, director of the food supplier practice at Technomic Inc.
The popcorn industry — which sold $985.7 million worth of unpopped kernels in 2010, down 2.2 percent from five years earlier — is barely an economic nibble out of the country’s corn world. Most of the popcorn consumed worldwide is grown in the United States. Export demand for the fluffy, crunchy snack has been slowly rising in recent years from China and Russia.
Still, more than 80 percent of U.S. popcorn production is consumed domestically, according to research by the Ag Marketing Resource Center at Iowa State University. The Popcorn Board, an industry trade group, said Americans munch 16?billion quarts of popped popcorn a year.
Eager to feed that appetite, Midwestern farmers say they have long used popcorn, a bit player in the field, as a companion crop for filling up marginal ground around their field corn and soybeans.
During even the toughest times, popcorn can provide an economic boost for those willing to fuss over the plants, as long as the weather stays mild. But when temperatures soared, the crops withered.
The poor weather added to recent supply concerns for popcorn buyers, said Norm Krug, chief executive officer of Preferred Popcorn, a Nebraska-based, farmer-owned cooperative that supplies popcorn to movie theaters and others.
As prices for commodity corn, used as livestock feed, and soybeans hit record highs, Midwestern farmers shifted more of their land to those crops, Krug said. That left fewer popcorn plants to harvest
Gonna be an interesting rest of the week...nothing mamby pamby here!!!
Nor wooshy-washy either.
There should be a hazing process for the newbies to subjugate the angst the long term holders have endured.
Subjugate the angst?
Apparently the SEC has been castrated and does not have the kahunas to deal with these manipulators.
Note to SEC: plenty in Hawaii.
...do not think we have to spend all that much time worrying about the Man Behind The Curtin.
I sense a Maelstorm, a Tsusami if you will.
Both covered under the umbrella of poor spelling.
German drug firm makes first apology for thalidomide
Your tanacity is amazing.
Oh, I just spend a lot of time in the sun.