| Americans, Their Taxes and Transportation Funding Ryan Avent submits: Elana Schor reports on efforts to fund the next transportation bill and notes that the latest craze is a move to tax oil futures and (perhaps) all stock transactions. This strategy is gaining ground because oil markets and traders are very unpopular and (still worse) geographically concentrated, whereas users of transportation infrastructure tend to enjoy the support of most Americans and are spread across many Congressional districts. There’s no reason that a transport funding mechanism has to involve transportation. Money is fungible, and to a certain extent we should simply be focused on raising revenues in the places where it’s least costly to do so and spending revenue where it does the most good. And certainly there are some economists out there arguing that a financial transactions tax would prevent some negative market behavior while raising revenue (although they tend to argue that the revenue should then be used to capitalize insurance funds or cover other bail-out costs).Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Allegiant Travel Company Q4 2009 Earnings Call Transcript Allegiant Travel Company (ALGT)Q4 2009 Earnings CallJanuary 26, 2010 12:00 pm ETComplete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Ambassadors Group, Inc. Q1 2010 Earnings Call Transcript Ambassadors Group, Inc. (EPAX)Q1 2010 Earnings Call TranscriptApril 22, 2010 11:30 am ETComplete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Hype Trumps Reality as Tesla Coils Its Way Higher in Debut Session Wall Street Cheat Sheet submits: By Elliot TurnerRisk aversion was the name of the game yesterday with Treasuries and the dollar rallying and just about every other asset class taking a beating. Meanwhile, electronic carmaker Tesla (TSLA) debuted to much fanfare in the green space and skepticism on Wall Street and closed the day with a market capitalization of $2.2 billion.Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Trucking Firms Have Value in Tow Morningstar submits: After falling off a cliff in 2009, truck tonnage still remains below healthy historical levels and freight rates still have room to recover. When the soft U.S. economy caused freight hauling demand to drop in late 2008, the industry's excess capacity compounded the damaging effect of lower volume, since truckers bid down rates to try to keep their heavy iron running. Near-term volume trends are still uncertain, even though demand has recovered off its 2009 nadir. We believe pricing is also poised for recovery, but the timing of material rate improvement is also uncertain. That said, in mid-October, Landstar (LSTR) reported its third-quarter revenue per truck improved 14% year over year, and we're encouraged to see general rate increases announced at several large less-than-truckload carriers. We think this bodes well for a better 2011. Market Volume Trends Up Year over Year, but Lately Sliding Sideways SequentiallyComplete Story » seekingalpha.com |