Archie, a Chinese Crested, is seen here prior to winning World's Ugliest Dog competition at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma, Calif. in 2006.
A humorous look at the companies that caught our eye, for better or worse, this week
Williams-Sonoma
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From $400 chef's knives to $4,000 cookware sets, Williams-Sonoma has a complete line of high-end kitchen equipment so you can burn your next meal in style. The stock also turned black and crispy after the company posted third-quarter results that disappointed Wall Street, as same-store sales at the namesake chain rose just 1.4 per cent. Get the fire extinguisher! |
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Mattel
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Barbie: "Ken, I've got good news and bad news." Ken: "What's the good news?" Barbie: "Well, Mattel increased its dividend by 11 per cent, and billionaire Carl Icahn bought 2.4 million shares." Ken: "Great! What's the bad news?" Barbie: "I'm spending the weekend at Carl's." |
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Chart Industries
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Which of the following is not an industrial gas? 1) Nitrogen; 2) Xenon; 3) The fumes rising from your colleague's cubicle an hour after he returns from Taco Bell. Answer: 3. The only thing Chart Industries investors are smelling these days is money, after the maker of equipment to produce and store industrial gases posted strong results and was upgraded to "overweight" by Morgan Stanley. What a gas! |
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Ventana Gold
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Colombia is a friendly place where locals are always happy to offer directions, recommend a restaurant or, if you venture outside major cities, kidnap you at gunpoint. Not that Ventana Gold investors are complaining: Shares of the Vancouver company with a gold project in northeastern Colombia soared after Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista made a $1.2-billion cash offer. Investors can afford to hire a bodyguard. |
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Perfect World
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Symptoms of addiction to online role-playing games: Depression, loss of social contacts, family problems. Symptoms of investing in role-playing game maker Perfect World: Large financial losses, anger, frustration. Shares of the Beijing-based video game company plunged after it released a weak sales forecast, prompting analysts to downgrade the stock. Investors have never felt so imperfect. |
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