Weekly Wrap

It was another busy week here in Minnesota. I hope to Gawd you didn't notice that I'm a tad late getting the wrap to you. My daughter is in a hockey tournament all the way across town (state practically) and my big brand new home move-in is less than two weeks away. This means I'm at the house talking with the contractors daily choosing knob placement, stain colors, and lighting choices. All of the sudden it was Friday (she scored two goals and they won 5-4) and I didn't have time to squish in the Market Wrap. Woops. Here it is.

On my drive out to the hockey arena I passed the airport and noticed a bunch of Sun Country planes on the ground. Duh, if I had read the five newspapers stacked up by the fireplace this week, I would have known that they decided to ground all of their planes except the 737's that go to the bigger cities. They are still looking for a buyer, but in the meantime, refuse to lose another penny on fuel cost. The September 11th tragedy hit a lot more places than just New York.

USAir's (U) CEO resigned this past week. I wonder if it was due to the airline losing $766 million dollars the third quarter. It was a sudden move. A shocker. A bumpy takeoff. Anyway, Rakesh Gangwal is said to have left to pursue a career in venture capital, while Stephen Wolf (the current chairman) has said that he will take over. Good luck Steppin' Wolf. (I'm listening to the 70's station on satellite.)

K-Mart (KM) announced their third quarter earnings. They, too, lost hundreds of millions (like $224 of them) but even at that, they beat market analysts' expectations. They lost $67 million during the same quarter a year ago. You wonder where people are shopping, if they are shopping. One only needs to look over at bestbuy.com (Best Buy, BBY) and target.com (Target, TGT). These two websites announced that during their first week of holiday shopping they are up 16% and 80% respectively compared to the same week last year. It's no wonder. Who wants to go out when they still haven't caught that Osamaofgun.

And on to the biggest news of the week... and it's a bad story... Enron (ENE) has gone from a $60 billion (yes, billion) company one year ago, to a junk bond just this week. It was run into the ground by a management team that was more into themselves than trying to figure out what was in the best interest of the company. Chick Cheryl wrote an article six months ago and described their financial statements as somewhat of mess, and that it doesn't pass our Chicks Dozen, but who would have thunk this? Thousands of Enron employees had sunk their 401k plans into their company only to have it disintegrate into nothing. Poof. Gone. The night the lights went out in Houston. For a great article on the demise, check out Bill Mann's article at the Fool. It's just too sad of a story to write about... especially in the dark.

That's it for the week. Off to girls' hockey game number four...
Chick Karin