America Online, of course, is a master of the hard sell, from stuffing mailboxes with free trial offers to forcing subscribers to click through ads before they can get their e-mail. – Alex Berenson
Big companies often use their leverage to take stakes in would-be suppliers, especially in the technology business. – Alex Berenson
Studies show that Avastin can prolong the lives of patients with late-stage breast and lung cancer by several months when the drug is combined with existing therapies. – Alex Berenson
Determining how many asbestos suits have been filed or how much companies have spent to resolve them is difficult. Cases are filed in state and federal courts, and many companies do not disclose their spending on settlements. – Alex Berenson
I think in some ways what Snowden is, is he’s a mix of a cold war spy novel and post-9/11 spy novel. – Alex Berenson
Electronic communications networks match trades between investors directly, without using a market maker or specialist as an intermediary. – Alex Berenson
Institutions like mutual funds often worry that if they disclose their plans to buy a stock, copycats will move quickly and drive up the stock before the purchase is completed. – Alex Berenson
For value investors, General Motors is a tempting target. The company’s share of the North American auto market has steadily declined for two decades, and analysts say the company suffers from weak management and unexciting cars. – Alex Berenson
Shareholder meetings are not usually the occasion for utter candor – or for that matter, arch sarcasm – by chief executives. – Alex Berenson
For as long as anyone can remember, reliable, cheap electricity has been taken for granted in the United States. – Alex Berenson
In Ghazalia, Mr. Hussein showed his contempt for the majority Shiites in ways large and small. He refused to allow them even one mosque, while the Sunnis had nearly a dozen. To worship, the Shiites had to cross an inconveniently located bridge over the sewage canal to Shula. – Alex Berenson
It’s one of the fundamental principles of the stock market: When interest rates go up, stocks go down. And along with financial companies and cyclicals, technology companies – with their sky-high price-to-earnings multiples – should be among the biggest losers in an environment of rising rates. – Alex Berenson
Don’t expect Barton Biggs to be offering his market insights on ‘Bloomberg News’ anytime soon. His plumber, maybe. – Alex Berenson
Of course, the discounting of future earnings should hurt all stocks. But it should hurt technology stocks more than others, because so many of them are valued at extremely high levels relative to their current earnings. – Alex Berenson
Mr. Snowden did not start out as a spy, and calling him one bends the term past recognition. Spies don’t give their secrets to journalists for free. – Alex Berenson
In the short run, using militias might be the quickest and easiest way to improve order on Iraq’s streets and uproot the terrorists and guerrillas who routinely attack American troops and civilian targets. – Alex Berenson
Accounting rules give financial institutions flexibility about when they choose to recognize venture capital profits. – Alex Berenson
For years, critics of Fannie Mae have warned that it does not give them enough information to judge its risks. – Alex Berenson
Microeconomics is the study of how specific choices made by businesses, consumers and governments affect the markets for different goods and services. For example, a microeconomist might examine how price changes affect sales of apples relative to oranges. – Alex Berenson
African runners regularly work out in the United States and Europe, and the International Olympic Committee sends some of the cash from the Games to Olympic committees in poor nations, which use the money to finance their own programs. – Alex Berenson
In market valuation, Yahoo is worth about as much Walt Disney and the News Corporation combined. – Alex Berenson
Equity is the cushion that protects financial institutions from unexpected changes in the value of their assets. The greater the leverage, the smaller the losses required to wipe out a company’s equity, leaving it without enough money to repay the people who hold its debt. – Alex Berenson
Downhill track sports like luge are technology battles, as exciting as a NASCAR qualifying day. – Alex Berenson
Big companies, which spend tens of billions of dollars annually on ‘call centers’ to take orders and provide customer support, increasingly rely on speech recognition not just to handle requests for information but to process customer orders. – Alex Berenson
Publicly traded United States companies report sales and profits to investors every quarter. – Alex Berenson
As a reporter, I embedded for modest stints with American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. When I’m asked about those experiences, I always say – and mean – that we civilians don’t deserve the soldiers we have. – Alex Berenson
The most distinguishing element of my novels is that I try as hard as I can – within the context of a popular commercial thriller – to make them feel authentic. Drawing on real locations and real events is part of that authenticity. – Alex Berenson