Smart Money, what they've done and what they are doing. Kirk Kerkorian was an 8th grade graduate who parlayed success and compounded it to become the richest person in LA.
Wikipedia offers a good read, except for the high finance parts of the 1990s & 200s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_KerkorianI first learned of Kerkorian when Delta Petroleum's price spiked up in September of 2008 to $21.95.
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=dptr&p=D&st=2006-09-09&id=p48465509070 I had sold half of my position at $24.50/share. Kerkorian's purchase caused Delta Petroleum to rise
above what he was paying, which was $17.50. I sold the second half of my position at $17.50.
I had been getting fed up with Delta for a couple of reasons. In no way did I expect Delta's price to fall as much as it did, to $ .82/share as I type. And Kerkorian is still there:
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/company-news-story.aspx?storyid=201007121238DOWJONESDJONLINE000232 7/12/2010
Kerkorian Sitting On $700 Million Loss In Delta Petroleum
Kerkorian's paper-losses must be mounting from his Las Vegas real estate too.
From the Wikipedia entry, I would bet Kerkorian's M O is to buy cheap and stay black (re: he borrowed from Seagrams to buy planes, then sold the aviation fuel in the planes' tanks to get the funds to pay back Seagrams!)
So Kerkorian has lost a ton, on paper. If I had to bet, I would bet he was not very leveraged (indebted.)
