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Murdoch Acquires Dow Jones

This story is getting lots of press but the Bancroft family finally said SELL.   What got my attention in the article was their realization that if they did not do this, they would have to pay the advisory fees to ML and their lawyers, a considerable sum.  So they took the $5 B offer and hope to get Murdoch to cover the fees, but with $5B I think they can pay the bills.

Please note the comment from the family, our passivity has brought us to this point, ie, if you don’t actively manage your assets, someone else will step to the plate to do so.  Things change fast in today’s world.  Murdoch is launching his own business news channel on FOX in Sept, the WSJ now stands to be a much bigger part of that. Neal Cavuto and Terry Keenan both on Fox now, were originally with CNBC.  I suspect they will move to the new business channel also. 

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4 responses to “Murdoch Acquires Dow Jones”

  1. Jerry Avatar
    Jerry

    Moral of the story here?
    Work at ML or Morgan stanley and collect that $10M fee!
    Jerry

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  2. Jerry Avatar
    Jerry

    Quick question. Does the Dow jones ever change the list of companies it studies? I initally thought/heard that the WSJ was being sold, which it is, but hadnt realized that the entire DJ was being considered. If anything your blog forced me to google the DJ and understand what was being transacted here. Its all very interesting.
    Company – Symbol/Quote
    Alcoa – AA
    American Express – AXP
    AT&T – T
    Boeing – BA
    Caterpillar – CAT
    Coca-Cola – KO
    Citigroup – C
    Disney – DIS
    DuPont – DD
    Eastman Kodak – EK
    Exxon Mobil – XOM
    General Electric – GE
    General Motors – GM
    Hewlett-Packard – HWP
    Home Depot – HD
    Honeywell – HON
    IBM – IBM
    Intel – INTC
    International Paper – IP
    Johnson & Johnson – JNJ
    McDonald’s – MCD
    Merck – MRK
    Microsoft – MSFT
    3M – MMM
    JP Morgan – JPM
    Philip Morris – MO
    Proctor & Gamble – PG
    SBC Communications – SBC
    United Tech – UTX
    Wal-Mart – WMT

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  3. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    Jerry
    This is a good post because it illustrates how easily things can be misunderstood. Murdoch is buying the Dow Jones Company which owns the Wall Street Journal. He is not buying the 30 Dow Jones Industrial Stocks, which are the components of the index that Charles Dow created in 1896. Am I reflecting your question correctly here?

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  4. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    The makeup of the Dow Jones Industrial Index changes from time to time, the last change was made to kick out underperforming stocks and replace them with a higher performer, in this case Microsoft was added which of course has been a dud ever since. Since Charles Dow created the index in 1896 the only stock that was in teh original that remain is General Electric, GE, all the others have changed. Therein lies the myth of buy and hold, and the success of the index fund created by Vanguard, if you buy the index, your investment changes as the index changes, ifyou buy yesterday’s stock, say INTEL, INTC, you may get stuck with a laggard. Look at MSFT, DELL, INTC, all recent heroes turned doges or go back a few decades, anyone own Control Data, or Wang?

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