Keen and Krekorian

A strange little bit of parallelism yesterday arose between Victor Keen of REFR and Kirk Kerkorian of GM. Both are associated with troubled companies, and both made "statement buys" of their company into the teeth of the selling. Kerkorian put out a tender offer for 9% of GM, while Keen contented himself with a modest 10,000 shares (less than 0.1%) of REFR. Both stocks rallied throughout the day on the offer.

Then the new day dawned and realization set in. In the case of GM, it was that their financial situation was still dire, a fact puncutated by Standard & Poor cutting their bond rating to junk status. In the case of REFR, well, it was that it was REFR.

And so today both are giving back. In fact, it's starting to look like a horse race as to which one will go under first. Right now REFR looks to last a bit longer, as they, in theory anyway, still have the "debt" card to play, and could buy themselves another year with that. Then again, GM probably has some tricks left in their bag, if there's anyone left there will the brains to use them.

One thing for sure, I don't expect to see any SPD-equipped GM cars anytime soon.