Stupidity is contagious. It gets us all from time to time. Even respectable companies can catch it. As I do every week, let's take a look at five dumb financial events this week that may make your head spin.
1. First Bank of Second Chances
$25 billion doesn't seem to last the way it used to. Bank of America (NYSE: BAC ) went back for seconds this week, pleading for more bailout money after gobbling down that sum back in October.
Fed up yet? Bank of America clearly overpaid for Countrywide and Merrill Lynch, when waiting a few days -- or ideally a few weeks or months -- would have provided the financial services giant with far better entry points. Why are we entrusting it with even more money when it's a head-shake away from being a Darwin Awards winner?
2. Jobs: So hard to find these days
Has Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL ) been jerking its shareowners around? Everyone hopes Steve Jobs makes a speedy recovery, but what was Apple thinking? The charismatic CEO is taking a temporary -- for now -- leave of absence, surprising no one privy to the rampant recent speculation on his deteriorating health.
The problems here rest in the company's handling of the information and its lack of a public succession plan. Jobs' absence from the Macworld Expo keynote earlier this month over a presumably minor "hormonal imbalance" condition should have raised flags, despite Apple's claims that his condition has deteriorated since the company made that statement. A better-prepared Apple would have been chattier about Jobs' health, or at the very least peppered Macworld with enough blowout announcements to ease the investing community into warming up to Apple post-Jobs.
3. The notbook netbook
Let's bring Apple again one more time. The country's third-largest computer maker -- by unit volume -- became the country's fourth-largest in the fourth quarter. Gartner is reporting that netbook leader Acer swiped market share sequentially at everybody else's expense.
Market leaders Dell (Nasdaq: DELL ) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ ) suffered some of the biggest letdowns, but Apple has gone from commanding 9.5% of the market during the third quarter to just 8% over the holiday quarter.
One can always suggest that diving into the low-cost netbook market would kill Apple's margins and cannibalize sales of its premium-priced MacBooks, but is this the alternative? Will last year's 9.5% be Apple's market-share peak if it decides not to play the netbook game? Interim Apple CEO Tim Cook has been handed one hot potato.
4. Flame-broiled firestorm
Burger King (NYSE: BKC ) finally flew too close to the flame-broiling sun, as the burger giant's Whopper Sacrifice app was unsurprisingly pulled from Facebook. Unlike some of the kinder viral apps, Whopper Sacrifice would reward users with a free burger if they publicly "sacrificed" 10 of their friends.
According to WhopperSacrifice.com, "Facebook has disabled Whopper Sacrifice after your love for the Whopper sandwich proved to be stronger than 233,906 friendships."
Can someone get a read on BK's diabolical marketing strategy? The Whopper Freakout ads tormented Whopper fans with hidden cameras filming their reactions to fake news about the sandwich being discontinued. Whopper Virgins forced the sandwiches onto burger virgins in remote pockets of the world, folks with very limited diets and unsophisticated palates. How far away are we from Whopper Executions, with BK trolling Death Row for inmates willing to make a juicy burger their final meal in exchange for some ad time?
5. Eight-minute apps
Speaking of apps getting pulled, Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG ) (NYSE: CMG-B ) tugged back an iPhone -- and WiFi-enabled iPod touch -- mobile ordering program just hours after releasing it to the public.
Whether it was the sheer volume of users, or the sheer volume of negative reviews, the quick-service burrito chain earns kudos for acting quickly. But it still earns this week's final spot for putting out an App Store application before it was ready for primetime. Tsk, tsk. Chipotle would never serve up an undercooked burrito, would it?
Let's beat the dumb drum:
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