A good call, a rough start and a numbers junkie’s dream site

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

A few items of note from around the markets:

-- Kudos to Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Meredith Whitney, who was clear as glass in her warning on March 28 that Wachovia Corp. would slash its dividend this month amid worsening loan losses. Investors who weren’t paying attention -- or who still believed the dividend was safe -- shelled out as much as $29.97 a share for Wachovia the first week of April. The closing price Monday, after Wachovia hacked its payout 41%: $25.55, down $2.26.

-- Wachovia’s dividend cut probably produced more pain for shareholders of the Dodge & Cox Stock mutual fund in San Francisco, which counted Wachovia as its fourth-largest holding as of Dec. 31, at 3.3% of assets. Data for March 31 aren’t available yet, but Dodge & Cox tends to be a long-term investor.

The $55-billion fund, a star performer for much of this decade, hit a wall in 2007. It eked out a mere 0.1% gain for the year as large holdings including Comcast Corp., Time Warner Inc., Pfizer Inc. -- and Wachovia -- slumped. The value-oriented fund is off to another poor start this year, down 11.9% (including a 0.8% drop on Monday), compared with a 9% drop for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

-- Baywatch it isn’t: With annual-meeting season approaching the AFL-CIO has launched the 2008 version of its ‘executive paywatch’ website, which as you might guess is not aimed at congratulating CEOs on their well-earned compensation last year. Anyone who enjoys looking at numbers with lots of digits to the left of the decimal point will find a gold mine here.