Michael Gracie

More in the “you can’t make this stuff up” category…

According to the Wall Street Journal:

Albert L. Lord, chief executive of student-loan titan SLM Corp., or Sallie Mae, sold slightly more SLM stock than the company announced last week.

On Friday, Mr. Lord sold 1,265,401 shares of SLM, or 97% of his company stock, according to filings the company made yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The sales were at an average price of $27.36 a share.

And today…

SLM Corp. posted a record drop in New York Stock Exchange trading after Albert Lord, in his first comments since taking over as chief executive officer last week, said an increase in borrowing costs would slow profit growth.

Taking lessons from Countrywide antics? Who knows…there’s always some excuse.

UPDATE: Call me crazy, but I bet shareholders would rather hear this.

UPDATE 2: After reading about the already infamous conference call, the first thing I thought of wasn’t Jeff Skilling, but Patrick Byrne.

Slightly less amusing than owning banking stocks

From the Screw FASB And Their Damn Year End Closings Department:

From the Every Dog Has Their Day Department:

From the Sallie Mae’s Collateral Is Worthless Department:

From the I’ll Take That Muni At LIBOR + 16 Department:

and…

From the Microsoft Ain’t Dead Yet Department:

The best and worst.

Personally, I think Time messed up a bit - Cerberus bagging United Rentals and J.C. Flowers walking from Sallie Mae could very well turn out looking pretty smart (for Cerberus and J.C. Flowers). And Nokia likely paid too much for Navteq, which really turned out to be a good deal for Garmin.

UPDATE: J.C. Flowers is already looking smart, as Sallie Mae continues chiseling its outlook. Dana Cimilluca agrees.