Recession Draws Closer
Stock market benchmarks dropped today, with the Dow off more than 200 points at the close. Earnings season is winding to a close with a mixture of good news and bad news. The good news is that a surprisingly large number of companies managed to surprise Wall Street with better-than-expected results....
Pick of the Week: YRCW
Over the past few months, our Picks-of-the-Week have been heavily weighted in several key sectors. Overall, we’re happy with the performance of these sectors especially as the broad market slips. However, there’s a more recent development in play: declining crude oil. Our picks are missing...
Consumer Sentiment: Why So Down?
I like reading The Economist both for the dry British style and the coverage of topics that are ignored by most American publications. Frequently I disagree with their editorial positions — but their thought process is always interesting. This week’s “leader” (as they call their...
Historic Housing Bill
On Saturday, the U.S. Senate passed the biggest housing bill of the credit crisis. In effect, the Federal government issued a blank check to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to help shore up their accounts and keep them in business. They passed a bill that opened a credit line to these banks known as Government...
The Old Bulls Part 2: Will Yahoo Be Carl Icahn’s Waterloo?
After a long break, we now return to our survey of the Old Bulls on Wall Street. This time we turn our sights on billionaire, corporate-raiding, shareholder-activist, and philanthropist, Carl Icahn. This enigma-investor is perched high in a paneled office overlooking Central Park. Surrounded by million...
Bank Rally Fading
All good things come to an end. So it was today for the furious rally in financial services stocks which began last week. This is not particularly surprising, given that the explosive upturn was engineered by non-market forces that will remain nameless but whose mailing addresses are located in Washington,...
The Truth Comes Out
The rally in financial stocks that began last week is not yet over, but it is definitely struggling to maintain momentum. Aside from the SEC’s mysterious decision to crack down on “naked shorting,” the sector was the beneficiary of good quarterly reports from some large banks like Wells...
More Weakness in the Pipeline?
t’s hard to see the future, but we still try. Over the past few months, we’ve gazed into our crystal ball time and again. Sometimes we were right, sometimes not. But regardless the outcome of our predictions, we usually give you something to think about. Today is no different. What happened...
With Citigroup, It’s All About Expectations
This morning the financial wires brought ‘good’ news to a banking sector. Citigroup (C) boosted the markets as AP/Yahoo reported: “Citigroup has become the latest big bank to assuage Wall Street’s worries about the financial sector, posting a $2.5 billion second-quarter loss that...
19 Naked Shorts
As you sit in the Emergency Room with all the other investors who are trying to recover from this week’s market whiplash, here is something for you to ponder: “Why 19?” On Tuesday afternoon the SEC announced temporary restrictions on “naked shorting” of certain stocks. Space...
