Insightful Analysis and Commentary for U.S. and Global Equity Investors

Total news: 3320
Last news: 21 hours 4 minutes ago

International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) may be loved by Warren Buffett now with the huge stake owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A), but it turns out that the brokerage firm Stern Agee loves Big Blue as well.  The firm has started new coverage of IBM with a “Buy” rating, but more impressive is [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

For weeks, financial experts and the media have said that the $1.2 billion in customer money “lost” by MF Global would never been found. Now, the trustee for the customers reports that “The trustee’s investigators have now traced a majority of the cash transactions, totaling more than $105 billion, made in and out of MF [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

Any time you have a shareholder talking up a company, you have to understand that they are talking up their book.  Billionaires do this, and they tend to be listened to more than others when it comes to money.  After the close of trading on CNBC, Maria Bartoromo interviewed Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia. The prince [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM) is showing that not all international stories are cautious.  The owner of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC reported earnings for the fourth quarter.  For the quarter, earnings came in at $0.75 EPS versus the Thomson Reuters estimate of $0.74.  Sales were listed as $4.11 billion versus the $4.03 billion expected. [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

US equity markets opened lower this morning and never moved into positive territory all day. Greek debt swap negotiations made no discernible progress today and there was no scheduled data on tap to move the market one way or the other. The dollar picked up strength against the euro today, but faltered against the British [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

We are getting into the last of the normalized quarterly earnings reports and into the first waves of the companies with off-normal quarter-ends.  Tuesday is going to be another busy day with many earnings.  The earnings previews are for the following: Annaly Capital Management Inc. (NYSE: NLY); Bp Plc (NYSE: BP); Buffalo Wild Wings Inc. (NASDAQ: BWLD); Cerner Corporation [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]... - [Read more]

At about noon, the DJIA is still down 43 points at about 12,819, the Nasdaq has made up some ground, but is still down about 8 points at around 2,898, and the S&P 500 has also made up some of its earlier losses but remains down about 3 points at 1,342. Among the major movers [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

US coal miners had a tough fourth quarter and most are expecting the same conditions for at least the first half of 2012. Alpha Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: ANR), Patriot Coal Co. (NYSE: PCX), and Peabody Energy Co. (NYSE: BTU) are either slowing production or selling some assets. Consol Energy Inc. (NYSE: CNX) reported earnings last [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

Reports of a third quarter IPO from solar PV installer SolarCity could propel Tesla Motors Inc. CEO Elon Musk into the ranks of US billionaires. Musk, a cousin of SolarCity’s founders, is the company’s chairman and holds a 26% stake in SolarCity. At a rumored valuation of $1.5 billion, Musk’s stake would be worth about [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

The three major US equities indexes opened lower this morning on continued worries about the still-pending Greek debt swap. The DJIA is about 43 points at about 12,819, the Nasdaq Composite is down nearly 15 points at about 2,891, and the S&P 500 is down more than 6 points at about 1,339. There are several [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

Greece is within a day of a catastrophic default the ripple effects of which could put immense pressure on other troubled eurozone nations, particularly Portugal. The government has been told by its eurozone neighbors that if the country’s Parliament cannot agree to onerous austerity measure that the group will abandon Greece, probably to a national bankruptcy of [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

Major indexes reacted positively to this morning’s non-farm payrolls report and the drop in the US unemployment rate from 8.5% to 8.3%. Expectations for the unemployment rate had been no better than flat, and jobs growth of 243,000 was also a big surprise. The report ISM service jobs was also higher than expected this morning, [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

Enerkem Inc. has filed its paperwork with the SEC for an initial public offering.  The company did not list any terms of the IPO but its filing is for up to $125 million in common stock.  It will be hard not to think of the Back to the Future scene here where Doc uses organic [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

Caesars Entertainment Corporation is supposed to be one of the Top 17 IPOs to Watch in 2012.  That remains the case, but it is not because we have such admiration nor because of great success.  This is a huge company owned by private equity and it marks the resale of a huge leveraged buyout by [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) was halted pending news.  Most investors would have assumed it was about a lawsuit or around an earnings warning.  It is far worse.  Micron has announced the death of its Chairman and CEO.  51-year old Steve Appleton died in a small plane accident this morning in Boise. The company’s board [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

The huge increase in new jobs reported this morning, coupled with the drop in the unemployment rate to 8.3% has pushed US equities by more than 1% this morning. The news feeds renewed hopes for a stronger US economy going forward, and that means that US dollars are once again a good place to park [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

Among the major movers at around noon today are Threshold Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: THLD), Ocean Power Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: OPTT), Zynga Inc. (NASDAQ: ZNGA), MediciNova Inc. (NASDAQ: MNOV), and Mannkind Corp. (NASDAQ: MNKD). Shares of Threshold are up about 81% at $2.33. About 6 million shares have been traded so far today, compared with a [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

Solar systems installer SolarCity is reported to be preparing an IPO in the third quarter of this year. A Reuters report notes that Goldman Sachs will be the lead underwriter for the stock offering, which is expected to put a valuation of $1.5 billion on the company. SolarCity is the largest solar installer in the [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

Fed Funds Futures are not widely used by Joe Public, and much of the public may not even understand or know what these are.  The layman explanation is that they predict when the FOMC rate hikes are expected to start. The Fed Funds Futures are very different today from a week ago after Ben Bernanke [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]

They say there is an ETF for just about any investing strategy and just about any sector.  Today, there are five new ETFs hitting the market from BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK) under its iShares ETF platform.  These new ETFs will cover producers of (rather than the commodities) of agriculture, energy, select metals and mining, gold, and [...]

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Read more]