Posts for Ticker ‘PNC’

9 Of 10 Bank Holding Companies Make The Cut

Yesterday, the Federal Reserve reported that 9 out of 10 bank holding companies that were required to raise additional capital to bolster their balance sheets have successfully done so.  The Supervisory Capital Assessment Program (SCAP) had determined in May that these needed to raise $74.6 billion by November 9th.  This was achieved through new issuance of equity in the amount of $39 billion, conversion of existing preferred equity to common equity amounting to $23 billion, and the sale businesses and assets amounting to 9$ billion.  The ten bank holding companies that were required to raise additional capital were: Banks of America (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup (NYSE: C), Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB), GMAC LLC, KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), PNC Financial Services (NYSE: PNC), Regions Financial (NYSE: RF), SunTrust (NYSE: STI), and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC).

Of the ten the one laggard was GMAC, which failed to raise the necessary funds.  The May SCAP report indicated that GMAC needed to buffer its balance sheet with an additional $11.5 billion in Tier 1 capital.  The Federal Reserve expects the troubled mortgage and auto loan originator to fill in its funding gap by accessing the TARP Automotive Industry Financing Program.

Garrett W. McIntyre

The Twenty Companies That Wall St. Can Trust The Least

Wall St. likes financial statements that give it deep insights into a company’s operations, especially its liabilities. It likes boards that make sure shareholders get as complete a picture as possible of a firm’s balance sheet and details of its P&L, cash-flow, and other critical financial measurements.

bear24/7 Wall St. asked Audit Integrity to put together a list of companies traded on US exchanges with market caps of more than $3 billion that do particularly poorly in the areas  of corporate governance, detailed disclosure of high-risk events including M&A and restructurings, revenue and expense recognition, and asset and liability valuation.

Based on the Audit Integrity model, 24/7 created a list of the twenty companies that Wall St. can trust the least.  Among the companies that the analysis flagged are Altria (NYSE:MO), Chevron (NYSE:CVX), Credit Suisse (NYSE:CS), GE (NYSE:GE), Blackstone (NYSE:BX), Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT),  Wells Fargo (NYSE:WMT), and Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW)

The list:

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Top Analyst Upgrades, Downgrades, Initiations (AMZN, CB, CXW, GSK, ITRI, LEAP, LM, PNC, POT, VLO)

These are this Friday morning’s top 10 analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations we have seen from Wall Street’s research calls:

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) Raised to Outperform at FBR Capital (new target $130); Raised to Overweight at Barclays; Raised to Buy at Jefferies; Raised to Buy at Janney Montgomery.
Chubb (NYSE: CB) Cut to Hold at Stifel Nicolaus.
Corrections Corp (NYSE: CXW) Started as Buy at Sun Trust Robinson Humphrey
GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) Cut to Hold at Jefferies.
Itron (NASDAQ: ITRI) Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.
Leap Wireless (NASDAQ: LEAP) Started as Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Legg Mason (NYSE: LM) Raised to Neutral at Credit Suisse.     Credit Suisse
PNC Financial Services (NYSE: PNC) Raised to Overweight at Wells Fargo.
Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, Inc. (NYSE: POT) Cut to Sector Perform at CIBC; targets raised to $125 at RBC and raised to $135 at Canaccord.
Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO) Raised to Overweight at Barclays.

You can join our open email distribution list to get updates on top analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s, secondary offerings, Warren Buffett and other guru activity, M&A and more.

JON C. OGG
OCTOBER 23, 2009

Very Mixed Analyst Calls in Financial Stocks (GS, MS, BBT, CMA, FITB, PNC, PRSP, STI, WFC)

We are seeing a very mixed picture among the analyst calls this morning over banks and financial stocks.  We are seeing some very positive “BUY” calls and we are also seeing some new “SELL” calls.

Goldman Sachs (GS) Started as Buy at Deutsche Bank.
Morgan Stanley (MS) Started as Buy at Deutsche Bank.
BB&T (BBT) Started as Sell at UBS.
Comerica (CMA) Started as Sell at UBS
Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB) Started as Sell at UBS.
PNC Financial (PNC) Started as Sell at UBS.
Prosperity Bancshares (PRSP) Cut to Underweight at Morgan Stanley.
SunTrust (STI) Started as Sell at UBS.
Wells Fargo (WFC) Started as Sell at UBS.

You can join our open email distribution list to get updates each morning on analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s and secondary offerings, Warren Buffett and other guru activity, M&A and more.

JON C. OGG

October 8, 2009

Media Digest 6/29/2009

newspaperReuters:   GM will accept product liability on cars it has built in the past.

Reuters:   Obama could consider a second stimulus if necessary.

Reuters:   Rising office availability in NYC is slowing.

Reuters:   VW says it has not issued an ultimatum to Porsche on a tie-up.

Reuters:   Tata launched Jaguar and Rover in India. Read More »

Heads Of Bailed Out Firms Still Love Their Private Jets

airplaneThe Wall Street Journal, in a bit of investigative reporting, found that the CEOs of companies that have received federal bailout funds are still having fun using their firms’ private jets. Or, in some cases, these executives make the case that it is better to use the jets than fly commercial.

The situation is not as bad as the paper makes it out to be. Read More »

S&P Looking For More Bank Losses (WFC, CMA, USB, BBT, RF, COF, FITB, HBAN, SNV, WTNY, FAS)

burning-money-picStandard & Poor’s may still have at least some relevance in its debt ratings.  This morning we saw a wave of downgrades at banks by the debt ratings agency on systematic-risk and non-systematic risk.   We tried to shorten this up to the most concise report in rating groups as this is hitting many of the bank stocks pretty hard this morning. Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC), Comerica (NYSE: CMA), USBancorp (NYSE: USB), BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT), Regions Financial Corp. (NYSE: RF), Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF), Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB), Huntington Bancshares Inc. (NASDAQ: HBAN), Synovus Financial Corp. (NYSE: SNV) and Whitney Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: WTNY) were all in the wave of S&P downgrades.  This news has the extremely volatile Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares (NYSE: FAS) triple leverage financial sector ETF down 7% at $8.60.
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Stress Test Results, Bank by Bank (AXP, BBT, BAC, COF, C, FITB, GS, JPM, KEY, MET, MS, PNC, RF, STT, STI, USB, WFC)

Finally, the stress tests are out for the US banking and financial institutions.  Of the banks, 10 of 19 banks need a combined $74 billion of equity.The good news is that a few companies were given essentially a clean bill of health, such as American Express Company (AXP), BB&T Corp. (BBT), Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BK), Capital One Financial Corp. (COF), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), MetLife, Inc. (MET), State Street Corp. (STT), and USBancorp (USB).

We have broken these down in a single unified and summarized report that shows each bank or financial institution along with an estimated market cap to show what the capital requirements are as far as what each bank will need to raise versus what shareholders already have at stake.   We summarized the list below, and be advised that the tier 1 capital is the total tier 1 capital rather than the Tier 1 Common Capital.  Also be advised that the SCAP BUFFER is the term used for the capital needed to be raised, and that is inclusive of capital raised and from infusions.
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Disappearing Dividends At America’s Best-Known Companies II (GE, PNC, IP, TXT, JPM)

Back in mid-February we discussed the latest trend of big-name companies slashing their dividends and how the trend will likely grow. Well it is growing, and fast.

In this horrible market, dividends have been one of the few saviors for investors, but increasingly shareholders can no longer count on the payouts from many well-known corporate leaders.

Read more…

Media Digest 3/3/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg

newspaper1According to Reuters, too much dependence on government aid could cause a second recession when the companies are forced to stand on their own.

Reuters reports that Obama is considering funds to buy bad assets.

Reuters reports that February auto sales will be near a 27-year low.

Reuters reports that sales of the Apple (AAPL) Mac are growing overseas but face hurdles.

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Are Troubled Bank Stocks A Double? (FITB, BAC, C, PNC, STT, BK, WFC, JPM)

It seems that Uncle Sam via Treasury and via Congress is going to give the markets what they want.  TARP, TALF, Bad Bank, aggregation, accounting rule exceptions, and the rest.  If you were watching many of these huge banks with troubled stocks and troubled operations you might have thought that nationalization was imminent.  But the rally that came on the heels of developments on Thursday and Friday took some of these stocks up massively.
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Media Digest 2/4/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYT, FT, Bloomberg

According to Reuters, Motorola (MOT) is betting much of its future on the Google (GOOG) Android phone system.

Reuters reports that car sales hit a 27-year low.

Reuters reports that Obama plans to set executive pay at companies getting TARP funds at $500,000.

Reuters reports that Panasonic lost $4.2 billion and will cut 15,000 jobs.

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An Ugly Truth About Bank Accounting (BAC)(WFC)(C)

Empire24/7 Wall St. set out to look at whether financial reporting at a number of companies, particularly banks ,is "reliable"? This process took into account the chances that a firm might have to restate earnings, face litigation over misstatements, and even exposure to charges of fraud.

24/7 turned to Audit Integrity, which conducts forensic measurements of the transparency and statistical reliability of corporate financial reporting. The firm uses its own "Audit Integrity Accounting and Governance Risk Rating" to determine accounting risk: 1) a forensic assessment of the risk that financial results are misrepresented in public disclosures, and 2) governance risks, a forensic measurement a company’s governance practices helps users identify statistically high-risk behavior.

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Media Digest 10/30/2008 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg

NewspaperAccording to Reuters, investors and banks are in a struggle over whether financial companies should be able to change the way they value assets under accounting rules.

Reuters writes that improvements in Asia markets show that investors are returning to taking risks.

Reuters writes that GM (GM) and Chrysler have agreed to all major terms for a merger.

Read More »

What The NCC (NCC) Deal Says About Bank Balance Sheets

Cammonopoly_wideweb__430x3250NCC (NCC) was bought today by PNC in what most people would view as a classic "takeunder" The price of the deal was well below where the shares traded yesterday.

NCC’s stock is down 20% on the news. PNC will pay a total of $2.23 a share or $5.58 billion.

The government had a hand in the deal and probably even forced it. PNC says it received a $7.7 billion investment from the government, under its $750 billion bailout plan.

The amount of the write-offs when the deal is done will be extraordinary. PNC’s CEO said $19.9 billion of losses on the National City portfolio will come in as write-downs at the time the acquisition closes.

That says a great deal about major US bank balance sheets. Wachovia (WB) reported a third-quarter loss of $23.9 billion on Wednesday, which say a mouthful about that state of its financials. Under the provisions of its merger deal with Wells Fargo (WFC), it was required to fess up to everything bad it could find. According to Reuters, loan losses from Wachovia could hit $74 billion.

Odd that the really big write-offs only get exposed when these firms are bought. It is almost as if those banks which are still independent are moving a bit slowly in getting all of their cards onto the table.

Douglas A. McIntyre

PNC and National City Banks Merge Despite Armageddon (PNC, NCC)

Pnc_logoToday is one ugly day for financial stocks, and probably one of the crummiest days so far that you could pick to announce a merger.  Yet hold on to your seats.  PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire National City Corporation (NYSE: NCC).  The deal has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

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Baird on Banks (BAC, BBT, CMA, FITB, KEY, MI, MTB, PNC, STI, USB, WB, WFC)

ROBERT W.BAIRD has initiated mostly cautious coverage on Banks and Financials this morning.  Most are Neutral rated, although there are a few Outperform ratings in the coverage group. Here are the initiations.

NEUTRAL ratings initiated on:

  • Bank of America (BAC),
  • BB&T (BBT),
  • Fifth Third (FITB)
  • Keycorp (KEY),
  • Marshall & Isley (MI),
  • SunTrust (STI),
  • US Bancorp (USB),
  • Wachovia (WB),
  • and Wells Fargo (WFC).

OUTPERFORM ratings initiated on:

  • Comerica (CMA),
  • M&T Bank (MTB),
  • and PNC Bank (PNC).

Jon C. Ogg
January 8, 2008