These are some of the top analyst upgrades we are seeing in early hours of pre-market trading this Tuesday morning: AON Corp. (AOC) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs Bank Of America (BAC) Raised…
The early wave of third quarter earnings stepped on a banana. Pepsi (PEP) numbers were awful and they cost a lot of people their jobs. Globally, approximately 3,300 positions will be eliminated in connection…
Yahoo! (YHOO) needs the deal for Google (GOOG) to sell search advertising for the portal company more than Google needs it. The world’s largest search firm may make a modest sum off its commissions…
A lot of people believe that Merck (MRK) knew a lot more about the dangers of its arthritis drug Vioxx than the company ever let on. Heart problems were apparently a by-product of using…
Analysts assume third quarter earnings for the companies in the S&P 500 will be bad. But, looking at the number which is the average of all firms in the index is misleading. The market…
One size fits all. That is the reasoning behind Treasury’s plan to invest money in a number of large banks by purchasing preferred shares. Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan (JPM) and Lloyd Blankfein of…
According to Reuters, the Treasury will make $250 billion directly into banks. Ciitgroup (C) and JPMorgan (JPM) would get $26 billion each. Merrill Lynch (MER) and Bank of America (BAC) would each get $12.5…
Markets in Asia were up sharply. The Nikkei rose 14.3% to 9,456. Mitsubishi UFJ was up 14%. Toyota (TM) rose 15.5%. Honda (HMC) rose 17.8%. The Hang Seng moved up 4.4% to 17,028. CNOOC…
The credit crisis has been so severe that even the largest companies in the US have had trouble getting access to the capital markets. Firms as large as GM (GM), Goodyear, and Gannett (GCI)…
Many of the world’s largest sovereign funds believe that they were taken to the cleaners earlier this year when they dumped billions of dollars into large US financial companies like Citigroup (C) and Merrill…
The US Treasury is apparently ready to buy significant stakes in nine of the largest financial firms in America. The trouble with the report is that no one knows for certain which companies are…
There was an interesting Form 4 filed today with the SEC. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) has artificially added to his holdings of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (NYSE: BNI). On October 8,…
American Axle (AXL) S&P downgrade due to big customer GM (GM) cutting production. Drops to $2.61 from 52-week high of $28.11. Pier 1 (PIR) Analyst dowgrade due to weak same-store sales. Down to $1.58…
Back in normal economic times and back when private equity was king, Mondays were often referred to as "Merger Monday" because mergers would be announced at the start of the week. If you monitor…
Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) is the latest of the banking giants to look like the old Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) business model. This became the case with the acquisition of Wachovia Corp.…