ThinkstockPerhaps you are tired of hearing about the credit ratings of the PIIGS in Europe or maybe not. It turns out that Standard & Poor’s has downgraded the sovereign credit rating of Italy to…
2013 has been a stellar year for stock investors, and long-term bond investors have been finding out that they actually can have real losses. After a very volatile June, many investors may have been…
ThinkstockThe U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released the monthly revision to its Short-Term Energy Outlook today, and the major change is that the EIA expects the average price of a barrel of WTI crude…
ThinkstockThe Bureau of Labor Statistics may have released its key employment situation last Friday for the month of June, but there is an interesting report showing the May data on total number of job…
ThinkstockIn what may be the last massive mining project we see for some time, Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. (NYSE: TRQ) announced yesterday that the $6.2 billion Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold project in Mongolia…
ThinkstockWhen supermajor oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell PLC (NYSE: RDS-A) pick a new chief executive officer, the new appointment virtually always comes from the upstream exploration and production side of the business. After…
courtesy of Sprint Corp.Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) is closing on its acquisition of Clearwire on Tuesday, and the company is still becoming a part of Softbank. Some investors may only consider Sprint a…
ThinkstockThe International Monetary Fund (IMF) has released its newest forecasts for global growth in its World Economic Outlook (WEO), and the expectation is that emerging markets are going to lead to even slower global…
ThinkstockThe Conference Board has released its latest Employment Trends Index (ETI), showing that employment edged higher in June, although there is some real concern here about the forward trends. The report may seem to…
courtesy of Hostess Brands Inc.The excitement is palpable. Hostess Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Ho Hos and Cupcakes will arrive again on store shelves next week. Check out the countdown clock on the Hostess website to…
ThinkstockSterne Agee has downgraded many targets on its mortgage REIT sector. Investors can find extremely high-yield dividends here, often north of 10%, but the risk versus reward often can be too much for many…
ThinkstockMiddle East instability has long been the geopolitical trigger for oil pricing. As tensions continue to rise in Egypt, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) has soared over the $103 level and the price spread to…
ThinkstockIn the month of May, 52,000 U.S. homes were foreclosed, more than a revised total of 50,000 in April and down from 71,000 in May 2012, according to research firm CoreLogic Inc. (NYSE: CLGX).…
These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations from select Wall Street research calls on Tuesday, July 9, 2013. They include Hewlett-Packard, Western Digital and SanDisk.
ThinkstockCorporate America continues to increase cash payouts to shareholders at a high, shareholder-friendly rate. S&P 500 dividends per share growth accelerated to 15.5% in the second quarter. That was well above the 5% growth…