ThinkstockThe New York Federal Reserve branch’s Liberty Street Economics latest blog posting indicates that the New York Fed staff is targeting stronger growth and perhaps better prices ahead. The change may not be much…
ThinkstockJust over 13 million U.S. mortgage loans are currently underwater, meaning that homeowners owe more on the mortgages than the property is worth. The number is shrinking, but homeowners with negative home equity face…
ThinkstockThe Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City is headed by President Esther George, and she is the current policy hawk of 2013, after Richmond’s Jeff Lacker had been the big hawk in 2012. George…
Bullish sentiment is up, just in time for a good correction. The latest poll from the American Association of Individual Investors reportedly showed that the bullish sentiment from investors had risen to 48.97% from…
thinkstockThe U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) today reported the U.S. natural gas stocks increased by 89 billion cubic feet last week, at the lower end of a range of an expected build of between…
Jon OggWisdomTree Investments Inc. (NASDAQ: WETF) has been winning and winning due to its great Japan bet on a hedged Japan Equity ETF, which moved to eliminate the currency risks of the yen devaluation from…
ThinkstockThe U.S. Census Bureau this morning released data on new single-family home sales for April. Sales rose 2.3% month-over-month, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 454,000, from an upwardly revised March sales figure…
ThinkstockThe Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) reported this morning that U.S. home prices rose 1.9% sequentially in the first quarter of 2013. Compared to the first quarter of 2012, the house price index gained…
ThinkstockBefore markets opened this morning, specialty retailer rue21 Inc. (NASDAQ: RUE) and private equity firm Apax Partners announced that they had reached a definitive agreement under which funds controlled by Apax will acquire all…
Ed Brown, via Wikimedia CommonsWeekly jobless claims data have been released by the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics and may offer at least some support for a very weak equity market this…
thinkstockRalph Lauren Corp. (NYSE: RL) reported fourth-quarter and fiscal-year 2013 company earnings before markets opened this morning. For the quarter, the apparel company posted adjusted diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.41 on revenues…
ThinkstockLast year was a good year for oil and gas stocks, but unless a company had a refining and marketing operation, it was not a great year. Share prices rose by at least 80%…
These are the top analyst downgrades, cautious research notes and stocks to sell from Wall Street for Thursday, May 23, 2013. They include ARM Holdings, Devon Energy and Chipotle Mexican Grill.
ThinkstockThe world of biotech investing is always a difficult one. Often a binary event, such as U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval or a life-saving capital raise, is the difference between not only…
These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations from select Wall Street research calls on Thursday, May 23, 2013. They include Seagate Technology, VeriFone and Hewlett-Packard.