Buffett Dumping More & More Moody’s (MCO)
It wasn’t that long ago that we gave a list of stocks that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) needed to dump to help pay for its Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI)…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
Airlines Expect Massive Losses In 2010
Lower oil prices and a resurgent economy should help the airlines post improved results in 2010, but that expectation is hardly true. The industry lost $11 billion in 2010. The International Air Transport Association…
Microsoft (MSFT), RIM (RIMM), And Apple (AAPL) To Benefit From Increased Corporate Spending
Corporate IT spending will pick up in the first quarter of 2010. That is the finding of a new research survey from ChangeWave. A total of 1,753 respondents involved with corporate IT spending in their…
Media Digest 12/15/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
Reuters: Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) will pay back TARP funds. Reuters: Kraft (NYSE:KFT) says it will be disciplined in its Cadbury (NYSE:CBY) buyout effort. Reuters: Some of AIG’s (NYSE:AIG) top staff are struggling…
Asia Markets And Europe Open (12/15/2009)
Markets in Asia fell. The Nikkei was off .2% to 10,083. The Hang Seng fell 1.2% to 21,814. The Shanghai Composite was off .9% to 3,274. At the open in Europe, The FTSE was…
The Market Returns To Gambling: IPOs To Triple In 2010
The DJIA went above 10,500 for the first time in fourteen months yesterday. That is an impressive move from under 6,550 in early March. It is easy to argue that such a surge is…
No New CEO For B of A, Wells Fargo Repays TARP
Citigroup’s (NYSE:C) announcement that it will pay back its TARP funds was not enough news for the day from the banking sector. Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) will not hire Robert Kelly current CEO of…
Top 50 Websites Dominated By Search And E-Mail (GOOG)(YHOO)(MSFT)(AOL)
The Top Fifty websites based on their percent of US online visits from January to November 2009 are dominated by search and e-mail. The top dozen sites according to data from Hitwise include the Yahoo!…
52-Week High Club (V, XTO, CAMD)
California Micro Devices Corp. (NASDAQ: CAMD) surged over 53.11% to a yearly high of $4.67 after the chipmaker agreed to be bought out by ON Semiconductor Corp. (NASDAQ: ONNN) for $4.70 a share. Visa…
Twelve Huge M&A Deals For 2010: The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
M&A activity picked up in the second half of 2009 as the market moved up and access to capital for big companies improved. Corporate debt offerings soared and banks began to make capital available…
Schwab Only Partial Read on Online Brokers (SCHW, ETFC, AMTD)
Charles Schwab Corp.(NASDAQ: SCHW) is acting as a drag on the online brokerage firms today. Schwab warned that its fourth quarter results would come in weak due to lower trading volumes and due to…
SPAC Developments Ramping Into Year-End (KWIC, TWO, UEI, ARR, AXG, NLX, BPW, TLB, URX)
To close out the year, SPACs are pumping out deals one after another. However, as of late, some blank checks have not fared as well, and the NASDAQ and OTC Bulletin Board could become…
Top Day Trader Alerts (AMZN, AXA, C, JAVA, ORCL, CAMD, XTO, V)
There are many key movers in day trader alert stocks this morning on news events. We have covered each story with a link to more detail and analysis over at VSInvestor.com: Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:…
Today’s Best Market Rumors (12/14/2009) (AAPL)(GOOG)(AOL)
Updated throughout the day AOL (NYSE:AOL) is in talks to sell its ICQ operations to Russian interests. (various) Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) will launch a new handset to be sold directly to consumers by-passing cellular carriers. (WSJ) China…
Bubble: Seeking A Useless Word’s Ban
John Tamny for Forbes The dictionary definition of the word “bubble” is “a nearly spherical body of gas contained in a liquid.” But economists, market commentators and politicians have hijacked the word, using it…
ExxonMobil & XTO: Big Oil Gets Even Larger (XOM, XTO)
Big oil is about to get even larger. Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) and XTO Energy Inc. (NYSE: XTO) announced an all-stock merger transaction valued at $41 billion. This merger, or acquisition, is meant…
Top 10 Analyst Upgrades, Downgrades, Initiations (AOL, ARMH, XOM, FNSR, MJN, PALM, PMCS, RSH, SBIB, V)
These are Monday’s top ten analyst upgrades, downgrades, and initiations seen in Wall Street research calls: AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) Started as Underperform at Credit Suisse. ARM Holdings (NASDAQ: ARMH) Started as Buy at…
Citigroup (C) To Repay Government, But Payment May Come Too Early
There is finally news that Citigroup (NYSE:C) is close to repaying the government as much as $20 billion to return TARP funds so it can get out from under the government’s thumb on issues such as compensation and board appointments. The public does not…
Toyota (TM) Means To Be First To The Plug-In Car Business
It is not entirely clear that consumers want plug-in electric cars, but that is not keeping Toyota (NYSE:TM) from marketing one, probably in two years. Hybrids are less expensive and get up to 50…
The Google (GOOG) Phone And The Beginning Of The End For RIM
RIM’s (NASDAQ:RIMM) stock has recovered some after several weeks of selling off due to the strength of the sales of the rival Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone. In the meantime, RIM has put together a contract…