Crude Builds Slowing? (OIL)
The weekly oil inventories are still building by the Department of Energy’s count. Last week we saw a build of 600,000 barrels of crude to 375.3 million barrels and distillates grew by 2.4 million…
All Work
Douglas A. McIntyre
Visa Files To Raise Cash (V)
We had been awaiting a shelf registration statement from Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) for a while now, and now we have gotten that filing this morning. While the company has downplayed the importance of…
Transocean Profits Sink, Yet Surprise (RIG, DO)
The world’s largest offshore driller, Transocean Ltd. (NYSE:RIG), reported first quarter 2009 EPS of $2.93 on net income of $942 million and revenue of $3.12 billion. In the first quarter of 2008, Transocean reported…
Bank of America’s $34 Billion Distress Signal
The first stress test result suggests Treasury was conning its way toward nationalization. By Chadwick Matlin of The Big Picture When the stress tests were first announced, I suspected that they were a convenient…
Oil & Energy Players Raising Cash (DPTR, HEP, RRC, SGY)
We are starting to see more and more of the second-tier and third-tier energy players and oil and gas players either file for secondary offerings or actually sell shares in public offerings. Delta Petroleum…
Refiner Shows Profit, E&P and Services Don’t (WNR, DVN, FWLT)
Three companies representing three distinct areas of the oil business have reported earnings and the surprise to many will be that the refiner put up the best numbers. Western Refining Inc. (NYSE:WNR) reported EPS…
Blackstone Results, Private Equity Close to Returning (BX)
The Blackstone Group, L.P. (NYSE: BX) posted results that show a turn for the better in private equity is either afoot or much closer than before. It said that its economic net income was…
ADP Jobs… A Question of Calculation Methodology
ADP is out with its controversial jobs number this morning ahead of this week’s unemployment report. ADP said that there was “only” a -491,000 drop of jobs in the US private sector. The expectation…
Garmin’s Head On Collision (GRMN)
Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN) looks a bit like a train wreck as the maker of mobile GPS systems and PND systems posted $0.25 non-GAAP EPS and $437 million in revenues vs. Thomson Reuters estimates…
Top Analyst Upgrades (ALU, AMGN, HBC, IFX, SMTC, DIS, WBMD)
These are some of the top pre-market analyst upgrades and positive research calls we have seen from Wall Street this Wednesday morning with more than two hours until the market opens: Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) Raised…
Top Analyst Downgrades (BCS, NILE, ED, MVL, RBS, SRE, UBS)
These are the top pre-market analyst downgrades or cautious calls we have seen from Wall Street this Wednesday morning with more than two hours until the market opens: Barclays (BCS) Cut to Sell at…
Twenty Percent Of Homes Now Underwater
Warren Buffett and Ben Bernanke may believe that housing prices are stabilizing, but the number of Americans who owe more on their mortgages is growing. Those people are certainly more likely to default on…
Government Seems To Be Having It Way With Chrysler And GM (GM)
It appears that the creditors at Chrysler and GM (GM) may be running out of luck and time to get what they think is a reasonable payments for their investments. A federal bankruptcy judge…
Bank Of America (BAC), Short $35 Billion, Needs To Play Its Merrill Card
Bank of America (BAC) will need to improve its capital position by nearly $35 billion, according to several press reports. It may be able to sell its part of its stake in the China Construction…
Apple (AAPL) Won’t Give Up Its Cash
There must have been a dip in the news about new products and management changes at Apple (AAPL). Most of the conversation about the company in the last several days has turned to Apple’s…
Putting Bernanke On The Shelf For A Year
Ben Bernanke’s comments about the recession and his reasons for believing that the economy has hit bottom could have been a mimeograph of a dozen other speeches made by Fed chairmen testifying before Congress…
SEC’s Salvo In The New War Against Insider Trading & Credit Default Swaps (DBK, KKR, BX)
Insider trading has a new face. Credit default swaps, long one of the least understood and least regulated sets of financial instruments can be used for insider trading in a similar manner to stocks,…
Media Digest 5/6/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg
According to Reuters, Bank of America (BAC) will have to raise billions of dollars. Reuters reports that a judge has approved a quick auction of Chrysler assets over the objections of creditors. Reuters reports…
Asia Markets And Europe Open 5/6/2009
Markets in Japan were closed for a holiday. The Hang Seng was up 1% to 16,590. The Shanghai Composite rose 1% to 2,593. At the open in Europe, the FTSE was down .5%. The…
Cramer Calls Brocade His #2 Speculative Tech Stock (BRCD, IBM, TKLC)
Jim Cramer came back on CNBC’s MAD MONEY with a “Part 2” of his basket of 5 speculative technology stocks for investors. The second pick named Tuesday was Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: BRCD),…