ThinkstockWhat are the biggest fears of the consumer with airlines? Outside of safety and crash issues, those fears are likely to be the price of tickets to fly and the cost of services. If you…
Bankrate Inc. (NYSE: RATE) was downgraded by analysts after the personal finance website had poor earnings and guidance. What 24/7 Wall St. wants to know is whether this is the sign of worse things…
thinkstockMany times on Wall St., blockbuster deals make analysts at big investment banks nervous. The deal is risky, the debt burden is stifling, the culture at the corporations that are involved will clash and…
ThinkstockBusiness inventories rose less than expected in the month of December. We would caution that this is an older number and is not generally a market-moving release. Also note that this does coincide with…
ThinkstockYou have heard about underfunded pension plans and pension news during bankruptcies for years now. It turns out that pension plans in corporate America are likely to keep shrinking. After 2012 was called a…
ThinkstockThe State of the Union speech was of course expected to include a plug for alternative energy and the solar energy sector. Solar was credited for bringing tens of thousands of American jobs. President…
ThinkstockWe had two rounds of economic readings this Wednesday morning: retail sales for the month of January, as well as import and export prices for the month of January. Retail sales rose by 0.1%…
ThinkstockIf there is one thing a U.S. politician does not want to appear after the horror of 9/11, it is being weak on defense. Yet with the exception of entitlements, the biggest part of…
Jon OggThese are some of this Wednesday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen from Wall St. research calls. Avon Products Inc. (NYSE: AVP) raised to Neutral at UBS. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A.…
ThinkstockAs Fat Tuesday quickly turns into Ash Wednesday, Lent will take place from Wednesday, February 13 to Saturday, March 30 in 2013. It may not seem like much on the surface, but this puts…
thinkstockGeneral Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) is about to be entirely without its former NBCUniversal media unit. After the close came word that Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) has decided to acquire GE’s entire 49% common…
ThinkstockOnce again investors are faced with the fact that the politicians in Washington D.C. cannot get anything done. With the president’s State of the Union address tonight, the focus turns again to the politics…
Short sellers have had their challenges due to rising share prices since the start of 2013. They have gone on to make some serious changes in the high dividend stocks now that the dividend…
ThinkstockBanks have been back as a flavor for investors for a while. After all, Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) was the best performing stock of all 30 Dow Jones Industrial Average components in…
ThinkstockFacebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) has had a very tough time attractive investors since its recent earnings report failed to continue to drive interest. It should be no surprise that the stock cooled off after…
courtesy of AppleApple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is not yet at the point that it really wants to take David Einhorn too seriously. At a Goldman Sachs investor conference today, CEO Tim Cook called Einhorn’s idea…
Frank Golhen, via Wikimedia CommonsBank of America/Merrill Lynch has its monthly RIC Report out, and the aim is a map ahead, now that shares have surged and the interest in risk assets has surged…
ThinkstockS&P 500 dividend growth continues to outpace earnings growth, a trend that likely will continue for a few more years. Low yields on fixed income alternatives and historically low dividend payout ratios provide both…
Jon OggThese are some of this Tuesday’s top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen from Wall St. research calls. Capstead Mortgage Corp. (NYSE: CMO) cut to Market Perform at JMP Securities. Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE:…
ThinkstockOcean Rig UDW Inc. (NASDAQ: ORIG) has announced that DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS) will be selling a total of 5 million shares of common stock in Ocean Rig. The move will raise capital via an underwritten…