The debate among Congress, the Administration, bankers, and financial experts has raged on since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed into the arms of the federal government. Their portfolios of bad mortgages grew so…
Americans are still shrinking their credit according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve. July marked a sixth consecutive drop and the seasonally adjusted rate of credit contraction came to down 1.8%. Overall,…
If corporations have high credit ratings, there is an opportunity to borrow for rates that have not been seen in years (or ever). August saw key bond issuances at extremely low rates from Johnson…
Nearly every stock and ADR/ADS of European banking stocks are lower so far on Tuesday over concerns over debt levels and downside levels of recent stress tests not factoring in the right risks in…
The recession is over, at least for companies which want to raise money through IPOs. There have already been a large number of initial public offerings this year despite uneven markets. That may be…
It has become clear that jobs in some industries may never come back or if they do it will take years or decades for a recovery. 24/7 Wall St. examined the Bureau of Labor…
Perhaps the biggest news of the week was that JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) was closing down its proprietary trading operations. The ramifications were taken out of context. On the surface, the news…
During his interminable testimony before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that banks that posed a major risk to financial stability should be closed. “If the crisis has a…
$100 billion… That is roughly the combined tally of August share buyback announcements and merger announcements. This may not be a record, but it has to be one of the most active months of…
Laura Tyson, who began arguing for second stimulus six months after the $787 billion plan was passed, is making her case again. It may be too little too late. Writing this weekend in the…
National Bank of Greece SA (NYSE: NBG) may be one of the poster children for the troubled banking sector in the PIIGS, but the huge earnings decline is actually good news. When was the…
Ambac Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE: ABK) has telegraphed filing with deep implications. The company withdrew its earlier shelf registration statement with the SEC that would have allowed it to sell mixed securities. This time…
What happens when Dow Jones Industrial Average components have dividend yields on the common stocks that are above the yield of the 10-year Treasury Note or even the 30-Year Treasury Long Bond? In the…
National Bank of Greece SA (NYSE: NBG) is trading higher this morning on a key analyst upgrade. The problem is that the upgrade is hardly an endorsement. Goldman Sachs raised the rating on the…
Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) shares have dropped to 52-week low in the last few days. So has Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC). Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and Citigroup (NYSE: C), and quasi-bank GE (NYSE:…