Oppenheimer bank analyst Meredith Whitney has taken a dim view of bank earnings for some time. Her research has caused sell-offs in big financial company shares on more than one occasion. But,…
Douglas A. McIntyre Energy prices are on the back burner. The focus on economic growth, or lack thereof, has moved to whether credit markets will open up and how soon housing prices will recover. Focusing…
Goldman Sachs repeated its opinion that Citigroup (C) is a "sell" and probably would not make a cent until late in 2009. Goldman claims that credit markets are too tough for Citi…
Analysts often as about "earnings quality". How accurate are quarterly numbers? Are they being "managed" to make a company’s fortunes appear better than they actually are? The question has come up in…
No matter how badly the economy is doing and what shareholders in American financial firms have lost, it would be a shame to see investment bankers go without their bonuses. According to…
A year ago, it would have been hard to find people who would believe that Sirius XM (SIRI) or Charter Communications (CHTR) would trade below $1. Sirius had a 52-week high of…
Bank earnings were hit hard this week. Even if the results at Citigroup (C), Merrill Lynch (MER), and JP Morgan (JPM) did not drive the credit system into insolvency, each company had…
Henry Paulson seems like a very large and old Eagle Scout. He would never mislead, at least not on purpose. He gave the impression as he announced that Treasury would dump $250…
Citigroup (C) is still struggling. The bank reported a net loss for Q3 2008 third of $2.8 billion, or $.60 per. Total assets declined by $50 billion since second quarter 2008 and…
Douglas A. McIntyre According to Reuters, economic attention has now turned to the recession. Reuters reports that a new survey shows that half of all workers are worried about their jobs Reuters reports that unions…
Analysts assume third quarter earnings for the companies in the S&P 500 will be bad. But, looking at the number which is the average of all firms in the index is misleading.…
One size fits all. That is the reasoning behind Treasury’s plan to invest money in a number of large banks by purchasing preferred shares. Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan (JPM) and Lloyd…
According to Reuters, the Treasury will make $250 billion directly into banks. Ciitgroup (C) and JPMorgan (JPM) would get $26 billion each. Merrill Lynch (MER) and Bank of America (BAC) would each…
Many of the world’s largest sovereign funds believe that they were taken to the cleaners earlier this year when they dumped billions of dollars into large US financial companies like Citigroup (C)…
Douglas A. McIntyre Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) is the latest of the banking giants to look like the old Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) business model. This became the case with the acquisition of…