The rule on Wall St. is that securities analysts don’t rate their own firms. Now that brokerage research departments are no longer slaves to investment banking, the independence of analysts is supposed…
It is not hard to blame Goldman Sachs (GS) for failing to cut its own earnings estimates for the next quarter and the full year. That kind of action by analysts is…
With nearly all of the top investment banks in a precarious financial position as a result of horrific investments in bad debt, banks have no shortage of things to worry about. But…
These are some of the top analyst downgrades or negative calls we are seeing this morning, and you’ll notice that brokerage firm stocks are again the targets of many downgrades: Citigroup (C)…
Banks that claim they are off-loading risk may be making a case which is a bit overblown. Recently, Citigroup (C) and RBS (RBS) dumped loans to private equity firms including Blackstone (BX).…
Famed investor Michael Price, a man who has been beating up on poorly-managed companies for decades, is short Citigroup (C) and Wachovia (WB). He reasons that the worst of the credit crisis…
Back in January, the Supreme Court placed stringent limitations on scheme liability — the notion that investment banks and accounting firms that inadvertently helped companies commit accounting fraud could face civil liability…
No one has really worked out how to wall-off significant risk in one division of a financial services giant from divisions which are "safe" and operating smoothly. UBS (UBS) skinned its investors…
Morgan Stanley (MS) thought it could pull a "monkey see, monkey do" act with NY State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. The investment house offered to buy back $4.5 billion in auction-rate securities…
There has been a great deal of talk about how the New York State Attorney General and the SEC has done companies and individual investors a service by getting Merrill Lynch (MER),…
The safe-house for money center banks closed and locked its doors long ago. The mortgage-related paper crisis rolls on like a mighty river and its latest victim is RBS (RBS). But, victim…
According to Reuters, RBS (RBS) had $1.35 billion loss due to write-downs. Reuters reports that Google (GOOG) says its investment in AOL may be impaired. Reuters writes that Citigroup (C) and Merrill…
Now that Citigroup (C) and Merrill Lynch (MER) have announced that they will buy back auction-rate securities sold to their private clients, the question arises about how financial companies with weaker balance…
Merrill Lynch (MER), pole-axed by the Citigroup (C) decision to buy back all of the auction-rate securities it has sold to individual investors, buckled and said it will purchase up to $12…
Douglas A. McIntyre In an announcement that shows how remarkable flawed the marketing and risk management at Citigroup (C) have been, the bank agreed to buy-back $7.5 billion in auction rate securities. It will also…
Douglas A. McIntyre