According to familiar individuals, Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. is in talks to buy the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

While I have mentioned RATE in a negative light in the recent past, I just want to add to my original post that I believe Bankrate’s earnings per share for the first quarter will come in closer to the lower end of analyst estimates - somewhere between 25 and 29 cents per share. The stock […]

Bloomberg is reporting that Citigroup may cut 17,000 jobs as the result of a three month efficiency review designed to cut annual expenses by $1 billion. A chunk of that savings is likely to come from IT.Citigroup CEO Charles Prince alluded to the need to consolidate computer systems on the bank’s fourth quarter conference call […]

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It is hard to know given Goldman’s limited disclosure of their alternative asset management activities, which encompass a range of businesses and streams of cash flows to rival Blackstone’s. But exactly how large, diverse and profitable is it? Don’t you think that better understanding these facts could have a material, positive impact on the analyst […]

Robert Craig-Stephenson submits: It is not often for an analyst to be vindicated within one week of publishing his opinion on a particular stock. But I am not an analyst, which probably explains how I got these things right in the first place!
Let’s gloat over some of my previous writings on Indymac (NDE). I will […]

Robert Ataniw submits: American Home Mortgage (AHM) is paying the piper this morning. An earnings update for Q1 yesterday, lowering the target from $1.06 to $0.40-$0.60 and cutting dividends, seems to have taken the stock down 16%.
My first reaction was : WHAT? Only 16%!!?
Never mind the fact that, using the vaunted discounted cash flow/earnings or […]

Last week, one long-time reader, a senior equity derivatives maven with one of the bulge bracket Sell Side shops, scolded us for spending too much time pondering the affect on bank safety and soundness of rising loan default rates:
Everyone focuses on ‘defaults’, but the risk, in my opinion, is in the ’spreads’. People have levered […]

Chad Brenner submits: Since the last summary of Doral on these pages, the company has announced that it will issue its 10-K annual report later in April. Investors will be looking for insight into whether the turnaround is indeed underway, or if conditions are worsening.
Among the key questions is the progress on shareholder lawsuits […]

The New York Times reports Citigroup CEO Charles Prince will eliminate or reassign over 26,000 jobs (8% percent of its work force) when he releases plans for a major overhaul on Wednesday. In a company memo Monday obtained and verified by Reuters, Prince said he would consolidate some back/middle-office and corporate functions, move some work […]