Banks need a break, right? After all the bailouts, I thought so, too. Until this morning. As it turns out, banks may be eating some bad loans, but they’re raking in cash from other sources. The Financial Times reported that banks will charge customers more than $38.5… Read More

Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) is dying and will bleed out soon. The question isn’t if – it’s when. The company’s eponymous blue-and-yellow video stores are hopelessly stuck in the past. The brick-and-mortar model of video rental has been overtaken by superior technologies that are far more convenient and customer-focused. Video rental… Read More

Yesterday’s earnings wrapup suggested three best bets, Caterpillar, Merck and UnitedHealth Group. All three companies exceeded expectations and posted strong gains. Caterpillar rose nearly 8%, Merck was up +6% and UnitedHealth gained 3%. The Dow and Nasdaq, by contrast, were flat for the… Read More

When it rains, it pours. And we’ll see how that bodes for the market as Wall Street is deluged with second-quarter earnings reports today, led by five Dow components during the day and culminating with results from Apple after the… Read More

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) earned $2.7 billion this quarter, up +36% from $2.0 billion in the second quarter of 2008. Morgan earned 28 cents a share, a -47% decline from 53 cents a share a year ago. The results reflected a charge of $1.1 billion, or 27… Read More

Smaller business inventories and increased sales are good signs in a recession. Economic data released today show the first has already happened and the second appears to be happening. Consumer products and basic materials shares gained on the news, up +1.2% and +1.5%, respectively,… Read More

  Oil prices have dipped from their recent peak above $70 per barrel, and the price of another commodity suggests crude has farther to fall. A barrel of oil contains 5.8 million British thermal units (BTUs) of… Read More