Wall Street bets on companies by buying their stock. It bets against them by shorting their shares. A short seller borrows shares, sells them and waits for the price to go down. When it does, the shares are repurchased at a… Read More

In a bid to protect investors from an often misunderstood financial instrument, UBS, Edward Jones and Ameriprise Financial banned clients from purchasing leveraged ETFs this week. Company Available Broker Sales Merrill… 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

Biogen Idec (Nasdaq: BIIB) said it earned $143 million in the second quarter, or 49 cents a share, down -31% from last year, when the company earned 70 cents a share. The results reflect a $110 million expenditure on Fampridine, a new drug to treat multiple sclerosis. Excluding the purchase,… Read More

Harley-Davidson (NYSE: HOG) said second-quarter earnings fell -91% from a year ago. The manufacture of iconic motorcycles said it earned $19.8 million, or 8 cents a share, versus last year’s profit of $222.8 million, or 95 cents… Read More

Healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) said this morning that second-quarter earnings amounted to $1.15 a share. The results, a -4.7% decline from a year ago, beat expectations, despite challenges facing the company’s pharmaceutical unit and a stronger dollar. The company said… Read More

Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) earned a record $3.4 billion in the second quarter, setting a record and handily exceeding even the most optimistic forecasts. The results were +64.5% higher than a year ago, illustrating how quickly the investment bank has recovered from the… Read More

When will the recovery come? Has it already begun? These are questions experts can answer only in hindsight. But just because no one knows exactly when the recovery will arrive doesn’t mean it’s not coming. It always has, so one can say with a fair degree of certainty that it… Read More

The American Bankers Association said consumer-credit delinquencies rose to 3.23% of all accounts in the first quarter of 2009. Delinquencies on bank-card accounts rose to 4.75%. The percentage of consumers at least 30 days late making a payment is the highest since the group began keeping records in 1974:… Read More

Legendary pop star Michael Jackson spent exuberantly and accumulated a lot of debt during his lifetime, but one shrewd business decision might save his estate. Jackson paid $47.5 million for the rights to some of the world’s most famous musicians’ work, including the Beatles… Read More