With Thursday’s SEC filing by Sirius XM Radio (SIRI) comes a reminder of just who it is that is steering the ship. That would be John Malone. With 3 seats on the current board and the right to take 3 more, I thought I’d take this opportunity to review just what it is that Liberty Media (LCAPA) sees in Sirius XM. This video interview with...

Chart couresty of Phil’s Stock World

Talking Stress Tests ! How About Ken Lewis CEO of Bank of America ??? NY Times Headlines Read : Ken Lewis had a gun to his head ” Not to reveal to his share holders ” that Merrill Lynch was giving out multi million bonuses as well as at the same time they were recording “record losses” Mind you all this under the cover of night...

Research in Motion Ltd. (RIMM) is getting a boost this morning from an analyst upgrade. The maker of the notorious Blackberry was raised at Citigroup with a new “Buy” rating rather than the prior “Hold” rating and was even given one of the “Top Picks” status at the firm. The old $65.00 target was also raised to $100.00. Citigroup had...

Ford has refinanced alot of its debt, and forged new deals with the UAW. It’s in much better shape than it was a year ago, IMO. And much better shape than the other two. Ford has had success to date dealing with stakeholders to implement needed structural changes. No reason to think this wouldn’t continue, especially with Ford’s global...

Dow Industrials, up 70.49 points, or 0.89% to 7957.06. * Up five of the last seven sessions. * Today’s top contributors to the Dow’s movement and their point contribution: CVX (14.18), AXP (12.27), JPM (10.43), MMM (9.16), UTX (9.16). * Today’s laggers and their point contribution: IBM (-9.00), HD (-3.27), DD (-2.23), PG (-2.23), T...

Last night, Bear Mountain Bull highlighted Mish’s post on the “woefully underfunded” FDIC, whose declining Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) ratio has left it “ill prepared” to deal with future bank failures. Here’s a chart from Mish’s post which illustrates that decline: As outlined in the post above, this declining...

“The Government threatened to oust Bank of America Chief Executive Ken Lewis if the bank didn’t go through with its acquisition of struggling investment bank Merrill Lynch, according to the results of an investigation by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo released Thursday.” Holy Cow, does everyone understand the enormity of that...

“The Treasury has an agreement in principle with the United Auto Workers union to protect pensions and retiree health care benefits as a condition of the bankruptcy filing …” So the taxpayer will get stuck with paying for retiree health care and pension benefits at Chyrsler? They get better health care coverage then most of us! Someone...

April 23 (Bloomberg) — Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. lead a list of U.S. banks that may need another $1 trillion of capital to cushion losses as unemployment rises, KBW Inc. analysts said today. The estimate applies to the entire industry and is based on the analysts’ own “stress test” of the strength of top U.S. lenders,...

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) will announce its highly awaited earnings after the close today. Analysts are expecting $0.39 EPS on $14.09 billion in revenues. That Thomson Reuters consensus number would compare to $0.47 EPS and $14.45 billion in revenues last year. There are many other metrics to consider here besides earnings. Unfortunately, Microsoft...

Predatory mortgage lending is coming under fire in Washington, as consumer advocates told lawmakers Thursday that the mortgage market has been inadequately regulated and sensible rules are needed. CNBC has a great documentary called “House of Cards.” It was the securitization of mortgages into CDO’s that led to the housing bubble...

MarketClub has a free tool. This tool is called Trend Analysis which sends you a complimentary analysis of any one of the over 230,000 symbols they follow in their data base. All that they require of users is that they provide their first name and email address and the symbol they want analyzed. Here’s your chance to analyze that stock you have been...

Well, well, well! Hey Kenny, keep this quiet until we tell you. We need to raise consumer confidence in the financial system before the economy can get better. So what does our government do? They have hidden the truth because it might hurt. If I am not mistaken such actions are classified as market manipulation. Have “Helicopter Ben”,...

Loan losses and charge-offs continue to grow in the banking sector, and just about every quarterly “profit” deserved either scare-quotes or an asterisk. Still, bank stocks have made an impressive rebound off their lows. Are you tempted to get in? At WSJ, Brett Arends has 10 reasons you may want to avoid the sector. They’re all right...