JpMorganChase posts
FeedPosted Apr 14th 2010 3:20PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC)
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is a financial stock, and as such, you've got a right to be cautious about it, considering what's happened to the economy over the last couple years. Today, however, the equity, whose colleagues include Bank of America (BAC) and Citigroup (C), appears pretty appealing. Wall Street enjoyed the results of the bank's first quarter, expressing its opinion by sending in the buy order.
As of this writing, shares of the company are up well over 3%, on robust volume. The stock has been strong since its last downturn, which ended back in February, according to the one-year chart.
Continue reading JPMorgan Chase Up on Q1 News
Posted Mar 30th 2010 12:00PM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Deals, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs Group (GS)

Florida's insurer for high-risk homeowner policies,
Citizens Property Insurance Corp., is issuing a bond to beef up its balance sheet. The state property insurer, which takes on the risks that private insurers in the state will not, is looking to raise around $2.5 billion.
The "pre-sale" ends on April 6, 2009 and was called "very successful" by Citizens CFO Sharon Binnun, who continued, "We met our liquidity goal for the year." A quiet
hurricane season in 2009 left Citizens, the largest property insurer in the state, with a surplus of around $14 billion.
Continue reading Florida Insurance Bodies to Issue Bonds
Posted Mar 4th 2010 11:40AM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), Merck and Co (MRK)

Thanks to a trillion dollars in credit losses write-downs on
mortgage-related securities in 2007 and 2008, financial companies around the world had a lot of capital to recapture. So, in the first half of 2009, they issued stock. More than half the new shares to come out worldwide in those six months were
issued by banks and brokers. All this stock, of course, translated to fees for investment banks. In a strange way, consequently, the financial industry healed itself.
According to Bloomberg, investment banking fees surged 13% in 2009, from $53.1 billion to $59.8 billion. This is still far short of the $86.9 billion record set in 2007, but it's at least a step in the right direction. Even with the surge of bank and broker shares issued in the first two quarters last year, total activity was still lower than in 2008.
Continue reading JPMorgan Leads in Year Bankers Make Money on Each Other
Posted Jan 21st 2010 3:40PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS)
One of the true icons of finance, Goldman Sachs Group (GS), issued its Q4 report this morning. The stock has been weak off the numbers; at the time of this writing, shares were down well over 5%, and volume was very active. Looking through the press release, I didn't come away as bearish as the market. Then again, the session as a whole was rather choppy, so perhaps overall sentiment was exerting an influence. Still, a 5% sell-off is notable.
Let's look at some highlights. For the fourth quarter, Goldman, whose colleagues include JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Morgan Stanley (MS), made $8.20 per share. Last year at this time, the company reported a loss of $4.97 per share. Besides improving year-over-year, per-share profit increased over 50% on a sequential basis as well. According to Earnings.com, $5.20 was the number to beat.
Continue reading Goldman Sachs Not In Demand After Q4 Report
Posted Dec 10th 2009 9:00AM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Amer Intl Group (AIG)
The bailouts of late 2008 and 2009 have cost the American taxpayers $61 billion, according to the Treasury Department, but the banks aren't to blame this time. The auto manufacturer bailout, which includes Chrysler and General Motors (GRM), has cost the country more than $30 billion, with American International Group (AIG) consuming another $30 billion.
Meanwhile, Bank of America (BAC) has already made good with the government, and several banks -- such as Capital One (COF), JP Morgan Chase (JPM) and TCF Financial (TCB) -- only have to clean up situations regarding the warrants they've issued. And interestingly, the losses from the bailouts on AIG and auto manufacturers are being offset by profits from the bank bailouts, which could generate additional funds of up to $19.5 billion.
Continue reading Banks subsidizing auto TARP, extra money could be spent
Posted Nov 30th 2009 1:00PM by Sheldon Liber (RSS feed)
Filed under: International Markets, Management, General Electric (GE), PepsiCo (PEP), Intel (INTC), McDonald's (MCD), International Business Machines (IBM), 3M Corporation (MMM), Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), American Express (AXP), Colgate-Palmolive (CL), FedEx Corp (FDX), General Mills (GIS), Procter and Gamble (PG), Lockheed Martin (LMT), Lilly (Eli) (LLY), Deere and Co (DE), Unilever ADR (UL), Serious Money, Stock Screen, China Mobile Limited (CHL),
The recent issue of Fortune magazine discusses how the best of the best train, guide and nurture top managers to become the leaders that will propel their corporations successfully forward. They list the top 25 companies, which I have used as the basis of a new review to see how they would fair against common metric screens.
In the past few months, many articles have posited that large-cap stocks should excel in the coming year based on their lagging the market behind smaller, more volatile stocks flying out of the March lows. I do not believe this is universally true. Plenty of large-cap stocks did well, such as Anadarko Petroleum (APC), Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG), while many small caps went nowhere. Even among the large caps included in Fortune's "Leadership 25," some have doubled.
Continue reading Serious Money: Fortune's 25 leaders among leaders
Posted Nov 13th 2009 4:40PM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Management, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), CIT Group (CIT)

It's still a tough time to be a
CEO. In October, 89 top dogs moved on (by choice
or not). Though this is 15% lower than the 105 in September and 29% off the whopping 125 CEOs who turned over a year earlier, it's still a sign that "stability" doesn't equal "recovery."
The latest study that Challenger, Gray & Christmas revealed to BloggingStocks reports that October was the eighth month this year in which CEO turnover was down year-over-year. Through the end of last month, 1,028 CEO positions changed hands -- down 18% from the 1,257 by the same point in 2008. In fact, the tally for the first 10 months of 2009 is the lowest since 2004, when the big office found only 561 new inhabitants.
The financial industry remains the toughest place for CEOs, with 19 leaving the job last month. Even though the situation has gotten easier, this industry still has the highest turnover. For the year, approximately 10% of all CEO departures (106) have been in the financial sector. "The financial industry is still incredibly volatile, as both October and September saw major announcements from leading companies including JP Morgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC) and last month's bankruptcy of CIT Group, which led to the exit of CEO Jeffrey Peek," John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, says.
Continue reading CEO turnover down, not out
Posted Aug 11th 2009 9:00AM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Bad News, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Economic Data, Personal Finance, Recession, Financial Crisis
Consumer bankruptcies have already spiked more than 30% this year, and it looks like the trend shows no signs of flagging. The American Bankruptcy Institute predicts that the tally could hit 1.4 million by the end of the year. So, although there are some experts signaling that the economy is on the upswing, the downstream effects of bankruptcy on consumer spending and corporate balance sheets are going to make it difficult for the market to turn the corner.
In July, more than 126,000 people filed for bankruptcy protection, and the filing rate was up 36.5% for the first six months of 2009 relative to the same period in 2008. The problem is affecting every rung of the social ladder.
Continue reading Consumer bankruptcies set to surge
Posted Jul 16th 2009 9:30AM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs Group (GS)

Investment bank
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:
JPM) announced that
second-quarter earnings checked in at 28 cents per share -- or $2.72 billion. A year ago, the financial giant reported earnings of $2 billion, or 53 cents per share. This year's quarterly earnings included a charge of 27 cents per share after JPM repaid the $25 billion invested by the government in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). There was also a 10-cent-per-share penalty thanks to a special assessment from the FDIC. Expectations called for earnings of four cents per share.
JPM also reported record first-half revenue, stemming from "solid" performances in its commercial banking, asset management, treasury and security services, and its retail banking. That said, JPM expects credit costs to remain elevated in the "foreseeable future." No doubt that these results will lend some bullish momentum to Wall Street today, as JPM's earnings reinforce the quarterly results from Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS).
Continue reading JP Morgan easily tops Q2 earnings expectations
Posted Jul 10th 2009 11:20AM by Elizabeth Harrow (RSS feed)
Filed under: JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Options, DJIA, Financial Crisis
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) and the U.S. government can't seem to agree what the bank's stock warrants are worth. As a result, JPM has asked the Treasury Department to auction off the warrants publicly in order to determine a fair market price.
The JPM warrants were issued to the government under the terms of its TARP loan. Bailed-out banks have the option to repurchase their own warrants, but only if they can strike a deal with the feds regarding a reasonable price. However, many firms have complained that the Treasury is seeking too high a price for the assets -- putting executives in the awkward position of claiming that their stock just isn't worth that much.
In choosing the auction alternative, JPMorgan is waiving its right to repurchase its own warrants (it could potentially bid through the public auction process, but company executives have decided not to do so). If the stock warrants are successfully auctioned off to a third party, their exercise would be dilutive to existing shareholders.
Continue reading JPMorgan Chase slides after waiving right to buy its stock warrants
Posted Mar 6th 2009 4:20PM by Sheldon Liber (RSS feed)
Filed under: International Markets, Good news, Management, Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of New York (BK), Wells Fargo (WFC), Chasing Value™, U.S. Bancorp (USB)

It is being reported today in the
Business Journal that the safest bank in the United States is
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:
WFC).
According to
Global Finance, which will publish its analysis, "World's 50 Safest Banks" in its April issue, international banks dominate the rankings, which show the effects of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and credit crisis brought on by large Wall Street players. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo is the top-rated U.S. bank at No. 21. European banks now dominate the rankings, with only four U.S. banks among the listing.
Continue reading Chasing Value: The safest bank in the U.S. -- Wells Fargo
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