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Posted Jul 3rd 2009 10:00AM by Mark Fightmaster
Filed under: Recession, Financial Crisis
What a way to go into the holiday weekend, eh? On Thursday, seven banks were shut down by authorities, which pushed the total of failed banks for 2009 to 52 -- which more than doubles the number of bank failures in 2008. Six of the seven banks seized were located in Illinois and the other was in Texas, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
According to the federal group, the Illinois failures are interlinked, as all six banks were controlled by one family and used a similar business model. The FDIC noted that this model "created concentrated exposure in each institution." This model left the banks heavily exposed to collateralized debt obligations and other loan losses. The six banks brings the total of failed banks in Illinois to 12.
As for the Texas bank failure, it was the first in the state this year.
Continue reading Seven banks go up in smoke ahead of the holiday weekend
Posted Jul 3rd 2009 9:00AM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Wal-Mart (WMT), Marketing and advertising, Target Corp. (TGT), Best Buy (BBY), Sears Holdings (SHLD)
Sears Holdings (NASDAQ: SHLD), a retailer whose competitive colleagues include Target (NYSE: TGT), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), wants to improve its brand equity and find a new path to growth. As such, it's willing to employ all kinds of initiatives, especially ones that will form a nice image with the consumer during this dreadful economic contraction.
According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Sears is trying out a program that offers protection against the risk of investing in an expensive appliance during a time when job security is not as secure as it used to be.
The program will run for a specified time period beginning next week, and the basic gist is this: buy an appliance priced $399 or higher on a Sears credit card and, and if you lose your job, Sears will credit one twelfth of the cost every month. Still no job after one year? Keep the appliance, your debt will be forgiven.
Continue reading Sears offering hedge for consumers who lose their job -- good idea?
Posted Jul 2nd 2009 11:10AM by Connie Madon
Filed under: Bad news, Economic data, Federal Reserve, Recession
Bad news! Another 467,000 jobs were lost according to the latest report. This is much worse that last month's loss of 322,000, and brings into question whether the stimulus programs are working to jump-start the economy. Obviously they are not doing the job. The unemployment rate rose to 9.5% from 9.4%.
Analysts had expected a much better report. Alan Ruskin of RBS Greenwich Capital said: "if you were betting on the U.S. driving a vigorous recovery, think again. ... The unemployment report can largely be taken at face value, and the face value story is a labor market that is not improving nearly as rapidly as the May data suggested."
Continue reading Still gloomy -- another 467,000 jobs lost last month
Posted Jul 2nd 2009 10:10AM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: Market matters, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Freep't McMoRan Copper (FCX), Wells Fargo (WFC), Union Pacific Corporation (UNP), Cramer on BloggingStocks
TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says the rally here seems too strong for the news and data we're getting. Just as when Doug Kass says, "Tell me something I don't know," I think this market knows something we don't know, either about a turn in commercial real estate to rival that of residential -- the real estate investment trusts are holding in well -- or a second stimulus plan, a real one that will put more people to work.
The employment numbers aren't good enough to merit this kind of rally, and we know the layoffs for June were preposterously high. We know that the auto build will be slightly better than expected a few months ago, but it's still pathetic and the auto idlings are about to start.
Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: This market knows something we don't
Posted Jul 2nd 2009 8:00AM by Michael Fowlkes
Filed under: Industry, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy, Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Toyota Motor Corp. (TM), Recession
Auto sales continued to drop in June, but we are starting to see signs that sales may be beginning to stabilize a bit.
The auto industry is still in deep trouble. It is going to take a while before things get back to normal, but before things can even start to improve, they have to stop worsening, and that's what may be happening.
Continue reading Auto sales show signs of stability
Posted Jul 1st 2009 4:20PM by Steven Mallas
Filed under: Television, General Electric (GE), Walt Disney (DIS), CBS Corp 'B' (CBS), Comcast Cl'A' (CMCSA), News Corp'B' (NWS), Time Warner Cable (TWC), Media World

Julia Boorstin covered an interesting topic over at
CNBC.com the other day. The Supreme Court, by electing not to review a case involving
Cablevision (NYSE:
CVC), essentially said that cable companies such as
Comcast (NASDAQ:
CMCSA) and
Time Warner Cable (NYSE:
TWC) can pursue digital video recorder (DVR) storage on cable-system servers. By doing this, a perceived barrier to entry for subscribing to DVR has been eliminated: you don't have to deal with a clunky box. Cable should theoretically see an increase in customers who adopt DVR technology if remote storage is exploited.
Well, as Boorstin rightly points out, CBS (NYSE: CBS), Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC, General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC, and News Corp.'s (NASDAQ: NWS) Fox do need to worry. These DVR technologies basically translate to a drop in the economic value of advertising. Let's face it: who watches commercials when they don't have to?
Continue reading DVR and content companies: What should the broadcasters do?
Posted Jul 1st 2009 4:05PM by Jon Ogg
Filed under: Amer Intl Group (AIG), Rite Aid Corp (RAD)

Stocks opened up on the day and stayed up on the day, despite closing well off of the highs. We had three key economic reports hit at once as the Institute for Supply Management gave the June ISM Manufacturing data, while we saw pending home sales data and new construction spending data mixed for May. These actually
ended up being contradictory numbers, and then the
oil inventories did nothing to support higher oil prices.
Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:
Dow 8,504.06 +57.06 (0.68%)
S&P 500 923.33 +4.01 (0.44%)
Nasdaq 1,845.72 +10.68 (0.58%)
Top Analyst Upgrades & DowngradesContinue reading Closing Bell: Kicking off Q3 with a win (AIG, BIIB, LDK, PIR, RAD)
Posted Jul 1st 2009 1:00PM by Daleela Farina
Filed under: Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Politics, Recession, Financial Crisis
In a word: yes.
Despite all the talk about regulating these speculative investment vehicles, "Obama's financial overhaul plan included no big surprises or threats to the lucrative, secretive industry," writes The Wall Street Journal.
The name of the game is lobbying, which is easily funded by the $1.3 trillion dollar industry. Even after numerous Ponzi schemes and frauds have recently been exposed, the U.S. government has failed at regulating hedge funds, the most speculative area in finance, in part due to the industry's lobbying efforts.
Continue reading Is Wall Street influencing Obama's regulations?
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