Investment Banking & Brokerage

One of the most important sectors in the stock market is the financial stocks. These stocks seem to lead the markets. At this time, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.(NYSE: JPM) is probably the most important financial stock in the entire stock market. This leading financial stock is trading lower by 0.08...

Jefferies Group Inc (NYSE: JEF) reported a 3.8% drop in its fiscal second-quarter profit on Tuesday. Jefferies reported its quarterly profit at $80.6 million, or $0.36 per share, down from $83.8 million, or $0.41 per share, in the year-earlier period. Excluding charitable contributions and...

Jabil Circuit Inc (NYSE: JBL) is projected to report its FQ3 earnings at $0.57 per share on revenue of $4.14 billion. Barnes & Noble Inc (NYSE: BKS) is estimated to post a FQ4 loss at $0.91 per share on revenue of $1.39 billion. Commercial Metals Company (NYSE: CMC) is expected to report its...

In nearly every trading session over the past six weeks, the major stock market indexes have struggled into the close of the trading session. Four out of the past six Friday's have been sell offs. This is a very unusual occurrence and a change in character for the major stock indexes. Even today,...

Cusick's Corner The market is experiencing a nice oversold squeeze to the upside which is the type of action that one can expect now, it's choppy trading while Greece and the Fed work out austerity plans and their next steps, if any (for the Fed there may be additional QE, Quantitative Easing). I...

The Financials Sector is the weakest area of the S&P 500 in today's session, currently down 0.2% on the day. The weakest stocks currently in the S&P 500 Financials Sector are: 1) Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS): Shares of Goldman Sachs are currently trading down 1.9% from Friday's close to $134....

There is a lot of money in making war and even more to be made when the shooting stops. An investor who, like the majority of the world's politicians, has a moral compass that always points to opportunity and knows that blood on the hands easily washes off, can find plenty of interesting plays in...

Shares of Jefferies Group, Inc. (NYSE: JEF) are lower on the session by 0.47%, trading at $21.27. Overall put volume is now running at 10.38x the daily average, with 56% of all puts traded being purchases on the offer. 1,007 contracts have traded on the session so far. Jefferies Group, Inc. and...

The markets are at a pivotal point today. As of now, there is a beautiful inverse head and shoulder pattern on the intra day SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE: SPY) chart. This can be seen on the chart below. An inverse head and shoulders pattern is a bullish pattern should it be triggered. To trigger,...

Citi is out with its report today on Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), lowering its PT from $28 to $26. In a note to clients, Citi writes, "We are lowering our 2Q estimate from $0.59 to $0.43 vs consensus of $0.56, mostly to reflect the weak FICC trading environment in 2Q. We are also lowering 2011 by $0...

Citi is out with its report today on Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), lowering its PT from $200 to $180. In a note to clients, Citi writes, "Our 2Q11 and 2011 estimates imply ROTEs of 7% & 10%, which is well below our long-term expectation of 14% which also assumes more normal economic & interest...

Goldman Sachs has raised the price target from $8 to $8.50 on BGC Partners (NASDAQ: BGCP) after the company gave more positive guidance heading forward. Says Goldman Sachs, in its report, “We raise our 2Q11 and 2011-2013 estimates for BGCP following an update from BGCP that 2Q11 results were going...

The “Golden Cross” is a major bullish technical indicator. It occurs when a stock's 50-day simple moving average crosses above its 200-day simple moving average. The “Golden Cross,” like most technical indicators, should never be used alone, but is a significant event to consider when evaluating a...

OptionsXpress's Retail Options Trading Also Down 10% From April (Dow Jones Newswires) OptionsXpress Holdings Inc. (OXPS) has just reported that their retail options trading volume was down by 12% in May compared with May 2010 and also fell 10% from last April. As an equity options and futures...

It might finally be subpoena and testimony time for the credit rating agencies and banks whose activities led directly to the financial crisis. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, U.S. regulators are preparing to file civil fraud charges for some involved with the crisis, and are...