Multi-line Insurance

  On April 30th in The Coming Crash: Four Reasons Pro and Con, we examined the array of bullish and bearish forces, and argued that the bearish case was overwhelmingly strong. As the below monthly chart shows, it was a timely exercise. Because we need to do this for our own background research, we...

If, after reading the blog content you might have an interest in participation for the mutual fund, please consider reading why this blog exists. [Jan 2008: Reader Pledges Toward Mutual Fund Launch] [May 2008: Frequently Asked Questions] Our story in Barron's [A New Kind of Fund Manager] [...

I am covering my last individual short position Hartford Financial Services (HIG) for a 4% gain.  I've replaced it with a small short of the indexes via TNA (less than 2%) but I want to be shorting either right below 1100 or below 1070.  In between those ares is a vast area of 30 S&P points...

Monica Gerson  Financial stocks are soaring today, led by China’s decision to strengthen the yuan against the US dollar. The world’s third largest economy supported its exports by artificially weakening its currency for about two years. A rally was witnessed in riskier assets at the start of the...

Restructuring never ends in many large corporations. After a week’s worth of reading through dozens of corporate deals in the pipeline and analyzing others which could be close, it seems that many of America’s (and ex-US) largest companies are about to go through major changes because of asset...

Year 3, Week 46 Major Position Changes To see historic weekly fund changes click here OR the label at the bottom of this entry entitled 'fund positions'. Cash:70.8% (v 84.8% last week) 16 long bias: 16.8% (v 13.1% last week)  8 short bias: 12.5% (v 2.1% last week) [Includes 1 'long dollar'...

A few of my limit short orders have hit this morning which coincides with the move to S&P 1100 - as was the original plan.  With the market seemingly gapping up or down almost every day now on random news I feel more comfortable with holding individual stocks overnight as hedges than any sort...

According to the sales data announced by the US Census Bureau today, the April month’s combined value of distributive trade sales and manufacturers’ shipments, adjusted for seasonal and trading-day differences but not for price changes, stood at $1,100.9 billion. The April sales figure is higher 0....

Below are the top 5 mid-cap financial stocks on the NYSE in terms of cash. American International Group Inc (NYSE: AIG) had $69.53 billion of cash in the latest quarter, while its debt liabilities stood at $164.55 billion. Woori Finance Holdings Company Ltd (NYSE: WF) had $28.46 billion of cash and...

According to Oppenheimer, “While presenting at the company's shareholder meeting yesterday, SAP's (NYSE: SAP) Co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe told investors the company is interested in additional acquisitions, even large ones as a means of accelerating its growth and expanding its market share, though...

Last week, Prudential’s (NYSE: PRU) bid for AIG’s (NYSE: AIG) Asian life insurance business, AIA Group, fell through. AIG stock is now trading at the $35 mark, and looks expensive at this juncture. AIG’s junior debt with 10% yield shows better prospects than the stock itself, since the debt is...

According to the New York Post, embattled NBC Chief Jeff Zucker has secured a golden parachute worth between $30 and $40 million. Though General Electric (NBC’s parent company) denies it, anonymous sources tell the Post the package “has been finalized.” For media observers who have watched NBC’s...

Cusick’s Corner The VIX dropped even more in the afternoon -- falling 15% in today as the SPX rallied and came back from yesterday’s drop (see Index Trading). The morning appeared a little shaky but in the afternoon Energies, Financials and Materials started the broader market’s push even higher...

Cusick’s Corner The market is challenging the downtrend, but it has been on light volume. Watch the resistance level of 1087 on the ESM10 – can be broken and challenge a downtrend line that has not been broken in the last 5 trading sessions. If there can be a late day breakout through this...

Shares of Genworth Financial Inc. (NYSE: GNW) are higher on the session by 2.01%, currently trading $15.22. The stock has been drifting lower over the past four weeks, but has held the 200-day moving average. There has been some interesting trading in the puts today. Two very large trades have...