Specialized Finance

By Bob van der Valk As of Friday June 10, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) of London Brent crude oil price went up $2.38 at $119.06, while July West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil gained $1.87 at $100.94 a barrel. At the conclusio... Go to http://SwingTradingDaily.com for full article,...

The Financial Sector has been the weakest performing area of the market in today's trading session, currently 1.5% lower on the day. The worst performing stocks in the S&P Financial Sector currently are: 1) Genworth Financial (NYSE: GNW): Shares of Genworth are currently trading down 3.9%...

Diana Containerships Inc (NASDAQ: DCIX) dipped 7.17% to $7.38 in the pre-market session. DCIX priced its public offering of 14,250,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $7.50 per share. Life Partners Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: LPHI) dropped 7.16% to $3.50 in the pre-market trading...

J.P. Morgan, which lowered its PT on shares of CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CME), is providing some color on the stock. “We are maintaining our Overweight rating on CME. CME has underperformed in 2011,” J.P. Morgan writes. “With the outlook for Fed tightening quickly moving to mid-2012, owners of CME...

JP Morgan has lowered the price target on CME Group (NASDAQ: CME) from $350 to $320 and maintains its Overweight rating.

The Nasdaq OMX Group (NASDAQ: NDAQ) has said that it is going to more closely vet reverse-merger companies before listing their shares on the Nasdaq exchange. This decision comes on the heels of SEC and short-sellers' scrutiny of Chinese reverse-merger companies such as China Media Express and Rino...

The Financial Sector is one of the strongest areas of the S&P 500 in today's session, currently trading up 1.3% from yesterday's close. Today's best performing stocks in that sector are: 1) Moody's (NYSE: MCO): Shares of Moody's are currently trading up 3.5% from yesterday's close to $40.80....

Stifel Nicolaus has upgraded Nasdaw OMX Group (NASDAQ: NDAQ) from Hold to Buy and maintains its $40 price target.

Below are the top small-cap life insurance stocks on the NYSE and the NASDAQ in terms of operating margin. The trailing-twelve-month operating margin at Life Partners Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: LPHI) is 46.85%. LPHI's ROE for the same period is 45.91%. The trailing-twelve-month operating margin at...

Moody's (NYSE: MCO) came out this morning and said that the AAA rating on U.K. debt could be at risk if the government can not cut its debt enough. As such, the British pound instantly weakened against the dollar and the yen, but the bigger issue here is whether the U.K. would actually default on...

Deutsche Boerse AG and NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX) today announced that they have recommended to the Board of Directors of the holding company of the merged group, Alpha Beta Netherlands Holding, to pay a one-time special dividend of €2.00 per Holdco share from Holdco's capital reserves shortly after...

Life Partners Holdings (NASDAQ: LPHI) announced today that it has received an amended Wells Notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission. As previously disclosed, on May 9, 2011, the Company received a “Wells Notice” from the SEC stating that the Staff will recommend that the SEC bring a...

Piper Jaffray is maintaining its estimates on shares of Moody's Corp. (NYSE: MCO) and The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (NYSE: MHP). “Based on the strength in May issuance, we see a positive bias to estimate revisions going into the 2Q reporting period,” Piper Jaffray writes. “However, given a more...

Life Partners Holdings (Nasdaq: LPHI) announced today that on June 1, 2011, the Company received a letter from the staff of the NASDAQ advising that because the company has not yet filed its Form 10-K for the period ended February 28, 2011, the Company does not meet the criteria of Listing Rule...

Moody's (NYSE: MCO) said all the political posturing in Washington could lead to the rating agency downgrading U.S. debt if no progress is made on increasing the debt limit. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating some accounting firms over their audits of Chinese companies....