Specialized Finance

The Wall Street Journal is out with some news on the potential bid for NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX) by the Nasdaq (NASDAQ: NDAQ). The bid "could be valued at as much as between $10 billion and $13 billion," which implies a share price of $38.28-$49.77. Shares of NYSE Euronext are currently trading...

Brian Pardo, Chairman of Life Partners Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: LPHI), parent company of Life Partners, Inc., issued the following open letter to all of its shareholders: Dear Shareholder: As many of you are probably aware, there has been a very large short position in LPHI that has persisted...

CNBC Fast Money's Joe Terranova said that AFLAC Incorporated (NYSE: AFL) dropped 2.97% on Monday, on the concerns about a potential insurance liability that might arise from the earthquake in Japan. Stifel Nicolaus downgraded Toll Brothers, Inc. (NYSE: TOL) to "Sell" today, and the stock fell 2.55...

Cusick's Corner Volatility, the VIX, remains contained, 21.13, and the market bounced off the lows, S&P June Futures 1990. The bulls garnered enough control to quell some of the fears that have recently entered the markets. With that being said, all eyes will be on the FOMC meeting tomorrow at...

In a Form 4 filed earlier today, Encore Capital Group Inc. (NASDAQ: ECPG) Director, Tim Hanford, reported that he sold 230,311 shares of ECPG on March 11th for an average price of $25.35. The transaction totaled $5,838,384. Mr. Hanford owns 23,319 direct shares and 3,971,315 indirect shares of...

An estimated 20,000 employees and customers of Grameen Bank, a Bangladeshi microfinance institution (MFI) that manages total assets of USD 1.4 billion, convened in protest against the move of Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh, to dismiss Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus as managing...

Benzinga is hearing more rumors of a Nasdaq (NASDAQ: NDAQ)-Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE) merger or tie-up to compete with the NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX), Duetsche Borse tie up. Keep in mind that these are just rumors, but these names have been floated before as potential partners. At last...

The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: NDAQ) announced today the results of the quarterly re-ranking of the NASDAQ Q-50 Index (Nasdaq:NXTQ), which will become effective prior to market open on Monday, March 21, 2011. The following eight securities will be added to the Index: Charter Communications,...

Shares of NYSE Euronext (NYSE: NYX) are lower on the session by 1.26%, trading at $34.05. Overall call volume is now running at 2.34x the daily average, with 11% of all calls traded being purchases on the offer. 38,543 contracts have traded on the session so far. NYSE Euronext is a global...

The Food and Drug Administration approved the first new drug for lupus in 56 years from Human Genome Sciences (NASDAQ: HGSI). China posted a trade deficit in February, which surprised economists, and could reduce pressure on the country to allow its currency to appreciate. Moody's (NYSE: MCO)...

Medallion Financial Corp. (Nasdaq: TAXI), announced that earnings, or net increase in net assets resulting from operations was $4,667,000 or $0.27 per diluted common share in the 2010 fourth quarter, compared to a loss of $5,759,000 or $0.33 per share in the 2009 fourth quarter.

NASDAQ (NASDAQ: NDAQ) and IntercontinentalExchange (NYSE: ICE) agree on different timeframes for their ongoing discussions with various parties. Both exchanges have been rumored to be a part of various merger discussions.

In a report published by Piper Jaffray, Encore Capital (NASDAQ: ECPG) is a leader in debt space. Piper Jaffray said that it is initiating on ECPG with an Overweight rating and a $37 target. “ECPG is one of the better positioned players in the industry focused on purchase/management of charged-off...

Analysts at Piper Jaffray initiate coverage of Encore Capital Group Inc (NASDAQ: ECPG) with an “overweight” rating. The target price for ECPG is set to $37. ECPG shares gained 2.97% to close at $26.00 yesterday. More Analyst Ratings here

Here is our latest update on the stock trading technique called 'Buying Dividends'. This is the process of buying stocks before the ex dividend date and selling the stock shortly after the ex date at about the same price, yet still being entitled to the dividend. This technique generally works only...