Data Processing & Outsourced Services

Offering little optimism in advance of Friday’s key government reading on the nation’s jobs situation, a gauge of private-sector employment Wednesday showed a drop in payrolls. The ADP National Employment Report revealed a drop of 10,000 private-sector jobs in August, compared with the 19,000 or so...

Hewitt Associates (NYSE: HEW) today announced it has completed its acquisition of EnnisKnupp, a leading provider of investment advisory services to large institutional investors. As a combined entity, Hewitt EnnisKnupp now becomes one of the largest providers of investment consulting services in...

Darby Overseas Investments, Ltd. announced that its Darby Technology Ventures Fund sold Ativi to Euronet Worldwide (NASDAQ: EEFT). Ativi, based in Sao Paulo, distributes electronic prepaid products through a network of over 14,000 retail locations throughout Brazil. Darby led a buy-out of Ativi in...

The Automatic Data Processing (ADP) employment survey was a big disappointment in August. It shows that private sector employment fell by 10,000 in August, well below consensus expectations for a 13,000 increase. This was the first decline in jobs as calculated by ADP this year. ADP, as the largest...

Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) receives $1.6 billion dollar defense contract https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=3f1af2d1a324ddb96d6ef0a7...

We are reiterating our Neutral recommendation on Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS), following the company’s earnings release. The company is a provider of integrated technology and outsourced services to the mortgage lending industry.   Second Quarter Highlights   Lender Processing reported...

Oppenheimer is out with a research report this morning, where it upgrades shares of CSC Systems International (NASDAQ: CSGS) to Outperform, from Perform; it has a $23.00 price target on the stock. The Oppenheimer analysts said that the upgrade came after they tweaked their estimates higher for FY...

Year 4, Week 4 Major Position Changes To see historic weekly fund changes click here OR the label at the bottom of this entry entitled 'fund positions'. Cash: 71.0% (v 80.2% last week) 20 long bias: 20.7% (v 17.7% last week) 5 short bias: 8.3% (v 2.1% last week) 25 positions (vs 20 last week)...

Analysts at Oppenheimer & Co upgrade CSG Systems International Inc (NASDAQ: CSGS) from "perform" to "outperform." The target price for CSGS is set to $23. CSG Systems’ shares gained 1.37% to close at $17.74 on Friday. More Analyst Ratings here

Visa Inc. (V) has reported that it has spent $1.53 million during the second quarter 2010 to address concerns related to credit card regulations and other issues. The lobbying charges nudged up 14% for Visa from $1.34 million in the year-ago quarter and $1.12 million during the first quarter of...

Yesterday’s double dose of bad economic news seriously raises the possibility that GDP growth in the third quarter will be negative. That does not mean a double dip for sure, since the general rule of thumb is that a recession is two back-to-back quarters of negative GDP, although the official...

• Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) shares gained 1.2% on reports that the company is expected to introduce iPods with cameras and/or TV capability • Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced that it will add phone calling feature to its Gmail email service, offering competition to Skype • Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS)...

Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance fell to 473,000, a drop of 31,000 from last week. That is good news, but only in terms of the direction. After several weeks in a row of new claims shooting higher, the upward momentum has been stalled. But initial claims remain far too high. The four-week...

PolyOne Corporation (NYSE: POL) was upgraded by Longbow Research from "neutral" to "buy." POL’s shares closed at $9.36 yesterday. PolyOne’s quarterly earnings surged 2408.17% y/y. BB&T Capital upgraded Greenbrier Companies (NYSE: GBX) from "hold" to "buy." GBX’s shares closed at $9.85 yesterday...

Deutsche Bank is upgrading shares of Paychex (NASDAQ: PAYX) to Hold from Sell, to go along with its $25 price target after the shares sold off recently. In a note to clients, Deutsche Bank says, "We upgrade PAYX from Sell to Hold, as we believe our macro/valuation- oriented short call has now...