The market rallied strongly on the back of Meredith Whitney's upgrade of Goldman Sachs. Boy that's really going on out a limb there. Yes, they are going to report a great quarter (massive secondary issuances, not to mention Goldman's span style="font-style: italic;"other/span trading activities). But they better blow the doors off if you expect the stock to go up again tomorrow. A lot of this "great quarter" is priced into the stock, but who knows in this market. Not much surprises me anymore.br /br /American Railcar (a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ARII"ARII/a) was up another 8% today. I bought it Friday at 7.05, and the entry was almost pure luck as it almost instantly rallied and is now up about 14% in less than two trading sessions. When this happens, I often take the profits, but I've still got the shares. Its been trading in a ...

I wrote a piece about American Railcar a week or two ago (a href="http://briskycapital.blogspot.com/2009/06/some-action-for-american-railcar.html"click here to read that/a). Since then, the stock has responded well. It has busted right through its 20 and 50 day moving averages on strong volume (good sign). I didn't pick up any shares. I was looking to buy in the low 7's, and could have, but wanted to see it settle a bit. It didn't do that, but rather reversed course quite quickly. The previous post has all the details, but a company with lots of cash. Carl Icahn likely has some plans with his large stake as well.br /br /Here's the chart.br /br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_VQGtBvsQTCg/Skux_HQVmLI/AAAAAAAAArA/InIXyCCeDBA/s1600-h/ARII.png"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 382px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_VQGtBvsQTCg/Skux_HQVmLI/AAAAAAAAArA/InIXyCCeDBA/s400/ARII.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353568279897413810" border="0" //abr /Disclosure: No Position.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/819581243324579563-3758939460780759653?l=briskycapital.blogspot.com'//div

Shares of MGM Mirage Inc. (MGM) shot up a day after the casino giant said it no longer faced a bankruptcy concern.

As the global economic slump took the shine off the once thriving gambling industry in Las Vegas, MGM Mirage warned in March that there was "substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern" due to mounting debts. The stock had slumped below $2 at the height of bankruptcy concerns.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has been pressuring the company to restructure its $13.5 billion debt through bankruptcy protection.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late on Tuesday, MGM Mirage said that the $2.6 billion it raised by selling debt and equity last month will enable it to retire its short-term debt that had given rise to the going concern clause.

This would certainly bring some relief to Kirk

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* JM Smucker (NYSE:SJM) reported fiscal fourth quarter earnings of $1.02 per share, beating estimates by 39 cents, as revenue rose 81% to $1.1 billion

* Chrysler announced its plans to reopen seven assembly lines

* E*Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC) announced plans to raise $400 million in a common stock offering and exchange $1 billion outstanding debt

* AutoZone (NYSE:AZO) said its board authorized a $500 million share repurchase program

* Wachovia raised its quarterly earnings expectations for Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), while dropping same for JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS)

* A Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE:LGF) filing with the SEC revealed investor Carl Icahn raised his holdings in the company

* Watson Pharmaceuticals (NYSE:WPI) agreed to buy privately-held Arrow Group in a $1.75 billion deal

Zacks Investment Research

I've been following American Railcar (a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ARII"ARII/a) for awhile now. It likely showed up on some screen I ran for companies sitting on lots of cash. And cash they have. $13.74/share in cash (the stock trades around $7.40 today). Typical deep value play; half of book value etc. They are also sitting on $275M in debt and a business that is hurting in a difficult economy, but there is some value here. Apparently Carl Icahn also thinks so. He's held shares in American Railcar for a couple of years, but recently raised his stake by a lot in the last quarter (he now owns 54% of the company). It appears he's looking to a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Icahn-company-setting-up-apf-15506456.html?.v=5"take some action as well/a.br /br /ulliStockholders of American Railcar Industries Inc., a St. Charles, Mo.-based company, voted on Wednesday to change the company's incorporation from Delaware to ...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proposed two new rules on Wednesday that would give shareholders more say in the matter of director elections at the biggest firms in the country.

The development comes after investor complaints regarding executive compensation at large corporations, especially American International Group (AIG), leading the SEC to consider an overhaul of its policies to empower investors in choosing directors for public companies.

"This day has been a long time coming," SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro said. "The time has come to resolve this debate."

SEC commissioners split along party lines and voted 3-2 to seek public comment on the proposal of shareholder rights in companies with market values exceeding $700 million. Investors owning at least a 1% stake in these companies will now be allowed to nominate up to a quarter of the company's board of directors in corporate proxy statements.

Billionaire investors

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MGM Mirage (MGM) shares slumped at the open on Friday following reports that activist investor Carl Icahn was pressing the distressed gambling giant to restructure its $13.5 billion debt by seeking bankruptcy protection.

Late Thursday, The Wall Street Journal said Icahn and private-equity fund Oaktree Capital Management have been pursuing MGM Mirage to clean up its balance sheet as soon as possible since last month. Citing sources familiar with the matter, the paper said the two investors, who have separately amassed hundreds of millions of dollars in MGM Mirage debt in recent months, stressed bankruptcy as the best option.

Icahn's strategy endangers the majority stake billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian owns in MGM. Kerkorian's 53% stake would amount to nothing if the company files for bankruptcy, giving secured debtholders priority over shareholders.

MGM Mirage, which has been working hard to avoid bankruptcy, has to make a new

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The first day of the second quarter greeted investors well as all major indices were up. Dow Jones gained over 2.00% to close the day at 7,761 while the S&P 500 and NASDAQ ended up 1.51% and 1.66% respectively to close at 881 and 1,551. The 10 year saw its yields shrink to 2.66% while Gold and Oil settled at $929.70 and $48.43.The markets surged as better than expected manufacturing, housing, and auto sales data hit the Street. The banks fared well with Citigroup [C: 2.68, +0.15 (+5.93%)] up over a percent, Bank of America [BAC: 7.05, +0.23 (+3.37%)] up almost 2% and JP Morgan Chase [JPM: 28.14, +1.56 (+5.87%)] and Wells Fargo [WFC: 14.48, +0.24 (+1.69%)] up 0.64% and 2.49% respectively. It appears as though investors believe that the banks are returning, slowly, but surely to their previous levels of

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Highlighted companies include Biogen Idec (BIIB), Genentech (DNA), Merck (MRK) and Sanofi-Aventis (SNY).At 13x our 2009 EPS of $4.05 per share, we believe that Biogen Idec's (BIIB) stock is too attractive to ignore. Valuation is below the biotech peer-group average, where several names are trading at a significant premium.The company should post non-GAAP EPS up roughly 11% in 2009, even with all the Tysabri PML issues. However, valuation alone is not enough of a reason to buy the stock. We are comfortable with owning the name here based on two other reasons.Firstly, Biogen has a significant late-stage pipeline. There are 22 programs in phase II or beyond. Six of these products are in phase III registration programs right now: lumiliximab for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), galiximab for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), BG-12 for relapsing / remitting multiple sclerosis (RR-MS), ...

a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/opinion/23brooks.html?_r=1"span style="font-style: italic;"The First Test/span/a. Good OP-ED piece by David Brooks looking into the details of the stimulus package. His findings may surprise you.br /br /a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123266999517008241.html"span style="font-style: italic;"The Economy Need Corporate Governance Reform/span/a. Good opinion piece by Carl Icahn. He is someone to listen to.br /br /a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110amp;sid=afSKzcHyWFjQ"span style="font-style: italic;"Obama Presses Lawmakers on Stimulus, Accountability/span/a. Its not Obama that worries me. It is the "old guard" in Washington getting their hands on this bill and turning it into just another wasteful measure.br /br /a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110amp;sid=aVGJfrDzZSN4"span style="font-style: italic;"Citigroup, Bank of America May Look Nationalized/span/a. “When the Treasury tells a bank to pay a penny a share vs. its old dividend, you know who’s calling the shots."