We continue to maintain a negative outlook on the U.S. Banks. While the programs launched by the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve to boost the capital levels and alleviate the liquidity problems have helped the capital and funding concerns to a great extent, the efforts have not succeeded in restoring the lending activity at banks. Lower lending activity will continue to hurt the margins though the low interest rate environment should be beneficial to the banks with a liability sensitive balance sheet. During the current year, the banks have mainly suffered due to the losses in the mortgages and residential construction loans. As not much has been done so far to address the fundamental problems of declining home values and rising foreclosures and given the sharp increase in the level of unemployment, we anticipate continued losses in these portfolios. Further, with the

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We continue to maintain a negative outlook on the U.S. Banks. While the programs launched by the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve to boost the capital levels and alleviate the liquidity problems have helped the capital and funding concerns to a great extent, the efforts have not succeeded in restoring the lending activity at banks. Lower lending activity will continue to hurt the margins though the low interest rate environment should be beneficial to the banks with a liability sensitive balance sheet. During the current year, the banks have mainly suffered due to the losses in the mortgages and residential construction loans. As not much has been done so far to address the fundamental problems of declining home values and rising foreclosures and given the sharp increase in the level of unemployment, we anticipate continued losses in these portfolios. Further, with the

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Today is a big day for housing data, and none of it looks good. In November nationwide, existing home sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.49 million, down 8.6% from 4.91 million in October and down 10.6% from a year ago. All regions of the country were down on a month to month basis. The worst hit was the Northeast (-12.0%) followed by the South (-10.9%). The Midwest was down 7.4% while the West held up relatively well, down just 4.3%. On a year-over-year basis, the West really stands out as an exception, being up 17.9%, as the other regions were all down between 16 and 18%. However, in many important parts of California, more than half of all existing house sales now involve houses that have been foreclosed on.Housing inventory actually increased slightly with 4.203 million houses available for sale, ...

Investors occasionally use a stock trading technique called 'Buying Dividends,' which is the technique 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 in bull markets.br /br /If you are interested in a href="http://stockerblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/buying-dividends-top-7-stocks-going-ex.html"buying dividends/a, there are many stocks in many different industries to choose from. In order to be entitled to the dividend, you have to buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, and you can't sell the stock until after the ex date. The actual dividend may not be paid for another few weeks.br /br /All of the following stocks yield over 2%. br /br /Avery Dennison Corporation (AVY) goes ex-dividend on 12/1/2008 . The stock has a yield of 6.55% .br /Callaway Golf Company (ELY) goes ex-dividend on 12/1/2008 . The ...