Nelnet Inc.’s (NNI) third quarter earnings of $1.01 per share were well ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 75 cents. The company had earned 47 cents in the year-ago quarter.   Nelnet has also reinstated its dividend program, which had been suspended in May 2008. The company will pay a fourth-quarter cash dividend of 7 cents per share to its class A and class B common stockholders. The dividend will be paid on Dec 15, 2009, to shareholders of record as of Dec 1, 2009.   Quarterly results reflect the benefits of diversification of revenue through fee-based businesses, reduced operating expenses, improved core student loan spread and reduced debt burden.  Including discontinued operations and restructuring charges, the company reported GAAP net income of $46.4 million or 93 cents per share compared with income of $23.8 million or 48 cents in the year-ago period.  Nelnet’s fee-based ...

The corporate ratings of student lender SLM Corp. or Sallie Mae (SLM) was downgraded by Fitch Ratings yesterday. The outlook assigned was negative. The ratings downgrade reflects the agency’s concern about the company’s business model. Fitch expects the company to continue to shift to a fee-for-service business model with its subsidiary Sallie Mae Bank originating higher-risk private education loans.   Fitch downgraded the long-term issuer default and senior debt ratings to "BBB-" from "BBB", while preferred stock was downgraded to "BB" from "BB+". The short-term issuer default rating and short-term debt ratings were affirmed at "F3". About $34.4 billion of debt and preferred stock is affected by these actions.   To restore the $92 billion student loan market, the House Education committee approved a legislation, which closes the Federal Family Education Loan Program and shifts most of the student lending into the Education Department's Direct Loan program. ...

China walks the walk… red nation agrees to major shift away from dollar reserves… Gold soars… Frank Holmes with a historic reason gold should keep rising… You know Peak Oil, but Peak Stimulus? Chris Mayer offers a compelling chart on government intervention… Dark data: Service sector, retail, jobs all disappoint, plus a shocking stat on student debt…

Walking the long, windy road toward the demise of the dollar, we spy another mile marker today: China is officially putting their money where their mouth is.

After clamoring for a reserve alternative all year, the Chinese government agreed to a $50 billion currency-diverse deal with the IMF today. Back in June, the deal seemed imminent. This morning, it finally came to fruition.

In their deal with the IMF — the first of its kind for any nation, ever — China buys $50 billion worth of bonds denominated in Special Drawing Rights, which

...

A very modest «Alenka» (on the profanation of the idea of energy conservation)

Grigory Pasko, journalist

I recently attended a seminar for radio journalists in Irkutsk, which had an interesting article published in the official programme about the implementation of "energy conservation projects in the Shelekhov municipal district."

Will you look at that, I thought to myself, there are actually ahead-of-the-curve people in off-the-beaten-track Shelekhov district, thinking progressively and implementing energy-conservation technologies! The only thing that perplexed me was why there weren't any such examples of energy conservation in the oblast center itself - in Irkutsk. Well, be that as it may, I together with a group of radio journalists set off for Shelekhov to check it out.

...

July 10, 2009 ndash; Another mixed week of economic data, which left Wall Street in doubt about whether the economy is going to rebound any time soon. Fridayrsquo;s downtick in consumer sentiment was a stark reminder that Main Street is not doing well and isnrsquo;t particularly optimistic. middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Consumer Sentiment ndash; The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment (preliminary) index decreased to 64.6, the lowest level since March, from 70.8 in June. The forecast was for a reading of 70. With respect to Americanrsquo;s perceptions about their financial situation, and whether it is a good time to buy big-ticket items, the reading fell to 70.4 from 73.2. The index of consumer expectations for six months from now fell to 60.9, the biggest drop since October, from 69.2. middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; US Import and Export Price Indexes - The U.S. Import Price Index rose 3.2 percent in June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of ...

US stocks started the holiday-shortened trading week on a positive note as energy, technology and industrial shares pulled equity markets higher.  Although stocks seesawed in early trading, a gain in oil prices buoyed sentiments on the Street and investors raced to put money in the stock market. 

The Down Jones industrial average advanced 91 points or 1.1% and the S&P 500 increased 0.9%.  NASDAQ edged up 0.3%.  Volume on the NYSE was light with only 1.07 billion shares exchanging hands and advancing issues outpacing declining stocks by a three-to-two margin.  The measure of market volatility, the CBOE Vix, retreated 2.2% to 25.35%, its lowest level since mid-September.  Treasury prices jumped, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year note declining to 3.48%.  Crude prices jumped to more than $71 per barrel on higher demand expectations and reports that Nigerian militants partly shut down an offshore oil facility.    

Trading

...

h2 style="text-align: left;"span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" span style="font-weight: normal;"Credit Suisse is downgrading Apollo, ITT and Lincoln to Neutral from Outperform due to rising concerns of a more challenging Legal/regulatory environment./span/spanbr //h2div style="text-align: left;"br /Although they are not clear on how the sector will react to earnings season, the firm believes the consensus EPS estimates are approaching levels that leave very little room for upside.br /br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"After last nights announcement that the Department of Education has hired Bob Shireman as deputy undersecretary/span to advise the Department on college fiancial issues and other higher education initiatives coupled with channel checks the firm has done in the last few days they believe that more DOE program reviews is now the "best case scenario".br /br /br /div style="text-align: left;"span style="font-weight: bold;"The firm has worries that proposals could seek to tighten restrictions on incentive/spanspan style="font-weight: bold;" compensation/marketing practices;/span make it easier ...

Highlights include Sallie Mae (SLM), Nelnet Corp (NNI) and Student Loan Corp (STU).Budget Proposals Hurt Student LendersPresident Obama's budget proposals for fiscal 2010 include the elimination of private lenders from the student-loan market and having the federal government make all such loans directly. Beginning in 2010-2011, all new student loans are proposed to be originated through the direct student loan program.The shift to the Department of Education's direct-lending program is expected to save more than $4 billion a year in subsidies paid to private lenders, and also eliminate uncertainty for students.Since the shift in control of the Congress to the Democrats, there has been, on the whole, more support for direct student lending by the Government. Direct loans, however, only accounted for about 20% of the $68.2 billion in new federal loans during for the 2007-2008 school year, ...

February 18, 2009

Not very impressed? That seems to be the way investors felt today. An early rally fizzled while volume was on the light side while breadth was negative.

There may be a sense and fear developing from rumors and chatter of bank nationalizations that would wipe-out shareholder equity and hurt bondholders. That seemed the message from financials today.

…

div style=”text-align: justify;”CSFB is out with new (negative) info onspan style=”font-weight: bold;” Apollo Group (NASAQ:APOL)/span noting the shares rallied yesterday in reaction, they believe, to news of the dismissal of the lawsuit filed December in Arkansas alleging that Apollo wrongfully returned Title IV funds to the Department of Education to manage down cohort default rates; they think some investors had believed that the dismissal meant that the issue had been put to bed.br /br /span style=”font-weight: bold;”Industry sources lead CSFB to think that the lawsuit is likely to be refiled in the coming days in Phoenix./spanbr /br /span style=”font-weight: bold;”Although they expect news of a refiling to weigh on APOL shares short term and potentially increase volatility in coming weeks,/span they continue to like APOL shares and would view significant weakness as a buying opportunity. Sector history makes the firm think that, even if some wrongdoing were found by the …