Recently, William Demchak of the PNC Financial Services (PNC) was offered the position of the next CEO of the Bank of America (BAC). However, the offer was turned down by Demchak.   We suspect Demchak declined the offer as the pay package is likely to be among the least competitive in the industry, especially since the Obama administration's pay czar took the axe to seven institutions' pay plans, chopping the average high-end salary by 50%. Moreover, the bank is also operating under a memorandum of understanding with regulators, who are scrutinizing the top gun's every decision.   The present CEO of the Bank of America, Mr. Ken Lewis, is set to leave the position, stepping down at the end of the year. It may be noted that he succumbed to the pressure to resign after his company’s Merrill Lynch acquisition.   Earlier this month, Robert Kelly of the ...

U.S. stocks surged Monday, with the Dow Jones industrial average storming to its highest level in more than 13 months as finance ministers from the Group of 20 industrialized nations pledged to continue economic stimulus measures to help the global economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average, which was well supported by strength in its all but one component, rose 203 points, or 2.0%, to a 13-month high of 10,227.  The S&P500 climbed 2.2% for its sixth straight session gain to 1093 and the tech-heavy NASDAQ gained 2.0% to close at 2154.  The market’s measure of volatility, the CBOE Vix, plunged 4.3% to 23.15.

All ten S&P500 industry groups ended in the green, led by gains in basic material shares (+3.5%) and financials (+3.5%).  Crude prices added $2.00 to close at $79.43 even as Hurricane Ida was downgraded to a tropical storm.  Gold prices went past the $1100 level, up

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The basic premise of most corporate bond indexes is flawed. There has to be a better way.

Fixed income has been the fastest-growing corner of the ETF market this year, pulling in $31.5 billion in new capital through September. Those inflows worry me, for a number of reasons.

First, as I’ve written about previously, those inflows have forced some corporate bond ETFs to trade at large premiums to their net asset values. Those premiums are sustainable so long as investors continue to buy. Unfortunately, like all ETF premiums, if fund flows reverse, those premiums can collapse and turn into discounts, and investors will be left holding the bag. (See related story here.)

But there’s an even more fundamental problem with corporate bond ETFs, which stems from the way their indexes are constructed. This is the elephant in the room in corporate bond indexing, and it amazes me that it

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Tetra Tech Inc. (TTEK) recently won a $25 million contract for providing technical support to several programs run by the US Environmental Protection Agency in the Pacific Southwest Region Water Division.

During the five-year term of the agreement, Tetra Tech will support pollution prevention and sustainable water infrastructure activities associated with the Clean Water Act, the Marine Protection and Sanctuaries Research Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The company also received a $13.1 million contract from the Navy for a sanitary sewer system, storm drain removal and other services at Hunters Point Shipyard in San Francisco. This project is expected to be completed by March 2011.

Tetra Tech said that the dck/TtEC LLC was one of four contractors awarded a global multiple-award construction (GMAC) contract with the U.S. Navy. The indefinite delivery contract has a shared ceiling value of $900 million, with one base year and four

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PennyOmega.com Stock Report!

PennyOmega.com Hot Stock News & Alerts!

 

Tuesday August 11, 2009

PennyOmega.com Stock Report!

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SkyWest, Inc. (Nasdaq: SKYW) reported an 8.9 percent increase in revenue passenger miles (RPMs) for July, while available seat miles (ASMs) increased 4.5 percent compared to the same period last year. The combined airlines generated 1.75 billion RPMs for the month, while ASMs increased to 2.10 billion. Load factor was up 3.4 percentage points to 83.5 percent compared to 80.1 percent for the same period last year. Passenger boardings for July totaled 3,402,766 an 8.1 percent increase from July 2008.

Astronics Corporation (NASDAQ: ATRO), a leader in advanced, high performance lighting, electrical power and automated test systems for the global

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With the Rally Nearly Over the Germans are Buying Gold.

The Dow fell another 107 points yesterday. Oil held steady at $70. The dollar fell to $1.38. And gold rose $4 to 932.

What if the rally is over? Could be… It began on 9 March. That makes it more than 3 months old. Most likely, it will continue through the summer. But who knows?

The important thing to remember is this: there can be no major, sustained bull market without one of two things happening.

Either… the mistakes of the Bubble Epoque must be cleared away… allowing for a new era of genuine growth and real prosperity. At best, this would take a few years to achieve. Just imagine how long it will take to restructure GM into a profit-making business again. Just imagine how long it will take consumers to pay down their debts so they can begin to spend again. Just

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - June 10, 2009 - Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: J.P. Morgan (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS), Citibank (C), Royal Caribbean (RCL) and Carnival Corporation (CCL).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=4579.

Here are highlights from Tuesday's Analyst Blog:

A Stress-Test Do-Over?

The good thing is that, with the exception of the unemployment rate, things have not been worse than the more adverse scenario, and the banks have been able to raise the capital needed to withstand that scenario. The release of the original stress test

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This morning, the head of the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) of the TARP program, Elizabeth Warren, called for a "stress-test do-over." The reason is that the original stress test might have been based on economic assumptions that were too optimistic.This was a point that I and our banking analysts Eric Rothmann and Neena Mishra made repeatedly before the original test results were made public (and Zacks was not alone in that assessment either). I certainly agree, particularly the baseline assumptions. The more adverse scenario is what has been playing out so far, or at least the actual numbers are more in line with it than with the baseline.There were three key sets of economic assumptions that went into each stress test scenario: real GDP, unemployment and housing prices. Relative to the scenarios, the economy has been doing best on the GDP front, with an actual ...

U.S. regulators finally revealed the results of the long-awaited stress tests for the nation’s largest banks. Regulators urged ten of the country’s nineteen largest financial institutions to raise about $75 billion in new capital to withstand possible future losses. These institutions will attempt to raise capital by selling common stock among other methods.

Among the institutions needing more capital, Bank of America needs to raise $33.9 billion, Wells Fargo needs to raise $13.7 billion, auto and mortgage lender GMAC needs to raise $11.5 billion, Citibank needs to raise $5.5 billion, and Morgan Stanley needs to raise $1.8 billion. The other firms needing some additional capital are all regional banks: Regions Financial, SunTrust Banks, KeyCorp, Fifth Third Bancorp, and PNC Financial.

The banks needing additional capital will have until June 8 to develop a plan and have it approved by their regulators. If the banks can’t raise the money on their

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Gaza bombing has dollar on the run…  More proof we’re turning Japanese…  Adding to the debt burden…  What will deflation do for the dollar? And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

The currencies had a split personality while I was gone too… At first, they rallied like there was no tomorrow, but then sold off, and then range traded. So, we’ll finish the year on a down note for most of the currencies, but knowing all too well that the markets are beginning to realize that the debts the U.S. is chalking up are not going to go away, and in fact they’re just going to get worse, and that spells bad times for the dollar… Eventually…

I

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