Adobe Systems (ADBE) yesterday announced the termination of the legal waiting period mandatory under the amended Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976. The expiry of the waiting period was announced by the FTC in one of its customary listings of approved deals.   The approval is with respect to Adobe’s proposed acquisition of Omniture Inc. (OMTR) announced on Sept 15. On Sept 24, Adobe formally offered to buy Omniture through its wholly owned subsidiary, Snowbird Acquisition Corp. for $1.8 billion in cash.   Adobe’s financial advisor is Goldman Sachs Group (GS) while Omniture’s is Morgan Stanley (MS).   The grant of regulatory approval means that the two companies may now go ahead with the procedures necessary to close the deal. Omniture shareholders have until Oct 22 to approve the takeover, unless Adobe decides to extend the period.   Post acquisition, Omniture will operate as ...

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) is hitting new 52-week highs but its stock remains cheap as earnings estimates rise. The company is trading at just 10.9x estimates. As trading revenues have soared, analysts expect year over year earnings growth of 261.78%.

Company Description

Goldman Sachs Group is a financial services firm offering investment banking, securities and investment management services to corporations, governments and high-net-worth individuals.

Zacks Consensus Estimates Spiking

There hasn't been much news out of Goldman Sachs since I last reviewed the company in July. But analysts continue to be extremely bullish on the company and estimates are jumping.

The third quarter Zacks Consensus Estimate rose 8 cents in just the last 7 days to $3.49 per share. That is up from $2.57 per share 90 days ago.

The outlook for the full year has also drastically changed in the last 3 months as the full year Zacks

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Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (...

U.S. stocks fell today, Friday, on worry over the quality of corporate profits after General Electric Co. missed quarterly estimates, discouraging investors after a four-day run-up in Wall Street.

GE’s profit fell by almost half as the slump that has gripped its finance and media businesses took hold of its heavy industrial units, and shares of the conglomerate tumbled 6 percent to $11.66.

Shares of Google fell nearly 3 percent to $430 after news that the weak economy and a slump in advertising spending took a toll on revenue growth at the Internet giant. Its results, posted late on Thursday, beat Wall Street expectations, however.

With companies such as Intel Corp and Goldman Sachs Group posting strong quarterly results earlier in the week, investors had been eager to see some consistency from other bellwether names.

Bank of America posted lower earnings and Citibank relied on a gain off its Smith Barney deal with Morgan Stanley to turn a profit.

“So far earnings

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Stocks highlighted in this article include: Goldman Sachs Group (...

Irrespective of the fact that the stress tests were not "stressful" enough, one of their achievements was to separate the winners from the losers. Since uniform methodology was applied to all banks, the tests were probably precise on relative assessment, which is further reinforced by the TARP repayment approvals for the stronger banks, including JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs Group (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS).  The approvals also show that some other banks like Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) still need Government crutches. When the TARP was initially implemented, it was "forced" upon all the largest players so that the weakest ones did not have to suffer the bailout stigma. Since then, the markets have absorbed a lot of bad news about the weakest banks and as such the TARP repayment approvals did not ...

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is taking his sweet time to work out the details of TARP II.  But for all the uncertainty surrounding his plans, we know one thing:  Zombie banks will not be allowed to go under.

Geithner just reaffirmed this, though not in so many words, in an interview with Charlie Rose.

Asked about the possibility of letting a major bank fail, he said, “I’ll say again, they play a critical role in our markets, in our financial system. We want to continue to make sure they play that role. Now, where they need temporary assistance through the government to get through that, we’re going to make sure it comes with appropriately tough conditions so that they emerge stronger and that we’re providing a level of conditions and accountability that’s appropriate in this context.”

Translation:  They can continue screwing up indefinitely, and we’ll still come to their

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Overall, we continue to maintain a negative outlook on both U.S. and non-U.S. Banks in the near-to-medium term.

The new Financial Stability plan announced by the Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner fell short on the details and we think that the benefits, if any, will take a long time to come by. While the earlier programs launched by the government have helped alleviate the capital and funding concerns to a great extent, the efforts have not succeeded in restoring the lending activity at banks.

It remains to be seen whether these steps and others like them in other countries will be sufficient to restore confidence in the financial system and increase lending.

In the meantime, 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.

It still remains a bit

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Highlighted stocks include: 3M Company (...

Senate rejects auto bailout…  ECB pushes back from the rate cut table…  Goldman and Citigroup predict a dollar fall…  China to continue to appreciate… And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Good day… Not sure when all of you will be receiving this today, as it took nearly over a half hour for my computer to boot up this morning. But its all good news for currency investors, so I’ll get it written and out to you as quickly as I can. The dollar slowed its decent overnight, but continued to fall vs. most of the major currencies as the US Senate rejected the $14 billion bailout for the auto industry.

The big winner in the Senate rejection of the bailout plan was the Japanese yen,

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