Losses for U.S. taxpayers are expected to reduce a bit as the Federal Reserve on Friday raised the estimated value of the assets that were used to address Bear Stearns' and American International Group’s (AIG) rescues during the height of the financial crisis last year.   Per the fair value concept, if sold in a systematic market on June 30, the assets would bring an incremental value. According to the Fed, a quarterly revaluation of the roughly $62 billion portfolio resulted in a net increase in fair value of $1.5 billion at the end of June. Additionally, those assets generated cash flow during the period.   The Fed said that approximately $2.6 billion in cash flow generated by the assets from AIG during the second quarter had been used to repay the loan from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York . The Fed was forced to take ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – July 29, 2009 – Zacks Equity Research highlights NTT DoCoMo (DCM) as the Bull of the Day and Altria Group (MO) the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on United Health Care (UNH), Aetna (AET) and Humana (HUM).

Full analysis of all these stocks is available at http://at.zacks.com/?id=2676

Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:

Bull of the Day:

We maintain our Buy recommendation and the same valuation target for NTT DoCoMo (DCM), the largest mobile service provider in Japan, ahead of first quarter of fiscal 2010 financial results. The company currently maintains a leading 50% share of the Japanese wireless market.

DCM upgraded 98% of its total coverage area with 3G HSDPA technologies and emerging 4G LTE networks are planned for deployment through 2010. DCM's decisions to focus

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One of the traits that people prize most in dogs is loyalty. However, the question then becomes loyalty to whom or what? In the case of the "Blue Dog Caucus," the group of Congressional Democrats that has emerged as the major player in health care reform, it appears that its loyalty is first and foremost to its big campaign contributors -- the health insurance firms and the drug companies. The general claim that they make is that they are worried about the fiscal consequences of health care reform, but when it comes to specifics, they are most opposed to the very elements of the reform package that are most likely to be successful in driving down the overall cost. It is easy to figure out why the GOP is united in opposition to the primary plans being debated in Congress. (Some members of the GOP have proposed ...

Whoever said irony died after 9/11 clearly didn’t anticipate this.

“Now that President Obama has signed a $787 stimulus package [sic] into law and weighed tens of billions more to aid homeowners and banks,” deadpans a hastily-written New York Times political blogpost, “he will take a break next Monday to consider just how the government can get a grip on its increasingly ugly balance sheet.”

Yes folks, it’s the “fiscal responsibility summit,” not to be confused with the “fiscal wakeup tour” chronicled in I.O.U.S.A.

90 invitees will wring their hands over the prospect of a $2 trillion dollar deficit this year.  No word yet who exactly is on the guest list, but we know the rough makeup of this august panel — 30 House members, 30 senators, and “30 scholars and representatives of advocacy groups such as AARP.”

Well, I guess the irony of inviting habitual big spenders isn’t too thick

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