After enduring extraordinary shocks in 2008, the U.S. banks entered an exceptional state of turmoil in 2009. Starting as a credit issue in the subprime segment of the mortgage market, the sticky situation spread to almost the entire financial services industry, and all corners of the globe. In other words, the financial crisis ultimately morphed into a massive economic crisis, which has had major ramifications across the whole world. Although the banking industry is dealing with liquidity and confidence challenges, it now has financial support from the U.S. government. The government has taken several steps, including programs offering capital injections and debt guarantees, to stabilize the financial system. We believe that the worst of the credit crisis is now probably behind us. After almost a year of initiating the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a lot has improved with respect to the economic crisis, but ...

Willis North America Inc., a subsidiary of Willis Group Holdings Limited (WSH), today announced the final results of its cash tender offer to purchase any and all of its 5.125% senior notes due 2010.

The net proceeds from the offer came to $159,788,000. All of the 2010 notes that were tendered have been guaranteed for payment by Willis. The holders of the 2010 notes will be entitled to receive tender offer consideration of $1,027.50 per $1,000 principal amount of the 2010 notes, plus any accrued and unpaid interest.

The notes, which are guaranteed by Willis Group Holdings, carry ratings of Baa3 by Moody's and BBB- by S&P.

Bank of America (BAC) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) were the joint book running managers for the sale.

Willis intends to use the net proceeds from this offering to purchase any and all of Willis North America's outstanding 5.125% senior notes due 2010 that

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In order to replenish the declining fund of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) that insures regular deposit accounts when banks fail, the agency may ask U.S. banks to prepay fees for three years. Under the plan, banks would have to prepay their insurance premiums of $12 billion a year for 2010-2012, for a total of about $36 billion. The fees could, however, vary somewhat according to growth in total insured deposits. The FDIC board will discuss the issue today at its public meeting. The prepayment proposal is likely to get opposition from banks as the size of the upfront fees is significant and the banks are just at the start of their recovery period. The agency could again propose an emergency assessment, or a transfer of cash collected in fees from the FDIC's temporary rescue program that guarantees huge debt that banks issue to each ...

Willis North America Inc., a subsidiary of Willis Group Holdings Limited (WSH)  has priced its $300 million worth of senior unsecured notes due 2019 at 7.0%. The notes which are guaranteed by Willis Group Holdings carry ratings of Baa3 of Moody’s and BBB- of S&P.  Bank of America (BAC) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) were the joint book running managers for the sale. Willis intends to use the net proceeds from this offering to purchase any and all of Willis North America's outstanding 5.125% senior notes due 2010 that are tendered and accepted in a separate offering. Any remaining proceeds will then be used for general corporate purposes.  Willis Group Holdings’ second-quarter profit of 52 cents per share was just a penny ahead of Zacks Consensus Estimate. Results reflected growth in Global operations (7% organic growth) and International (5%), partly offset by a fall in ...

About a year ago, during the height of the crisis, the government started bailing out the banks to help revive deteriorating credit and lending markets, but the situation is going to be reversed as the regulators are considering asking healthy banks to bail out the government soon, in order to replenish the declining fund of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) that insures regular deposit accounts when banks fail. The tally of failed federally insured banks has reached 94 so far this year, causing a rapid decline in the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund as it has been appointed receiver for these banks. Despite imposing a special assessment charge on banks a few months ago, the FDIC’s cash balance now stands at a third of its size at the start of the year. As a result, the current move would be a great relief for the FDIC. The ...

After almost a year of initiating the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a lot has improved with respect to the economic crisis. Though the economy is in far better shape now than a year ago, there are persistent problems which need to be addressed by the government before shifting the strategy to growth. We believe that the U.S. economy will regain the growth momentum once these issues are resolved. On Thursday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that the government won't provide additional funds to stabilize the financial markets and the government’s economic team has removed a $750 billion line item from the federal budget projections, since it is unlikely to be necessary. The TARP panel members, however, are not happy as most of the taxpayer-provided money was provided to financial institutions. But this is what was required as financial institutions are the backbone ...

Following the U.S. Treasury’s announcement last week requiring the world’s banks to maintain stronger capital and liquidity standards by the end of next year to prevent a re-run of the global financial crisis, 15 large banks that control the majority of derivative trading worldwide have committed themselves to maintaining greater transparency in a $600 trillion market that needs stricter oversight in the interest of the global financial system.   As part of a series of voluntary steps by the banks to expand the use of clearing houses for the over-the-counter market in derivatives, the international banking group on Tuesday made the commitment for targets in expanded central clearing systems to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Bank of America Corporation (BAC), Citigroup Inc. (C), Deutsche Bank AG (DB), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) were included in the banking ...

Three more U.S. banks failed; tally reaches 84 this year Bank failures continue unabated as U.S. regulators on Friday closed down three more banks in California, Maryland and Minnesota. This takes the total number of failed federally insured banks this year to 84, compared to 25 in 2008 and 3 in 2007. The failed banks were Ventura, California-based Affinity Bank, with about $1 billion in assets and $922 million in deposits; Baltimore-based Bradford Bank, with $452 million in assets and $383 million in deposits; and Forest Lake, Minnesota-based Mainstreet Bank, with $459 million in assets and $434 million in deposits. Failure of these banks represents another sizable impact on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) fund for protecting customer accounts, as it has been appointed receiver for these banks. The failure of Affinity Bank is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund an estimated $254 million; ...

Better-than-expected earnings from retailers and an upbeat housing report helped indexes recover some ground Tuesday after previous session’s big market sell-off pushed equities sharply lower.  A rise in German investor confidence also helped sentiments on the Street as investors chose to brush aside a greater-than-expected plunge in wholesale prices.

The benchmark S&P 500 index closed up 1% at 989.67. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.9% to 9,217.94 and the Nasdaq Composite index gained 1.3% to 1,955.92.  About four stocks advanced for every one that declined.  Volume was light with only 991 million shares exchanging hands.  With investors back among equities, Treasuries declined, as the 2-year fell 1/32 and its yield rose to 1.028%, and the price of the 10-year eased 12/32 in price and its yield increased to 3.517%. The measure of market volatility, the CBOE Vix, reversed Tuesday's near-15% jump, retreating 6.1% to 26.18.

With no clear

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When you invest in a stock, one of the best things you can see is analysts raising their expectations about what the company is going to earn for the current fiscal year. There are several ways of measuring this, but the following is a list of the companies with the biggest increases in their consensus earnings expectations for this year over the last month.

To make the list, a company had to have a current mean (average) estimate of over 50 cents, be a member of the S&P 500 and have at least three estimates for this year. The 50-cent restriction was put in to prevent small dollar changes that are huge percentage moves from dominating the list (going from a penny expected to a nickel). Having 3 or more estimates also helps insure it was not a fluke. The S&P 500 restriction was put in to make sure we

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