div style="text-align: justify;"Merrill Lynch/BAM is upgrading span style="font-weight: bold;"Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS)/span to Buy from Neutral following a modest post-E3 sell-off.br /br /According to the analyst the upgrades is based on 1) expected upside to consensus estimates in 1Q and 2Q with company likely tracking at/above their early FY10 internal plan, 2) strength of Sims 3, Active and Need for Speed franchises likely driving improved investor sentiment on EA’sbr /execution, 3) catalysts and seasonality with the summer period historically giving the best return on EA’s stock and the firm sees several upcoming catalysts. span style="font-weight: bold;"Merrill is $100mn above consensus in F1Q (June) and F2Q and their bias is that Street estimates move higher for FY10/FY11 over next 90 days, as key Active and Sims titles should have catalog and sequel strength./spanbr /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Multiple catalysts/spanbr /In addition to 1Q/2Q upside, they see the following catalysts helping drive improved investor ...

Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea. Overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared through the sky curiously, but in the process he came too close to the sun, which melted the wax. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and that he was only flapping his bare arms. And so, Icarus fell into the sea. - Wikipedia entry on Icarus

Whether it is merely temporary or a sign of something more durable it is hard to escape the fact that as the discourse on green shoots and second derivatives linger we might be entering a new leg of this crisis. Thus, there should be no mistake. We are very much still stuck in the mire and especially so in the context of the so-called developed OECD economies

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Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT): Stock of the Day

by Ted Leinbach, Research Team, The Oxford Club 

When the New York Stock Exchange needed a computer operating system to handle its vast amount of daily transactions, it did not look to the perennial tech-bellwethers like Apple or Google.

Instead, the exchange had a much better company in mind, one whose technology is stronger and more efficient. And one whose technology is “crash-proof”.  

You see, the NYSE simply can’t run on a program like Microsoft Windows. Why? According to this company’s President and CEO Jim Whitehurst, “It crashes too often.”

That’s why the New York Stock Exchange selected Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT). Headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, Red Hat is the largest provider of Linux software and is the most recognized open brand source in the world.

The company serves global enterprises with technology

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GoldDrivers 2009 - Extraordinary Bullish Outlook For Gold Eric Hommelberg

Gold proves itself as only true alternative for the dollar Confidence in currencies shaken to the core Gulf countries are keen to break away from the link with the US dollar Chinese appetite for US debt in decline Former Bank of England official expects dollar collapse Investors fleeing into gold as US prints trillions HSBC, Citigroup, Merril Lynch, Goldman Sachs all turning bullish on gold Senior gold shares ready to move higher after impressive 100% bull run since October 2008 Junior gold shares waking up - bottomed out in December 2008

This piece is an update on “GoldDrivers

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Shares of Bank of America (BAC) are more oversold than tickets to the Obama Inauguration. Share price has floundered even lower during the last week, dropping below $10 a share to $5.97 in current trading. The company, which earned $4 Billion in 2008, has aggreed to pay $475 to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by Ohio’s ...

Holy cow batman.

A string of cascading failures in US Financial institutions appears to be having a chilling effect on the leaders of the worlds largest developing nation.

This week, casualties in the form of Merril Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and now AIG are lighting off alarms across the globe, with fears that the US Financial Maelstrom could lead to global problems far greater than what is happening now.

The most recent alarm, caused by the cascading failures of some of the worlds oldest financial titans, is rung with a final clarion call of AIG, a $1,000 Billion dollar insurer of the US Commodities markets is facing bankruptcy, to be bailed out by the Fed.

From the Telegraph.co.uk:

Federal Reserve bails out AIG with $85bn loan

By James Quinn, Wall Street Correspondent Last Updated: 1:38am BST 17/09/2008

The future of American International Group appears to have been guaranteed after high-level talks resulted

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