Regions Financial Corp. (RF) will have to shell out $1 million as penalty to settle Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charges. The SEC had filed a civil action against Regions Bank for its role in connection with a Florida-based offering scam by unregistered broker-dealers U.S. Pension Trust Corp. and U.S. College Trust Corp. (collectively, USPT). Regions Bank, and its predecessor Union Planters Bank, acted as trustees for a pair of unregistered investment brokers, the USTP. The trust arrangement was begun in 2001 by Union Planters, which merged with Regions in 2004. Regions allowed its name to be used in marketing materials, helped prepare a promotional video and met with prospective investors and some of the schemes' 2,000 unregistered sales agents. Without telling investors, the two investment plans deducted 18-85% of contributions to pay large sales commissions and enhance the plans' own profits. Approximately $255 million was ...

DrStockPick.com Stock Report!

Friday September 11, 2009

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JAG Media Holdings, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: JAGH) has entered into an agreement with The Investor Relations Group, Inc. (”IRG”), pursuant to which IRG will provide various investor relations and public relations services for the Company in accordance with the terms of the agreement. As of Tuesday, September 15th, all stockholders should address any inquiries directly to IRG.

DARA BioSciences, Inc. (Nasdaq:DARA), a development-stage pharmaceutical company, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with several institutional investors to sell 6,578,947 units, with each unit consisting of one of the Company’s common shares

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Wachovia Corporation, now a part of Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), will have to shell out a $2.52 million assessment fee to the state for its involvement in the auction rate securities market.   An auction rate security (ARS) typically refers to a debt instrument with a long-term nominal maturity, for which the interest rate is regularly reset through a Dutch auction.   Since February 2008, most of such auctions have failed and the auction market has been largely frozen. In late 2008, investment banks that had marketed and distributed ARSs have agreed to repurchase most of them at par. Wachovia announced yesterday that it would buy back $324.6 million of ARSs it sold to investors.   Wachovia has been slapped with a multi-state investigation under which it will have to pay a $50 million penalty along with buying back $9 billion in auction rate securities sold to ...

State budgets are a shambles. Sales taxes, corporate taxes, personal income taxes and other taxes are being raised all over the country.  The budget problems and consequential taxes will impact municipal bond rates and default risk, and after-tax investment returns on many forms of investment.

California Muni Money Funds:

We have been advising our California clients holding reserve assets in California tax-exempt money funds to consider moving assets to a national tax-exempt money fund or a taxable money fund while California works out its problems.  It’s one thing to take credit risk and interest rate risk in muni bonds intentionally, but if parking cash for safe keeping is the goal, the default risk (albeit perhaps temporary) or the the risk of being paid in IOU’s is just not worth holding reserve in California muni money market funds at this time.

California On The Ropes:

Reuters (June 19, 2009) “California… faces the prospect of a

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Auto and mortgage lender GMAC LLC (NYSE: GKM) reported a first-quarter loss of $675 million and now faces further pressure from bank “stress tests” and freefalling sales volumes that may push its former parent General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) into bankruptcy.

GMAC is one of the 19 lenders waiting for results of the government’s “stress test,” designed to determine which firms need additional capital to weather a deep recession. Results are due Thursday, and some analysts believe GMAC will be one of the banks ordered to find more capital within six months.

Despite receiving a $6 billion government bailout in December, GMAC reported net losses increased to $675 million from $589 million a year earlier, as the Detroit-based company set aside 78% more for loan losses than a year earlier. “The effects of a soft economy and weaker credit performance on legacy assets continued to put

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div style="text-align: justify;"Citigroup is out with a major call on span style="font-weight: bold;"Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) /spanto Buy from Hold while raising their tgt to $100 from $65.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Thesis — /spanCiti notes their Sept 2008 downgrade was based on concern over deteriorating gross margins (50% Aug '08, 46% Nov '08, 40% Feb '09). However, they now have increased confidence that GM% has stabilized in 42-44% range. Stable GM% combined w/RIMM's still stellar topline growth from strong consumer uptake should drive a positive EPS revision cycle, historically a positive catalyst for RIMM shares. $100 TP based on ~20x P/E applied to above consensus FY11 $4.78. While they recognize RIMM shares’ outperformance since Apr 2 earnings call, they see add'l gains as RIMM offers rare growth in wireless sector. Firm adds RIMM to CIRA's Top Picks Live for best new money ideas.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Edge — /spanCiti believes ...

div style="text-align: justify;"Morgan Keegan is out with some brilliant comments onspan style="font-weight: bold;" Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM)/span after the co filed its 40F (annual report) yesterday morning. The takeaways are two-sided:br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Most importantly, RIM's warranty disclosure reveals that RIM over-accrued for warranty expense (accrual greater than realization) by roughly $75 million, which negatively impacted GM by 220 bps in Feb./span The firm suspects a more normalized accrual accounts for about 1/2 of the GM improvement from Q4 to Q1 (the other 1/2 likely mix). Warranty experience (actual cash outlay) has only ticked up modestly in last 2 quarters (i.e., new products are equally high in quality as older products).br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"New Products Not Showing Material Difference In Warranty Experience -/span RIM's warranty experience (the actual cash it pays out for returns, etc...) is remarkably stable since the launch of its new product line up last ...

Two firms are upgrading Visa (NYSE:V) today:- Piper Jaffray upgrades V to Buy saying they believe this very high-quality franchise should be oninvestors' short list of stocks to own through this economic cycle. Firm is comfortable with Visa's earnings power through this cycle and over the long-term, despite financial/economic uncertainty in the markets and dollar strength; Visa's intrinsic value will continue to grow at a very attractive rate for many years to come.Pullback in the share price, even with yesterday's recovery, has greatly improved the risk/reward, in our view, creating an attractive entry point for long-term investors; shares trading at 21x calendar '09 est. of $2.76.Buffers against economic slowdown: debit (35% of pay. vol), non-U.S. & non-Europe pay. vol, new products, margin expansion on scale, op. leverage. Reducing fiscal '09/'10 EPS estimates from $2.77/$3.26 to $2.66/$3.22 on slower payments volume growth forecast.Tgt ...

The base metals were all in the red on Monday. Copper was off sharply pre-dawn, rallied at the beginning of the New York day, but then fell again to finish at its intraday low of $2.5478/lb., down nearly 13 cents from Friday. Nickel was down consistently throughout the day, closing at $6.8697/lb., down 51¾ cents.

Richard Paget of Morgan Keegan recommends Fluor:

a. Fluor has traded down with the drop in oil prices and shares at current levels provide a buying  opportunity.

b.  Fluor continues to add new awards to its book of business, and the company should book at least 30% year-over-year backlog growth

c.  $94 price target is based upon a 24 times multiple of our 2009 EPS estimate. Given the strong macro environment, Fluor shares should trade at the upper end of its historical price to earnings range.

Track Richard’s picks at:

http://trackthepros.com/categories.php?category_id=470