Morgan Stanley (MS) reported third-quarter 2009 income of $498 million this morning or 38 cents per share, compared with a loss of $159 million or $1.37 per share in the prior quarter and an income of $7.7 billion, or $7.38 per share a year ago. The results were much ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 30 cents per share. The results marked the first quarter of income in a year’s time. Results were aided by robust underwriting revenues in the investment banking operation resulting from higher levels of market activity, strong growth in fixed income sales and trading, commodities, prime brokerage and wealth management business, which offset losses in commercial real estate. Unlike the preceding qaurters, the results were in line with strong results from competitors like Goldman Sachs (GS) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), which has been grabbing market share after ...

Although investors appeared hesitant and positioned themselves ahead of corporate earnings reports, the Dow Jones industrial average inched closer to the 10,000-level before some afternoon weariness saw indexes sinking sharply.  At the end of the session that was characterized by slow trading, the Dow managed to notch up some gains to remain in contention for the 10,000 mark – a level it last breached nearly a fortnight after Lehman’s fateful collapse in September 2008. 

The Dow Jones industrial average, which rose as high as 9931.82 points in the morning, gained 20 points to close at 9885.80.  The broad S&P 500 index rose 4.70 points, or 0.44%, to close at 1,076.19 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq ended the day little changed.  Bond markets were closed for the Columbus Day holiday.  On the New York Stock Exchange, 16 stocks were higher in price for every 14 that fell.

Eight of the ten

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China walks the walk… red nation agrees to major shift away from dollar reserves… Gold soars… Frank Holmes with a historic reason gold should keep rising… You know Peak Oil, but Peak Stimulus? Chris Mayer offers a compelling chart on government intervention… Dark data: Service sector, retail, jobs all disappoint, plus a shocking stat on student debt…

Walking the long, windy road toward the demise of the dollar, we spy another mile marker today: China is officially putting their money where their mouth is.

After clamoring for a reserve alternative all year, the Chinese government agreed to a $50 billion currency-diverse deal with the IMF today. Back in June, the deal seemed imminent. This morning, it finally came to fruition.

In their deal with the IMF — the first of its kind for any nation, ever — China buys $50 billion worth of bonds denominated in Special Drawing Rights, which

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After better-than-expected numbers from Goldman Sachs and Intel set off a broad weekly rally on Wall Street, stocks lacked direction Friday and ended the day little changed as investors braced for fresh corporate announcements.  Also fueling the rally was analyst Meredith Whitney’s bullish stance on Goldman as she assigned a “buy" rating on the bank.  That set the stage for a 7% market rally in just five sessions with the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 index posting their best weekly performance since the week ending March 13.

For the week, the DJIA jumped 597.42 points, or 7.3%, to 8,743.94 points and the S&P 500 rose 7% to 940.38.  The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index rose for eight consecutive sessions, its longest run since 2005, ending the week up 131 points, or 7.4% to 1,887.

As Goldman announced earnings of $4.93 a share, well above analysts’ estimate of

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - May 11, 2009 - Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Lloyds Banking Group plc (LYG), CBS Corporation (CBS), Somaxon Pharmaceuticals (SOMX), Alexza Pharmaceuticals (ALXA) and NeurogesX, Inc. (NGSX).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=4579.

Here are highlights from Friday's Analyst Blog:

Lloyds Still Expects a Loss

Today in its first quarter trading update, Lloyds Banking Group plc (LYG, or Lloyds) announced that it still expects to post a loss for full-year 2009 (excluding an accounting gain from negative goodwill) on the back of

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Today in its first quarter trading update, Lloyds Banking Group plc (LYG, or Lloyds) announced that it still expects to post a loss for full-year 2009 (excluding an accounting gain from negative goodwill) on the back of rising loan impairment charges due to continued economic deterioration.Lloyds now expects a 50%-plus increase in corporate impairments, largely from commercial real estate losses in the UK and Ireland, in addition to significantly higher impairments in the retail secured and unsecured loan portfolios.More positively, revenue growth has been solid in Wholesale, reflecting lower investment write-downs, improved trading income in interest rate and currency products, and good transaction volumes in capital markets. This has been supplemented by improvements in Retail, through the addition of one-half million current accounts and increased market share of new mortgage lending. However, sales in the insurance and pension businesses were off 22% on weak ...

By Dan Ferris, editor, Extreme Value/ Two recent headlines in the Wall Street Journal have confirmed my worst fears are coming true... much faster than I thought they would: On Tuesday, the Journal ran a story called "Life Insurers Are Finding Their Fates Tied to Stocks." It confirmed what I told my subscribers in the latest issue of Extreme Value. Stock market losses might hit more than your equity portfolio... Many life insurance companies sell variable annuities and other guaranteed return products. These products guarantee the investor will receive either a minimum return... or the gain in the S and P 500... whichever one is larger. With the big stock indexes way down, losses have already piled up. The hedging that supports guaranteed investment products is too dense to get into here... But as the Journal pointed out on Tuesday, big life insurers like Lincoln National and Hartford have already suffered ratings downgrades due ...

If $2.8 trillion has been lost, then how much of this lost money that came into existence when it was first borrowed from a bank, is still owed to a bank? Or the shadow banking system?

I was sitting outside, looking up at the stars, and wondering how many planets circle those billions of twinkling lights, and of that number, how many actually have sentient beings so stupid that they, like the beings here in the biggest economy on the planet Earth, would allow such unfettered expansions of money and credit by a central bank (like the Federal Reserve) so that somebody could borrow that money and use it to buy the new government debt so that the government could spend the money to satisfy the gluttonous growth itself and its friends, all of which guarantees Collapse And Ruination (CAR).

And then I started thinking about how I either sat in a

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US retailer Target Corp. (NYSE:TGT) is considering offloading $20 billion in real estate holdings. This will enable the company to focus on its core strategic operations, says Andrew Snyder. And that makes it easier for investors to analyse the business. Andrew expects Target’s stock to jump if this sale is given the go ahead.

This from Today’s Financial News:

Should a retail chain be severely and directly impacted by the fall of the nation’s real estate market? Should retailers divert from their core strategic mission and invest directly in the nation’s real estate market? Those are the questions Target Corp. (NYSE:TGT) investors are asking the company today.

According to William Ackman, the boss at Pershing Square Capital Management, the answer in Target’s case is no. He is pushing the company’s management to spin off its nearly $20 billion in real estate holdings into an independent real-estate investment trust

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Dow Theory Letters (10/13/2008)
“…the battle will be with deflation, and deflation is what’s holding gold back. It’s going to take massive infusions of government money and huge make-work programs to turn deflation back into inflation. As I’ve said, the US government will have to start giant make-work and rebuilding programs to battle the coming unemployment.

The coming national deficits will be one to two trillion dollars, and the US has no choice. We’ll have to get all the taggers and gang-bangers and street-corner hustlers off the block and put ‘em to work rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure as per the ’30s.

The total market and real estate losses are to date about $9 trillion or equal to almost one full year of Gross National Product. I think this will impact on the nation next year as unemployment reaches around 7%. You can’t lose a year of GDP without it’s having …