Stocks meandered at the start as uncertainty over the quarterly results this week kept investors from building positions.  Jittery investors, wanting to see more sings of an economic revival, sold off financial stocks after influential analyst Meredith Whitney downgraded shares of Goldman Sachs.  Whitney also lowered her earnings outlook for Bank of America and Citigroup.  Although late morning saw some strength, stocks struggled to stay afloat and ended the day mixed.   

Gains in commodity prices helped some mid-session buying in energy and material shares but the overall weakness in financial and healthcare stocks kept sentiment in check.  Shares of UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH) and Aetna Inc. (NYSE:AET) fell more than 3% as the Senate Finance Committee approved an $829 billion plan to overhaul the U.S. health system.  Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) fell 2.4% after the company reported revenue that was below the Street expectations.  However, the company reported higher

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According to a report released today by the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI), there have now been 1.046 million personal bankruptcies since the start of the year. This is the highest since the first nine months of 2005 when people were rushing to file before the draconian new bankruptcy act of 2005 took effect (still better than the Victorian days of debtor prisons, but not much).   The institute expects to see the total for the year top 1.4 million. I think they are being conservative, especially given the rise in the unemployed, particularly the long-term unemployed. In September, there were 124,709 consumer bankruptcies, up 41% from a year ago. The graph below (from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/) shows the history of bankruptcy filings since 1996 by quarter. The third quarter numbers come from the monthly ABI numbers; the quarterly numbers are from the administrative office of the U.S. courts.   If ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – August 3, 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: Cigna (CI), United Health Care (UNH), Aetna (AET), Ford (F) and Toyota (TM).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

What's It Worth to Avoid Competition?

There is an extremely interesting post that looks at both the change in the Intrade odds of having a public health care option and the movement in the stock prices of the three biggest health insurance companies, Cigna (CI), United Health Care (

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There is an extremely interesting guest post up over al the Baseline Scenario by Anindrajit Dube (http://baselinescenario.com/2009/07/31/the-value-of-not-having-the-public-plan/) that looks at both the change in the Intrade odds of having a public health care option and the movement in the stock prices of the three biggest health insurance companies, Cigna (CI), United Health Care (UNH) and Aetna (AET) in response to the Senate Finance committee’s decision not to include such a plan in its version of Health Care Reform. Clearly the current system of loosely regulated, for-profit, regional oligopolies is to the great benefit of these firms. I also think the evidence is pretty clear that it is not to the benefit of the American public. This is not a system designed to maximize the quality of care or hold down costs or reduce conflicts of interest. In most of the country, the combined market share of ...

Highlights include WellPoint, Inc. (WLP), Humana Inc. (HUM), Coventry Health Care, Inc. (CVH), Health Net Inc. (HNT), Molina Healthcare, Inc. (MOH), Amerigroup Corporation (AGP) and Aetna Inc (AET).The private sector is now partners in healthcare reform.Key healthcare stakeholders met yesterday with President Obama to pledge their support in slowing the rising cost of healthcare over the next decade.  In a letter addressed to the President and signed by the American Medical Association, the Service Employees International Union, and the main trade groups from the drug, hospital, medical-device and health-insurance industries, healthcare industry representatives vowed to stem the rate of increase in future health and insurance costs by 1.5% per year for the next 10 years, or approximately $2 trillion.Although lacking detail, the letter did propose a co-ordinated industry effort in developing strategies toward the following: administrative simplification ...

The Swiss central bank just cut back interest rates for the franc. World currencies are in a race to the bottom. Only the U.S. dollar seems suiidally determined to remain high…

If you’ve been watching currency exchange rates and yields, you can’t help but notice that world currencies seem locked in a a race to the bottom.

Central banks are slashing interest rates as if they were kudzu. The yen has yielded almost nothing since the 1990s. Then the Feds determined to punish savers for their foresight, thrift and prudence by making dollars yield absolutely nothing. The Brits have followed suit, and even the stodgy folks at the European Central Bank are slashing and burning their interest rates.

Looks like their concerns about inflation have been wrong all along.

Today, the Swiss central bank cut its interest rate close to zero and started buying up foreign currencies to keep the Franken from appreciating

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Negotiators from the House of Representatives and the Senate reached a compromise on the proposed economic stimulus bill today (Wednesday) and could have a bill on President Barack Obama’s desk by the end of the week, CNN reported.

“The bills were really quite similar, and I’m please to announce that we’ve been able to bridge those differences,” said Reid, the Senate majority leader. “Like any negotiation, this involved give and take, and if you don’t mind my saying so, that’s an understatement.”

The package has been reduced, however, from the $838 billion in spending approved by the Senate Tuesday to $789 billion.

Multiple Democratic sources had offered details on topics that had to be worked out CNN said.

35 percent of the bill would be tax cuts; 65 percent would be spending. Tax breaks for workers that had been set at $1,000 per family or $500 per individual ...

President Barack Obama’s $825 billion stimulus plan heads to the floor of the House of Representatives this week, with House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, saying many in his party will vote against the package unless significant changes are made.

“Right now, given the concerns that we have over the size of this package and all of the spending in this package, we don’t think it’s going to work,” Rep. Boehner said yesterday (Sunday) on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” “And so if it’s the plan that I see today, put me down in the ‘No’ column.”

The plan – detailed in a Money Morning report last week – could potentially pass the Democrat-dominated House without Republican support, The New York Times reported. But the stimulus plan will face major opposition when it comes before the U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. John …

In the currency market, the dollar was off slightly against the euro. Late Wednesday, the euro was trading at $1.2872 vs. $1.2856 on Tuesday.

Sterling continued to take a pounding, so to speak, falling nearly to $1.36 before edging back over $1.37.

With the UK’s financial system in shambles, Bank of England Gov. Mervyn King said that the central bank is considering buying up a range of assets in the coming weeks, in an attempt to re-start stalled lending to businesses and households.

King also promised “quantitative easing” measures that could be used to boost the money supply (i.e., roll the printing presses), considering the economic contraction that threatens to push inflation below the central bank’s 2% target.

Back home, Timothy Geithner, Barack Obama’s embattled Treasury secretary-designate, told the Senate Finance Committee that the president is working on a comprehensive bank-rescue package that will be unveiled in the next few weeks.

Geithner refused

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U.S. Treasury Secretary-nominee Timothy Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee yesterday (Wednesday) that drastic measures are needed to combat the U.S. recession and promised to overhaul the beleaguered $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).

Testifying after former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, Geithner told the committee the United States is facing “the mother of all financial crises.” Geithner also urged Congress to quickly pass a robust stimulus plan, Bloomberg News reported.

“If our policy response is tentative and incrementalist, if we do not demonstrate by our actions a clear and consistent commitment to do what is necessary to solve the problem, then we risk greater damage to living standards, to the economy’s productive potential, and to the fabric of our financial system,” he told the committee at a hearing on his nomination.

The credit crunch and housing market collapse require a “comprehensive plan” that must be

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