Wall Street Pit

Cooking the Gold Books

Addison Wiggin — Fri, 24 May 2013 20:32:01 +0000

We got a small, if bitter, taste of gold’s “Zero Hour” in the second half of April. Either that, or the world’s largest banks engineered a takedown of gold for the purpose of staving off Zero Hour… for now. As you’ll recall from these pages in March, “Zero Hour” is the name we give to [...]

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Stock Options Watch: ANF, XLU, XLV

Caitlin Duffy — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:54:00 +0000

(NYSE:ANF) – Abercrombie & Fitch Co. – Shares in teen retailer, Abercrombie & Fitch Co., are getting hammered today, down 10% at $48.92 in early-afternoon trading after the company reported a wider-than-expected first-quarter loss and missed topline estimates, lowered its full year earnings forecast and said same-store sales would be down slightly for the rest [...]

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The 10 Best-Asset-Gathering ETFs of 2013

WSP — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:49:02 +0000

Amid the endless search for yield in a low-rate environment following the financial crisis, the demand for top-selling exchange-traded funds [ETFs] has risen owing to their ability to deliver steady income. There is no denying the fact that as a whole 2013 has been a solid year for both ETFs and equity markets so far. [...]

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The Breathtaking Rally could be Running Out of Steam

Jacob H. Zamansky — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:32:06 +0000

Yes, we’ve seen this movie before and it ends badly. Not only has the little-guy investor joined the stock party, but they are doing so with gusto and borrowing money to do it, lured by the prospect of Dow 20,000. As with past bubbles, investors are borrowing on margin at a record clip, with aggregate [...]

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Who needs Republicans when Wall Street has the Democrats?

Robert Reich — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:11:18 +0000

With the help of congressional Democrats, the Street is rolling back financial reforms enacted after its near meltdown. According to the New York Times, a bill that’s already moved through the House Financial Services Committee, allowing more of the very kind of derivatives trading (bets on bets) that got the Street into trouble, was drafted [...]

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Top Stocks Upgrades/Downgrades May 24, 2013

John Darsie — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:28:41 +0000

UPGRADES Whiting Petroleum (NYSE:WLL) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at SunTrust – SunTrust upgraded Whiting Petroleum due to valuation and upcoming catalysts that include results from its first Bakken Silt and Sanish down-spacing tests, Niobrara results, and potential monetization of its Potle EOR field. Price target raised to $58 from $51 Wendy’s (NASDAQ:WEN) upgraded to [...]

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Stocks to Watch: LULU, VVUS, AMZN, AEGR, SANM,

Antonio Costa — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:41:17 +0000

Lululemon Athletica inc. (NASDAQ:LULU) Breaking down. Probably a good short here. Technical indicators show some concerns. The slow sto is falling from the overbought level and the MACD is in the positive zone, but has stopped rising and is below the signal line. On the chart below, the negative divergence is quite apparent as the [...]

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The Beginning of the End of QE is Coming

Tim Duy — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:15:18 +0000

Bloomberg is carrying an interview with San Francisco President John Williams. Williams reiterates the possibility that future policy moves may be up or down: “Even if we do adjust downward our purchases, it doesn’t mean we’re now in some autopilot of moving in the same direction,” Williams, 50, said in an interview yesterday in San [...]

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Google (GOOG) Could Soon Face New Antitrust Probe Over Display Ads, Report

WSP — Fri, 24 May 2013 09:59:27 +0000

Google (GOOG) could face a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission [FTC] into its web-display ad business, a source told Reuters on Thursday. The source said that the new inquiry, which comes on the heels of the FTC’s decision to close a review of Google’s search business in January without taking action, [...]

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A Subtle View of Labor Market Improvement

David Altig — Thu, 23 May 2013 22:34:44 +0000

In a speech delivered Tuesday to the Japan Society in New York City, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley offered his view on how he might assess the appropriate pace of the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) current $85 billion per month asset purchase program: Let me give a few examples of [...]

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