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I believe that some of my first ever penny stock purchases were MLON / Mario Pino, QBID / Frank Olsen and IBZT / Ken Schilling ... has anyone else ever traded these?
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=2197
kgeez,
Did they straighten out that SWYV incident with the CEO paying off his old non Seaway debts?
Peter Uhlmann to Step Down as SEC Chief of Staff
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2009-8
Washington, D.C., Jan. 19, 2009 — Peter M. Uhlmann, Chief of Staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission, today announced that he will step down from his current position.
Mr. Uhlmann, who joined the Chairman's office in 2005, is one of the longest-serving Chiefs of Staff in the agency's 75-year history. As Chief of Staff, he has been centrally involved with the development and execution of the Commission's programs for promoting capital formation, healthy markets, and investor protection. In this capacity, he has served as a principal liaison to Commissioners and senior agency staff, and has been responsible for implementing initiatives to improve the organization and administration of the Commission. He has also been responsible for oversight of the agency's intergovernmental, legislative, and public affairs programs, and assisting the Chairman in managing the Commission's staff and budget.
"Peter has been a steady hand at the Commission during these challenging times," said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. "His strong and capable management of the agency's day-to-day affairs was reinforced by his integrity, professionalism, and good humor. The nation's investors and markets are fortunate to have had the benefit of his wisdom and good judgment."
Mr. Uhlmann said, "I am grateful to Chairman Cox and the other Commissioners for the opportunity to work for the SEC over the past three-and-a-half years. It has been an honor and a privilege to work with a staff that is so talented and so dedicated to a critical mission — protecting investors and sustaining confidence in the markets."
Mr. Uhlmann will remain with the Commission for a period of time to help assure continuity of SEC operations.
Before joining the SEC in 2005, Mr. Uhlmann spent more than 13 years as a chief of staff, legislative director, public policy expert, and public affairs strategist in the U.S. Congress. He was involved in the drafting and congressional consideration of numerous laws, including the National Securities Markets Improvement Act, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Telecommunications Act, Internet Tax Freedom Act, and Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act.
Mr. Uhlmann, 39, graduated with honors from Yale University in 1991, where he earned a double major B.A. in Political Science and in Classical Civilization.
# # #
How ironic .. to have the first american black president to be sworn in on Lincoln's bible, a man who proposed to abolish slavery.
Good to see you back J man.
IBM announcing later today ...
AFTER THE CLOSE
Company Actual Estimate Year Ago
Earnings Yr/Yr Rev
Woodward Governor WGOV -- 0.37 0.72 --
Wipro WIT -- 0.14 0.14 --
Supertex SUPX -- 0.17 0.30 --
Pinnacle Finl PNFP -- 0.36 0.35 --
Packaging Corp PKG -- 0.25 0.46 --
IBM IBM -- 3.03 2.80 --
IberiaBank IBKC -- 0.71 0.83 --
Hancock Holding HBHC -- 0.57 0.60 --
Fulton Fincl FULT -- -0.54 0.22 --
CSX Corp CSX -- 0.91 0.85 --
Cree CREE -- 0.09 0.11 --
Bank of NY BK -- 0.69 0.67 --
That sure is, I was referring to housing to be getting added attention soon due to the fact that TARP funds may be headed that way. jmo
* Housing stocks as a speculative play ? ...
OTCBB :
FCNR
BIG BOARDS :
FRE/FNM
BEAZER HOMES USA INC. $ 1.22
BZH -0.07
Short Interest (Shares Short) 11,986,000
Short Percent of Float 32.99 %
LENNAR Corp. $ 7.23
LEN -0.62
Short Interest (Shares Short) 26,450,100
Short Percent of Float 19.61 %
MERITAGE HOMES Corp. $ 10.25
MTH -0.65
Short Interest (Shares Short) 5,274,400
Short Percent of Float 19.53 %
STANDARD PACIFIC CORP. $ 1.49
SPF -0.13
Short Interest (Shares Short) 11,316,100
Short Percent of Float 11.54 %
Shift to original TARP could ease housing crisis
Tue Jan 13, 2009 6:27pm EST
By Patrick Rucker and Karey Wutkowski - Analysis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Treasury is being urged to soak up billions of dollars of soured mortgage investments in a move that would return the $700 billion financial rescue fund to its original purpose.
Backers of the plan, including banking regulators, housing industry officials and bankers, say the about-face for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) would help both banks and homeowners.
Since it was conceived in September, TARP has been retooled as a capital-injection program and Treasury has almost fulfilled its promise to buy $250 billion worth of stakes in banks. Another $100 billion has been doled out in other emergency measures.
President-elect Barack Obama has asked Congress to unlock the remaining $350 billion of the rescue money which lawmakers hope to divvy up among several initiatives meant to prevent foreclosures and restore credit availability.
"TARP needs to be used to buy illiquid mortgages and for the government to modify those loans," Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, said in a statement.
Treasury would need a big chunk of money to fund an asset-purchase program and the initiative would be cumbersome to manage but backers say the effort would almost uniquely achieve the dual goals of helping homeowners and the financial system at large.
"If the government becomes the sole owner of these mortgage assets, it's easier for them to rewrite the terms," said Lawrence White, a finance professor at New York University. "There are virtues to the original plan that seem to have been forgotten."
Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn expressed support for the idea at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday as did the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp which maintains a fund to protect depositors.
"Preventable foreclosures harm not only the affected borrowers and their communities but also, through their effects on the housing market, the broader economy and the financial system as well," said Kohn.
John Bovenzi, chief operating officer for the FDIC, said that removing problem assets from banks' balance sheets should be "a key component" of the second half of the TARP funds.
"Such a program is necessary to expand banks' balance sheet capacity to undertake new lending as well as to attract private equity investment," he told the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.
LOAN TRIAGE
Andrew Jakabovics of the Center for American Progress sees value in collecting troubled loans from the disparate investors who now hold them.
"The government could really triage these loans in a unique way once they own them," said the researcher with the liberal think tank that is acts as an incubator for Democratic Party policy.
"Also, the government could buy these housing assets at such a discount that taxpayers could see an upside to this."
Banks have been weighed down by their bad housing bets that are selling at deep discounts when anyone is even buying. Meanwhile, millions of homeowners have been locked in unaffordable loans heading for default.
The TARP program was originally pitched as a rescue two-step where the government would buy Wall Street's failing mortgage investments and then rewrite those loans to help homeowners.
The Treasury Department got a blessing from Congress but policymakers changed the plan as investor panic spread.
Making direct investments in banks would restore credit markets faster than buying bad assets, Treasury decided, and there was not enough money to both buy capital and bad loans.
GUARANTEES VERSUS PURCHASES
"For the asset purchase program to be effective, it must be done on a very large scale," Neel Kashkari, the Treasury's top TARP official, said in a speech last week.
Democratic leaders in Congress and the President-elect Obama's transition team have already begun to carve up the remaining $350 billion in rescue funds leaving little for asset purchases.
Banking lobbyists say such a program could still work if the government were to guarantee bad loans rather than purchase them outright. The Federal Reserve has pioneered several such blended approaches to aid during the ongoing crisis.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday that the government could consider public purchases of these problem assets, asset guarantees, or setting up a so-called bad bank to take over assets in exchange for cash and equity.
"Should the Treasury decide to supplement injections of capital by removing troubled assets from institutions' balance sheets, as was initially proposed for the U.S. financial rescue plan, several approaches might be considered," Bernanke said.
A toxic assets purchase program could also ease the public perception that the financial bailout plan has been targeted at Wall Street instead of consumers.
"This is the bridge between helping banks and helping homeowners," said Jakabovics, who has brought the idea to Capitol Hill and to members of the Obama transition team.
(Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
* Courtesy disclaimer : currently own shares and plan to add shares of various companies listed above.
Smart move, I think that they may see some attention soon.
* Housing stocks as a speculative play ? ...
BEAZER HOMES USA INC. $ 1.22
BZH -0.07
Short Interest (Shares Short) 11,986,000
Short Percent of Float 32.99 %
LENNAR Corp. $ 7.23
LEN -0.62
Short Interest (Shares Short) 26,450,100
Short Percent of Float 19.61 %
MERITAGE HOMES Corp. $ 10.25
MTH -0.65
Short Interest (Shares Short) 5,274,400
Short Percent of Float 19.53 %
STANDARD PACIFIC CORP. $ 1.49
SPF -0.13
Short Interest (Shares Short) 11,316,100
Short Percent of Float 11.54 %
Shift to original TARP could ease housing crisis
Tue Jan 13, 2009 6:27pm EST
By Patrick Rucker and Karey Wutkowski - Analysis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Treasury is being urged to soak up billions of dollars of soured mortgage investments in a move that would return the $700 billion financial rescue fund to its original purpose.
Backers of the plan, including banking regulators, housing industry officials and bankers, say the about-face for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) would help both banks and homeowners.
Since it was conceived in September, TARP has been retooled as a capital-injection program and Treasury has almost fulfilled its promise to buy $250 billion worth of stakes in banks. Another $100 billion has been doled out in other emergency measures.
President-elect Barack Obama has asked Congress to unlock the remaining $350 billion of the rescue money which lawmakers hope to divvy up among several initiatives meant to prevent foreclosures and restore credit availability.
"TARP needs to be used to buy illiquid mortgages and for the government to modify those loans," Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, said in a statement.
Treasury would need a big chunk of money to fund an asset-purchase program and the initiative would be cumbersome to manage but backers say the effort would almost uniquely achieve the dual goals of helping homeowners and the financial system at large.
"If the government becomes the sole owner of these mortgage assets, it's easier for them to rewrite the terms," said Lawrence White, a finance professor at New York University. "There are virtues to the original plan that seem to have been forgotten."
Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn expressed support for the idea at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday as did the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp which maintains a fund to protect depositors.
"Preventable foreclosures harm not only the affected borrowers and their communities but also, through their effects on the housing market, the broader economy and the financial system as well," said Kohn.
John Bovenzi, chief operating officer for the FDIC, said that removing problem assets from banks' balance sheets should be "a key component" of the second half of the TARP funds.
"Such a program is necessary to expand banks' balance sheet capacity to undertake new lending as well as to attract private equity investment," he told the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.
LOAN TRIAGE
Andrew Jakabovics of the Center for American Progress sees value in collecting troubled loans from the disparate investors who now hold them.
"The government could really triage these loans in a unique way once they own them," said the researcher with the liberal think tank that is acts as an incubator for Democratic Party policy.
"Also, the government could buy these housing assets at such a discount that taxpayers could see an upside to this."
Banks have been weighed down by their bad housing bets that are selling at deep discounts when anyone is even buying. Meanwhile, millions of homeowners have been locked in unaffordable loans heading for default.
The TARP program was originally pitched as a rescue two-step where the government would buy Wall Street's failing mortgage investments and then rewrite those loans to help homeowners.
The Treasury Department got a blessing from Congress but policymakers changed the plan as investor panic spread.
Making direct investments in banks would restore credit markets faster than buying bad assets, Treasury decided, and there was not enough money to both buy capital and bad loans.
GUARANTEES VERSUS PURCHASES
"For the asset purchase program to be effective, it must be done on a very large scale," Neel Kashkari, the Treasury's top TARP official, said in a speech last week.
Democratic leaders in Congress and the President-elect Obama's transition team have already begun to carve up the remaining $350 billion in rescue funds leaving little for asset purchases.
Banking lobbyists say such a program could still work if the government were to guarantee bad loans rather than purchase them outright. The Federal Reserve has pioneered several such blended approaches to aid during the ongoing crisis.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday that the government could consider public purchases of these problem assets, asset guarantees, or setting up a so-called bad bank to take over assets in exchange for cash and equity.
"Should the Treasury decide to supplement injections of capital by removing troubled assets from institutions' balance sheets, as was initially proposed for the U.S. financial rescue plan, several approaches might be considered," Bernanke said.
A toxic assets purchase program could also ease the public perception that the financial bailout plan has been targeted at Wall Street instead of consumers.
"This is the bridge between helping banks and helping homeowners," said Jakabovics, who has brought the idea to Capitol Hill and to members of the Obama transition team.
(Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
Shift to original TARP could ease housing crisis
Tue Jan 13, 2009 6:27pm EST
By Patrick Rucker and Karey Wutkowski - Analysis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Treasury is being urged to soak up billions of dollars of soured mortgage investments in a move that would return the $700 billion financial rescue fund to its original purpose.
Backers of the plan, including banking regulators, housing industry officials and bankers, say the about-face for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) would help both banks and homeowners.
Since it was conceived in September, TARP has been retooled as a capital-injection program and Treasury has almost fulfilled its promise to buy $250 billion worth of stakes in banks. Another $100 billion has been doled out in other emergency measures.
President-elect Barack Obama has asked Congress to unlock the remaining $350 billion of the rescue money which lawmakers hope to divvy up among several initiatives meant to prevent foreclosures and restore credit availability.
"TARP needs to be used to buy illiquid mortgages and for the government to modify those loans," Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, said in a statement.
Treasury would need a big chunk of money to fund an asset-purchase program and the initiative would be cumbersome to manage but backers say the effort would almost uniquely achieve the dual goals of helping homeowners and the financial system at large.
"If the government becomes the sole owner of these mortgage assets, it's easier for them to rewrite the terms," said Lawrence White, a finance professor at New York University. "There are virtues to the original plan that seem to have been forgotten."
Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn expressed support for the idea at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday as did the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp which maintains a fund to protect depositors.
"Preventable foreclosures harm not only the affected borrowers and their communities but also, through their effects on the housing market, the broader economy and the financial system as well," said Kohn.
John Bovenzi, chief operating officer for the FDIC, said that removing problem assets from banks' balance sheets should be "a key component" of the second half of the TARP funds.
"Such a program is necessary to expand banks' balance sheet capacity to undertake new lending as well as to attract private equity investment," he told the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.
LOAN TRIAGE
Andrew Jakabovics of the Center for American Progress sees value in collecting troubled loans from the disparate investors who now hold them.
"The government could really triage these loans in a unique way once they own them," said the researcher with the liberal think tank that is acts as an incubator for Democratic Party policy.
"Also, the government could buy these housing assets at such a discount that taxpayers could see an upside to this."
Banks have been weighed down by their bad housing bets that are selling at deep discounts when anyone is even buying. Meanwhile, millions of homeowners have been locked in unaffordable loans heading for default.
The TARP program was originally pitched as a rescue two-step where the government would buy Wall Street's failing mortgage investments and then rewrite those loans to help homeowners.
The Treasury Department got a blessing from Congress but policymakers changed the plan as investor panic spread.
Making direct investments in banks would restore credit markets faster than buying bad assets, Treasury decided, and there was not enough money to both buy capital and bad loans.
GUARANTEES VERSUS PURCHASES
"For the asset purchase program to be effective, it must be done on a very large scale," Neel Kashkari, the Treasury's top TARP official, said in a speech last week.
Democratic leaders in Congress and the President-elect Obama's transition team have already begun to carve up the remaining $350 billion in rescue funds leaving little for asset purchases.
Banking lobbyists say such a program could still work if the government were to guarantee bad loans rather than purchase them outright. The Federal Reserve has pioneered several such blended approaches to aid during the ongoing crisis.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday that the government could consider public purchases of these problem assets, asset guarantees, or setting up a so-called bad bank to take over assets in exchange for cash and equity.
"Should the Treasury decide to supplement injections of capital by removing troubled assets from institutions' balance sheets, as was initially proposed for the U.S. financial rescue plan, several approaches might be considered," Bernanke said.
A toxic assets purchase program could also ease the public perception that the financial bailout plan has been targeted at Wall Street instead of consumers.
"This is the bridge between helping banks and helping homeowners," said Jakabovics, who has brought the idea to Capitol Hill and to members of the Obama transition team.
(Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
"The government and taxpayers have an enormously strong incentive to address the housing market given that the losses to banks will not end and the economy is unlikely to stop declining until the housing market stabilizes."
R. Glenn Hubbard and Christopher Mayer
Columbia Business School
The Wall Street Journal, October 2, 2008
http://www.fixhousingfirst.com/
Housing market data at NAHB ...
http://www.nahb.org/reference_list.aspx?sectionID=134
Builders Testify Before Congress On Use Of TARP Funds
January 13, 2009 - As Congress considers releasing the second half of the Treasury’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) today urged lawmakers to use a portion of the funds to stem the rising tide of foreclosures and increase the flow of credit for housing production. NAHB also urged passage of legislation to stimulate housing demand.
“Up to this point, the TARP program has failed to expand the flow of credit to business and consumers on competitive terms,” NAHB Chairman-elect Joe Robson, a home builder from Tulsa, Okla., said in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee. “In addition the TARP program has not adequately responded to the nation’s foreclosure crisis, which must be addressed to keep people in their homes, help stabilize home prices and promote recovery of the housing market and economy.”
NAHB supports foreclosure prevention measures advocated by Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Sheila Bair, which would use $24 billion of the funds Congress authorized for the TARP to provide loan guarantees to achieve greater success in foreclosure mitigation efforts. FDIC estimates that the program could help about 1.5 million home owners to avoid foreclosure.
With falling home values at the core of the current economic crisis, Robson said that foreclosure relief absent a plan to address demand for housing will not succeed in fixing the nation’s housing and economic woes.
“The only way to stabilize the housing market and restore consumer confidence is to put a floor under declining home values,” he said. “In conjunction with foreclosure mitigation efforts, Congress must pass temporary and targeted incentives to encourage Americans to buy homes again. This will help to stabilize home prices, prevent future foreclosures, restore consumer confidence and start creating jobs.”
Specifically, Robson urged Congress to enact NAHB’s proposal to boost housing demand by providing a bigger and better home buyer tax credit and offering below-market fixed-rate mortgages on home purchases, which would increase home sales by 1.1 million in 2009 and create more than 539,000 jobs.
“This two-pronged housing stimulus approach mirrors legislation passed by Congress in 1974 and 1975 to deal with the exact same problem,” said Robson. It helped bring our economy out of recession back then and it can do it again.”
With the nation’s credit markets still frozen, banks who have received TARP monies have come under deserved criticism for not using the funds to expand credit liquidity, he said. The dramatic deterioration in credit availability has severely impacted the acquisition, development and construction (AD&C) credit market, which is fueling the downward economic spiral by further depressing home prices and increasing the number of distressed properties on the market.
“The bank regulators must improve accountability through monitoring and reporting requirements for banks receiving TARP funds,” said Robson. “Builders are reporting it is much more difficult to obtain AD&C loans and those with outstanding loans are experiencing onerous new requirements or are having their loans called in. In short, many good loans are unnecessarily being turned into problem assets as a result of these actions.”
NAHB is seeking an allocation from TARP explicitly targeted to AD&C lending, which would enable financial institutions to allow builders to complete viable projects.
“The goal is to avoid unnecessary and onerous equity calls by financial institutions on projects that are bankrupting many small and medium sized builders that rely exclusively on bank funding,” said Robson. “If this situation is not aggressively addressed, it will unnecessarily put more real estate-related loans into default, additional pressure on the banking system and the insurance fund, and create more hardship on already stressed communities.”
With production of badly needed new affordable housing units declining in the current economic climate, Robson offered several suggestions to improve the financial health of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), the single most important affordable housing production program in the federal government. He urged Congress to:
- Bring individual taxpayers back into the LIHTC investment market by changing the passive loss rules established as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986.
- Make the LIHTC a refundable tax credit to stimulate investment and ensure that existing credits are not resold in the syndication market, thus checking the decline in LIHTC prices.
- Expand the LIHTC carry back rule from one year to five years to ease the downward pressure on LIHTC by allowing credits to be claimed by investors that may not have federal tax liability in the current year.
- Allocate funds to state housing finance agencies to make up equity shortfalls in developments which have LIHTC allocations but have not generated sufficient equity for the projects to move forward.
It's been falling all of 2008. One would think that most of the damage has already been baked into the cake.
Construction & Housing
This section presents data on the construction industry and on various indicators of its activity and costs; on housing units and their characteristics and occupants; and on the characteristics and vacancy rates for commercial buildings.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/construction_housing.html
MGRN now .0015 x .0016
Stem Cell Innovations Inc SCLL .0055 + .0005
CBAI .0055 + .0015
CBAI .005 + .001
MGRN getting hammered , .0011 - .0024
Tue Jan 20 10:00:00 EST 2009 | Briefing.com
Selling pressure has intensified in the broader market, taking the S&P 500 lower. The selling effort hasn't been limited to just equities, though; select commodities have also come under pressure.
Crude oil for February delivery is down 1.9% to $35.80 per barre. February crude futures expire after the close of this session's pit trading. March crude oil futures are down 2.0% to trade hands at $41.70 per barrel. Both contracts have pulled up from earlier levels where February contracts traded more than 10% lower and March contracts were down more than 5% in electronic trading.
Natural gas contracts were recently indicated at $4.72, down little more than $0.07 per contract. Natural gas had taken out overnight lows at $4.57 per contract.
Metals are showing some resilience to the early broad-based selling effort. Gold is currently up 1.9% to $856.00 per ounce. Silver has added a more modest 0.7% to trade near $11.30 per ounce.
Early movers: Trading up: FAZ +16.1%, PHK +12.8%, SKF +12.1%, IRIS +11.7%, ANDS +11.5%, FXP +6.9%, NBL +6.2%... Trading down: APPY -70.5%, RBS -66.9%, LYG -56.6%, STT -52.2%, BCS -37.4%, VSEC -26.8%, BK -22.7%, ING -19.9%, BABY -19.3%, PNC -19%, C-M -18.4%, VE -16.6%, BAC -16.6%, FAS -15.4%, NTRS -14.8%, HBC -14.6%, RKH -14.4%, C-P -14.2%, DB -14.2%, CS -14.2%.
lol + 13 % and change
.0016 -.0019 is there a r/s coming ?
MGRN .0017 x .0018 may turn up soon, it's been getting hammered .
DOW 8000 ? - 171 now
CBAI .0049 + .0009
MGRN .0022 - .0013 still pulling back
3 month chart looks pretty good at this point, 6 -7 bagger
Stem cell play riding the momo of Barack Obama .
MGRN pulling back some .0027 - .0008
ACTC .125 + .02
CBAI .0046 + .0006
ABK 1.07 on the pull back radar again.
Jefferies Group's 4Q Loss Widens On Charges, Revenue PlungesLast update: 1/20/2009 9:26:07 AMAnalysts surveyed: 5 Thomson Reuters EPS estimates can reflect either net income, operating income or funds from operations. The company's earnings figure is on a diluted basis. Thomson Reuters assumes earnings estimates from analysts are on a diluted basis.
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Jefferies Group Inc.'s (JEF) fourth-quarter net loss ballooned on write-downs for stock-options expensing and a steep drop in revenue, though the investment bank projected a more optimistic outlook for the beginning of this year. Chairman and Chief Executive Richard B. Handler said that with "unprecedented volatility and the worst year for the financial markets in our lifetime, Jefferies is fortunate to have emerged intact and healthy." He added that Jefferies is starting 2009 "with its strongest opening balance sheet ever," adding the firm has "a lower, more flexible and transparent cost structure." Jefferies, one of about a dozen smaller investment banks, reported a net loss of $442.5 million, or $2.41 a share, compared with a loss of $24.2 million, or 17 cents a share, a year earlier. The latest quarter included about $328 million in charges, mostly related to expensing the prior year's employee stock awards. Revenue tumbled 63% to $243.4 million for the bank, which provides services for companies and institutional investors. The latest estimates of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters was for a per-share loss of $2.29 on revenue of $199 million. Jefferies, which has posted losses for five straight quarters, said in December it was laying off 13%, or 300, of its work force, by the end of 2008; closing offices in Dubai, Singapore and Tokyo; and amending its stock compensation plan to cut expenses and shore up its balance sheet. In response, Moody's Investors Service warned it might cut its senior unsecured rating on the investment bank, citing "uncertainty about whether Jefferies can return in the short- to medium-term to a sustainable level of profitability." The ratings agency did call the job cuts and other measures "a step in the right direction." Several analysts also slashed their fourth-quarter and 2009 forecasts on the company. Jefferies is one of several smaller banks that has tried to capitalize on the turmoil affecting its larger peers by hiring top talent in several areas, including its equities and trading divisions. Shares of Jefferies closed Friday's session at $12.54, and there was no pre-market activity. -By Shirleen Dorman, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2310; shirleen.dorman@dowjones.com (END) Dow Jones NewswiresJanuary 20, 2009 09:26 ET (14:26 GMT
CPHD / FCNR / NCEN / HWBI charts:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=34912096
CPHD / FCNR / NCEN / HWBI charts:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=34912096
CPHD / FCNR / NCEN / HWBI :
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=34912096
I'm all for it...
MARK TO MARKET
Street Readies Warm Welcome For Obama Jim Murphy says Wall Street is so far from worried about a changing of the guard in Washington that this four-day week will produce mighty gains in the stock market.