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A number of financial stocks were down today after Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) lowered estimates for a number of them, including Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS).
Goldman based lowering its estimates on the financial institutions February results, which revealed earnings for 2010 dropping. Weak capital markets were another significant factor in the lowered estimates.
Cutting estimates in the first quarter for many of the investment banks and larger banks by an average of 15 percent and annual earnings by 3 percent, Goldman analysts said in a note to clients, “In general, while we continue to have a positive view on the direction of capital markets activity, lower-than-expected February results are likely to soften what otherwise would have been solid first quarter results.”
Even with the downwardly revised earnings estimates, Goldman did say diversified financial institutions like Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase would be the better companies to invest in in the financial sector, while pure play institutions would be less desirable, like Piper Jaffray (NYSE:PJC).
Estimates on Morgan Stanley were slashed by 16 cents on quarterly earnings to 55 cents a share for the quarter ending in March and 5 cents a share for annual earnings, which now stand at $2.95 a share.
Bank of America had estimates dropped by 2 cents for the same quarter, now expected to finish at 10 cents a share, while earnings a share for the year are at $1 now, a 5 cent a share drop.
For J.P. Morgan Chase, they had their quarterly earnings cut by 4 cents for the quarter to 70 cents a share and annual earnings dropped 5 cents to $3.25 cents a share on the year.
Goldman was especially concerned over Morgan Stanley and Citigroup (NYSE:C), which in their estimation haven’t taking advantage of what is trending now in the way their competitors have.
Goldman says commodities, currencies and fixed income should do well in 2010.
This article (Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) Have Estimates Lowered by Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS)) was originally developed by and is property of American Banking News. Checkout American Banking News for up-to-date banking news and peer to peer lending news.
A federal appeals court ruled today that the Federal Reserve must release information concerning which financial institutions may have collapsed if they hadn’t intervened with bailing them out. Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), Citigroup (NYSE:C), Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) and JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), among others, have been fighting to keep the information secret.
The Federal Reserve now must release the documents which would provide the details sought from a lawsuit filed by Bloomberg News to attain them.
A lower-court judge had made the same decision in August 2009, and this ruling upholds the original decision to make the records available to the public concerning the extraordinary $2 trillion spend on the taxpayers behalf.
In my opinion the argument by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve was always weak and lame, saying the reason the information shouldn’t be released would be because it would cast the banks in a negative light, or could “stigmatize” them. But that argument can’t even be taken seriously in the light of public opinion of the banks over the last couple of years. What more could be done to harm the view of Americans concerning the banks operating in this country? All this does is identify and/or confirm what happened specifically to each bank; at least hopefully it will.
Still, the request to view the loan records of banks under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act was an unusual one, and one that normally wouldn’t be agreed to because of concerns over information being leaked over competitive trade secrets of the banks.
In reference to those trade secrets, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska said there was no proof the banks would suffer any harm, or that trade secrets would be revealed. Trade secrets are protected from being released to the public, and in this case it wasn’t considered a factor, one of the reasons the judge rules as she did.
Most of the battle came from what is called the discount window and whether or not the banks had borrowed from it or not. This is what the concerns over being stigmatized was referring to, as it would reveal which ever bank borrowed from it would have experienced liquidity problems.
Supposedly it raises concerns there could be a run on the banks if the information were to be revealed, but that’s highly unlikely at this point in the process, unless there are ongoing liquidity problems investors or consumers may pursue further to see if they’re still there after borrowing from the discount window in the past.
Other banks arguing to keep things secret besides the four largest banks were ABN Amro Bank NV, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, The Bank of New York Mellon and US Bancorp.
This article (How Bad Really Were Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), Citigroup (NYSE:C), Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM)? – We are going to find out!) was originally developed by and is property of American Banking News. Checkout American Banking News for up-to-date banking news and peer to peer lending news.
An appeal by Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) concerning the bankruptcy confirmation concerning Charter Communications has been agreed to be dismissed in New York.
The agreement to dismiss the pending appeal came when the needed votes to amend existing senior secured credit facilities worth $8.2 billion were garnered.
What the amendment does is empower Charter to create a new revolving facility, extend some of the the maturities of the facilities, among other terms and conditions related to them..
How that will change existing terms will they will be extended from maturies due in the middle of 2013 out to September 2016, giving them two and a half more years. Charter estimated that will entail about $3 billion in existing term loan maturities.
For the newly created credit facility, that will be extended for two years from the current credit facility in place, which now will mature in 2015. That covers a minimum of $1.2 billion for Charter.
Once this new conditions and terms were put in place, as mentioned JPMorgan and Bank of America dropped the pending amendment appeals to the bankruptcy confirmation. Charter emerged from bankruptcy in November 2009.
This article (Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) Dismiss Bankruptcy Appeal of Charter Communications) was originally developed by and is property of American Banking News. Checkout American Banking News for up-to-date banking news and peer to peer lending news.