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TheStreet Ratings Top 10 Rating Changes

Mon, 14 May 2012 13:59:45 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet Ratings) -- Every trading day TheStreet Ratings' stock model reviews the investment ratings on around 4,700 U.S. traded stocks for potential upgrades or downgrades based on the latest available financial results and trading activity.

TheStreet Ratings released rating changes on 108 U.S. common stocks for week ending May 11, 2012. 38 stocks were upgraded and 70 stocks were downgraded by our stock model.

Rating Change #10 ...

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Prudential Financial Gets Two Upgrades

Thu, 10 May 2012 08:57:11 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Prudential Financial received a pair of upgrades following a recent sharp selloff in the shares in the wake of disappointing first quarter earnings results.

Morgan Stanley analyst Nigel Dally and Evercore Partners' Mark Finkelstein both raised their recommendations to overweight from equal weight, though Finkelstein reduced his price target to $65 from $71, according to Bloomberg data. Dally's price target is $66. His previous target could not be determined. Prudential shares, which closed at $51.06 on Wednesday and have fallen nearly 17% over the last five days, were up more than 2% in pre-market trading.

"While the recent results from the company were clearly disappointing, we believe the stock price reaction has been significantly overdone, pushing valuation down to a level that we now view as highly compelling, with the stock currently trading at 6.5 times our 2013 EPS estimate and at less than 0.9 expected year-end book value," Dally writes. ...

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AIG Gets a 'Buy' Call From Goldman Sachs

Wed, 09 May 2012 09:12:32 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock of AIG to buy from neutral on Wednesday with a price target of $40, citing an improvement in the pricing environment of its property and casualty business, an improving risk profile and higher capital deployment.

The upgrade follows the Treasury's announcement earlier this week of its plans to sell $5.8 billion worth of shares in the bailed-out insurance giant and reduce its stake to 61% from 70%.

The latest report from the government accountability office Tuesday said that the Treasury could make a $15 billion profit from the bailout of AIG. ...

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Ex-Dividend Stocks: Exxon Mobil, Rockwell Automation

Wed, 09 May 2012 06:19:22 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The following stocks go ex-dividend Thursday, meaning an investor must purchase the shares Wednesday to qualify for the next dividend payment: Exxon Mobil, Wisconsin Energy, Rockwell Automation, W.W. Grainger, Fair Isaac, Diebold and CNA Financial.

Exxon Mobil

The oil giant last month forecast first-quarter earnings of $9.45 billion, or $2 a share, down from year-earlier earnings of $10.65 billion, or $2.14. ...

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Ally's ResCap Deal May Pave the Way for Sale, IPO

Tue, 08 May 2012 10:16:26 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Ally Bank may be close to selling its Residential Capital mortgage unit to Fortress Investment Group as part of a $3 billion bankruptcy sale.

The New York Post reports that taxpayer-owned Ally Bank will put ResCap into a pre-packaged bankruptcy, paving the way for Fortress's $ 2 billion bid for the troubled mortgage lending unit and another $1 billion for a $130 billion mortgage servicing rights portfolio run by Ally, citing unnamed sources.

The potential sale, which would need a judge's approval, could help Ally Bank repay some of the $17 billion in emergency loans it took from the government during the financial crisis and remove one of the biggest barriers for the former banking and auto-finance arm of General Motors to eventually go public in an IPO or be sold in pieces to lenders like Wells Fargo. ...

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Bank of America's Moynihan Faces Trial Deadline

Tue, 08 May 2012 06:06:33 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan is facing a May 18 deadline to give testimony in a lawsuit brought by MBIA, an event that will put increasing pressure on the bank to reach a settlement expected to cost some $2 billion, according to an analyst following the legal battle.

MBIA has sued Countrywide Financial, accusing the lender of fraudulently inducing MBIA to insure 15 separate securitizations of residential mortgages sold between 2004-2007. Bank of America acquired Countrywide in 2008. Bank of America CEO Moynihan must testify about the bank's integration of Countrywide Financial by May 18

New York State Supreme Court Judge Eileen Bransten ruled last month that Moynihan's testimony is necessary because he oversaw the integration of Countrywide into Bank of America, and MBIA argues Bank of America is liable for Countrywide's alleged fraud. ...

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TheStreet Ratings Top 10 Rating Changes

Mon, 07 May 2012 13:02:23 EDT

TheStreet Ratings released rating changes on 123 U.S. common stocks for week ending May 4, 2012. 52 stocks were upgraded and 71 stocks were downgraded by our stock model.

Rating Change #10 ...

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Treasury to Sell $5 Billion in AIG Stock

Mon, 07 May 2012 09:22:55 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- AIG took another step toward independence from U.S. government ownership on Sunday as the U.S. Treasury announced it would sell some $5 billion worth of AIG shares, with AIG buying $2 billion of that total.

The transaction reduces the Treasury's stake in AIG to 63%, or $30.7 billion, according to the Treasury's announcement. That stake may be reduced by up to an additional $740 million if underwriters of the Treasury's offering, which include 11 different investment banks, elect to purchase AIG shares from the Treasury.

Total government support to AIG now totals about $39 billion, down from an original $182 billion extended during the financial crisis, according to the Treasury's announcement. The remaining support includes the rest of Treasury's equity investment and a roughly $8 billion loan from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. ...

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Talk of Buffett's Health at Berkshire Meeting

Sat, 05 May 2012 19:40:49 EDT

Updated from 12:25 p.m. EDT with Buffett comments on his successor and revelation that Berkshire recently attempted a large acquisition.

By Josh Funk

OMAHA, Neb. -- Warren Buffett worked to reassure shareholders that he's feeling good after his recent prostate cancer diagnosis, and that Berkshire Hathaway's is ready to replace the revered 81-year-old investor when the need arises. ...

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Buffett: Successor Will Run Berkshire Well

Sat, 05 May 2012 15:48:49 EDT

OMAHA, Neb. -- Warren Buffett says his eventual successor as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway will maintain the company's culture and keep key managers of its subsidiaries happy.

Buffett says the successor Berkshire's board has in mind won't do anything to turn off the managers of the 80-odd companies Berkshire owns.

Warren Buffett ...

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AIG Investors Find Plenty of Reasons to Sell

Fri, 04 May 2012 15:25:03 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- AIG's selloff Friday despite consensus-beating first quarter earnings and generally positive analyst commentary seems surprising on the one hand, though if you step back for a minute there are plenty of reasons for investors to remain anxious about the insurance giant.

Much of the anxiety relates to politics in one way or another, and there were plenty of potential triggers for it on Friday.

One of the biggest reasons for caution on AIG could easily have been missed by analysts focused narrowly on the insurance industry, as it came from an interview with General MotorsCEO Daniel Akerson. ...

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Aon: S&P Intraday Laggard

Fri, 04 May 2012 10:42:51 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) - Aon was the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500 on Friday morning.

The S&P 500 was down more than 15 points, or about 1.1%, to 1,376.20.

Shares of Aon fell 5.04% to $48.76. The insurance company reported first-quarter earnings Friday of $238 million, or 71 cents a share, compared to $246 million, or 71 cents a share, a year earlier. ...

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Stocks to Watch: Duke Energy, Estee Lauder (Update 1)

Fri, 04 May 2012 08:03:05 EDT

NEW YORK -- Duke Energy reported first-quarter earnings Friday of $295 million, or 22 cents a share, down from year-earlier earnings of $511 million, or 38 cents.

Adjusted earnings for the latest quarter were 38 cents a share.

Analysts expected a profit of 36 cents a share on revenue of $3.62 billion. ...

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Visa, Morgan Stanley: Financial Losers

Thu, 03 May 2012 16:57:11 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Thursday was a weak day for financial stocks generally, as the Financial Select Sector SPDR, a widely-followed exchange traded fund that tracks financials, fell 0.81%, versus a 0.47% fall for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Bank of America shares fell by 2.21% to $8, Citigroup dropped by 0.67% to $32.48 and JPMorgan Chase was lower by 0.44% at $43.01. Goldman Sachsand Morgan Stanley, meanwhile, fell by 1.93% and 4.04% respectively.

Morgan Stanley's decline came despite a positive report from Credit Suisse analyst Howard Chen, following a meeting between Chen and company COO Jim Rosenthal. ...

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AIG Earnings Beat Wall Street Estimates (Update1)

Thu, 03 May 2012 16:43:14 EDT

AIG reports first-quarter earnings per share of $1.65. Analysts were expecting EPS of $1.12. AIG's Chartis unit reported operating income of $1 billion in the first quarter of 2012, compared to a $424 million loss a year earlier.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- AIG reported after-tax operating net income of $3.1 billion, or $1.65 a share, as sales of once-toxic subprime assets and a rebound of its property-casualty unit lifted profitability.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters were looking for AIG to earn $1.12 per share compared with $1.30 a year earlier. ...

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