Many investors were waiting for the Federal Reserve to weigh in on the current economic climate of the United States. After the Federal Reserve said that the nation’s economy is leveling out, that news was good enough to cause stocks to jump on Wednesday.
While the Federal Reserve “leveling out” comment doesn’t sound like high praise, it was actually about as good as could have been expecting. Many market experts thought that it was possible that the Federal Reserve could still say the U.S. is still looking for the bottom of the current economic hardship.
The major stock indexes were up between …read more

A familiar presence on the breakfast table, General Mills has expressed an optimistic outlook for its 2009 earnings, stating that lower operating costs and a lower quarterly tax rate are responsible for the change. Understandably, investor confidence in General Mills increased enough to send its shares up 3.6 percent.
Things have been looking good for General Mills for the first nine months of their fiscal year, as sales are up 10 percent and volume is up 4 percent. The company places the praise with product innovation, asserting that General Mills’ wise investments in product development allowed them to ratchet up sales.
Analysts …read more

LCH.Clearnet, a London-based securities clearing house, has reportedly received a takeover bid from a consortium of banks, according to The Wall Street Journal and other news sources. The consortium, which includes JP Morgan Chase and Deutsche Bank AG among others, is said to be offering as much as $1.2 billion.
The group has had interest in taking over LCH.Clearnet since November with ongoing talks since that point.The takeover was expected to take place earlier this year, but hit some snags before the end of the first quarter.
If the takeover goes through, it could thwart the attempts of the US Depository Trust …read more

With the government’s increased stake in Citigroup (Ticker: C), and rumors of similar moves coming for Bank of America (Ticker: BAC), shareholder dilution has become quite a hot topic!
The government originally purchased preferred shares in both of these firms. The shares purchased by the government can be converted into common shares, if necessary.
This conversion brings about fears of shareholder dilution.
What is dilution? I have found that the examples which work best with my students involve food, drinks and sports. So, here’s my explanation of dilution:
Suppose you are out for a drink and you order a rum and Coke. According to idrink.com, the typical rum and …read more

Today marks the one year anniversary of the all-time high for Dow Jones Industrial Average.  The past year has seen plenty of ups and plenty more downs.  The Dow closed today at 8,579.19 which is about 39 percent off of its closing value of 14,164.50 on October 9, 2007.
Today’s decline was the largest decline since October 1987.  People are afraid to officially declare this week’s string of losses a crash but, if this isn’t crashworthy, I don’t know what is.
Historically, the good thing about a crash is that it is always followed by a rebound.  I believe this case is no different.  The markets will eventually regain their footing.  …read more