Expectations for the brokers have turned somewhat more negative. We're not terribly excited about the near-term prospects for a lot of these stocks. |
For an institution that was brought to its depths, Citigroup has built one of the strongest franchises in the world, not just the United States, |
For an institution that was brought to its depths, Citigroup has built one of the strongest franchises in the world, not just the United States. |
Fundamentals will probably be in line with expectations but that won't be the catalyst to move these stocks, |
Given the absence of investment banking relationships, these analysts can be less delicate. |
In that environment banks should do well psychologically as well as fundamentally. |
It defeats the purpose of research. |
It's unusual to be that accommodating. But it's kind of balanced by the goodwill consideration of bringing a key (tourism) destination to town. |
The market has been waiting for a major announcement like this to be a catalyst for more deals. There could be a domino effect. |
They said the odds of First Union doing a merger of equals in the next 24 months is 10 percent or less, ... and in the third year it is probably about 33 percent. They suggested there are only a limited number of players out there that would fit with them and many of them are currently engaged in digesting their own acquisitions. |
They'll have to do some work to get the branches up to snuff. |
Today's actions were pretty well discounted and well telegraphed, |
Today's actions were pretty well discounted and well telegraphed. It's much more difficult to ascertain what the magnitude of the potential costs from lawsuits might be. So there's still a high degree of headline risk for the brokerages. |
Without the Bank of America-Fleet announcement today, we'd be looking at a much more sluggish performance for bank stocks in the near term. There are still a number of questions about the economy. |