Tag - Goldman Sachs

Yesterday I discussed a brief history of Keynesian monetary policy, and how it is becoming increasingly difficult for our Government to maintain their policies further.

The problem is too much debt.

And while there's no way for anyone to wipe this debt clean or pay it down with higher taxes, lower spending, etc. - it will be taken care of. And as I said yesterday, it will be passed onto EVERYONE who owns dollars and dollar denominated assets.

The Russell 2000 (NYSE: IWM) and the Dow (INDU) are below the flat line after two days of strong gains.

At 10:38 a.m. ET, the small-cap index had lost 3.69 points, or 0.45%, to 813.71. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had shed 24.80 points, or 0.18%, to 13,790.76.

Speaking to Congress this morning, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers that the recent financial turbulence stems from the troubled subprime mortgage sector, “but the resulting global financial losses have far exceeded even the most pessimistic estimates of the credit losses on these loans.”

The result, Bernanke said, is that “recent developments in financial markets have increased the uncertainty surrounding the economic outlook.”

Nevertheless, he said the overall financial system remains strong.

News of those remarks cast a dark cloud over Wall Street and stocks fell out of the gate, since recovering some of their losses.

Contributing to the bearish sentiment this morning, financial services giant Bear Stearns Companies Inc. (NYSE: BSC) reported that its profit fell a whopping 61% in the third quarter due to its investment in securities backed by subprime mortgages, marking the company’s worst quarterly performance since 2006.

On the other hand, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) announced that its quarterly earnings soared 79%, easily outpacing Wall Street’s projections. Profit for the three months ended Aug. 31 was $2.85 billion, or $6.13 per share, while analysts had forecasted a profit of $4.35 per share. The New York-based investment bank had a net income of $1.55 billion, or $3.26 per share, a year earlier.

In economic news, the number of American workers filing for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in seven weeks, announced the U.S. Labor Department before the start of trading. Initial jobless claims for the week ended Sept. 15 fell 9,000 to 311,000, while economists were expecting claims to stay at their upwardly revised previous level of 320,000.

The four-week average dipped to 320,750, from 324,250.

The labor market has come in focus as fears of an economic slowdown have increased in the past few weeks, but today’s numbers show an unexpected improvement.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei 225 added a minuscule 0.2%, while in London the FTSE 100 let go 0.6%.

Elsewhere, a Philadelphia-area manufacturing survey will be coming out later today.

The Russell 2000 (NYSE: IWM) futures are sagging and the small-cap index will likely open lower despite good employment news.

The number of American workers filing for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in seven weeks, the U.S. Labor Department said. Initial jobless claims for the week ended Sept. 15 fell 9,000 to 311,000, while economists were expecting a more modest decline of 6,000.

The labor market has come in focus as fears of an economic slowdown have increased in the past few weeks. Today’s numbers show that the labor market remains strong.

Bearish news is coming out of financial services giant Bear Stearns Companies Inc. (NYSE: BSC), which reported that its quarterly profit fell a whopping 61% due to its investment in securities backed by subprime mortgages.

On the other hand, investment bank Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) announced that its quarterly earnings soared 79%.

Elsewhere, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke to Congress this morning. The Fed chief told the House Financial Services Committee that the contagion from the subprime mortgage meltdown has spread throughout financial markets and could have negative consequences for the overall economy.

What if movies adapted to the digital age as music did? Download a movie anywhere, anytime, and watch it with any device whenever you want. The idea of going to a movie theater is already archaic to entertainment seekers who have home theaters or digital TVs with large screens. And DVDs get damaged and take up space – just like their CD ancestors.

The current turmoil in the movie world is reminiscent of the music industry just before Steve Jobs shook things up with iPod and iTunes. Consumers spurned the unwanted music bundled in discs with the tracks they did want. They revolted by using file sharing software to download individual tracks for free. The music distributing companies cried intellectual property theft. Eventually, the dust settled, and the music companies learned to live in the digital world. And Apple Inc (Nasdaq: AAPL) made pots of money, along with its shareholders.

In the Internet video world, something similar is afoot. Clever entrepreneurs such as YouTVpc.com and peekvid.com store movies in overseas servers and use file sharing software to let consumers download movies free. Hollywood is crying copyright theft.

But digital media is unstoppable; large video files are easy to distribute when they are compressed with technologies such as MPEG 4. And the broad acceptance of broadband networks makes the distribution of internet video files feasible.

April 13 (SmallCapInvestor.com) – Stocks closed the day in positive territory as an upbeat profit forecast from pharmaceutical giant Merck overshadowed an earlier report of a drop in U.S. consumer confidence.  In small cap action, shares of Medis Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: MDTL) rose on news the company made sales to Microsoft, while news of a buyout lifted Cutter & Buck Inc. (Nasdaq: CBUK).

The Russell 2000 rose for the second straight day, adding 4.33 points, or 0.53 percent, to 819.38.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 59.17 points, or 0.47 percent, to 12,612.13.