S&P 500 Breaks 1700 for the First Time in History

Justified or not, it happened. The proximate cause for today’s rally – a big jump in the monthly ISM survey included stellar strength in New Orders. Plus, weekly jobless claims dropped to a level not seen since January of 2008 – five and half years ago. In addition, global markets rallied overnight as China put…

Merrill Lynch Shakes up Fee Schedule

Merrill Lynch’s wealth management biz has become the crown jewel for Bank of America recently. Its results have shone brightly in the last few earnings reports in terms of both profits and growth. So of course, it’s time to screw around with it. The Wall Street Journal’s Corrie Dreibusch: Bank of America Corp. BAC +2.19% plans to raise fees…

My interns are smarter than you

I’ve now consumed three high-level parsings and interpretations of what the FOMC announced today. On the surface there is nothing worth noting. It’s the same thing we’ve already been told, there are no hints. But many “strategists” can’t actually say that, even though they know it. They have to act as though they’re able to divine…

There are No Coincidences in Banking

Twitter has just put up a job opening for a “financial reporting manager” overnight, the kind of position a corporation would need to fill if the filing of S-1’s were in its immediate future. No one should be surprised at the timing. In September 2012, Twitter was going out of its way to let the…