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Bank of America shares dip below $10
Stock Market News |
2011/07/15 12:19
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Bank of America shares fell below $10 for the first time since May 2009.
The stock price hit a low of $9.88 Friday, making it the only one of the four largest banks with a share price in the single digits. Most large bank stocks fell on Friday on fears of the fallout of the European debt crisis and the results of stress tests on the European banks' ability to withstand economic stress.
Investors have ben bailing out of Bank of America stock for several months, driving the price. In the past 12 months, Bank of America Corp.'s stock has fallen 35 percent, making it the third worst performing stock in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. On Friday, the stock closed at $10, down 0.7 percent for the day.
The stock decline is a setback for the nation's largest bank and its CEO Brian Moynihan, who has had to deal with multiple crises in the last year, mostly related to mortgage problems stemming from the bank's 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial.
On June 29, Bank of America announced its latest settlement with investors who claim they were knowingly sold poorly written mortgage bonds. At $8.5 billion, it was the largest bank settlement ever announced. The amount eclipsed the last three years of earnings at the Charlotte, N.C. bank.
The stock also reflects investors' anxieties over how deep Bank of America's problems might be, says Cassandra Toroian, president and chief investment officer at Bell Rock Capital. |
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Foreclosure activity slowed in first half of 2011
Stock Market News |
2011/07/13 21:42
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The number of homes taken back by lenders in the first half of this year fell 30 percent compared with the same 2010 period, the result of delays in foreclosure processing that threaten to stall a U.S. housing recovery.
Banks seized 421,212 homes in the first six months of the year, down from 529,633 between January and June last year, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.
The decline reflects lenders taking longer to move against homeowners who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments. The banks are working through foreclosure documentation problems that first surfaced last fall and an ensuing logjam in some state courts. Lenders also have put off on taking action against delinquent borrowers as U.S. home sales have slowed this year.
As the processing delays mount, however, so has the backlog of potential foreclosures -- homes that otherwise would have been repossessed by lenders this year.
RealtyTrac estimates that 1 million foreclosure-related notices that should have been filed by banks this year will be pushed to next year. The filings include notices for defaults, scheduled home auctions and home repossessions -- warnings that can lead to a home eventually being lost to foreclosure.
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Bernanke: Fed ready to act if economy worsens
Headline Legal News |
2011/07/13 11:43
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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers Wednesday the Fed is ready to act if the economy gets weaker. He warned them that allowing the nation to default on its debt would send "shock waves through the entire financial system."
Underscoring how fragile the economy remains two years after the Great Recession, Bernanke laid out three new steps the Fed could take, including a fresh round of government bond purchases designed to stimulate economic growth.
"We have to keep all the options on the table. We don't know where the economy is going to go," Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee.
The Fed chairman stopped short of promising anything, but Wall Street appeared comforted that the central bank was poised to act. The Dow Jones industrial average was up more than 150 points during his testimony to Congress, and closed up 45.
But some of the early stock gains were lost after Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said in a speech that the Fed had already "pressed the limits of monetary policy."
The nation was creating about 200,000 jobs a month this spring. But hiring slowed almost to a standstill in June, with 18,000 new jobs. It takes about 125,000 a month just to keep up with population growth.
While Bernanke made his twice-yearly appearance before Congress, lawmakers and the White House were trying to salvage talks on how to reduce the federal deficit and whether to raise the limit on what the government can borrow.
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Netflix price hike angers users, some drop plan
Stock Market News |
2011/07/13 11:43
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Some Netflix customers called it a slap in the face. Others a betrayal. Many threatened to drop the movie service.
On Wednesday, many of them vented on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere, seething over Netflix Inc.'s decision to raise its prices by up to 60 percent for the millions of subscribers who want to rent DVDs by mail and watch movies online.
"I can definitely afford it but I dropped them on principle," said Joe Turick, a technology engineer in Monroe, N.C., who has been with Netflix for about a decade, cancelled his subscription within an hour of learning of Tuesday's price changes and plans to try competitors.
By Wednesday afternoon, more than 40,000 people had responded to a post on Netflix's Facebook page announcing the change, with some saying they would switch to rivals such as Hulu.com's paid service and to Redbox's DVD-rental kiosks.
Outrage bubbled on Twitter, and on Netflix's blog a posting about the new plans had garnered 5,000 comments -- the limit allowed by the site's host, Google Inc.-owned Blogger -- which included many seething customers.
Netflix said company executives expected the intense reaction.
"Everything Netflix does is with extensive research and testing and analysis, so we expected some people to be disappointed," spokesman Steve Swasey said.
While thousands complained on Facebook, Twitter and other websites, with 22.8 million customers in the U.S., it's clear that plenty of them are not upset about the change.
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Illinois Supreme Court upholds public works plan
Headline Legal News |
2011/07/12 09:27
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The Illinois Supreme Court has unanimously upheld a law that created a $31 billion statewide construction program, averting a threat to the thousands of jobs the projects created.
The decision also removes a roadblock to allowing video gambling at bars, restaurants and truck stops across Illinois.
The court on Monday unanimously rejected arguments that lawmakers improperly mixed different issues in a single law.
Lawmakers approved the public works program in 2009, deciding to fund the construction by raising taxes on liquor and candy, as well as legalizing video gambling.
Chicago Blackhawks owner and liquor distributor Rocky Wirtz challenged the law. An appeals court agreed with him that it violated a requirement that laws be limited to one topic. The Supreme Court said it all was connected to the construction program.
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Investment Fraud Litigation |
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Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a practice that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in losses, in violation of the securities laws. Securities Arbitration. Generally speaking, securities fraud consists of deceptive practices in the stock and commodity markets, and occurs when investors are enticed to part with their money based on untrue statements.
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The content contained on the web site has been prepared by Securities Law News as a service to the internet community and is not intended to constitute legal advice or a substitute for consultation with a licensed legal professional in a particular case. | Affordable Law Firm Website Design by Law Promo |
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