Stocks and Sectors

Ravi Nagarajan submits:

The Financial Times reports that Lloyd’s of London insurers (LYG) and reinsurers are nervously watching the progress of Hurricane Earl as it moves along the East Coast. The hurricane is the most threatening to the East Coast since Hurricane Bob brushed North Carolina’s Outer Banks and struck New England as a Category 2 hurricane in 1991. Initial reports suggest that Hurricane Earl caused less damage to the Outer Banks than initially feared but its exact course toward New England is still uncertain. The hurricane is still a dangerous Category 2 storm with winds of 105 miles per hour.

Earl is the third named Atlantic hurricane of the year and experts are predicting more activity before the hurricane season winds down in November. Tropical Storm Fiona is currently in the Atlantic with winds of 50 miles per hour and is not projected to make landfall. Two additional systems have the potential to develop into tropical storms. Earl’s current storm stack is pictured below (see the NOAA website for updated detail and storm tracks.)

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Felix Salmon submits:

Barry Ritholtz was unimpressed with the way that the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was quite soft on Dick Fuld:

To think that Fuld’s brand of psychopathic revisionism was given a sympathetic hearing is deeply disturbing.

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Variant Perceptions submits:

If you are still bearish big American banks on credit you either think they are faking it on a grand (even criminal) scale or you believe in a massive double-dip or you are just not looking. Credit is unambiguously improving in the numbers. Most of the bears in the financial blogosphere – and there are many – were flat wrong on how long credit would take to turn.

Turning Japanese?, John Hempton

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Rortybomb submits:

Ezra Klein and others had a series of posts and twitter exchanges about the increases in SEC funding and the role of regulator discretion in the financial reform bill.

First off, when I was making my mental list of things that could be done if the financial reform bill failed to pass, tripling the budget of the regulatory agencies was up there. They’ve been starved of adequate resources quite consciously post 1980, which leads to brain-drain and revolving doors.

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TD Bank Financial Group (TD) (TDBFG) [TSX:TD] has increased its quarterly profits to $1.18 billion Cdn, compared with $912 million one year earlier – an increase of 29% on account of strong retail earnings growth. Diluted earnings per share were $1.29, versus $1.01 in the bank`s third quarter last year.

"Our third quarter results really tell the growth story of our retail businesses on both sides of the border, with our total adjusted retail earnings hitting a new high of $1.3 billion, up 21% from last year," said president and CEO Ed Clark.

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Money Morning submits:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) became the first investment bank to take steps to comply with the so-called "Volcker Rule" by shutting down its proprietary trading unit. JPM, the second-biggest U.S. bank by assets, told about 20 traders who work on its commodities trading desk that the company will close the unit, Bloomberg News reported, citing an anonymous source.

The bank eventually will close all in-house trading to comply with new U.S. curbs on investment banks, said the person, who asked not to be identified because New York-based JPM’s decision hasn’t been made public.

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Jim Trippon submits:

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Nicholas Marshi submits:

We’ve just reviewed Triangle Capital’s (TCAP) 10-Q filing for the period ended June 30, 2010, listened to the company’s first ever Conference Call on August 5th, and looked over the Earnings Report again. All of this with a view to providing readers with our outlook for TCAP’s dividend.

WHY THE DIVIDEND IS IMPORTANT: For most investors in BDCs, the dividend level is a key element in the buy or sell decision. That’s because the dividend is a useful proxy for earnings, as BDCs are required to distribute essentially all their taxable earnings (not including Unrealized Gains or Losses) in the form of distributions. [Like everything else in the Business Development Company arena, though, nothing is black and white. BDCs have a variety of dividend strategies: some pay out a distribution higher than current earnings in the anticipation that profits will grow as capital is deployed. Others religiously pay out only what is earned, or projected to be earned, in the current tax year. Some BDCs pay out only a portion of earnings, squirreling away the rest for future periods.] Notwithstanding all the above, a company’s dividend is a very useful indicator of its financial health and prospects. Most investors seek BDCs that promise a steady, or increasing dividend level. Usually a reduction in the dividend results both in lower income and a reduced stock price.

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Cullen Roche submits:

Bill Fleckenstein discusses the US economy and why the banks are still dangerous investments. Fleckenstein says the market has become oversold in the short-term and sentiment is too negative, but says we remain mired in a trading range as many of our economic problems remain:

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H&R Block Inc. (HRB)

F1Q2011 Earnings Call Transcript

September 2, 2010 4:30 pm ET

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