Europe’s banks need to head back out on the fund-raising circuit. They may have to bring in as much as $141 billion, according to Goldman Sachs. Reuters writes that this capital will be necessary “to reach an aggregate Tier I ratio of 9 percent — a level achieved by European banks that have recapitalized recently.” Since the problems that the banks on the continent face are not much different from those in the US, the report begs the question of what will happen in America. The troubles of sub-prime mortgage paper, deteriorating credit, and LBO loans cross borders, and they…

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We saw another exciting week full of news for key developments in drug stocks, biotech stocks, medical device stocks, and other companies involved in various aspects of health care and medicine. Below are some of the stock tickers we covered over at BioHealthInvestor.com this week: STOCK TICKERS: ABT, BSX, MDT, JNJ, SRDX, ANPI, BAYRY, MAXY, AMGN, CRA, INGN, CELG, MRK, SNY, GSK, AKRX, ARYX This week we saw another FDA Approval in stents as Abbott’s (NYSE: ABT) XIENCE drug-eluting coronary stent was approved for marketing. While this is causing a resurgence in stents, this space is about to become highly…

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Twelve thousand souls are losing their jobs at Starbucks (SBUX), mostly because Howard Schultz let incompetents run his empire while he was occupied elsewhere. It will always be open to debate whether things would have been different if he had stayed on as CEO, instead of returning recently when things at the coffee company were getting bad. In a superb article in The New York Times, the paper analyzes what may have been the worst decision by Starbucks executives. In the surge of rapid expansion in the US, they put many of their stores in the wrong places. According to…

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According to Reuters, Goldman Sachs said European banks may have to raise another 60 billion to 90 billion euors to reach an aggregate Tier I ratio of 9 percent. Reuters reports that Caterpillar (CAT) sees China sales doubling by 2010. Reuters writes that the market will get its near-term direction from oil and GE (GE) earnings. The Wall Street Journal writes that UBS (UBS) expects a small Q2 loss. The Wall Street Journal writes that BHP Billiton (BHP) and China have reached an agreement on iron ore prices. The Wall Street Journal writes that assets that the Fed took from…

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Market in Asia were mixed The Nikkei fell .2% to 13,238. KDDI was down 2.7% to 632000. Mazda was up 4.6% to 550. The Hang Seng was up .7% to 21,424. China Netcom (CN) was up to 22.30. China Petroleum (SNP) was up 2.8% to 7.03. The Shanghai Composite was down 1.2% to 2,670. At 6.40 AM, the FTSE was down .6% to 5,446. Barclays (BCS) was down to 282.75. British Airways was down 4.6% to 199.3. The DAXX was .5% to 6,324. Commerzbank was off 2.5% to 19.11. Deutsche Bank (DB) was off 1.4% to 55.04. The CAC 40…

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Unitedhealth Group (UNH) Lay-offs and lowered forecast. Down to $22.72 from 52-week high of $59.46. Freddie Mac (FRE). Concern that market conditions will make firm raise more money. Drops to $14.35 from 52-week high of $67.20. Coeur d’Alene Mines (CDE) No news. Drops to $2.46 from 52-week high of $5.18. Nvidia (NVDA) Big cut in revenue forecast. Down to $12.40 from 52-week high of $39.67. Douglas A. McIntyre

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There were two ghastly research calls this week from separate firms on separate companies. While one is more severe than the other, these two analyst downgrades are essentially a tie for the severity of tardiness. In fact they are such late calls and so far behind the pack that it is a real wonder as to just how much the research teams that just discovered these issues actually get paid. It’s hard to imagine being an institutional portfolio manager and receiving the call for these downgrades on Wednesday this week. The answer was probably, “OK, well thanks I guess. Did…

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BMW has the Mini Cooper. Now GM (GM) plans to bring its own brand of mini into the US. GM will probably import its Chevrolet Beat to America to offer a car which gets higher miles-per-gallon than any other vehicle the auto company markets here. According to Bloomberg, “Besides the Beat, GM is weighing a list of options for refocusing its auto lineup on fuel efficiency rather than performance. They include the U.S. introduction of a small pickup popular in Latin America.” GM still faces the extremely difficult question of whether it will run out of time and money before…

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Penn National Gaming Inc. (NASDAQ: PENN) has been considered a dead merger for quite some time, yet it only officially became a dead merger this morning. This was the last of the big multi-billion deals still officially on the books that was put together back before we had a full blown credit crunch. PNG Acquisition Company Inc. was the entity that was going to do the acquisition, and that was an entity indirectly owned by certain funds managed by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group LLC (NYSE: FIG) and Centerbridge Partners, L.P. The buyout price of $67.00 per share was older…

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While NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) is being battered and tattered in trading, one analyst has decided that today’s fire sale in the stock is creating an opportunity. American Technology Research has decided to Reiterate its BUY rating on NVIDIA and the buy target was taken down only $1.00 to $26.00. The report thesis is essentially, “We are buyers of the stock on the dip following the negative pre-announcement. We believe the fundamental outlook remains positive on GPU leadership…..” It takes guts to make this statement and they may be rewarded for their work. We have seen at least four downgrades in…

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