Piper Jaffray
Piper Jaffray is a client-focused, middle market investment bank and institutional securities firm founded in 1895 and based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Its Investment Banking activities include raising capital through equity and debt financings for corporate clients; providing financial advisory services relating to mergers and acquisitions to consumer, financial institutions, health care, technology, alternative energy, business services, and industrial growth sectors; underwriting debt issuances for government and non-profit clients; and providing financial advisory and interest rate risk management services.
The company's equity and fixed income institutional sales and trading activities include equity and fixed income advisory and trade execution services for public and private corporations, public entities, non-profit clients, and institutional investors.
Is a Bad Bank a Good Thing?
Stocks rallied strongly yesterday on the buzz that the Obama administration would soon announce a “bad bank” structure as the latest effort to put an end to the banking and credit crisis. Financial stocks soared with many bank stocks blasting higher by 30% or more and the major indices cut through their respective 10-day moving averages like a hot knife through butter. The action pushed the Dow to a gain of +2.46% while the rest of the major indices all enjoyed gains of +3.4% or more.
If you will recall, the original idea of the TARP was to buy up the toxic assets from banks so as to get them off bank balance sheets. The thinking was that banks would undoubtedly start lending money again if they didn’t have to worry about plunging values and illiquid assets. So, the plan was to get ...
StreetInsider.com Morning Movers:
POZEN Inc. (NASDAQ: POZN) 30% HIGHER; Informed by FDA That Endoscopic Gastric Ulcer Incidence Continues to Be an Acceptable Primary Endpoint
Lloyds Banking Group plc (NYSE: LYG) 25% LOWER; UK banks continue to see extreme volitility.
DryShips, Inc. (Nasdaq: DRYS) 23% LOWER; filed to offer up to $500 million in common shares.
Innovative Solutions and Support, Inc. (Nasdaq: ISSC) 24% LOWER; reports Q1 EPS of $0.11, 8 cents better than the analyst estimate of $0.03. Revenue for the quarter was $10.6 million, versus the consensus of $9.47 million. Innovative Solutions and Support sees Q2 EPS of $0.06-$0.09, versus the consensus of $0.00. Sees Q2 revs of $9.5-$10.5 million, versus the consensus of $9.15 million.
The Allstate Corporation (NYSE: ALL) 19% LOWER; reports Q4 EPS of $0.97, versus the analyst estimate of $1.35. Suspends buyback plan. Also, S&P lowered their credit ratings.
Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK) 17% LOWER ...
Bump and Run
Here's a link to listen to an Audio Version of the report:
I saw an AP report yesterday afternoon where the first line read, “Wall Street abruptly ended an earnings-driven rally and closed sharply lower on Thursday…” My problem here is that anyone believing that the recent bounce higher in stocks was “earnings driven” is delusional. As we’ve mentioned a time or two over the past week, the blast seen in stocks since the 15th of July had little to do with earnings and a lot to do with a legislative induced short squeeze.
Unfortunately however, the rest of the line wasn’t much better as the writer continued with, “…a steeper-than expected decline in existing home sales and worries about the financial sector chilled the market’s recent enthusiasm.” And while I will award the author style points for the bit about the market’s enthusiasm suddenly becoming chilled ...
