Topic: David Bianco

It appears Bank of America(BAC) wants you to forget all about its prediction that the S&P 500 will rise 22% by next September, even though the bank...

Emerson Electric (EMR) caught the attention of analysts at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch last week, and that sentiment has spread to the option...

I read an interesting article in the WSJ over the weekend that asked whether or not markets were overvalued and then pitted Robert Shiller (and...

As consumers come creeping back, Bank of America Merrill Lynch is out with a report touting a new investment theme to get behind: Be "long women."...

Now that a major uncertainty in the 2011 economic outlook—income tax rates for individual taxpayers—is resolved, you are better able to focus your...

THE U.S. FLOPPED through the summer, but never gained or lost more than 10% between Memorial Day and Labor Day weekend. In fact, the Standard & Poor's 500 finished Friday at 1105, a mere 1.4% above its May 28 close. They see the S&P 500 climbing about 7% through December, to finish the year at around 1184. Of particular note is the cash on those balance sheets, which now accounts for 11% of the S&P 500's assets-the highest percentage since the Eisenhower era.. Some think the S&P 500 could fall to 950 or lower if a recession develops, but no one thinks an economic "double dip" is the likeliest scenario. The bullish case for stocks is built on several tenets, including a belief that the U.S. and European economies will avoid another recession, allowing companies to continue benefiting from supportive interest rates and 8% net profit margins. Moreover, says JPMorgan strategist Thomas Lee, U.S. corporations are sitting on $1.05 trillion of cash-or $3.2 trillion, when banks are included. "However, a number of factors will need to fall into place, including some combination of an extension of the Bush tax cuts, a change in control of Congress and a marking down of earnings and growth forecasts to levels consistent with market-implied expectations," says Knapp, who has trimmed his year-end S&P 500 target to 1,120 from 1,210.. David Kostin, Goldman Sachs' U.S. strategist, sees a way to reconcile the bearish macro picture with the more benign view of corporate balance sheets. Goldman sees unemployment staying near 10% well into 2011, and Kostin expects profit margins-already near a peak in the second quarter, to improve just 8.4% next year, below the 9% growth the consensus expects. The average operating leverage of the 25 companies in his basket of such stocks is just 42% that of the S&P 500; the list includes companies such as Walt Disney (DIS), Lorillard (LO), Rowan (RDC), Cigna (CI), Precision ...

Forget "buy and hold. Consider an investor with a $1 million portfolio on Dec. 24, 1998, the first time the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index was at its current level. If that same investor instead had sold one-tenth of his portfolio every ...

For the first time, the earnings yield (earnings divided by price, the reciprocal of the price-earnings ratio) on the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 exceeds the yield on the BofAML High-Yield Bond Index since the latter's inception in 1987. Indeed, they ...

Jenga, a game marketed by Parker Brothers, involves gently removing blocks from a tower without creating a toppled mess. 94 cents Adjusted EPS next four quarters (forecast): 43 cents Adjusted EPS next four quarters (forecast): 43 cents Adjusted EPS next four quarters ...

The symbolic start of the first-quarter earnings season in the United States has only just begun, but David Bianco, head of U.S. equity strategy at Bank of America, is raising his targets.. For the S&P 500, he now expects to ...