Discovery Capital Management’s latest 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicates that its portfolio was worth $7.5 billion at the end of the first quarter. The firm bought into 22 new stocks and increased its stake in 28 companies. It also sold off 31 stocks and reduced its position in 20 others. The firm’s top 10 holdings made up just under 40 percent of its value. As of the end of March,...
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Italy’s largest bank, UniCredit SPA (BIT:UCG) said its first quarter net profit dropped by half due to lower interest and trading income. Italy’s largest bank by asset reported that net income decreased to 449 million euros from 914 million euros last year, while total revenues were 6.08 billion euros, compared to 7.11 billion euros last year. It was able to reduce the cash reserve for bad loans to 1.2 billion euros, while a key...
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Post this morning’s conference call, Credit Suisse follows up on Oaktree Capital Group LLC (NYSE:OAK) earnings. CS believes that first quarter reflected another exceptionally strong set of results for Oaktree Capital. Investment performance remains healthy, while management remains extremely disciplined on the harvesting and deployment front. While CS says that they ‘have respected the quality of the Oaktree franchise for some time, we have dramatically underestimated the strong investment performance, the aggressive pace and...
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Deutsche Bank AG (ETR:DBK) (FRA:DBK) (NYSE:DB) and UBS AG (NYSE:UBS) announced strong profit growth in Q1 earnings. Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) also exceeded consensus profit expectations, as reported last week. Deutsche Bank AG (ETR:DBK) (FRA:DBK) (NYSE:DB), Germany’s largest bank, reported an 18 percent rise in net profit from a year earlier to 1.66 billion Euros ($2.16 billion) Most of the increase in profits came from cost cutting. Revenues came in at 9.4 billion...
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The hedge fund industry was able to take advantage of the bullish trend in all risky assets in the first quarter of 2013, says a new report from Natixis. Investors remained in a risk-on mode (the S&P 500 was up 10%) despite the combination of several risk factors, in particular 1/ the fears of automatic government spending cuts (sequestration) in the United States; 2/ the Italian elections and the ensuing political crisis; 3/ the unprecedented...
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The struggling retailer J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP) remains in the limelight even after Ron Johnson’s ouster, but almost never for good reasons. However, today the company (as well as Bill Ackman) received some good news. Legendary (and still alive) investor George Soros has filed a 13G showing a 7.9 percent stake in J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP). The fact that Soros filed a 13G and not a 13D indicates that this is a passive stake Shares...
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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has received yet another price target cut, this time from analysts at Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS). They lowered their target from $600 to $525 per share and reiterated their outperform rating on the stock. Analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) also slashed their price target—down to $545 from $725 per share. Even though Credit Suisse analysts lowered their price target for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), they said there are three main...
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Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) reported its earnings today, posting higher-than-expected profits of 1.3 billion Swiss francs ($1.4 billion). That’s a significant improvement from the same quarter a year ago when profits were only 44 million Swiss francs after a 1.55 billion Swiss franc charge due to debt valuation swings. It’s also above the expectations of analysts, who were looking for 1.25 billion Swiss francs in net profits. Net revenues were 7.2 billion Swiss...
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Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS) (LON:BARC) first-quarter pre-tax profit fell to £1.8 billion ($2.7 billion) from £2.4 billion in the year-ago period, missing analysts’ estimates. The investment banking unit saved the blushes by accounting for 74 percent of its pre-tax profit or £1.32 billion. This was due to enhanced profit from underwriting stock offerings and servicing hedge fund clients. However, this shows the weakness in other business segments such as retail banking in Europe and Africa. Interestingly,...
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More major companies will be reporting their earnings before opening bell on Wednesday, including Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. (NYSE:DPS), Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS), Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW), Elan Corporation, plc (NYSE:ELN) and Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:LLY). Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. (NYSE:DPS) is expected to report first-quarter earnings per share of 46 cents on revenue of $1.4 billion, according to a Bloomberg consensus. The company’s earnings surprised to the negative last quarter...
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Pre financial crisis, investment banking revenues and profits were at records and exceeded expectations regularly. Post 2008 crisis, the same investment banks that were exceeding records are either struggling to remain profitable or out of business altogether. But by far the worst pain is being felt by European investment banks. Below are some data comparisons: Investment Banking Fee Gap: Europe, Middle East and Africa have a market share of global investment banking fees of...
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