Barron's is being Bear on banks and oil this weekend..
"The exposure of big banks to risks from private equity placement drew attention in Barron's. Billions of dollars in write-downs are already on the books, says Barron's, and the market is illiquid when general partners of companies have a say on stake sales. Caution was suggested on shares of J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM: news, chart, profile), Wells Fargo (WFC: news, chart, profile), Bank of America (BAC: news, chart, profile), Deutsche Bank (DE: 804010: news, chart, profile), Mellon Financial (MEL: news, chart, profile), FleetBoston (FBF: news, chart, profile) and UBS (UBS: news, chart, profile)."
On oil "Stocks in the oil sector could take a drilling after a Barron's article laid out a case for lower crude prices and risks from a lingering economic slowdown. Money manager Chet Needelman of Palley-Needelman said he cut stakes in ExxonMobil (XOM: news, chart, profile), British Petroleum (BP: news, chart, profile) and Total Fina (TOT: news, chart, profile); economist Francois Trahan of Brown Brothers Harriman said he recommends against Philips Petroleum (P: news, chart, profile) but likes Sunoco's (SUN: news, chart, profile) positioning in the sector. Bear Stearns analyst Fred Leuffer suggested that refined products could be a big drag on earnings if prices tank. But Leuffer likes Royal Dutch (RD: news, chart, profile), Marathon (MRO: news, chart, profile) and Amerada Hess (AHC: news, chart, profile). The article also noted ratings downgrades on Chevron (CHV: news, chart, profile) and quote First Call's Chuck Hill as saying the outlook for oil earnings is down 26 percent from year-ago levels. " |
