Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is “torn” on whether to raise interests rates again this year, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Wednesday, but the economy indicates policymakers have room to do what they want. Cramer spoke ahead of the release of the minutes from the June 13-14 Federal Open Market Committee meeting, where policymakers raised benchmark […]

Jefferies is encouraging investors to buy U.S. financials in light of recent stress-test successes and fading regulation under the Trump administration. The firm highlighted Huntington Bancshares, Bank of America, US Bancorp and Keycorp as favorite stock picks. The Fed’s 2017 Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review stress-test results were positive, with an average total capital payout […]

The Federal Reserve could have an impact on trading when it releases the minutes from its last meeting Wednesday afternoon, particularly if it appears confident that it could raise interest rates again this year. The Fed is also likely to provide some insight into its plan to unwind its $4.5 trillion balance sheet, which many […]

Check out which companies are making headlines before the bell: Vantiv – U.S. credit card processing firm Vantiv announced plans to acquire Worldpay, the U.K.’s largest payment processing firm, in a cash and stock deal worth £7.7 billion ($9.94 billion). Worldpay has said it was approached by both Vantiv and JPMorgan Chase about a possible […]

Retail stocks are only going to get uglier, former department store executive Jan Kniffen said Monday. “I said last year the fourth quarter is going to be the toughest quarter for retailing,” the CEO of consulting firm J. Rogers Kniffen Worldwide Enterprises told CNBC. “It’s not better this year.” The S&P consumer discretionary sector has […]

Short-seller Jim Chanos recently explained why President Donald Trump’s infrastructure spending plan will not lead to big economic growth because of the way it is structured. Chanos is the founder and managing partner at Kynikos Associates, one of the largest short-selling investment firms in the world. Chanos is lauded for his prescient negative calls on […]

Goldman Sachs is reportedly reviewing its longtime commitment to commodities trading following another decline in the first half of the year. An anonymous source told Bloomberg that Goldman Sachs suffered its worst start to the year in commodities in over a decade, down from peak annual performance of $3.4 billion in 2009. In initiating the […]

Oil prices are positioned to head higher in the second half, analysts said on Monday, after crude’s dismal performance in the first six months of 2017 caught many commodity watchers flat-footed. Crude oil prices fell about 14 percent this year through Friday’s close, as an effort led by OPEC to drain huge global stockpiles disappointed […]

While investors may be optimistic on Tesla’s Model 3 production plans, which were tweeted by Elon Musk overnight, Bernstein is still skeptical the company will be able to produce the new electric car at a profit. Tweet Link Analyst Toni Sacconaghi noted Musk’s tweets, if accurate, mean Tesla will be able to manufacture the Model […]

Verizon is speculated to be looking into buying media conglomerate Walt Disney, the New York Post reported this weekend, based on conversations the publication had with one banker. Shares of Disney were trading about 2 percent higher Monday morning, as investors digested this story on a holiday-shortened trading day. “One rumor making the rounds last […]