Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve kept its federal funds rate unchanged in a range of zero to 0.25 percent, and said the economy "continued to pick up" since its last meeting. Robert Barbera, chief economist at ITG shared his insights on how this impacts the financials and the economy.    Read More

The most commonly misunderstood narratives emerging from last year’s financial upheaval are that the crisis was caused by big banks, and that the crisis started with the failure of one big bank in particular – Lehman Brothers.    Read More

Financials weaken midday and traders are citing two factors.    Read More

'Over the last year, the federal government has injected over $200 billion into approximately 600 financial institutions, and guaranteed over $300 billion of their troubled assets. Given the rapidly rising US budget deficit, what was the justification for such large bailouts, and what should be the rationale for bailouts in future financial crises?,' writes Pozen.   Read More

How should investors be positioning their portfolios for the new week and new month? Alan Valdes, vice president of Kabrik Trading, and Charles Bobrinskoy, vice chairman and director of research at Ariel Investments,  shared their insights.    Read More

It’s not lost on traders that many are hopeful the markets will drop, so they can buy at a lower price.    Read More

Banking analyst Stuart Plesser at Standard & Poor’s says he is still betting on Bank of America, even though the firm’s shares have lost 10 percent of their value in the past week. He explained his outlook for the company.   Read More

Warren Buffett tells the BBC the American public can't be blamed for its anger over the damaging economic fallout from the last fall's near-collapse of the global financial system, especially since no one has been held criminally responsible.  The comments are from an interview for a special program about Buffett airing tonight (Monday) on BBC television in the U.K.   Read More

When will loan losses peak? That's the big question if you hold banks. Wells Fargo is now looking for consumer losses to peak in the first half of next year, and for total credit losses to peak in 2010, "absent any further deterioration in the U.S. economy."    Read More

"I really believe that the industry has bottomed, that we're not going to see further crashes in home prices or in home sales," banking analyst Dick Bove told CNBC.   Read More