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A long-running legal dispute between Bank of America Corp and insurer MBIA Inc could be settled in early 2013 after recent maneuvers involving MBIA’s bonds, analysts at research firm CreditSights wrote. MBIA last month won the necessary consent of bondholders to change the terms of some of its debt, despite a move by Bank of America to thwart the change. That outcome has reduced the bank’s negotiating leverage, increasing the likelihood of a settlement, the analysts wrote in a report dated Tuesday. Bank of America, the second largest U.S. bank by assets, last week also said that it was proceeding [...]

After plunging to 10-year lows after revealing an $ 8.8 billion charge on Tuesday, selling in shares of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) eased on Wednesday morning even as analysts downgraded their price targets on the embattled tech giant and the FBI opens an inquiry into alleged accounting irregularities. H-P sent shockwaves throughout Silicon Valley and Wall Street this week by saying it was duped by intentional accounting fraud when it acquired Autonomy in 2011 for $ 11.1 billion. H-P said the cooked books inflated the eventual purchase price on the U.K. enterprise software company. Mike Lynch, the former CEO and co-founder of [...]

NEW YORK Two former hedge fund managers reaped a total of $ 70.8 million in illegal profits by tapping a “corrupt network” of Wall Street analysts, a U.S. prosecutor said at the start of an insider trading trial on Tuesday. Todd Newman, who was a portfolio manager at Diamondback Capital Management, and Anthony Chiasson, co-founder of Level Global Investors, were charged in January in a sweep dubbed “Operation Perfect Hedge” by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. More than 70 people have been charged in the government’s broad probe of Wall Street trading. Chiasson, 39, and Newman, 48, are accused of [...]

President Barack Obama is projected to have been re-elected as the U.S. President, after major networks said he had enough electoral votes to beat Republican challenger Mitt Romney. S&P 500 futures dropped as results started to come in, and are now down 11.60 points. President Obama is projected by U.S. television networks to have won key swing states, including Ohio, which pushed him past the necessary 270 electoral votes to recapture the White House. COMMENTS: TOM SOWANICK, CO-PRESIDENT AND CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER AT OMNIVEST GROUP LLC, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY AND AN OBAMA SUPPORTER: “Obama wins and will keep Bernanke and [...]

SAN FRANCISCO Two Citi analysts — including senior Internet analyst Mark Mahaney — were fired from the brokerage over matters relating to the disclosures, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Friday morning. The terminations were reported as the Massachusetts Securities Division announced that it has imposed a $ 2 million fine against Citigroup for improperly disclosing non-public information related to Facebook Inc.’s initial public offering in May. In a consent order posted on the state government website, the Massachusetts agency said Citigroup “failed to prevent or detect the written disclosure of material, nonpublic research information in [...]

At least three brokerages cut their price targets on Apple Inc by up to $ 50 a share after the iPhone maker surprised analysts by forecasting lower gross margins for the current quarter. Apple shares edged lower 0.1 percent to $ 608.85 in premarket trading. For the December quarter, Apple forecast revenue of $ 52 billion, below estimates of $ 55 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. It expects margins of 36 percent, far lower than analysts’ expectations of 43 percent. Analysts focused on the decline in margins and played down the significance of a fall in iPad sales in [...]

A slew of brokerages cut their price targets on Hewlett-Packard Co stock, saying the weak economy will continue to weigh on the company that has been plagued by operating problems and slow growth in its computers and printers businesses. HP warned of an unexpectedly steep earnings slide in 2013 on Wednesday, with revenue set to fall in every business division except software. Shares of the company fell about 4 percent to $ 14.26 on Thursday morning. They fell 13 percent to a nine-year low on Wednesday. Analysts expect the company’s revenue and margins to falter, increasing uncertainty about its recent [...]

A day after Oracle (ORCL) reported disappointing sales but remained upbeat on its cloud business, investors and analysts seem to be cheering. Shares of the software maker were up more than 2% to $ 33 on Friday morning and Oracle was met with a slew of positive notes from analysts. Barclays (BCS) raised its price target on Oracle by a dollar to $ 38, while J.P. Morgan (JPM) lifted its outlook on the tech company’s share price to $ 40 from $ 38, both on “overweight” ratings. Canaccord Genuity, Nomura, Stifel, ThinkEquity and UBS (UBS) also all raised their price [...]

An analyst’s report released Tuesday predicts that gold will rise to more than $ 2,400 an ounce in the next two years due to the Federal Reserve’s latest decision to further ease monetary policy. The report issued by Bank of America’s (NYSE: BAC) Merrill Lynch Global Research unit says the run- up in gold prices in recent years has coincided with an “aggressive policy” of easing by both the U.S. Fed and European Central Bank. The analysts expect that to continue. Gold was selling for about $ 750 an ounce in early September 2008, just ahead of the collapse of [...]

Sales of Apple Inc’s (AAPL) new iPhone 5 may be double those of the previous model in its first week on the market, and up to 33 million iPhones may be sold this quarter, brokerage houses forecast on Thursday. Many expressed surprise at how quickly Apple planned to roll out the new model around the world, saying this suggested it would be able to keep up with demand for a bigger, faster and slimmer iPhone, which goes on sale this Friday. Several analysts raised forecasts for Apple’s share price by as much as $ 60, to between $ 750 and [...]