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The Dow surged 669 points on Monday after trade tensions eased, erasing the drops from last week. Tech stocks like Amazon and Apple saw gains, but the biggest winner of all was Microsoft . The Seattle tech giant, which is a Dow 30 company, benefitted not only from the solid stock market day, but also because a Morgan Stanley analyst had kind things to say about it. Keith Weiss wrote in a note to clients that he's raising his 12-month price target to $130, an almost 50% increase from the $90 shares traded at last week. This would give the...

In 1014 AD the Byzantine Emperor Basil II defeated the Bulgar hordes at the Battle of Kleidion. To ensure the Bulgars would never again rise up against him, Basil blinded the survivors—leaving every hundredth man with a single eye. The one-eyed led their brothers home, but mostly the blind led the blind. How many Bulgars were separated from their kin on their anabasis? How many died in the Thracian wilderness—food for worms and wolves? A hand slick with blood loses its grip, and in the frantic search for fingertips a dozen followers are led astray. Those behind don't panic. They...

Former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.) was fired from his job at Morgan Stanley after an investigation into a harassment complaint from a female co-worker, HuffPost reported Thursday. The woman, who requested to remain anonymous, alleged that Ford forcibly grabbed her one evening in Manhattan several years ago. She also accused Ford of harassment and intimidation, according to HuffPost. A spokeswoman for Morgan Stanley confirmed Ford’s firing, telling the news outlet he was terminated “for conduct inconsistent with our values and in violation of our policies.”

Morgan Stanley this week cut staff covering short-term credit and regional broker-dealers, after a quarter in which the bank posted a 42 percent drop in bond trading, several sources told Reuters. The sources blamed the shakeup at the No. 6 U.S. bank by assets on tougher capital rules, mounting competition from faster and cheaper trading on electronic systems and expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise U.S. interest rates next week for the first time in nearly a decade. The decision to downsize followed one of Morgan Stanley's slowest quarters for bond trading since the global credit crunch. The bank...

One of the most surprising comments this year came from a closed session on fintech where I sat next to someone in policy circles who argued that we should move quickly to a cashless economy so that we could introduce negative rates well below 1% – as they were concerned that Larry Summers' secular stagnation was indeed playing out and we would be stuck with negative rates for a decade in Europe. They felt below (1.5)% depositors would start to hoard notes, leading to yet further complexities for monetary policy.

There's a lot about Ted Cruz that should worry constitutionalists considering voting for the senator in the presidential election of 2016.Recently, Infogram published brief but illuminating biographies of several of Cruz's key foreign policy advisors. The information disclosed in these revelations could trouble many constitutionalists otherwise keen on the senator and who rely on him to restore the rule of law to the White House.The first person highlighted in the article is the chairman of Cruz's foreign policy team, Chad Sweet.Sweet's professional and political background betrays Cruz's claims of being someone who promises "not to continue going in the same...

Morgan Stanley just announced fourth-quarter earnings, and it is providing detail to investors on a cost-saving plan called Project Streamline. During a conference call, CEO James Gorman uttered a sentence that will most likely make the bank's staff shudder. "Too many employees based in high-cost centers are doing work that can sensibly be done in LOWER-COST CENTERS," he said. "Now is the time to tackle head-on our infrastructure costs." The mention of "lower-cost centers" most likely means the bank is looking to shift jobs overseas or to low-cost locations in the US. His comments echo a line in his presentation,...

With countless settlements documenting the rigging of every single asset class, it was only a matter of time before the regulators - some 10 years behind the curve as usual - finally cracked down on gold manipulation as well, even though as we have shown in the past, central banks in general and the Fed in particular are among the biggest gold manipulators. That said, we are confident by now nobody will be surprised that there was manipulation going on in the gold casino. In fact, ever since Germany's Bafin launched a probe into Deutsche Bank for gold and silver...

There's a pall over the financial markets this holiday season, and it has little to do with the shortage of daylight this time of year. The lifeblood of the street -- bonuses -- will be cut, and if you survive, there's no guarantee of a better 2016. That's because Wall Street is bracing for merciless job losses that could total 100,000 in the US alone by June. By this estimate, Wall Street head count in New York City -- some 170,000 today -- could shrink by as much as 17,000, with the downsizing hitting everyone from million-dollar backers to middle-class...

The news on Morgan Stanley's job cuts continues to roll in. The US bank is cutting 1,200 staff, including about 470 front-office staff in its fixed income and commodities business, according to Michael J. Moore at Bloomberg, who cited a person briefed on the matter. Mark Lane, a spokesman for the bank, said the bank would take a $150 million charge in the fourth quarter, according to the Bloomberg report. Business Insider reported Monday that emerging markets sales and trading was one of the areas hardest hit by the cuts.

In the wake of two videos allegedly showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of aborted fetal body parts, Republicans in Congress are working to ensure that Planned Parenthood is stripped of its federal funding. However, it’s not only the government that fills Planned Parenthood’s coffers. According to 2nd Vote, a website and app that tracks the flow of money from consumers to political causes, more than 25 percent of Planned Parenthood’s $1.3-billion annual revenue comes from private donations, which includes corporate contributions. 2nd Vote researched the corporations and organizations to find which supported Planned Parenthood and found that more...

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rally isn’t over and the gauge could jump 50 percent more by 2020 as the U.S. economic recovery heads for a record winning streak, according to Morgan Stanley. A slower though sustained period of growth could help the equity benchmark gauge peak near 3,000, according to a report dated today. The world’s largest economy, which began recovering in July 2009, may continue growing for five years or more, making it the longest period of expansion, Morgan Stanley said. The S&P 500 closed at a record 2003.37 last week. Three rounds of stimulus have helped...

Big business has come out in favor of same-sex marriage. Exactly 379 corporations and employer organizations urged the Supreme Court to strike down state bans on gay marriage, according to a friend-of-the-court brief obtained by The Huffington Post. The document was expected to be filed late Thursday morning. “Employers are better served by a uniform marriage rule that gives equal dignity to employee relationships,” reads the brief, filed by global law firm Morgan Lewis. “Allowing same-sex couples to marry improves employee morale and productivity, reduces uncertainty, and removes the wasteful administrative burdens imposed by the current disparity of state law...

Citigroup is one of three Wall Street banks attempting to keep hidden their practice of paying executives multimillion-dollar awards for entering government service. In letters delivered to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the last month, Citi, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley seek exemption from a shareholder proposal, filed by the AFL-CIO labor coalition, which would force them to identify all executives eligible for these financial rewards, and the specific dollar amounts at stake. Critics argue these "golden parachutes" ensure more financial insiders in policy positions and favorable treatment toward Wall Street.''

It's every parent's nightmare, but true: Major U.S. corporations are funding a campaign of sophisticated, psychologically intrusive "gay" indoctrination programs targeting very young children in elementary schools across America. It’s part of a very well-planned and well-funded effort to reach children as young as possible without their parents’ intervention. The national program, called “Welcoming Schools”, skillfully works on the minds of young children in three ways: (1) Introducing the concept of homosexuality to children. (2) Telling them that homosexuality is normal and natural. (3) Telling them that their parents or friends who portray homosexuality in a less than positive way...

Morgan Stanley and New York Life recently sponsored a banquet held by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest successful terrorism financing prosecution in US history. In that trial, CAIR was identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front group and an affiliate of HAMAS. In addition, in 2008, the FBI broke off relations with CAIR due to its ties to HAMAS, an officially-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).

We thought today's newsflow and "market action" ranked pretty high on the absurd surrealism scale. And then we saw this. BLYTHE MASTERS TO JOIN CFTC GLOBAL MARKETS COMMITTEE JPMORGAN’S BLYTHE MASTERS TO JOIN CFTC ADVISORY COMMITTEE CFTC SPOKESMAN COMMENTS ON BLYTHE MASTERS JOINING COMMITTEE That's right - you read it correct: "Blythe Masters, head of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s commodities division, is joining an advisory committee of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said Steve Adamske, a spokesman for the regulator. Masters, 44, was invited by acting Chairman Mark Wetjen to sit on a global markets committee at the Washington-based...

<p>The too big to fail banks have a larger share of the U.S. banking industry than they have ever had before. So if having banks that were too big to fail was a "problem" back in 2008, what is it today? As you will read about below, the total number of banks in the United States has fallen to a brand new all-time record low and that means that the health of the too big to fail banks is now more critical to our economy than ever. In 1985, there were more than 18,000 banks in the United States. Today, there are only 6,891 left, and that number continues to drop every single year. That means that more than 10,000 U.S. banks have gone out of existence since 1985. Meanwhile, the too big to fail banks just keep on getting even bigger. In fact, the six largest banks in the United States (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) have collectively gotten 37 percent larger over the past five years. If even one of those banks collapses, it would be absolutely crippling to the U.S. economy. If several of them were to collapse at the same time, it could potentially plunge us into an economic depression unlike anything that this nation has ever seen before.</p>

Morgan Stanley lowered its industry view on internet stocks to "in-line" from "attractive," saying growth in the sector needs to accelerate to justify current valuations. Shares of Facebook Inc and LinkedIn Corp have more than doubled in the last one year, and trade 44 and 97 times forward earnings, according to Thomson Reuters data. Google Inc's shares have risen 56 percent in the same period and trade almost 20 times earnings, data showed. Morgan Stanley analysts said the rise in the valuation of internet stocks has been due to investors looking at the total addressable market (TAM) opportunity with minimal...

Judge dismisses some negligent claims vs Morgan Stanley By Bernard Vaughan NEW YORK (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley won a dismissal of some negligent misrepresentation claims in a lawsuit over its role in the failed Cheyne structured investment vehicle. The plaintiffs, including N.T. Butterfield & Son Ltd, invested in the Cheyne SIV and are seeking to recover losses from the liquidation of notes it issued between October 2004 and October 2007. The plaintiffs initiated the lawsuit in 2008 against numerous defendants, including Morgan Stanley and ratings agencies Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's. They accused Morgan Stanley specifically of breaches...