Although we were displeased to see State Street Corporation's (STT) share price slip by 4% after it released its results, we were content that it was able to bounce back and close the day's trading .71% higher than the prior day's close. State Street continues to be our trust bank of choice. While we have always had a strong level of respect for its two closest competitive peers (Northern Trust Corporation (NTRS) and The Bank of New York Mellon (BK)), we continue to see that State Street Corporation offers a better risk-adjusted investment opportunity relative to BK and NTRS. When State Street passed the 2012 Federal Reserve CCAR stress tests, it was allowed to buy back $1.8B shares of stock, versus $1.1B for Bank of New York Mellon and $240M for Northern Trust. State Street also increased its dividend per share by 33%,

Q1 2013 Earnings Call

April 19, 2013 9:30 am ET

Executives

Valerie C. Haertel - Senior Vice President of Investor Relations

Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, President, Chairman of Executive Committee and Member of Risk & Capital Committee

Edward J. Resch - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Analysts

Howard Chen - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division

Robert Lee - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division

Kenneth M. Usdin - Jefferies & Company, Inc., Research Division

Glenn Schorr - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Brian Bedell - ISI Group Inc., Research Division

Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Michael Mayo - Credit Agricole Securities (USA) Inc., Research Division

Luke Montgomery - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC., Research Division

Cynthia Mayer - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Brian Foran - Autonomous Research LLP

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley,

Common sense tells us that at some point there has to be some retracement following an impressive climb higher. My common sense has never been very good, so I'm beginning to question the pessimism that overtook me about 4 weeks ago.

Maybe the new version of a market plunge is simply staying at or near the same level for a few days. After all, who doesn't believe that if you're not moving ahead that you're falling behind? It is all about momentum and growth. Besides, if history can be rewritten by the victors, why not the rules that are based on historical observations?

During the previous 4 weeks I've made very few of the trades that I would have ordinarily made, constantly expecting either the sky to fall down or the floor to disappear from underneath. Of the trades, most have fallen in line with the belief that what others

The Federal Reserve Thursday released the results of the CCAR stress tests and with them, its opinion of the amount of capital the top 18 banks in the U.S. would be permitted to return to shareholders. Unlike the results released last week, the calculations of minimum Tier 1 common ratios assuming a severe stress scenario over a nine-quarter period incorporated the bank's own proposals on capital actions. The clear winners among them were American Express (AXP), State Street (STT), US Bancorp (USB) and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Bank of New York (BK), in terms of the proportion of tangible equity they would be permitted to repurchase. AXP was permitted to repurchase 33% in 2013, while SST and USB could repurchase 18%, and BK 11%. Others were restricted to more modest 4-6% repurchases. Dividend increases were also permitted for raising the payout ratios on trailing earnings to up to 35%

Citigroup's (C) new CEO, Michael Corbat, is doing a good job as he turns the company around. With the new growth plan in place, the results of the recent stress test, and what looks like a "breakeven point" for Citi Holdings, we might have a nice looking bank investment for investors to consider.

Within the next three years Citigroup has a plan in place to become more profitable, raising its "Return on Equity" (ROE), by almost 26%. It plans to accomplish this by addressing three main areas:

1. Modest revenue growth
2. Address improvements that will make the company more efficient
3. Deal with the challenges of Citi Holdings that continues to suck profits

Emerging Markets will be a Challenge

Citigroup is focused on investing in high growth emerging markets. In fact, 30% of Citigroup's revenue comes from these areas; areas such as Mexico, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, India. This may be a

March 06, 2013 9:05 am ET

Executives

Edward J. Resch - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Presentation

Edward J. Resch

Okay. Good morning, everybody, and thanks for the invitation and the introduction, Ira [ph]. With me today in the audience are several people from State Street. We have Valerie Haertel, who's our Head of Investor Relations; Kevin Brady and Christine Hadley, also from IR; as well as Dave Gutschenritter, our Treasurer.

And as I usually do, I'll remind you today that we may make forward-looking statements, which speak as of today. Actual results may differ, and so I suggest you read our 2012 annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent filings with the SEC, including sections on risk factors concerning any forward-looking statements we make today.

Today, I'll provide you a brief overview of the trends that continue to fuel our growth and

February 28, 2013 12:30 pm ET

Executives

Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, President, Chairman of Executive Committee and Member of Risk & Capital Committee

John L. Klinck - Executive Vice President

George E. Sullivan - Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Alternative Investment Solutions unit

Scott Francis Powers - Chief Executive Officer of State Street Global Advisors and President of State Street Global Advisors

Christopher Perretta - Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President

Gunjan Kedia - Executive Vice President of Investment Servicing Business

Edward J. Resch - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Analysts

Josh Levin - Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Brian Bedell - ISI Group Inc., Research Division

Howard Chen - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division

Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Cynthia Mayer - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Michael Mayo - Credit Agricole

ETFs, or Exchange-Traded Funds, are taking the investment world by storm. They are an increasing staple in many investment portfolios, serving as proxies for the indexes they usually track, and making for easy diversification. During 2012, as per US Lipper Fund Flows, equity investment funds saw an outflow of $18.1 billion, yet ex-ETFs, this outflow was $129.2 billion, which means that equity ETFs actually had inflows of $111.1 billion.

This has been an ongoing trend, and one that's expected to continue due to the ETFs' unique advantages, such as:

• Low management costs/fees, made possible by their usually passive nature, similar to traditional index funds. ETFs usually just have to track an underlying index, and this doesn't require much in the way of analysis or expensive trading.
• Fewer transaction fees impacting the fund, again due to the passive and low-turnover nature of the index-tracking activity.
• Liquidity and flexibility

Through reading articles from many Seeking Alpha contributors such as David Van Knapp, Bob Wells and Tim McAleenan Jr., I have learned how to treat my portfolio more like a business than just a group of stocks. The set of rules and goals must suit an investor's personal preferences, and therefore they will differ for investors with different personalities. An income-orientated investor's set of rules will undoubtedly be very different when compared with a growth-orientated investor's set of rules.

Therefore, in an effort to give myself a clearer sense of my target, and to give readers a better understanding of how my business works, I am going to write about a few rules that I keep in mind when handling my portfolio. I expect to oblige to all the rules at all times, only allowing certain exceptions when there is a good reason for accepting them.

Like Mr. David

Charles Schwab (SCHW) on Thursday commenced a new platform that will allow investors to trade over 100 ETFs commission-free. The move will transform the dynamics of the $1.4 trillion U.S. ETF business and harkens back to Schwab two decades ago launching the no-transaction-fee mutual fund supermarket, OneSource.

The San Francisco-based financial services firm said starting Thursday, Schwab clients can buy and sell 105 ETFs with zero online trade commissions. The platform, called Schwab ETF OneSource, includes funds managed by State Street (STT), Guggenheim, Invesco PowerShares, ETF Securities, U.S. Commodity Funds and Schwab's own lineup of ETFs.

"Just as Schwab Mutual Fund OneSource changed the landscape for investors and advisors by providing convenient, affordable access to leading mutual funds when Chuck Schwab introduced it twenty years ago, we believe Schwab ETF OneSource will deliver enormous benefit and change the way our clients buy and sell ETFs," said Walt Bettinger, Schwab's

There was intensive insider selling in Dollar General Corporation (DG) from November 27-29, 2012. The stock started trending down immediately after the intensive insider selling and was trading below $40 in the beginning of 2013.

(click to enlarge)

With this episode in mind, I decided to screen for stocks that have seen recent intensive insider selling.

Intensive insider selling can be defined by the following three criteria:

1. The stock was sold by three or more insiders within one month.
2. The stock was not purchased by any insiders in the month of intensive selling.
3. At least two sellers decreased their holdings by more than 10 percent.

In this article, I will feature five stocks that met these three criteria of intensive insider selling in the last 30 days.

1. RF Industries (RFIL) engages in the design, manufacture, and/or sale of communications equipment primarily to the radio

Top Stories
Warren Buffett made play for NYSE. Berkshire's bid for the stock exchange - while rejected in favor of ICE's offer - is seen as Buffett showing confidence trading activity will rebound from a 4-year low. NYSE Euronoext's (NYX) share of U.S. equity trading has slumped to about 20% from 82% a decade ago. "It (NYSE Euronext) is a company that just benefits from transactions, and we all know the challenges of stock volume moving away from the exchanges" said E. William Stone of PNC Wealth Management.

Fed asset purchases seen topping out at $1.14T. Ben Bernanke's latest QE program is expected to end in Q1 of 2014, according to the median estimate of a Bloomberg survey. By then, say the respondents, asset purchases - a mix of Treasurys and MBS - will have reached $1.14T. The FOMC begins a 2-day meeting today, with economists expecting little

We can understand why Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) has taken a 19.6M share position in The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BK). The Bank of New York used to be a traditional deposit gathering and loan making institution before it sold its consumer and commercial banking operations to JPMorgan Chase (JPM) in 2006 in exchange for JPM's corporate trust business and a cash payment of $150M plus up to $50M of contingent consideration. The Bank of New York sold its traditional banking operations in order to focus on its asset management and servicing activities and it bulked up its asset management capabilities in 2007 with its acquisition of Mellon Financial, which formed BNY Mellon. We like BNY Mellon because it is one of three "trust banks" dedicated to asset management and asset servicing. We like the business because it provides a steady, annuity-like fee stream and BNY Mellon has massive

Q4 2012 Earnings Call

January 18, 2013 9:00 am ET

Executives

Valerie C. Haertel - Senior Vice President of Investor Relations

Joseph L. Hooley - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, President, Chairman of Executive Committee and Member of Risk & Capital Committee

Edward J. Resch - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

Analysts

Howard Chen - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division

Kenneth M. Usdin - Jefferies & Company, Inc., Research Division

Robert Lee - Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division

Brian Bedell - ISI Group Inc., Research Division

Glenn Schorr - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Alexander Blostein - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Michael Mayo - Credit Agricole Securities (USA) Inc., Research Division

Vivek Juneja - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division

Josh Levin - Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Andrew Marquardt - Evercore Partners Inc., Research Division

Cynthia Mayer - BofA Merrill

Expected financial sector earnings reports and the whisper number impact for Friday, January 18th:

State Street Corp. (STT): The whisper number is $1.04, four cents ahead of the analysts estimate. STT has a 70% positive surprise history (having topped the whisper in 23 of the 33 earnings reports for which we have data). The average price movement (starting at next market open) within ten trading days of all earnings reports is +0.5%. The strongest price movement of +1.9% comes within five trading days when the company reports earnings that beat the whisper number, and -1.9% within five trading days when the company reports earnings that miss the whisper number. Last quarter the company reported earnings three cents ahead of the whisper number. Following that report the stock realized a 7.9% gain in twenty-five trading days. Enter your expectation and view more earnings information here.

Morgan Stanley (MS):

By Robert Goldsborough

One of the hottest topics in the exchange-traded fund world has been the ongoing price war that has continued driving costs down for investors.

The fee war has intensified in the last several years, as the ETF market has become more crowded. Some me-too products have come along with an eye toward undercutting a popular incumbent product, fee-wise. Offering the lowest fees in a product category has been a strategy for several entrants, with some incumbents responding with price cuts. Still other ETF providers have introduced other strategies or sought other ways of differentiating their products, such as asking investors to look at other indirect costs of holding an ETF beyond simply a stated expense ratio. And in recent years, brokerage platforms have partnered with ETF issuers to offer commission-free trading of select ETFs.

Outside the price wars, ETF fees can also change as assets under management