mastercard

U.S. stock futures were pointing towards a modestly higher open as investors found enough optimism from Dow components Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson who both reported better than expected quarterly results. Investors were further spooked by reports of pro-Russian separatists taking...

U.S. stocks rose to start off the holiday-filled shortened trading week on a positive note as investors found plenty of reason to be optimistic on retail sales which jumped the most since 2012. Investors were also encouraged by Citigroup's better than expected earnings which eased investor...

Many years ago, eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) owned PayPal was one of the few online payment processors. Visa (NYSE: V), MasterCard (NYSE: MA) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) entered the online space and PayPal was forced to fight to maintain its market share. With the growing trend of “digital wallets” apps...

Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), J.P. Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) and State Street (NYSE: STT) not only passed the latest Fed stress test, but analysts see some headroom for the shares. The Federal Reserve announced the results of the latest so-called stress tests...

Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) have filed a lawsuit against Visa (NYSE: V) claiming more than $5 billion in damages for what Wal-Mart claimed were unreasonably high interchange fees Visa charged the retailer. In the lawsuit Wal-Mart claimed Visa conspired with banks to fix so-called “swipe fees”...

A research report this past week from Credit Suisse analysts featured financials Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) and KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY), as well as energy plays Cameron International (NYSE: CAM) and Tesoro (NYSE: TSO), as picks for the remainder of 2014. The momentous rise in the stock...

U.S. stocks slipped to negative territory aided in part by Friday being a quadruple witching trading session. Major indices sold off in the afternoon as investors likely took some chips off the table going in to an uncertain weekend with the situation in Ukraine far from resolved. The S&P...

U.S. stocks were mixed as investors continue to follow the standoff in Ukraine and digested February's jobs report which indicated that harsh winter weather could be the culprit behind weakness seen in recent economic data reports. The S&P 500 trading at new all time highs at 1,883.57 but...

The cost of last year’s cyber-attack on Target (NYSE: TGT) has already exceeded $200 million. This has nothing to do with fines or lawsuits, or even Target. This is the cost banks and credit unions are bearing as they replace hacked credit and debit cards, according to The Verge. The Consumer...

U.S. stocks fell steeply on Friday as Wall Street recorded its first monthly loss since August. Investors have plenty on their plate to worry about from emerging markets, an earning season failing to ignite excitement and a lackluster consumer confidence that is being felt by many retailers who...

U.S. stocks rose on Thursday as investors and traders focused on the positives. Data showed that the economy expanded in the fourth quarter as consumer spending gained traction. "Today the market is focused on the good news, or the developed world," Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at...

The earnings crunch is on this week. Highlights will include reports from Amazon.com, Apple, Boeing, Comcast, Facebook, Google and Yahoo! All of them are expected to report year-over-year growth in per-share earnings. But analysts are looking for declining profits from the likes of Caterpillar,...

More than 40 years ago, banks introduced a new way to pay for items and services without carrying cash. Instead of using a credit card (which allowed consumers to purchase items they were not yet ready to pay for), shoppers could use a debit card to instantly spend the money already sitting in...

The earnings crunch rolls on. This week's highlights include quarterly reports from the two biggest companies by market capitalization, Apple and Exxon Mobil, which are expect to post declining earnings. Per-share earnings from General Motors are expected to be the same as a year ago, and...

A new Oppenheimer research report focuses on the information technology (IT) services industry, with its positive earnings and increasing domestic and global demand. The report also cited positive and rising alphas as a reason for its optimism. The analysts' top IT services picks include Alliance...