Friday was one of the four times a year when the S&P 500 rebalances itself. This means that some stocks leave this index and some come in. This also means that all the indixes and exchange-traded funds that track the S&P 500 (and there’s many) have to also rebalance themselves to reflect the changes. S&P […]
BB&T Corp. is buying its competitor, SunTrust Banks, in an all-stock deal. The merger of the two southeastern U.S. regional banks is the biggest in the consumer-banking sector since the financial crisis. To some extent, the merger’s the product of the grow-or-die environment for consumer banks — that only by joining forces can the banks compete […]
One of the last big unresolved issues from the financial crisis is what to do about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Together with government-owned Ginnie Mae, they own or guarantee more than half the home loans in the country. Fannie and Freddie have been under conservatorship — bascially government protection and control — since 2008, […]
