Stock Investing

L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. (LLL – Analyst Report) has received a $104 million contract to perform aircraft sustainment for the U.S. Navy’s fleet consisting of P-3, EP-3 and NP-3 aircraft. The contract awarded to L-3 Communications’ Platform Integration division was an add-on to a previous program awarded to the company in 2005.

Under the contract, L-3 Communications will identify possible defects in airframes through inspection and provide services to correct them. The company will work on all types, models and series of P-3 aircraft in the 147-aircraft U.S. Nav

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A week ahead of the shareholder vote on NYSE Euronext’s planned merger with Deutsche Börse, another transatlantic merger met its demise Wednesday when the London Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange operator TMX Group called off their planned deal.

The termination came after it became clear that while a majority of shareholders supported the transaction, the number of votes in favor would fall short of the two-thirds required for approval. TM

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The latest tally of initial unemployment claims, covering the week ending June 11, produced a modest improvement in the weekly count. New benefits filers numbered 414K, but that was 16K less than the week before. The four-week moving average, however, was unchanged at 424,750. Thus, the report was a non-starter for stocks this past week, and took a back seat to the flood of fear from Greece.

The insured unemployment rate, which measures just the folks collecting regular unemployment and not the massive list of Americans collecting on the unemployment insurance extension legislation, stuck at 2.9% through the June 4 period. That said, the count still fell by 21K, to 3,675,000.

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I’m going to miss Mark Haines. During the Tech Bubble, I associated CNBC with Mark Haines. Every now and then, when I traveled on business or had an opportunity to go into the office late or skip work altogether, I’d try to catch the market’s open and …. there he was, Mark Haines, whetting my appetite for more. I planed for and looked forward with anticipation to the day when I would be able to quite my day job and begin trading full time.

That day came at the beginning of 2002 and I’ve started nearly every weekday having breakfast with Mark, waiting for the opening bell to ring at 9:30. Whenever Mark was out and a substitute was necessary, I had to make a conscious decision as to whether or not I’d watch the market open that day (whenever they stuck in Simon Hobbs I made it a point of quickly turning the t.v.

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Last Friday, U.S. regulators shuttered Clayton, Georgia-based Mountain Heritage Bank, taking the number of failed banks thus far in 2011 to 48. This follows 157 bank failures in 2010, 140 in 2009 and 25 in 2008.

While the financials of bigger banks have been stabilizing on the back of an economic recovery, many smaller banks are still struggling to survive. Nagging issues like rock-bottom home prices along with still-high loan defaults and unemployment levels continue to trouble such institutions.

Lingering effects of the financial crisis continue to weigh on many banks. It becomes a prerequisite for such banks to absorb bad loans offered during the credit explosion, making them susceptible to some severe problems.

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