Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: PNC Financial, Citigroup, Berkshire Hathaway, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: PNC Financial (NYSE: PNC), Citigroup (NYSE: C), Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC).

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Here are highlights from Wednesday’s Analyst Blog:

What We Need in Finance Reform

Simply put, "too big to fail" should mean "too big to exist." Breaking up the banks does not have to be a bad thing for the shareholders of the big banks. After all, shareholders have done OK in holding the separate parts of Standard Oil over the last century or so, as have the holders of the parts of AT&T after its break-up.

On the other hand, breaking up the biggest banks is not a cure-all -- we could still have a meltdown if many banks were to all be invested in the same area that went bad, or if they were too interconnected. Still, having 10 banks each the size of say PNC Financial (NYSE: PNC) would be on balance safer than on Citigroup (NYSE: C).

Yes, the TARP was needed, but we sure could have done a much better job in negotiating more favorable terms for the taxpayer. The terms the Government got for its investment in Goldman Sachs were FAR worse than those Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) got at virtually the very same time. Berkshire got far more warrants on the stock and twice the interest rate on his preferred as we got.

However, that does not negate the fact that almost all of the TARP money has since been repaid, and it looks like the government might actually eventually end up with a small profit on the deal. Given the risk the taxpayer took, we should have made a large profit. The economy is also now in a MUCH better position than it would have been if we had allowed Citigroup, Wachovia, Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) to all follow Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy.

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