Blog Posts by Morgan Korn

Big banks had a phenomenal year in 2012.

For example, shares of Bank of America (BAC) gained 107.3% last year, making it one of the best performers in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI).

Can the bull run in bank stocks continue in 2013?

Not likely says Peter Atwater, president of consulting firm Financial Insyghts and a former executive at JPMorgan (JPM).

In an interview with The Daily Ticker, Atwater says the time to be bullish on financials was in October of 2011, a period when bank stocks were beaten down and uncertainty over new financial regulation spooked investors. Ultimately, the U.S. banks most exposed to government regulatory actions – such as Bank of America – experienced a bounce in their stocks as investors priced in policy outcomes (Atwater likens these stocks to “options” on policy decisions).

Big bank stocks may have a little more room to run according to Atwater, but that has not stopped him from advising clients to take profits.

Banks are at "the top end of the

U.S. markets cheered the fiscal cliff bill on Wednesday morning, with all the major market indexes up more than 2% in recent trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) rose 259 points to 13,364 and the S&P 500 Index (GSPC) climbed 30 points to 1,456.

Markets ended the last trading day of 2012 in positive territory on hopes that lawmakers in Washington would agree to a compromise on tax hikes and spending cuts that were scheduled to take effect Jan. 1 – a situation dubbed the “fiscal cliff.”

House members voted 257 to 167 late Tuesday in favor of the Senate bill, which increases tax rates on individuals making more than $400,000 and families earning more than $450,000. The bill, which President Obama is expected to sign on Wednesday, also extends unemployment insurance to 2 million Americans for another year and raises the tax rate on income derived from dividends to 20% from 15%.

Related: "Cliff" Avoided But Trifecta of Fiscal Debates Loom

The market rally will likely continue

Shortly after its historic IPO in May, Facebook (FB) stock lost half of its value as investors became increasingly anxious about the social network’s ability to make money from mobile advertising. The stock has recovered some ground in recent weeks because CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has publicly addressed these concerns, according to David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect.

“People just needed to be convinced that Zuckerberg realized that mobile was a big deal,” Kirkpatrick says in an interview with The Daily Ticker. “He has made that extremely clear. They are explicitly putting mobile at the top of the list in everything that they do.”

Effectively monetizing mobile has become the core challenge for all Web sites and Facebook’s struggles to earn revenue from mobile ads won’t go away in 2013, Kirkpatrick notes. But recent efforts by the company to target its 1 billion global users on smartphone devices and tablets could attract new advertisers. Facebook’s News Feed

2012 has been a tumultuous year for both Apple (AAPL) and its investors. The stock, once a darling of Wall Street, has fallen precipitously from its intraday high of $705.07 on Sept. 21; shares are down nearly 23% in three months (the stock is up 26.7% YTD).

The maker of the iPhone and iPad has experienced both highs and lows this year.

Apple's 2012 highlights include:

1. iPhone 5 Debut: Apple debuted its highly anticipated and widely speculated iPhone 5 to much fanfare. The tech giant sold a record-breaking 5 million iPhone 5 devices in its September opening weekend, with demand exceeding the company’s initial supply. According to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Apple now holds 53.3% of the U.S. smartphone market – the first time Apple has surpassed the 50% mark. Apple’s dominance with smartphone users in the U.S. can largely be attributed to sales of the iPhone 5.
2. Major Patent Win: Apple also decisively won its patent infringement suit against Korean competitor Samsung this summer. The

Income tax rates will go up for all Americans next month if lawmakers in Washington cannot come to a resolution on the so-called fiscal cliff. Even a deal will likely boost rates on capital gains and dividends, affecting investors in all asset classes.

Capital gains taxes — the tax one pays when selling an investment — are expected to increase to at least 23.8% from the current top rate of 15%. The higher rate includes the 5% tax increase and a new 3.8% tax on investment income (applicable to high-income earners only) to pay for provisions in the president’s Affordable Care Act. The proposed new rate is still historically low; long-term capital gains were taxed at nearly 30% from 1986 through 1997, according to the Tax Policy Center. New York City has the highest capital gains taxes in the country. President Obama would like to raise the dividend tax rate to 39.6% on wealthy Americans (the same rate during the Clinton administration) from 15% -- essentially taxing dividend gains as

The U.S. economy grew at a 3.1% annual rate in the third-quarter, more than previous government estimates of 2% and 2.7%. The July to September quarter was the nation’s fastest rate of growth since the fourth-quarter of 2011. Inventory investment was the main driver of economic growth in Q3 according to the Commerce Department. Stronger trade, increased consumer demand for durable goods and health care services as well as a rebound in local, state and federal defense spending also contributed to higher growth. The economy expanded at a 1.3% rate in the second-quarter.

Related: Want Economic Growth in 2013? Get Govt. Out of the Way, Says Ayn Rand’s Brook

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, says in an interview with The Daily Ticker that the big increase in inventory accumulation would likely “steal growth away” from the current quarter. He predicts that economic growth will stay in the 2% to 2.5% range over the next year, roughly the same level as three years ago when the

Fitch Ratings warned U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday that it was prepared to downgrade the nation’s "AAA" rating if a fiscal cliff deal was not completed before Dec. 31.

“Failure to avoid the fiscal cliff…would exacerbate rather than diminish the uncertainty over fiscal policy, and tip the U.S. into an avoidable and unnecessary recession," Fitch said in its 2013 global outlook.

Standard & Poor’s stripped the U.S. of its triple-A status in August of 2011. Fitch currently has a negative outlook on its U.S. sovereign rating.

President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner have each dropped some of their key demands as the fiscal cliff negotiations come down to the wire.

Related: Not the End of the World if Fiscal Cliff Deal Happens Next Year: Heidi Moore

The President says he would now accept $1.2 trillion in new revenue, down from his initial $1.6 trillion proposal, as well as increase the income bracket for the Bush-era tax cut extensions to $400,000 from $250,000 for joint filers.

After a brief post-election swoon, stocks have been on a tear, with both the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) and the S&P 500 Index (GSPC) up more than 6% in the last four weeks. Entering Wednesday's session, the Dow and S&P were at their highest levels since Oct. 18 and pointing higher in early trading thanks, in part, to better-than-expected results last night from Oracle (ORCL).

Equities are attracting investors again after November’s sell-off for one simple reason: "There aren’t any alternatives to stocks," says Josh Brown, vice president of investments at Fusion Analytics and author of the popular “The Reformed Broker."

“Stocks are able to go up on neutral, good and negative earnings because of QE,” Brown notes and he recommends that investors buy shares of companies like Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), one of many blue chips that have bond-like qualities. JNJ’s dividend yield is currently 3.4% versus just 1.83% on the 10-year Treasury.

Brown prefers bond-like-equities any day over