BANK OF AMERICA

Wall Street appears to be almost universally bullish about U.S. stocks for 2011.

Top Ten Predictions for U.S. Economy/Markets in 2011. These predictions come from Michael Yoshikami, president and chief investment strategist of YCMNET Advisors Inc. in Walnut Creek, Cal.

Allstate Corp., the largest publicly traded U.S. home and auto insurer, has accused Bank of America (BofA) and its lending unit, Countrywide Financial, of misrepresenting the risk associated with mortgage-backed securities it bought from them beginning 2005, and is suing them for more than $700 million.

US stocks advanced in early trade on Wednesday with S&P 500 Index advanced 1.63 points, or 0.13 percent, to trade at 1,260.14 at 10:00 a.m. EDT. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 24.86 points, or 0.21 percent, to trade at 11,600. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.10 percent.

Futures on major U.S. stock indices point to modestly higher opening on Wednesday with futures on the S&P 500 up 0.10 percent, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.10 percent and Nasdaq100 futures up 0.25 percent.

Even as world leaders are still trying to cope with the recent flood of global political secrets leaked by the whistle-blower site Wikileaks, its founder Julian Assange is all set to write his autobiography promising more in the offing. Speaking to the Sunday Times, the 39-year-old Australian announced that he had signed deals worth $1.5 million for publishing his memoirs.

The revelations produced by WikiLeaks will remain a big issue in the coming years, not only for governments, diplomats and journalists, but especially for corporations.

Although some progress appears to be being made in the euro zone sovereign debt crisis – including the passage of an austerity budget by the Greek Parliament today and a capital injection into Allied Irish Bank (NYSE: AIB) – the most important member of the euro currency bloc, Germany, is unlikely to foot the total bill that will be required to truly resolve this issue.

Bank of America has banned transactions to whistle-blower site Wikileaks since Friday, according to media reports. The Obama Administration earlier urged financial organizations to sever ties with the site for illegally releasing confidential US diplomatic cables.

U.S. companies are turning profitable again, they have stockpiles of cash and the economy is teetering on its new 'recovery' legs as the government pumps in billions of dollars trying to keep it afloat. Yet, the one thing that is crucial to the recovery is not happening - job creation - as companies remain reluctant to hire.

The top after-market NYSE gainers on Thursday are Office Depot, Accenture, Salesforce.com and American Express. The top after market NYSE most active stocks are Citigroup, Boston Scientific, Sprint Nextel Corporation and Bank of America.

Investors are increasingly attracted to U.S. stocks as the fiscal/sovereign debt crisis in the euro zone deepens, according to a fund manager survey by Bank of America-Merrill Lynch (BoAML)

China has stubbornly refused to cede to U.S demands to let the yuan rise against the dollar. The question is, among the US and China who will gain and who will lose if China ever agreed to appreciate its currency?

Longer-term, the potential impact of the tax cuts upon the stock market and economy remain rather fuzzy, given the multitude of other issues facing investors, including perpetually high unemployment in the U.S., a seemingly never-ending sovereign debt crisis in Europe and constant friction with China over trade and currency.

A Pennsylvania-based law firm has been sued for using non-lawyers to review, sign and file foreclosures that caused people to lose their homes.

U.S. stocks advanced in early trade on Tuesday as sentiment was buoyed by President Barack Obama's announcement of an agreement with Republicans on a plan to extend income tax cuts for all Americans.

Performance of the US dollar, Europe's periphery issues, inflation in developing world, consumption by developed ones, and of late, tensions in Korean peninsula- a lot of things are weighing on oil. The net result in recent weeks was positive for the greenback and therefore negative for oil. Still, the commodity is set to end this week with a positive note despite losing more than a dollar from its intra-week high by Friday. So, what is the trend? Where is oil heading?

US stocks declined in early trade on Friday as fresh concerns over European debt crisis weighed on sentiment.

Dollar, Korea, Ireland, Asian demand, inventories and technicals - a lot of things are weighing on oil now. But market participants find the question if the commodity has reached its bottom technically and on robust demand in some regions, or will a dollar rally or geopolitical developments force it break below the current range, tough to answer.

Stocks finished mixed, but bounced back from early lows on worries that Ireland’s debt crisis could spread to other peripheral euro zone nations, follow a request by the Irish government for a multi-billion euro funding bailout.

The US guest workers programs design needs an immediate and substantial in the wake of high unemployment in the nation.