Postcards

Meredith Whitney's Goldman Sachs call

She still has her mojo.

A lot of people were surprised, even confounded, when analyst Meredith Whitney, the bear of all bears, stuck her neck out early yesterday and put forth the Street's highest estimates for Goldman Sachs' (GS) second-quarter profits. Whitney predicted that Goldman would report $4.65 a share. The consensus estimate was $3.48. Goldman announced this morning that it earned $4.93.

And you'd think the stock would pop on that MORE

Meredith Whitney turns bullish on Goldman

All eyes are on Goldman Sachs (GS), which announces earnings tomorrow. What goosed the stock...and then the banking sector and then the entire market today? Meredith Whitney's upgrade.

It mattered--and helped send Goldman up nearly 5% to $149--because the famously bearish financial-services analyst, who helped bring down Citigroup and the banking sector two years ago, has been negative ever since. She announced her upgrade of Goldman at 2:24 a.m. At least MORE

Recovery, reset, or economic "flip up"?

A gloomy outlook as we head off for the long weekend. Today's monthly jobs report was worse than May's, worse than expected, and worse than we've seen in 26 years. The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9.5%...and is bound to go past 10%.

So when will the pain ease? Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer told me last week: "I don't think we're in a recession. I think we've reset. It's very MORE

Microsoft CEO's big bets on the future

On Friday I told you about Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer's riff on Bing and Yahoo. I asked him: How much market share do you need to gain in search to not need to do a deal with Yahoo (YHOO)? Ballmer called my question "back-handed" and went on to give a really interesting answer. Check out the video or my Friday Postcard if you missed the Microsoft boss's take on MORE

The ad industry's critical challenge

Greetings from France. I'm at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, where the skies are sunny and the industry outlook is dark. This morning, Marcel Fenez, managing partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers' global entertainment and media practice, laid out the dismal details. He called the current recession in ad spending "not cyclical but structural."

Which means that the advertising business has permanently changed. And it's going to be rough sailing for a long while. Global ad spending will MORE

A top banker's gloomy outlook

by Jessica Shambora

The drama continues apace in banking. Yesterday we shared a CNN interview with Citigroup (C) CEO Vikram Pandit, as he struggles to hang on, while Pattie last Friday gave her take on the fall of Bank of America's (BAC) chief risk officer, Amy Brinkley -- a veteran of Fortune's Most Powerful Women list.

Another top woman in banking -- one of the few still standing -- swung by our MORE

Power Point: Find a new business model

"The world's looking for a new business model."

-- Citigroup (C) CEO Vikram Pandit, defending his leadership, in an interview with CNN Tuesday. During the past week, news media outlets have reported that FDIC Chair Sheila Bair thinks Pandit lacks the retail banking experience to revive Citi and wants him out. Meanwhile, others speculate that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner believes that Pandit deserves a shot at the turnaround and that a MORE

The new boss at Old GM

by Patricia Sellers

You might call Al Koch the world's biggest trash collector. As bankrupt General Motors (GM) splits into two parts -- New GM, containing Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC, and Old GM, containing designated bad assets such as Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer, Saab -- Koch is the hired gun who's supposed to create value from that latter lot.

Bringing "New GM" out of bankruptcy will be difficult enough. Why would anyone MORE

Most Powerful Women take New York

"Betting on the Future." That's the 2009 theme of Fortune's Most Powerful Women, who convened in New York City last evening for a mega-celebration and some very smart conversation. I'm not sure I belong on stage with three superstars under 40: Bank analyst Meredith Whitney, Google's (GOOG) Marissa Mayer, and Goldman Sachs' (GS) Dina Powell. But there I was (at age 49), talking with them them about how they've navigated MORE

Power Point: Look out for Main Street

"Any effort to restore confidence in our economy must start not on Wall Street but in Main Street, and that's what the credit card situation is all about."

-- Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic Majority Leader, speaking before a Senate vote on Tuesday that put new restrictions on the credit card industry. The bill is supposed to make card terms more explicit and be fairer to customers, providing safeguards MORE