The news on the Street is not looking good. The Fed, it seems, is spoiling the party. Few expect it to slash rates further.

Then there’s oil. The black goo rose 87 cents to $137.61 a barrel in electronic trade this morning.

MarketWatch has S&P 500 futures down 6.5 points to 1,311.80 and Dow industrial futures down 54 points.

Dan Denning in The Daily Reckoning Australia expects a ‘highly differentiated’ performance in stock markets for the rest of the year.

Is there anything less enjoyable than writing about bank profits? Still, we’ll soldier on. After a little research, we’ve come to a conclusion about Australian banks stocks that you might find useful.