JEF

Decent earnings, but more importantly, they took leverage down from 12.9x to 9.9x.

The combination of decent (not great) profitability coupled with significant balance sheet reduction should take some pressure off the shares.  We had hoped they might have done the release earlier in the month, but this is very much in line with what we had expected from their release.

Whether JEF will be able to use this quarter to regroup and regain the total confidence of the market, or to obtain a better price in a sale remains to be seen.  But once again, I think they have done many things right in an effort to defend and justify themselves, and now can be more aggressive in pursuing revenue opportunities rather than being so defensive.