Fifth Third Bancorp

There's never a dull moment on Wall Street. Next week brings a Xoom-related media event from Verizon and Motorola Mobility, as well as fourth quarter results from Apple and several of the country's biggest financial institutions.

You may have noticed the recent headlines, or maybe you learned about it through your own bank: The end of free checking appears to be near. Still, it's not quite time for free checking's death-knell just yet. Despite the flood of questioning from news publications -- "Is free checking over?" --...

After a boom year for bonds in 2009, experts say investors this year will need to keep a closer eye on their fixed-income investments to bring home the highest returns. Several concerns include growing fears of inflation and worries that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates.

Citi isn't getting off the hook anytime soon. But Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bancorp might. It took $3.4 billion to mend its bruised balance sheet and could need to raise as little as $1 billion to repay TARP

As TARP nears it's end on Dec. 31, discussions about extending it -- or killing it -- are flooding the halls of Congress and the White House. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner can ask to extend TARP until October 2010, but he'll do so with a lot of objection from members of Congress. In fact...