Top Takes From RealMoney

The RealMoney contributors are in the business of trading and investing all day on the basis of ongoing news flow. Below, we offer the top five ideas that RealMoney contributors posted today and how they played those ideas.

E*Trade

By Jim Cramer
8:02 a.m. EDT Lots of upgrades today, including UPS(UPS Quote) and Polyone(POL Quote). But the one I think is most telling is E*Trade(ETFC Quote). This $1.66 stock is upgraded by Citigroup on takeover potential and a major increase in account gains. Really intriguing, and I am sure this will be a major theme for today...

No positions

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UNG

By Timothy Collins
9:43 a.m. EDT

The US Natural Gas ETF(UNG Quote) is actually up this morning, and to me, it almost appears as if it is a squeeze. I watched the short share inventory disappear quicker than dark chocolate in my kitchen. I have bought some September 13-10 put spreads and 13-11 put spreads on the price spike to 10.61.

Positions: Short UNG via put spreads

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The Song Remains the Same

By Tim Melvin
11:43 a.m. EDT

I just read an interesting, is somewhat disturbing article on the Associated Press News Wire. One had hoped that the credit crisis would have spurred some creative destruction on the banking industry. When all this started, I had real hope that the giant banks that had pretty much turned into enormous speculative pools would fade out of the picture, and that more conservatively run institutions like BB&T(BBT Quote) and M&T Bank(MTB Quote) would grow to fill the void.

That has not happened. Instead, institutions like Goldman(GS Quote), JPMorgan Chase(JPM Quote) and even Bank of America(BAC Quote) are bigger than ever. They have almost no competition and are right back to the old ways. Trading profits are 50% of revenue at Morgan and Goldman. They are packaging mortgages into pools and selling them, albeit not at the pace of the bubble days, but it's incredible that someone out there is still buying these things.