Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

- Global emergency oil reserves total about 4 billion barrels and are sufficient to cover a major supply disruption in a producing country, said Claude Mandil, executive director of the IEA.
- MGM Mirage is looking for more projects in the southern Chinese city of Macau as it prepares to build a $975 million casino hotel in the only place in China where casino gambling is legal.

- Dutch voters will probably reject the European Union constitution in a referendum today, opinion polls show, as French President Chirac promised renewed efforts to reduce high unemployment following the defeat of the treaty in France.

- The European Central Bank cut its growth forecast for the 12 countries sharing the euro to 1.4% from 1.6%.

- Electronic Arts today will announce an agreement with Qualcomm aimed at grabbing a bigger slice of the $1.3 billion market for games played on mobile phones.

- SBC Communications, the largest provider of high-speed Internet access on digital subscriber lines, cut the price for its standard DSL service by 25% to add more customers.

- William Donaldson, chairman of the SEC, plans to resign as the top regulator for the world’s biggest financial market on June 30.

- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday fired Joseph Stephanides, an official in the Iraq/UN oil-for-food program, for misconduct in the awarding of a contract to a company that inspected humanitarian goods imported by Saddam’ regime.

- US junk bonds in May turned in their best performance of the year, as concern faded that GM and Ford would swamp the market for high-yield, high-risk debt after their credit ratings were cut to below investment-grade.

- US Treasuries are rising, pushing 10-year yields down to the lowest since April 2004, after the ISM’s monthly manufacturing, prices paid and employment indices all fell.

- The euro fell to an eight-month low against the dollar after manufacturing in the region contracted and the European Central Bank and European Commission cut their economic growth forecasts.

- Crude oil is rising for a seventh straight session as refinery malfunctions raised concern that refiners won’t produce enough gasoline to meet peak demand this summer.

Wall Street Journal:

- General Motors is expected to announce steep discounts to the general public today similar to GM employee-offered incentives, in an effort to unload inventories.

- Procter & Gamble is focusing on finding out what products suit women most rather than the ones that are most technologically elaborate.

- Evercore Partners is considering conducting an IPO, to profit from several previous financial advisory firm offerings.

- A book based on disclosures by former FBI official W. Mark Felt that he was “Deep Throat,” the anonymous person who helped the Washington Post uncover the Watergate scandal, could get an advance of as much as $1 million.

- The growth of China’s steel industry may slow, Shanghai Baosteel Group Corp Chairwoman Xie Qihua said in an interview.

- Wells Fargo is slicing online trading fees for clients who hold at least $25,000 in balances at the bank, following cuts by other brokerages in recent months.

- Bank of America will require Internet customers to register their computers with the bank and assign a digital image to it which will pop up when ever the user accesses his account.

- Shares of companies that own and operate crude-oil tankers have fallen this year and short-sellers are betting that they’ll fall further.

- Seven executives at Blockbuster sold 560,000 Class A shares of the company’s stock for $5.5 million.

- The Safe Blood for Africa Foundation is working to provide safe blood transfusions in Africa by improving donor screening and blood testing.

- Deere and Orvis are taking advantage of the US real estate boom by entering into separate luxury property ventures.

NY Times:

- Delta Air Lines’ Song low-fare unit plans to announce new non-stop service between Boston and California today.

NY Post:

- Michael Dell, chairman and founder of Dell Inc., plans to put a “substantial” amount of money from his personal investments into a hedge fund venture.

Philadelphia Inquirer:

- A Pennsylvania law that would legalize gambling to pay for property-tax reform was rejected by 400 of the state’s 501 local school districts over the weekend.

AP:

- Connecticut and Massachusetts lawmakers approved measures yesterday to encourage stem cell research in those states.

AFP:

- OPEC will probably decide to keep pumping oil at its current level when it meets in Vienna on June 15, the group’s president said today.