Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Crude oil is falling for a seventh straight day, the longest stretch since October 2003, after the International Energy Agency cut its global consumption estimates.
- Best Buy(BBY) said second-quarter profit increased 22%, beating analysts’ estimates, as consumers bought flat-panel televisions and installed home-entertainment systems.
- Goldman Sachs(GS), Wall Street’s most profitable firm, set aside an average of $542,000 in pay per employee so far this year, already beating the total for the whole of 2005.
- AT&T(T), the largest US telephone company, is heating up competition with cable-TV rivals with a new live-television service for broadband Internet users.
- Bristol-Myers Squibb(BMY) CEO Dolan quit after bungling an agreement to keep a generic version of the drugmaker’s top-selling heart pill Plavix off the market.
- US farmers will harvest the second-biggest soybean and corn crops ever as August rains revived plants.
- President Bush, ending a day marking the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, called on Americans to unite behind the war against terrorism and said victory in Iraq was crucial to the nation’s safety.

Wall Street Journal:
- US businesses haven’t cut back on borrowing even though the US Fed has raised interest rates 17 times since June 2004.
- Ticketmaster, which sells the majority of US sports and concert tickets, is using auctions and resale programs as it seeks to thwart competition from rivals and scalpers.
- A US educator group, which in the past recommended the use of calculators in kindergarten, is now prodding schools to focus heavily and early on math basics such as long division.
- IMG Fashion, the producer of the NY Fashion Week, gave 40 so-called bloggers press passes to the city’s September fashion show as designers see them as a new marketing opportunity.
- Vanguard Group is expanding its range of exchange-traded funds to appeal to financial intermediaries such as brokers and advisers.
- US regional banks are buying investment-banking expertise, to give them the capacity to offer clients advice as the pace of mergers and acquisitions continues unabated.
- A new commission of corporate executives and financial experts supported by US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson plans to recommend changes to the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other rules to make US capital markets more competitive.

Reuters:
- Exxon Mobil(XOM) expects Russia to allow it to expand its Sakhalin-1 development in the Pacific Ocean, citing the CEO.
- John Bolton, the US ambassador of the UN, said the US may stop paying its full dues to the UN if reforms aren’t implemented before the end of the year.

AP:
- An Arizona law that requires voters show identification at the polls was upheld by a federal judge.

Washington Post:
- Freddie Mac(FME) said it expects “no further action” on a US Justice Dept. criminal investigation.

San Francisco Chronicle:
- The San Francisco police will begin enforcing a curfew on children 13 and younger to curb violence.

Containerisation International:
- Shipping lines charged lower fees to move cargo by containers in the three months ended June, a fourth straight quarterly decline, as more vessels were put into service.

Interfax:
- The US may agree to Russia’s membership in the World Trade Organization by the end of next month, citing the US Ambassador to Russia.

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