Today's Headlines

Today’s Headlines
Bloomberg:
- Oil is falling -$.71/bbl. after inventories surged to the highest since June of last year and approached 8-year highs. Moreover, gasoline supplies rose more than estimate despite lower-than-expected refinery utilization.
- The Fed kept the benchmark US interest rate at 5.25% and said inflation remains the “predominant” risk for the economy. The FOMC also said it expects economic growth to rise at a moderate rate and inflation to decelerate.
- News Corp.’s $5 billion bid for Dow Jones(DJ) has a 40% chance of success and its failure would send the shares plunging to below their pre-offer price, according to UBS.
- IBM(IBM) shares climbed to the highest level in five years after Goldman, Sachs(GS) suggested buying the stock because of rising earnings at the world’s largest computer-services provider.
- Amaranth Advisors LLC, the hedge fund that collapsed in September under $6.6 billion of energy-trading losses, will pay $717,000 to settle an unrelated case by the SEC. The firm improperly used shares acquired during public offerings in 2004 and 2005 to cover short positions, or bets that the shares would drop, the SEC said today.
- Eric Rosenfeld, co-founder of Long-term Capital Management, and two of his former colleagues are starting a hedge fund that uses computers to pick investments.

Wall Street Journal:
- Alltel Corp.(AT), a wireless telephone company, is holding talks with three groups of leveraged-buyout firms who are considering a possible acquisition.
- Chinese investors may soon start investing in real estate abroad, if restrictions on private investment in overseas real estate are lifted later this year.
- EBay Inc.(EBAY) is in talks to acquire StumbleUpon, an Internet company that helps people find Web sites that interest them.
- Delta Air(DAL) plans to overhaul and develop its facilities in NY and LA.
- United Steelworkers, the union representing workers in the US steel industry, is blocking takeovers, demanding board seats, and taking sides in bidding wars to enhance its negotiating power.
- Plans by Citigroup Inc.(C), to spend $50 billion in alternative energy sources are getting a lukewarm response from environmentalist advocates that say the company could also do other things.
- Hewlett-Packard(HPQ) and Eastman Kokak(EK) are among the printer-makers that recently introduced lower-priced ink cartridges to compete with the rapid market expansion of cartridge-refilling firms.
- Tetra Technologies(TTI) and other companies are working around the clock to bolster oil gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico against the next storm.
- A US official accused Venezuela of allowing its airports and ports to be used by drug traffickers shipping cocaine to Europe.

NY Times:
- Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the national security adviser to Iraq’s prime minister Nuri Kamil al-Maliki, made his case to American legislators that pulling out troops from his country would be a disaster. He met several Democrats on Tuesday who have been calling for imminent US military withdrawals from Iraq, including Representative John P. Murtha and Senator Carl Levin. The meetings didn’t seem to shift the lawmakers’ positions.

Financial Times:
- Marathon Oil(MRO), the fourth largest US oil and gas company, has been warned by federal regulators that its refining unit could face legal action alleging manipulation of futures trading contracts. The action claims that a unit of the Houston-based Marathon tried to manipulate the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil.
- Thomson Corp.’s offer to buy Reuters Group Plc for $17.5 billion may not be concluded quickly and the Canadian company’s share price may suffer during the process.

Haaretz:
- Israel has a good chance of being accepted into the OECD next week.

Handelsblatt:
- The German government plans to force hedge funds to disclose more information.