Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Kenneth Brusda, president of North Star Asset Management, said he expects “headline news” on writedowns from losses related to subprime mortgages will be “over in the next couple of quarters.”
- Copper is falling to an 11-week low as rising supplies and the prospect of slower economic growth raised speculation that demand will slump.
- The US dollar will keep its status as the “world currency” for 15 to 20 years, said Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd.
- Petroleo Brasileiro SA(PBR), Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, said its Tupi field may contain as much as 8 billion barrels of oil and natural gas, an amount that could boost the country’s reserves by 62%.
- US Treasury notes rose to the highest since 2005 as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told Congress he expects the US economy to “slow noticeably.”

NY Times:
- India’s Solution for Oil Prices: Ban Speculation by Banning Trading. There are “no supply constraints right now, and demand has not escalated out of control,” Mr. Srinivasan said. Rather, trading on Nymex, is contributing “enormously” to high prices, he said. If crude were eliminated from the commodities traded on Nymex, Mr. Srinivasan predicted, the world would “see a drastic reduction in the price.” Mr. Srinivasan’s idea is based on the widely held belief that investors are artificially driving up oil prices. Hedge funds, banks and pension funds have poured capital into oil trading in recent years, betting that demand will increases. Analysts say these bets have become self-fulfilling prophecies, helping to push prices higher.
- US troops have driven al-Qaeda in Iraq out of every Baghdad neighborhood, according to Major General Joseph Fil, the US commander in the city.
- The Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee has proposed legislation that would effectively halt some current tax break audits of people who get a tax break for living and operating a business in the United States Virgin Islands.

NY Post:
- AQR Capital Management LLC, a hedge-fund company with about $38 billion in assets, pulled a planned IPO after several investors withdrew their funds.

Financial Times:
- BP Plc(BP) CEO Tony Hayward may increase capital expenditures, because BP’s recent polity of being conservative in spending on alternative and other higher-cost fuel sources makes less sense if oil prices stay high.