Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has so far shouldered most of the burden of saving the global economy and financial markets. He may be about to get more help. With the credit crisis entering its ninth month, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King and European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet are on the verge of new steps to spur lending and increase liquidity, say economists at Lloyds TSB Group Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.
- Russia’s economy is “overheating,” said Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
- Emerging-market bonds fell, led by declines in Turkish debt, on speculation a deepening global credit crisis will prompt investors to cut holdings of higher-yielding assets. The yield premium investors demand to own emerging-market bonds over Treasuries widened 6 basis points to 3.08 percentage points, the biggest since March 20, according to JPMorgan’s EMBI Plus Index.
- Soybeans fell the maximum allowed by the Chicago Board of Trade after the US government said farmers will boost planting by 18%, more than analysts forecast, to take advantage of record prices.
- Crude oil is falling more than $5 a barrel in NY, the biggest decline since December 2004, on signs that slowing economic growth will bolster stockpiles and curb demand.
- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson proposed the broadest overhaul of US financial regulation since the Great Depression, saying American capitalism needs to be better prepared for “inevitable market disruptions.”
- Merck(MRK), Schering(SGP) Plunge as Doctors Discourage Vytorin.

Wall Street Journal:
- The best solution to the current crisis is to stop the flight from the US dollar.
- The Treasury Dept.’s blueprint for overhauling the regulation of financial markets would significantly alter the landscape for exchanges where stocks, investment funds and derivative products trade.
- CDC Data Show Rise in HIV Cases, Reflecting More Accurate Tracking.

NY Times:
- Chinese Nationalism Fuels Tibet Crackdown.

CNBC:
- The Fed will stop cutting its target rate for overnight lending between banks once it reaches 1.5%, Paul McCulley, a portfolio manager at PIMCO, said.

Washington Post:
- Former Vice President Al Gore will launch a three-year, $300 million campaign April 2 to encourage Americans to mobilize a fight against greenhouse gas emissions.

CNNMoney.com:
- The last days of Bear Stearns. Bear’s fall hastened by lack of Goldman support. It took only a few days, a rising sense of panic – and a critical e-mail – to spell the end of the 85-year-old investment back.

BloggingStocks:
- Did hedge funds push and profit from Bear Stearns’s collapse? And while this Wall Street insider’s story does not constitute an open and shut case that hedge funds pushed and profited from Bear’s collapse, it certainly suggests that it would be a useful area for regulators to investigate. After all, $29 billion worth of taxpayer’s money was lent to make the JPMorgan deal go through.

Financial Times:
- Lawrence Summers, a former US Treasury Secretary, said measures to overcome paralysis in the credit markets give grounds for hope that in the US, at least, the financial crisis is abating. While the prices of many assets are discounting a severe recession or worse, a combination of monetary and fiscal stimulus, together with rising exports may limit the slowdown, he said.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
- Unemployment in Germany that has fallen steadily since mid-2005 may soon show a net gain as companies fire more staff than they hire.

Euromoney Institutional Investor Online Network:
- 38.6% of all hedge funds are no more than 2 years old. Only 2.45% have been around 15 years or longer. There were three times as many hedge funds in 2007 as there were in 2000.