Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of shipping costs for commodities, posted a record decline of 8.7% as port congestion eased and on speculation China may buy less iron ore.
- Copper fell to the lowest level in more than two months as the dollar strengthened, curing demand from investors who buy commodities as a hedge against inflation.
- Wheat fell on speculation that yields are better than normal as the US winter-crop harvest progresses in states from Texas to Kansas.
- McCain’s Young Backers Push Elders to Embrace Obama Web Tactics.
- Volatility in the oil markets has snarled attempts by refiners and other industry players to plan for the future.
- The US dollar strengthened against the euro as US retail sales advanced more than economists forecast.

Wall Street Journal:
- Billionaire hedge-fund manager Edward S. Lampert is placing new bets on a US housing recovery, buying stakes in beaten-up home builders, mortgage lenders and a home-improvement retailer.
- Citigroup to Close Hedge Fund; Blow to CEO.

NY Times:
- Senator Joe Lieberman said Wednesday that he would propose next week to ban large institutional investors, including index funds, from the nation’s booming commodities markets. “There is excessive speculation in the commodity markets that is driving up the cost of food and energy,” the senator said. Over the last five years, hundreds of billions of dollars have flowed into commodity futures markets. One steady source of money has been the growing number of new funds that mirror specific commodity indexes, like the S&P Goldman Sachs Commodity Index. More recently, exchange-traded funds, such as the United State Oil Fund(USO) and PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund(DBA), have followed index funds into the market.

TechCrunch:
- Yahoo(YHOO) and Google(GOOG) will make a joint announcement at 1:30 pm PST. What is the announcement? The very likely answer is, a search partnership between the two companies that outsources all or part of Yahoo search marketing, and possibly search itself, to Google.

Financial Times:
- Imarex, one of the world’s few platforms for trading freight derivatives, will on Friday launch its first shipping contract aimed at financial investors amid growth in demand for derivatives based on the shipping and freight industry.

- When you hear ‘new paradigm’ head for the hills.