Bloomberg:
- Byron Wien, the investment strategist who predicted a recession would drive U.S. stocks lower last year, says the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will rebound 33 percent in 2009 as the economy recovers. “In anticipation of a second-half recovery in the U.S. economy, the market improves from a base of investor despondency and hedge fund and mutual fund withdrawals,” Wien wrote. “The mantra changes from ‘fortunes have been lost’ to ‘fortunes can still be made.’”
- Gold declined in London for a third day as the dollar strengthened, reducing the metal’s appeal as an alternative investment to the U.S. currency. Silver and platinum also declined. Bullion, which typically moves in the opposite direction to the U.S. currency, has lost 3.2 percent this year, while the dollar added 2.9 percent against the euro. The metal will trade at $800 an ounce in one and three months from now, UBS AG analyst John Reade said today in a note. “Unless the dollar remains weak, gold could succumb to some profit taking,” he said. “We are seeing no jewelry demand at the moment and while safe haven buying of coin and bars continues, this may not be enough to drive gold higher.”
- Crude oil rose for a third day on speculation that the conflict in the Gaza Strip may spread and disrupt oil supplies from other parts of the Middle East, and on signs that OPEC production cuts are being implemented.
- Codelco, the world’s biggest copper producer, agreed to further reduce a China sales surcharge as demand slows, after earlier cutting it to a six-year low, two executives said. “Chinese buyers are reluctant to enter into as many long-term contracts as before as they are concerned about demand,” Yang Changhua, an analyst at Beijing Antaike Information Development Co., said by phone today.
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission may come under fire from lawmakers today for failing to quash Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme after an investor alerted the agency to the suspected fraud. The House Financial Services Committee is scheduled to hear from one of Madoff’s alleged victims, securities law experts and the SEC’s inspector general, David Kotz, who’s probing the agency’s handling of the matter. Harry Markopolos, the former money manager who says regulators didn’t act on his tips about Madoff, canceled his appearance. “The SEC will have to defend its existence,” said Donald Langevoort, a former agency attorney who teaches securities law at Georgetown University in Washington.
- The cost of borrowing in dollars in London for three months stayed near the lowest level since June 2004 as central banks injected cash into money markets and financial companies to combat the credit squeeze.
- GE Capital Corp., the lending arm of Fairfield, Connecticut-based General Electric Co., plans to raise $10 billion in the biggest offering of debt backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. since the program began.
Wall Street Journal:
- The man who helped John Paulson pull off one of the greatest trades of this decade is leaving his side. Paolo Pellegrini, who played a crucial role in helping to implement bets against subprime mortgages that netted Paulson & Co. about $15 billion in 2007, resigned from the $36 billion hedge-fund firm Dec. 31. While Mr. Paulson is the visionary within the firm who drives its general direction, Mr. Pellegrini and a few others helped find the riskiest subprime-mortgage securities to bet against, and figured out the best way to capitalize on their expected falls in value.
- A multibillion-dollar hedge fund run by Renaissance Technologies LLC's James Simons has waived all its management fees for 2009, a rare move suggesting fund managers' pay will come under greater pressure in the year ahead. Mr. Simons recently told investors in his year-old futures fund, Renaissance Institutional Futures, that he was waiving the 1% fixed management fee this year following poor performance in 2008. That 12-month fee break equates to about a $30 million price cut from what investors in the $3 billion fund would have paid.
- Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC was examined at least eight times in 16 years by the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators, who often came armed with suspicions. SEC officials followed up on emails from a New York hedge fund that described Bernard Madoff's business practices as "highly unusual." The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the industry-run watchdog for brokerage firms, reported in 2007 that parts of the firm appeared to have no customers. Mr. Madoff was interviewed at least twice by the SEC. But regulators never came close to uncovering the alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme that investigators now believe began in the 1970s.
- Support for property-tax rollbacks is building from Arizona to New York, fueled by angry homeowners in some locales who are seeing rising tax bills despite plunging home prices. Legislatures in New York, Georgia, Oklahoma and Wyoming are considering taking up proposals to curb property taxes in their 2009 sessions. In Indiana, a cap on property taxes enacted last year became effective Jan. 1, and lawmakers are planning to vote this year on whether to put before voters a constitutional amendment that would cap taxes permanently at 1% of a property's value.
- Illinois U.S. Senate appointee Roland Burris is leaving for Washington on Monday afternoon for a high-stakes showdown on Capitol Hill about whether he'll succeed President-elect Barack Obama in Congress. Mr. Burris, appointed by embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich, was leaving a day after dozens of black leaders and ministers organized by Rep. Bobby Rush gave him a rousing send-off at New Covenant Church on Chicago's South Side.
CNBC.com:
The Day the Apple(AAPL) Shorts Have Dreaded. First of all, good health and best wishes, Mr. Jobs. Second, Apple and Steve Jobs did this morning what they should've done months ago: quiet the rumors with a simple release indicating that he's OK.
MarketWatch:
The New York Times(NYT), seeking more ways to generate revenue during a severe industry downturn, on Monday broke with longstanding policy and placed its first front page ad, with media giant CBS taking advantage of the new opportunity.
NY Times:
- LG Electronics, the third-largest television manufacturer in terms of United States sales, will announce on Monday a line of televisions that can directly receive Internet video in addition to satellite and cable signals.
- The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Monday that it had begun purchasing mortgage-backed securities in an effort to bolster the battered housing market. The program, initially announced Nov. 25, allows the Fed to spend $500 billion to buy mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and another $100 billion to directly purchase mortgages held by Fannie, Freddie and the Federal Home Loan Banks. The program is aimed at driving down the price of mortgages and making home loans more available.
Washington Post:
- In his first meeting of a recent day, Vivek Kundra stood in front of a large monitor, grilling employees about the status of projects to revamp technology in Washington's schools, police cars, jails and health clinics. His ideas have caught the eye of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team and landed him a role as a tech policy adviser to the new administration. His approach could serve as a model for how a federal chief technology officer, a new position Obama has pledged to appoint, might operate. Kundra has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the job.
LA Times:
- For nearly a decade, television makers have been asking consumers to step into high definition. This week, they'll be asking buyers to step into three dimensions. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, companies such as Panasonic Corp., Samsung and Texas Instruments Inc. will show off TV technology capable of displaying 3-D-like pictures. The industry is billing it as the next big leap in TV technology.
The Big Money:
- Google(GOOG) Blog Outs New Product. Given Google's notorious secrecy, this doesn't happen too often: Over at Google's rarely noticed student blog, where the company hypes its internship programs, a blog editor accidentally divulged that Google was developing a major new enterprise search product for companies.
Reuters:
Core OPEC oil producers in the Gulf would ignore Iran's call for Islamic countries to cut supplies to supporters of Israel in response to the Israeli offensive in Gaza, an OPEC source said on Monday. "There are no plans to do this and I think it is very unlikely," the source told Reuters.
- An investment arm of Australia's Macquarie Group Ltd has slashed prices by about a third from levels quoted nine months ago for one of its top-end Shanghai properties, underlining the difficulties investors face exiting China's cooling real estate market.
Handelsblatt:
- Germany’s coalition government agreed on the goalposts for a second stimulus program to tackle the recession, citing unnamed government officials. Senior Christian Democrats and Social Democrats agreed on additional infrastructure investment, aid to carmakers and lower taxes and social security contributions. The package will be worth $35 billion for this year.
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El Mercurio:
- Chilean energy demand in the most populated area of the country dropped .75% last year, the first decline since 1982.
Arabian Business:
Gulf News:
- Banks in the UAE and Kuwait have the highest exposure to the real-estate industry among Middle East lenders while those in Saudi Arabia have the least, citing a report by Credit Suisse Group AG. About 35% of UAE bank loans are exposed to the property industry as a significant portion of corporate and personal loans has been invested in real estate, citing Credit Suisse analysts Mohammad Hawa and Digvijay Singh. Kuwait banks’ exposure to the property industry is about 31%, while for Saudi Arabian lenders it averages 7.5%, the report said.
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