Bloomberg:
- The economy expanded or improved “modestly” across the U.S. from October to mid-November as consumer spending rose in a majority of Federal Reserve districts, the central bank said. Eight regions “indicated some pickup in activity or improvement in conditions,” while the other four said conditions were little changed or mixed, the Fed said today in its Beige Book business survey, published two weeks before officials meet to set monetary policy. The labor and commercial real estate markets remained “weak,” the report said.
- Australia’s Senate rejected the government’s climate-change bill, frustrating Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s ambition of taking landmark legislation to global warming talks with world leaders in Copenhagen. The government will send the legislation to the Senate for a third time when parliament resumes in February, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters in Canberra today. Senators voted 41 to 33 against the bill, which included plans for a carbon trading system similar to one used in Europe. “There is no danger of this country rushing ahead, but as a result of the actions of the opposition, there is a risk this country is left behind,” Australian Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said during today’s Senate debate.
- Nokia Oyj said industrywide volumes will rise about 10% in 2010.
- Crude oil and gasoline tumbled after a government report showed that inventories climbed last week as consumption declined. Supplies of crude oil rose 2.09 million barrels to 339.9 million, the highest level since August, the Energy Department said today. Gasoline supplies surged 4 million barrels to 214.1 million. Fuel demand slipped 2.6 percent as refineries reduced operating rates for the fourth time in five weeks. “Prices should be much lower given how high inventories are,” said Chip Hodge, who oversees a $9 billion natural- resource bond portfolio as senior managing director at MFC Global Investment Management in Boston. “There’s certainly no lack of oil. If I were an oil producer, I would be very happy because the fundamentals don’t justify these prices.” “There’s going to be a lot of negativity any time you get big crude and gasoline numbers like we did today,” said Nicholas Pope, an analyst at Dahlman Rose & Co. in New York. “The big supply injections and lower refinery utilization rates should move prices lower.” Total petroleum inventories, which include crude oil and fuels, rose 5.94 million barrels to 1.82 billion in the week ended Nov. 27, the report showed. “These numbers are a bearish shock to the market,” said Tim Evans, an energy analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. in New York. “Total petroleum stocks were up more than 5 million barrels last week while demand dropped 500,000 barrels. The report is bearish both in real terms and relative to expectations.” Total U.S. daily fuel demand averaged 18.5 million barrels in the four weeks ended Nov. 27, down 3.2 percent from a year earlier, the report showed. Consumption slipped by 497,000 barrels a day last week. Refineries operated at 79.7 percent of capacity, down 0.6 percentage point from the previous week, according to the report. Oil also dropped after a report showed that oil output in Russia, the world’s largest oil producer, remained at a post- Soviet high for a second month in November as OAO Rosneft continued to ramp up the Vankor field in northern Siberia. Rosneft said last week it plans to raise output at Vankor by as much as 50 percent to an average of 270,000 barrels a day next year. It anticipates peak production of more than 500,000 barrels a day from the field.
- A House panel approved legislation strengthening U.S. authority to police large, complex firms that pose risks to the economy, advancing the Obama administration’s effort to overhaul financial rules.
Wall Street Journal:
- President Barack Obama's top science adviser urged lawmakers to act to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, despite the uproar over emails in which some prominent climate scientists appeared to advocate squelching the views of researchers skeptical that human activity is driving a dangerous rise in global temperatures. Human activity is "beyond any reasonable doubt" the primary cause of warming temperatures, Mr. Holdren said. Mr. Holdren's comments drew a unanimously supportive response from Democrats and unanimous skepticism from Republicans, some of whom called for a congressional inquiry into the dispute over the integrity of climate science. Opponents of such caps said the foundations of the case for man-made global warming are in question because of the disclosures from thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit. The emails suggest that prominent climate researchers sought to disguise important discrepancies in their data showing a trend of rising global temperatures and attack those who disagreed with their views. "However this controversy comes out, the result will not call into question the bulk of our understanding of how climate works or how humans affect it," said Mr. Holdren, director of the Office of Science, Technology and Policy. He agreed it is important to "get to the bottom of" the emails' meaning, but emphasized that the vast majority of scientists who have studied climate change agree that failure to act promptly to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases is "overwhelmingly likely" to lead to extreme and damaging impacts on the planet. His comments were challenged by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican who said the emails "at worst" suggest "a massive scientific international fraud." "We're being asked as a Congress to make major changes in American society in energy use," he said. "The scientists may be able to change their story and do more research, but once Congress passes a law, it will be as difficult to undo the consequences of that law as putting milk back in the cow."
- Infosys Technologies Ltd.(INFY) plans to nearly double its work force in the U.S. and remains on the lookout for acquisition targets in Germany, France and Japan, its chief executive said. India's second-largest software exporter by revenue after Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. is planning to hire 1,000 employees in the U.S., Chief Executive S. Gopalkrishnan said in an interview.
- Defense contractor L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. (LLL) is well-positioned to benefit from the surge in U.S. troops that President Obama plans to send to Afghanistan, the company's chief executive said Wednesday.
CNBC:
- U.S. mortgage applications nudged higher last week, data from an industry group reported on Wednesday, as consumers showed a subdued reaction to the lowest interest rates in six months. The Mortgage Bankers Association said interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, the most widely used loan, fell for a sixth straight week, remaining below the 5 percent level, widely viewed as a psychological tipping point.
- According to analytics firm ComScore, spending on Cyber Monday, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, was up 5 percent from a year ago.
The Business Insider:
- Rupert Murdoch has budgeted $15 million to launch a New York edition of the Wall Street Journal, John Koblin at the New York Observer reports.
- Let the outrage continue! Yesterday we ran a feature 10 Amazingly Wasteful Stimulus Projects, which outlined a few of the more ridiculous projects being funded by government stimulus money. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The government is infinitely good at wasting your money.
LATimes:
- California Medical Association to oppose healthcare bill under debate in Senate. The state’s largest doctors group is opposing healthcare legislation being debated in the Senate this week, saying it would increase local healthcare costs and restrict access to care for elderly and low-income patients. The California Medical Assn. represents more than 35,000 physicians statewide, making it the second-largest state medical association in the country after Texas. “The Senate bill came so short that we could not support it, even though we solidly support healthcare reform,” said Dr. Dev GnanaDev, medical director at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in San Bernardino, who also serves on the association’s executive committee. Doctors who oppose the Senate bill are concerned that it would shift Medicare funding from urban to rural areas, move responsibility for Medicare oversight away from Congress by creating an Independent Medicare Commission and, ultimately, decrease Medicare reimbursement rates. Medicare reimbursements would decrease 40% in coming years under the Senate bill, LaMar said. California doctors already contend with some of the lowest MediCal reimbursement rates in the nation, and although those rates would not change under the Senate bill, the pool of people eligible for coverage would increase. Only about a third of California doctors currently accept MediCal, and GnanaDev said that would likely grow under the Senate plan. “If the doctors can’t see you, the only choice you have is the emergency room, which is a very bad way to get healthcare,” he said.
Rassmussen:
Politico:
TechCrunch:
- Financial information and analysis community Seeking Alpha announced that it has recently closed a Series B round of financing to the tune of $7 million, led by first-time investor DAG Ventures with participation from existing investors Benchmark Capital and Accel Partners. Seeking Alpha also inked a content partnership deal with Nasdaq.com, under which terms it will deliver opinion pieces from its now 3,272 contributors and timely news products like MarketCurrents and Wall Street Breakfast. You can see the integration in effect here and here.
Reuters:
- Computer maker Dell Inc (DELL) sees potential upswings in consumer and commercial demand in the coming year, as well as a "moderately good" holiday season, Dell Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden said on Wednesday. "I think the consumer cycle has been surprisingly positive this year," Gladden said at the Credit Suisse Technology Conference. "It certainly surprised us how strong it was ... I think the holiday season will be moderately good ... I think we are seeing that play out over the past few weeks." On the commercial side, Gladden also said an "elongated cycle of refresh" was due, probably next year, for everything from "servers all the way through client products." "Their asset base has aged much beyond what they had expected," he said of corporate clients. "Our view is sometime next year you will start to see that happen. "We are surprised at how good demand has been over the last few weeks. The hypothesis of a corporate refresh is still alive," he added. "It's just a question of when does that happen and how long. I think you will see an elongated cycle of refresh."
Financial Times:
- Gilead(GILD), the US biotech company, is poised to benefit from new World Health Organization guidelines for HIV which call for earlier treatment using more up-to-date antiretroviral drugs for millions of extra patients around the world. The company is expecting to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenues each year from the new approach, with significant extra sales for Bristol-Myers Squibb(BMY) of the US, its partner on one drug combination treatment. A number of low-cost generic drug manufacturers including several based in India will suffer falling sales, with the phasing out of the older antiretroviral medicine stavudine (also called d4T), which is now judged as too toxic to justify continued use. The changes follow new international HIV treatment guidance issued this week by the World Health Organization, mirrored by similar advice in other influential national bodies including the Office of Aids Research Advisory Council in the US and the European Aids Clinical Society.
Middle East Online:
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