Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

• Bond Sales Jump to Four-Month High on Economic Optimism Boost. Bond sales in Europe jumped this week to the most in almost four months as indicators signaled the economic recovery is on track, opening a “window of opportunity” for borrowers. Issuance climbed to at least 13 billion euros ($16.5 billion), more than three-times last week’s total, and almost double the year’s weekly average of 7 billion euros, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The all-in borrowing cost for companies is close to the lowest in a year at just over 3.6 percent, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data. It started the year at almost 4 percent. Societe Generale, the second-largest French bank, raised 1 billion euros of three-year floating-rate notes paying 92 basis points more than the euro interbank offered rate, or Euribor, Bloomberg data show. BNP Paribas SA offered 1 billion euros of fixed-rate notes due 2015 that were priced to yield 87 basis points more than the benchmark swap rate. Royal Bank of Scotland, the biggest bank owned by the U.K. government, sold 1.25 billion euros of five year notes at a spread of 280 basis points.
• Bank Bond Risk Falls to Eight-Week Low in Europe on Stress Test. The cost of insuring against losses on European financial bonds fell to the lowest level in eight weeks on optimism stress tests may boost confidence in the region’s banks. The Markit iTraxx Financial Index of credit-default swaps on the senior debt of 25 banks and insurers dropped 9 basis points to 131, the lowest since May 12, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. “Transparency around bank exposures could contribute to the reduction in volatility,” Aziz Sunderji, a London-based credit strategist at Barclays Capital, wrote in a note to investors. Clarity of banks’ holdings is required for issuers “to feel more comfortable about coming to the market, and for portfolio managers to feel more comfortable putting large cash balances to work,” he wrote. Swaps on Spanish banks led today’s decline, CMA DataVision prices show. Contracts on Banco Santander SA dropped 11 basis points to 161 and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA fell 20.5 to 202. The Markit iTraxx Europe Index of 125 companies with investment-grade ratings fell 4.5 basis points to 113.75. The gap between the corporate and financial gauges is now the tightest since April and down from a record 55 basis points on June 4.
• Iran Cuts Crude Oil Stored in Tankers 40% Since April. Iran, the second-largest oil producer in the Middle East, released six supertankers from its fleet of vessels storing crude oil, a 40 percent reduction that may mean more oil heading to Europe, shipping tracking data show. The National Iranian Tanker Co. has nine supertankers stationed off the United Arab Emirates and its own coast, according to data from the ships collected by AISLive Ltd. and compiled by Bloomberg. That’s down from 15 of the vessels on April 27. The six tankers that have been released can hold about 12 million barrels of oil.
• Pessimism toward U.S. stocks is almost as prevalent as it was at last year's lows, according to two gauges of investor sentiment that suggest the market may be due for a rebound. This week's reading for the National Association of Active Investment Managers Index was 13.47, the lowest since March 2009, when the last bear market in stocks ended. Moreover, the AAII % Bulls fell to 20.9% this week, also the lowest level in 16 months.
• Private Colleges in U.S. Outspend Publics on Teaching. Private research universities in the U.S. spent twice as much as their public counterparts to teach each student in the 2007-2008 school year, widening a cost gap that can make private colleges unaffordable to students without financial aid. The private institutions, on average, laid out $19,520 for each student for instruction that year, a 22 percent increase from a decade earlier, the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity & Accountability, a Washington- based nonprofit research group, said today. Public universities spent $9,732 for each student, up 10 percent in the decade, according to the report. The spending rate in 2008 “may turn out to be a high point in funding for higher education,” the Delta Project said in its report. The recession that began in December 2007 forced colleges to cut budgets, beginning in the second half of 2008, as endowment income fell and states cut subsidies.
• Obama Seeks $5 Billion to Create Clean -Energy Jobs.
• Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Postbank May Pass EU Test. Deutsche Bank AG, Commerzbank AG and Deutsche Postbank AG, Germany’s biggest publicly traded banks, will probably pass European stress tests based on preliminary findings, four people briefed on the process said. The banks are expected to exceed the threshold of a 6 percent Tier 1 ratio under the stress scenario, which assumes an economic slowdown and sovereign-debt losses, said the people, who declined to be identified because the information isn’t official. The lenders are due to submit test results to regulators early next week, they said.

Wall Street Journal:

• Fed's Lacker: Economy Is Recovering Despite Weak Data. The recent spate of weaker economic data doesn’t mean the U.S. recovery is faltering, and the Federal Reserve continues to get closer to the time when it will need to raise interest rates, a top central bank official said Thursday. “The economy is still growing,” Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker told Dow Jones Newswires. While it’s true that “the risks of slower-than-average growth for a couple of quarter may be notched up a bit,” the official said “it’s important to remember recoveries are choppy and uneven in the early stages.”
• Removal of Well Cap Could Happen Saturday. BP PLC could begin removing the containment cap over its gushing well Saturday kicking off a process to replace it with a stronger device that could take several days and temporarily result in an increase of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. government's spill coordinator said Friday.

Bloomberg Businessweek:

• Copper Prices Cap Weekly Gain in N.Y. as Economic Concerns Ease. Copper prices rose, capping a weekly gain, on increasing speculation that global growth will be resilient and metals demand will gain. The MSCI World Index of shares has advanced for four straight days on an improved outlook for the global economy. Stockpiles tallied by the London Metal Exchange have declined for 20 consecutive weeks, the longest slump since 2004, signaling steady consumption.

CNBC:

• SEC Pushes Tighter Market-Making Rules. Securities regulators are moving quickly to tighten rules for market makers and eliminate so-called stub quotes, to ensure there is liquidity during stressful times, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
• Poll: Have We Seen the Market Bottom?
  

NY Times:

• China Renews Google's(GOOG) License. The Internet giant Google said Friday that the Beijing government had renewed its license to operate a Web site in mainland China, ending months of tension after the company stopped censoring search results here and moved some operations out of the country.

NY Post:

• Broadband Brawl. The Federal Communication Commission's media regulations are incoherent and have no rhyme or reason, according to Liberty Media Group Chief John Malone. Malone, in an interview at the Allen & Co. mogulfest here, lamented the FCC's lack of regulatory focus. For example, the agency has taken a very long time considering new rules on broadband and 'Net neutrality. Meanwhile, the FCC still maintains some limits on same-market newspaper and TV-station ownership, while cable behemoth Comcast can go purchase NBC. The 69-year-old billionaire also railed against the US tax rate and said his company has thought about moving out of Colorado.
• Google(GOOG) Wants More Sports on YouTube. Google executives are busy working to bring more sports programming and movies to YouTube -- as soon as they are able to untangle a mess of rights issues.
• Chi-Town Offensive. Bloomberg LP has launched another anti-CNBC offensive, this time backing a coalition opposing Comcast's proposed takeover of NBC Universal. Last month, Bloomberg, the parent of Bloomberg News, urged federal regulators to consider forcing Comcast to sell cable news channel CNBC if the merger gets approved. The Federal Communications Commission is weighing whether to sign off on the deal. Bloomberg fears that Comcast, the biggest US cable operator, will protect CNBC's position as the top-rated business network at the expense of its much smaller Bloomberg Television, according to a petition it filed with the FCC.

Zero Hedge:

• Another Drop in the ECRI Index. (graph)
• 31st Sequential Decline in Baltic Dry, On the Verge of Breaking 1,900. (graph)
  

Washington Post:

• Obama Threatens to Follow in FDR's Economic Missteps by Amity Shlaes. By fixating on the debt and stimulus plans, Obama and Congress are overlooking challenges to the economy from taxes, employment and the entrepreneurial environment. President Roosevelt's great error was to ignore such factors -- and the result was that sickening double dip.

LA Times:

• Jobs Outlook for Small Businesses May be Getting Bleaker. A payroll services firm says employers with no more than 19 workers made fewer hires in July than in any month since October. Those companies usually drive the unemployment rate down. For the recovery to gain steam, most economists believe small businesses need to be strong enough to hire new workers. But according to one measure, the employment picture in this sector is weakening. Intuit Inc., which provides payroll services for small employers, says the nation's tiniest companies had fewer new hires last month than any time since October. Intuit's data show that small businesses hired just 18,000 additional workers last month. That's still positive territory, but it's less than a third of the 60,000 that were added in February, when it seemed that an employment recovery was imminent. Additional hiring dropped steadily during the spring, to 40,000 in April and 32,000 in May. Another payroll company, Automatic Data Processing Inc., painted an even gloomier picture, saying that small businesses lost 1,000 jobs nationwide in June.

Gallup:

• Americans Oppose Federal Suit Against Arizona Immigration Law. Americans' initial reactions to the U.S. Justice Department lawsuit against Arizona's new illegal immigration law are more negative than positive, by a 50% to 33% margin. The fact that Americans are more likely to oppose than favor the federal government's lawsuit against Arizona's controversial immigration law is in line with previous polling showing that Americans generally favor the Arizona bill. This means the Obama administration is sailing against the tide of public opinion in its efforts to block the law, although members of Obama's own party certainly support the administration.

Rasmussen Reports:

• Daily Presidential Tracking Poll. The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 26% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -17 (see trends).
• Investor Confidence Falls to 2010 Low. The Rasmussen Investor Index, which measures the economic confidence of investors on a daily basis, feel six points on Friday to its lowest level of 2010. At 77.5, investor confidence is down seven points from the beginning of the year and down twenty-eight points from the 2010 high water mark reached in May. Investor confidence hasn’t been this low since July 28, 2009.

NJ.com:

• Christie Administration Recommends Massive Privatization of N.J. Services. New Jersey would close its centralized car inspection lanes and motorists would pay for their own emissions tests under a sweeping set of recommendations set to be released by the Christie administration today. State parks, psychiatric hospitals and even Turnpike toll booths could also be run by private operators, according to the 57-page report on privatization obtained by The Star-Ledger. Preschool classrooms would no longer be built at public expense, state employees would pay for parking and private vendors would dish out food, deliver health care and run education programs behind prison walls. All told, the report says, New Jersey could save at least $210 million a year by delivering an array of services through private hands.

electronista:

• iPad triples tablet sales in Europe as PC prices go back up. The iPad nearly tripled sales of tablets in Europe during just its first month on sale, Context Research estimated this week. Apple's tablet was only available from May 28 in the continent, but by itself grew the market by 257 percent. The figure is one of the few specific to the continent and suggests that the combined Windows tablet PC market in Europe for spring was well below the hundreds of thousands of iPads likely to have been sold. Analysts also noted that the season saw a rare rebound in otherwise falling computer prices. The typical cost of a computer increased three percent to 457 euros ($577) and may also have had an Apple influence.

Reuters:

• BlackBerry Maker RIM in Push to Tap China Market. Research in Motion(RIMM), maker of BlackBerry e-mail devices, said it is preparing to launch an applications store and consumer Internet services in China, as part of a big push into the world's top mobile market. The upcoming Chinese App World applications store would follow RIM's May launch of BlackBerry service in China through China Telecom, one of China's three major carriers, and as RIM develops service for the homegrown third-generation (3G) mobile standard used by leading Chinese carrier, China Mobile.