Weekend Headlines
Bloomberg:
- Bond Funds Attracting Cash Like Stocks During Dot-Com Boom: Credit Markets. The amount of money flowing into bond funds is poised to exceed the cash that went into stock funds during the internet bubble, stoking concern that fixed- income markets are headed for a fall. Investors poured $480.2 billion into mutual funds that focus on debt in the two years ending June, compared with the $496.9 billion received by equity funds from 1999 to 2000, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and the Washington-based Investment Company Institute. Concern that the global economic recovery is faltering, with the U.S. growing at a slower-than-forecast 2.4 percent pace in the second quarter, is prompting investors to pile into fixed-income securities of all types even with some yields at record lows. The new cash has helped fuel a rally and drove yields on investment-grade U.S. corporate debt down to a record 3.79 percent last week, while two-year U.S. Treasury yields fell to an all-time low of less than 0.5 percent. The money flowing into bonds is “probably not repeatable on a consistent basis,” said Joel Levington, managing director of corporate credit in New York at Brookfield Investment Management Inc., which oversees $24 billion. “Eventually it won’t be sustainable. Whether that means five years from now or five weeks is a little difficult to tell,” he said.
- Fed Said to Plan Reining in AIG's Credit Line by $3.6 Billion. The Federal Reserve plans to cut American International Group Inc.’s credit line by about $3.6 billion in a sign of confidence the insurer can reduce reliance on taxpayer funds, said a person with knowledge of the proposal. Under terms of AIG’s 2008 rescue, paying down the line was supposed to lower the amount of credit available. The Fed gave an exemption in 2009 on $3.6 billion in proceeds from asset sales and has decided this year that the relief may no longer be necessary, said the person, who declined to be identified because the plan isn’t public. AIG had $13.3 billion in credit remaining on the line as of June 30. “This means there’s little anticipation AIG will need the credit,” said Clark Troy, a senior analyst based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for Aite Group, a research firm. “It’s a step in the right direction in terms of making AIG less dependent on federal aid.”
- Australia May Ax Mining Tax After Labor Fails to Win Majority in Election. Australia’s proposed mining tax may be scrapped after the incumbent Labor Party failed to win a clear majority in yesterday’s federal election. “If the Liberals were to form a government, there’s no mining tax,” Peter Chilton, a fund manager at Constellation Capital Management Ltd. who holds both shares in BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group, said by phone from Sydney. “That’s potentially positive for the mining sector. If Labor forms an arrangement with the Greens, there’s more uncertainty.” Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, 48, and opposition leader Tony Abbott, 52, will need to broker deals with other lawmakers to pass legislation after neither party secured enough votes to form a government in the House of Representatives.
- ShoreBank of Chicago Shuttered by Regulators to Open as Urban Partnership. ShoreBank Corp., the Chicago lender operating under a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. cease-and- desist order for 13 months, was shut by regulators and most of its assets were sold to Urban Partnership Bank. Urban Partnership, created to make the acquisition, will keep ShoreBank’s 15 branches, including those in Cleveland and Detroit, according to the FDIC. Its chief executive officer will be William Farrow, a former executive at the Chicago Board of Trade and Bank One Corp., said two people familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified because talks were private. The closure will cost the FDIC’s deposit-insurance fund $367.7 million. “The good news is that the bank, under this new management, will still be there and serving the South Side community,” said Dory Rand, president of the Chicago-based Woodstock Institute, a non-profit group that studies community lending. Investors include Goldman Sachs Group Inc.(GS), General Electric Co.(GE), JPMorgan Chase & Co.(JPM), Citigroup Inc.(C) and philanthropic groups, the people said. ShoreBank raised more than $145 million from the firms in May and the funds were placed in escrow pending a decision by the U.S. Treasury to offer another $75 million in bailout funds. ShoreBank posted a $119 million loss in 2009 and a $39.6 million loss in the first half of this year, according to FDIC figures. It had a net loss of $9.3 million in 2008. Representative Spencer Bachus, the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, said in May that firms that had banded together in an attempt to save ShoreBank were making the investments to gain favor with President Barack Obama’s administration.
- Euro Falls for Second Week as Slow Economic Growth Reduces Risk Demand. The euro dropped for a second week against the dollar to a five-week low as weaker economic data and calls by a European Central Bank official for more economic aid damped investor appetite for higher-yielding currencies. The 16-nation currency reached a seven-week low against the Swiss franc after ECB council member Axel Weber Aug. 19 told Bloomberg Television the central bank should assist financial institutions to prevent year-end liquidity tensions. The dollar and yen rose against most of their major counterparts as data indicated the global economic recovery may be faltering. The Japanese finance minister is set to meet the prime minister this week to discuss the nation’s currency. “The exceptionally weak numbers in the last couple of days in the U.S., that has weighed on risk appetite,” said Richard Franulovich, a senior currency strategist at Westpac Banking Corp. in New York. “In the euro, Canadian dollar and Australian dollar, the price action is very disappointing, the initial bias would be to sell these currencies and for more dollar strength.”
- Pakistan Flood Aid Helps Terrorism Fight as Peace 'Fragile,' Qureshi Says. More than 70 countries made pledges of about $320 million in aid to Pakistan’s flood victims at a two-day meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The UN counted about $120 million in pledges toward its appeal for $460 million in emergency aid, and another $200 million was promised, according to Nicholas Reader, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The UN is confident its appeal, now 70 percent funded, will be fully met, he said yesterday. “The message from here to the people of Pakistan is, do not give up hope,” Abdullah Hussain Haroon, Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN, said at the end of the meeting yesterday. “It is difficult. It will take time. But we have standing with us the community of the world.” Pakistan’s worst-ever floods have killed 1,600 people and displaced as many as 20 million. As many as 17 million acres (6.8 million hectares) of farm land have been submerged and billions of dollars of crops destroyed, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Aug. 19 in New York.
- Bury Keynesian Voodoo Before It Can Bury Us: Kevin Hassett. Initial claims for unemployment benefits surged to 500,000 in mid-August, a level more typical of a recession than a recovery. The bad news confirmed what conservative economists have been saying for some time: The biggest Keynesian stimulus in U.S. history was a bust. Incredibly, some Keynesians who supported Barack Obama’s $862 billion stimulus now claim it fell short of their goals not because the idea was flawed, but because the spending package was too small.
- Gunmen Fighting Rio Police Invade Luxury Hotel. Heavily armed drug-gang members engaged in an intense firefight with police, then fled into a luxury hotel popular with foreign tourists and held about 30 people hostage for three hours Saturday before surrendering. The upscale, beachside neighborhood of Sao Conrado where the Intercontinental Hotel sits was transformed into a war zone as upward of 50 gunmen with high-caliber rifles, pistols and even hand grenades faced off with police.
- Hiring Spree Gets Long in the Tooth. Wall Street employees about to return from the summer doldrums have something new to worry about: their jobs. The weak economy, volatile markets, regulatory upheaval and changes in how traders and investment bankers are paid are starting to trigger job cuts that could reverse a recent rebound in overall employment levels at banks and securities firms.
- Firms Weigh Options for Those Piles of Cash. A recent flurry of merger activity captured investors' imaginations last week and returned their focus to the wads of cash lying around on corporate balance sheets. Non-financial companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index are sitting on a record $2 trillion, according to FactSet. While no one is calling for a new mergers boom, many are looking for companies to increasingly spread some of that money in other ways—namely through dividends and buybacks.
- Credit-Card Rates Climb. Levels Hit Nine-Year High as New Rules Limiting Penalty Fees Help Fuel Rise. Interest rates continue to tumble for the U.S. Treasury, companies and home buyers alike. But for a large portion of 381 million U.S. credit-card accounts, borrowing rates have been moving only one way: up. And average rates are likely to climb further in the near future. New credit-card rules that took effect Sunday limit banks' ability to charge penalty fees. They come on top of rule changes earlier this year restricting issuers' ability to adjust rates on the fly. Issuers responded by pushing card rates to their highest level in nine years.
- ECB Turns Vandal With Its Balance-Sheet Binges: Brendan Brown. The growing failure of European monetary union can’t be measured by superficial yardsticks such as the number of tiny euro-area economies at risk of meltdown or of monthly turbulence in currency markets. The main development has been the dashing of hopes for monetary stability. The euro crisis isn’t over and confidence in the European Central Bank has faded. The ECB now presides over a bloated balance sheet that has expanded to about 2 trillion euros ($2.54 trillion) from 1.084 trillion in June 2006 and camouflages the massive creation of monetary reserves. When the economic recovery accelerates, the ECB -- crippled by a near-insolvent balance sheet -- will fuel asset bubbles by keeping interest rates too low for too long. The next business cycle will be both violent and short. Belief in European monetary stability is now dead.
- Buffett-Backed BYD Misses Earnings as Auto Sales Slip. BYD, a Chinese carmaker backed by U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett, posted lower-than-expected second quarter earnings, which fell substantially from the previous quarter as China's booming car sales lost steam in a slowing economy.
- Warren Buffett's Semi-Secret Stock Picker Lou Simpson Set to Retire. The low-profile 73-year-old man whose stellar stock picks are often attributed to Warren Buffett is calling it quits.
- In Striking Shift, Small Investors Flee Stock Market. Renewed economic uncertainty is testing Americans’ generation-long love affair with the stock market. Investors withdrew a staggering $33.12 billion from domestic stock market in the first seven months of this year, according to the , the mutual fund industry trade group. Now many are choosing investments they deem safer, like bonds. If that pace continues, more money will be pulled out of these mutual funds in 2010 than in any year since the 1980s, with the exception of 2008, when the global financial crisis peaked. Small investors are “losing their appetite for risk,” a analyst, Doug Cliggott, said in a report to investors on Friday. One of the phenomena of the last several decades has been the rise of the individual investor. As Americans have become more responsible for their own retirement, they have poured money into stocks with such faith that half of the country’s households now own shares directly or through mutual funds, which are by far the most popular way Americans invest in stocks. So the turnabout is striking.
- Scrutiny for Chinese Telecom Bid. Warning about a potential threat to national security, eight Republican lawmakers have asked the Obama administration to scrutinize a bid by one of the biggest corporations in to supply telecommunications equipment to in the United States. In a letter sent last week to top administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and the director of national intelligence, Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr., the senators expressed concern over claims that the company had sold equipment to the regime of Saddam Hussein and had a close business relationship with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in Iran. The senators also said the company, Huawei Inc., had close ties to the People’s Liberation Army in China. “Sprint Nextel supplies important equipment to the U.S. military and law enforcement agencies, and it offers a broad array of devices, systems, software and services to the private sector,” wrote the group of senators, including of Arizona, of Missouri and of Maine. “We are concerned that Huawei’s position as a supplier of Sprint Nextel could create substantial risk for U.S. companies and possibly undermine U.S. national security.”
- Stock Swing Still Baffles, Ominously. Months later, analysts are still seeking the cause of a quick and mysterious plunge of the stock markets; some suspect a conspiracy.
- Schooling Shoppers. Consumers Are Waiting for Sales as Retailers Cut Stock. This back-to-school season may teach consumers and retailers a cruel lesson. Wallet-conscious parents are holding out for the steep Labor Day weekend markdowns on everything from three-ring binders to ring-spun denim. Meanwhile, retailers have kept inventories so lean that experts say eye-popping deals and consumer choices will be in shorter supply. The likely result: many kids will be showing up for class in last year's duds.
- Is This March 2009 All Over Again for Stocks? How attractive are equities following last week's sharp selloff? Mike O'Rourke of BTIG argues that the answer is very, citing his modified 'Fed model' for valuing stocks vs. bonds.
- Top Mining Executive: Commodities Could Hit New Lows if Chinese Growth Slows to a Mere 7%. How dependent is the commodity world on rapid growth in China? Sydney Morning Herald (via PragCap):
- Clampdown On Market Abuse by High Frequency Churners, Er, Traders Begins. It couldn't happen to a nicer group of pirates. After a year-long campaign by Zero Hedge warning about the ongoing threat to market structure by the HFT plague, culminating in a the May 6 crash, whose incipient conditions exist to this day, the FT reports that the even more worthless regulator, FINRA, is beginning a clampdown on broker dealers who allowed high-frequency traders to have access to the markets without undertaking proper checks. As this means all of them, there is about to be a huge change in market structure as arguably more than half of the market "participants" are suddenly excluded from constant daily churning activity. What the outcome of this will be is anyone's guess, but definitely expect strange things if this is truly a first step towards reverting to some form of normalcy.
- As Iran is Loading Fuel in its First Nuclear Power Plan, Israel Warns Reactor Use "Totally Unacceptable".
- Why The Fed's Upcoming Jackson Hole Economic Symposium Could Have Wide-Ranging Implications.
- Iran Unveils Unmanned Aerial Bomber. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the drone bomber will serve as a deterrent against attacks. Analysts say the plane, with a range of 180 miles, could be used for surveillance or attacks in the Persian Gulf region. Iran unveiled an unmanned bomber jet Sunday that will probably fail to tip the region's strategic balance but suggests Tehran continues to invest in shoring up its conventional weapons capabilities. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking during annual Defense Industry Day ceremonies, described the Karrar drone as "a messenger of honor and human generosity" before also terming it a "messenger of death for the enemies of humanity." FOR THE RECORD An earlier version of this report said the drone has a range of 180 miles. Official accounts state its range is 620 miles. The audience applauded and praised the prophet Muhammad and his descendants as a sheet covering the olive-green aircraft was removed. A short video showed what was said to be the drone launching into the sky and firing a missile as martial music played.
- Freight Costs to Drop for Two Years on Fleet Size. According to Tufton Oceanic Limited, manager of the world's largest shipping hedge fund, the biggest and fastest growing commodity shipping fleet in history will cause at least a two year drop in freight costs. According to data from the research unit of Clarkson Plc, the chart of the day shows how the carrying capacity of the commodity shipping fleet, in green, rose by 14% to 500 million deadweight tons since August 2009. According to the Baltic Exchange in London, returns from capsize ships, in white, dropped 19% in 2010. Mr Andreas Vergottis, Hong Kong based research director at Tufton Oceanic, which manages the USD 1.7 billion Oceanic Hedge Fund, said that "Next year will be worse than 2010 and 2012 will be worse than 2011. Dry bulk demand will grow 6%, 7% and 8% but it seems the fleet is growing twice as fast." Mr Vergottis said that the commodity shipping fleet will expand at a 15% annual pace for at least the next two years, while an increase in orders for new vessels in 2010 may extend the length of the slump. Meanwhile, Clarkson estimates that global seaborne trade in dry bulk commodities will expand 7% to 3.2 billion tonnes in 2010.
- U.S. Spends, China Benefits. The former chief Asia-Pacific economist for Morgan Stanley (MS) argues that American stimulus just ends up helping the Chinese economy--and hurting our own. "Just as water flows down," he writes, "stimulus affects low-cost economies more, wherever it is initiated." His argument starts off with a simple proposition: producers will take stimulus funds and source products in developing nations, where costs are cheaper. Xie says America's General Electric (GE) and Germany's Siemens (SI) get to make the decisions as to where stimulus money is ultimately spent, not Washington or Berlin.
The Beast:
- Why Obama's Failing by Douglas Schoen - Democratic Consultant. The net result of Obama's failed policies is that consumers are reluctant to spend, entrepreneurs are reluctant to invest, and employers are reluctant to hire to the degree necessary to spur economic growth.
- Daily Presidential Tracking Poll. The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -17 (see trends).
- Barack Obama's Mosque Moment Frustrates Dems. Obama’s support of the Park51 community center, less than three months before a bitterly contested midterm election, would have sparked a huge Republican backlash in any event. But the impact of the decision on Democrats, with many frantically distancing themselves from Obama, has given the story real resonance and the longest of news-cycle legs. Tellingly, aides to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg knew about Obama’s decision before staffers for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and New York’s two senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, learned about it. One senior Democratic congressional staffer on the Hill learned that Obama was “injecting the mosque story into the national bloodstream” when someone e-mailed him a transcript of Obama’s remarks as he was settling into his seat at a Washington Nationals game.
- 'Cash for Clunkers' Car Dealers Investigated. The government is investigating at least 20 car dealerships it claims violated the rules of last year's cash-for-clunkers program. Government auditors say up to $94 million in rebates may be ineligible because they lack the proper documentation. One year after the $3 billion car-buying frenzy, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has reached an enforcement phase.
- Potash Corp.(POT) is encouraging China to mount a rival offer to the hostile bid for the Canadian fertilizer company launched by BHP Billiton Ltd.(BHP). Goldman Sachs, RBC Capital Markets and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, advising Potash, have "reached out" to Sinochem International Corp., China's largest chemical trader, in recent days.
- Property bubbles exist in some of China's large cities, citing Ba Shusong, deputy head of the financial institute of the State Council's Development Research Center.
- China Vanke Co. Chairman Wang Shi said home prices in the nation's largest cities may fall 10% to 15%.
- The U.S. government will donate $1 billion to finance HIV/AIDS projects in Mozambique until 2014, citing a communique from the U.S. embassy in Maputo. The money will be used to buy medication for HIV/AIDS patients in the southern African country.
Barron's:
- Made positive comments on (APD) and (HP).
- Reiterated Buy on (GLW), target $25.
- Reiterated Buy on (STZ), target $21.
- Asian indices are -.50% to +.25% on average.
- Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 123.0 +1.0 basis point.
- Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 116.75 -2.75 basis points.
- S&P 500 futures +.18%.
- NASDAQ 100 futures +.26%.
Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate
- (SAFM)/1.87
8:30 am EST
- The Chicago Fed National Activity Index for July is estimated at -.10 versus a reading of -.63 in June.
- (ODFL) 3-for-2
- The Fed's Hoenig speaking and the EnerCom Oil & Gas Conference could also impact trading today.
No comments:
Post a Comment