Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

• McDonald's(MCD) July Sales Rise 7%, Topping Estimates. McDonald’s Corp. said comparable- store sales climbed 7 percent last month from a year earlier, the most in more than a year, fueled by U.S. and Asian sales at the world’s largest restaurant chain. Analysts projected global sales would advance 5.1 percent, the median of three estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales at restaurants open at least 13 months rose in all regions, with a 5.7 percent increase in the U.S. and a 10 percent gain in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
  
• Structured Notes Are Wall Street's 'Next Bubble,' Whalen Says. Wall Street banks are creating the “next investment bubble” by selling opaque and unregulated structured notes to investors hunting for yield, according to Christopher Whalen, managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics. Using the same “loophole” that allowed over-the-counter sales of collateralized debt obligations and auction-rate securities, firms are pitching illiquid structured notes whose value is partly derived from bets on interest rates, Whalen wrote today in a report. Whalen, who predicted the collapse of the mortgage-backed securities market in March 2007, said that these structured notes “promise enhanced yields that go well into double digits” and “often come with only minimal disclosure.”
• Euro May Stall Against the Dollar, BNP Says: Technical Analysis. The euro may be unable to sustain gains against the dollar after it failed to break through a key Fibonacci resistance level ahead of economic data being released across Europe this week, according to BNP Paribas SA. “The key resistance level will be $1.3325,” Mary Nicola, a currency strategist at BNP, wrote in an investor note today. “The euro continues to test the level due to broad dollar weakness. However, it is unable to rally above the $1.33 level for too long.”
• Morgan Stanley Group's(MS) $11 Billion Makes Chicago Taxpayers Cry. Chicago drivers will pay a Morgan Stanley-led partnership at least $11.6 billion to park at city meters over the next 75 years, 10 times what Mayor Richard Daley got when he leased the system to investors in 2008. Morgan Stanley, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Allianz Capital Partners may earn a profit of $9.58 billion before interest, taxes and depreciation, according to documents for a $500 million private note sale by their Chicago Parking Meters LLC venture. That is equivalent to 80 cents per dollar of projected revenue. Standard Parking Corp., which runs 30,000 spaces at the city’s O’Hare and Midway airports, earned 4.84 cents on that basis last year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
• China July Car Sales Growth to Dealers Slowest Since March 2009.
• Boeing(BA) May Get $7 Billion for Upgrades as Lockheed JSF Stalls. Boeing Co. may receive $7 billion to extend the use of the Navy’s older fleet of F/A-18 jets, partly because of delays in Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.
• HP(HPQ) Drops as Hurd Quits, Leaving Lesjak Slowing Growth. Hewlett-Packard Co. slid the most in three months in New York trading following the Aug. 6 resignation of Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd, who leaves behind a company with slowing growth and a senior staff that may be distracted by jockeying for the top job.
• California Demands Data on City Manager Paid $800,000. California Attorney General Jerry Brown said he expects legal action in “weeks, not months” after subpoenaing personal financial records of present and former officials of Bell, the Los Angeles suburb that paid its city manager almost $800,000 a year.
• Obama Oil-Spill Commission Questions Interior on Drilling Halt.
  

Wall Street Journal:

• Google(GOOG), Verizon(VZ) Release Internet Proposal. Google Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. on Monday released a joint proposal stating that wireline broadband providers shouldn't be able to discriminate against lawful Internet content providers and that the regulators should have authority to stop offenders.
• U.S. Incomes Tumbled in 2009. Personal income took a hit in most of the U.S. last year with the only gains coming from government support, according to new data from the Commerce Department.

Bloomberg Businessweek:

• North Korea Fires Artillery Off West Coast, Raising Tensions. North Korea fired artillery into waters off the peninsula’s west coast and near the border with South Korea today, after the communist country threatened to retaliate against military exercises involving the U.S. Navy. North Korea fired at least 110 shells between 5:30 p.m. and 6:14 p.m. local time, a defense ministry official in Seoul said, confirming a television report by YTN. The artillery fell into the North’s waters and no South Korean casualty was reported, said the official, who declined to be named because of ministry policy. South Korea’s navy heightened its combat-readiness, the official said.

CNBC:

• Raid By NY Law Firm Points to Coming M&A Boom? A recent raid by one big New York law firm of a team of top acquisition finance lawyers from a rival firm may foreshadow a mergers and acquisitions boom.

MarketWatch:

• Nabors(NBR) to Acquire Superior Well Services(SWSI).
• Skype Files for $100 Million IPO.
  

NY Times:

• In Crackdown on Energy Use, China to Shut 2,000 Factories. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology quietly published a list late Sunday of 2,087 steel mills, cement works and other energy-intensive factories required to close by Sept. 30.

NY Post:

• FCC Readies Comcast(CMCSA) Net Neutrality Trap. He's ba-a-ack! Just months after a stinging rebuke by a federal appeals courts and days after his industry talks on net neutrality collapsed, Federal Communication Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski is once again pushing his pet project -- that Internet providers should be barred from treating some types of Web traffic better than others. This time, Genachowski is zeroing in on making Comcast promise it would never slow certain types of internet traffic as a possible condition of the cable giant's $14 billion pending acquisition of NBC Universal, a source familiar with the FCC's thinking told The Post.

Business Insider:

• Deutsche Bank: The Fed is Going to Deliver a Giant Goose-Egg to the Market This Week. Add Deutsche Bank to the chorus of folks who think the Fed is NOT about to make some major dovish shift. Here's the latest:

Zero Hedge:

• GSEs Celebrate Geithner's Invitation to the "Recovery" With a Demand for $3.3 Billion in New Taxpayer Capital.
• Year to Date Retail Sales Decline at GM and Chrysler Masked by Surging Fleet Transactions.
  

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

• Robbing 'Rich' Wrecks Economy.

Kennebec Journal:

• Energy Expert Matthew Simmons Dies in North Haven. Matthew Simmons, an international oil expert who most recently focused on developing renewable energy from the waters off Maine, died Sunday night of an apparent heart attack, his office is reporting. He was 67.

AppleInsider:

• Apple(AAPL) Obtains Exclusive Rights to Custom, Super-Durable Metal Alloy. Apple has entered into an exclusive agreement to utilize amorphous metal alloys with unique atomic structures, allowing products that are stronger, lighter, and resistant to wear and corrosion, AppleInsider has learned.

GIZMODO:

• SF Parking Meters to Adjust Their Prices Based on Demand. In order to help control the parking situation in San Francisco, the city is set to install smart parking meters that will lower or raise their prices depending on demand. It's a two-year experiment called SFpark, and the prices are going to range from the reasonable 25-cents to the I-should-have-just-taken-a-cab $6.

Rasmussen Reports:

• Daily Presidential Tracking Poll. The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 28% 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 -15 (see trends).
• 58% Oppose Federal Mortgage Forgiveness Plan for Troubled Homeowners. Rumors have circulated that the Obama administration is considering a partial mortgage forgiveness plan to help those who owe more than their homes are worth. Just 28% of U.S. voters favor such a proposal.

Politico:

• Rep. Maxine Waters Charged With Three Violations. The House ethics committee released its formal charges against Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Monday, accusing her of three counts of violating the letter and spirit of House rules and federal regulations by assisting a bank in which her husband owned stock. The 10-page "Statement of Alleged Violation" focuses on the actions of Waters and Mikael Moore, who is the congresswoman's chief of staff and her grandson, and tracks very closely with the year-old findings of the independent Office of Congressional Ethics. Waters is accused of improperly intervening on behalf of OneUnited, a minority-owned bank in which her husband held stock worth roughly $350,000.

TechCrunch:

• Why The Verizon(VZ) iPhone Rumors are True - CDMA iPhone Due in January.

Reuters:

• Regulators Probe Goldman's(GS) Notice About SEC Case. U.S. and British regulators are investigating the timing of Goldman Sachs Group Inc's (GS) disclosure to them that the bank was the subject of a federal civil fraud probe, Goldman said on Monday.
• DigitalGlobe, GeoEye Sign Govt Contracts, Shares Soar. Shares of DigitalGlobe (DGI) and GeoEye Inc (GEOY) touched life-time highs on Monday, after the U.S. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) awarded about $7.3 billion worth of orders between the two commercial satellite operators.

Financial Times Deutschland:

• The European Union wants to raise its own taxes to reduce money transfers from national governments, citing an interview with Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski. The EU will propose in September to raise taxes or fees on air traffic, on financial transactions and on CO2 emissions.

DigiTimes:

• Apple(AAPL) to Launch Upgraded iPad with Cortex-A9-based CPU in 2011, Says Digitimes Research. Apple is set launch an upgraded 9.7-inch iPad adopting a new ARM Cortex-A9-based processor and 512MB RAM in the first quarter of 2011. Meanwhile, the company will also launch a 7-inch iPad using the Cortex-A9 processor and an IPS panel with a resolution of 1024×768, according to Digitimes Research senior analyst Mingchi Kuo. As for the CDMA iPhone, Pegatron Technology is expected to start mass production in December and will supply to both US-based Verizon Wireless and China-based China Telecom. The CDMA iPhone's back plate will be forged from metal materials and will feature an integrated antenna, according to Digitimes Research. Verizon is expected to announce the product at CES 2011 and will start shipping in January 2011. The sales ratio of GSM and CDMA iPhones in 2011 is expected to reach 65:35, Digitimes Research out. In addition, Apple is also set to launch a new Apple TV using AMD's Fusion solution and will not include a hard drive. The new device will adopt a user interface similar to the iPhone with support for social networking websites, network multimedia and the App Store. Mass production of the device will start in December, Digitimes Research noted.