Bloomberg:
- Irish Aid Bid Prompts Moody's Warning, Threat of Elections. Ireland’s bid for financial aid may trigger a cut in the country’s credit rating, the demise of the government and an exodus of multinational companies. The euro fell and Irish bonds pared their advance after Moody’s Investors Service said a “ multi-notch” downgrade in Ireland’s Aa2 credit rating was “most likely” because the aid would increase the country’s debt burden. The prospect of January elections loomed as the Green Party said it would pull out of Prime Minister Brian Cowen’s coalition. A rescue package that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates may total 95 billion euros ($130 billion) failed to damp speculation that Portugal and Spain would follow Ireland in tapping the fund set up by the European Union and International Monetary Fund after the Greece rescue. “It probably won’t halt contagion,” said Sylvain Broyer, chief euro-region economist at Natixis in Frankfurt. “The sovereign crisis isn’t yet over. Ireland is in the middle of a difficult crisis.”
- North Korea Calls U.S. Sanctions Bluff With Latest Nuclear Plant Display. North Korea stunned U.S. scientists on a tour of its latest nuclear plant this month, showcasing technological advances that highlight the failure of sanctions to force Kim Jong Il’s regime back to disarmament talks. "The control room was astonishingly modern," Stanford University professor Siegfried S. Hecker wrote in his Nov. 20 report of the visit eight days earlier to the main reactor site at Yongbyon. "We saw a modern, clean centrifuge plant of more than a thousand centrifuges," he said, a reference to the high- speed spinning devices that enrich uranium. The findings from the tour, conducted on the same day President Barack Obama attended a global summit 300 kilometers (188 miles) away in Seoul, prompted him to send the U.S. envoy on North Korea to Asia to coordinate a response. While the uranium program is “another in a series of provocative moves,” it doesn’t pose a crisis, Stephen Bosworth said today in Seoul. "The U.S. is now at the crossroads of engagement and pressure, and sanctions are clearly not working," said Yang Moo Jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. The Obama approach to North Korea "has done nothing but bolster North Korea’s nuclear capabilities," he said.
- China October Copper Imports Decline to One-Year Low. Refined copper imports by China, the world’s largest consumer, tumbled to the lowest level in a year, as high international prices and ample domestic supplies cut the demand for overseas shipments. Refined copper imports declined 30 percent to 169,897 metric tons from 241,711 tons in September, according to Bloomberg News calculations based on data from General Administration of Customs. Inbound shipments dropped for the second consecutive month to the lowest since October 2009. Stockpiles at Shanghai Futures Exchange-monitored warehouses expanded for a third week to the highest level in five months last week, adding 11,313 tons to 126,736 tons, according to the bourse.
- Netflix(NFLX) Starts Streaming-Only Subscription Plan for $7.99 a Month in U.S. Netflix Inc., the mail-order and online movie-rental service, introduced its first streaming-only subscription plan in the U.S. for customers to watch movies and TV shows online for $7.99 a month. The plan had been tested in the U.S. after a streaming-only option started in Canada two months ago surpassed the company’s expectations, Los Gatos, California-based Netflix said today in a statement. The company is also boosting the price of combination streaming and mail-order DVD plans.
- Regeneron(REGN) Rises 17% After Eye Drug Matches Lucentis With Fewer Doses.
- Novell(NOVL) to Be Bought by Attachmate for $2.2 Billion. Novell Inc., the maker of Linux operating-system software, agreed to be bought by Attachmate Corp. for $2.2 billion, ending an 8-month strategic review aimed at reviving a company that had struggled to sustain growth. Novell investors will get $6.10 a share, Attachmate, a software company owned by private-equity firms including Golden Gate Capital Corp., said today in a statement. That’s 9.1 percent more than Novell’s closing price on Nov. 19.
- BMW Shortens Christmas Breaks on Surging 5-Series, X1 Demand. Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, the world’s largest maker of luxury autos, will shorten Christmas breaks at its factories because of surging demand for the revamped 5-Series and new X1 compact sport-utility vehicle. “We are producing as much as we can and are happy for every additional shift we can get,” spokesman Michael Rebstock said today by telephone. “Production capacity is the limiting factor at the moment.”
- Massey Energy(MEE) Said to Begin Process to Explore Sale of Coal-Mining Company. Massey Energy Co. plans to begin a process to explore the sale of the company and to solicit offers from potential buyers, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
Wall Street Journal:
- Northern Trust(NTRS) Forecasts Better US Economy. Northern Trust Corp. (NTRS) thinks the U.S. economy is primed to grow more quickly and has shifted client investments toward stocks and high-yield debt.
- Sovereign CDS Costs Rise, Ireland's Politics in Focus. The cost of insuring a basket of European sovereign debt using credit default swaps rose Monday, as the prospect of financial aid for Ireland failed to ease concerns about peripheral euro-zone government debt. Shortly after 1300 GMT, the iTraxx SovX Western Europe index, which allows investors to buy or sell default protection on a basket of 15 sovereign borrowers, was 0.08 percentage point wider from Friday’s close, at around 1.71 percentage points, according to index owner Markit.
- FBI Raids Two Connecticut Hedge Funds. The huge insider trading investigation just ensnared the hedge funds Diamondback and Global Level in its vast web, says the Wall Street Journal. What's really interesting is that both funds raided are run by former SAC traders.
- FBI Raids a Third Hedge Fund. The huge insider trading investigation just ensnared the hedge funds Diamondback, Global Level -- and now Loch Capital in its vast web, says the Wall Street Journal.
- Apple(AAPL) TV is About to Get a Lot Sexier Today. Apple is rolling out a major new software update today for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch: iOS 4.2, which brings features like background processing to the iPad. But the new update is also a big boost for Apple TV, the company's living room gadget. This could, in turn, improve Apple TV sales.
- Watch Statement By Irish PM's Brian Cowen Live Here.
- Meet The Gerson Lehrman Group: The World's Biggest "Expert Network".
New York Post:
- Quadrangle Kaput. Quadrangle Group, the media-focused private equity outfit founded by former car czar Steve Rattner, is winding down, The Post has learned. Sources familiar with the firm's plans, which have been in the works since the end of the summer, said Quadrangle will cease to exist in its current form as it tries to reinvent itself under a new name in the coming weeks.
- Task Force Wants Jerry Brown to Create Climate Change Panel. A task force of California politicians, business people, academics and environmentalists is calling on incoming Gov. Jerry Brown to appoint a climate risk council within his office to focus statewide attention on adapting to the effects of global warming. In a report to be released Monday, the 23-member California Adaptation Advisory Panel, a group convened by the Los Angeles-based Pacific Council on International Policy calls for stepped-up data-gathering, monitoring and coordination among state agencies and in the private sector to prepare for a steep sea level rise, diminishing water supplies and the spread of wildfire, as studies have predicted.
- Apple(AAPL) Makes Find My iPhone Service Free for iOS Devices.
Popular Science:
The Daily Beast:
Politico:
- View From Middle East: President Obama is A Problem. H and e has managed to forge surprising unanimity on at least one topic: Barack Obama. A visit here finds both IsraelisPalestinians blame him for the current stalemate — just as they blame one another.
- Chinese trust companies halted property loans and investment on government orders, citing four people at Ping An Trust, Zhongrong Intl. Trust and China Credit Trust.
CCTV:
- Chinese central bank adviser Li Daokui said the nation should raise deposit rates moderately.
- Chinese central bank adviser Li Daokui said curbing inflation is the nation's top priority.
- HP(HPQ) Sees Strong Notebook Shipments in November and December. Hewlett-Packard (HP) is expected to see its notebook shipments surpass four million units in both November and December 2010, up from only three million units in October as consumer demand for the year-end holidays in western countries is stronger than expected and the growth will also benefit HP's Taiwan-based upstream suppliers including Quanta Computer, Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) and Inventec. In addition to the year-end holidays, Intel's new Huron River platform is also a driver for the strong shipment growth, with new notebook models to start shipping by the end of November, targeting the Lunar New Year holidays in China, the sources noted.
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