Bloomberg:
- Credit-Default Swaps Decline in Longest Stretch Since November 2009. The cost of protecting bonds from default in the U.S. fell for a ninth trading day, the longest streak in 13 months. The Markit CDX North America Investment Grade Index, which investors use to hedge against losses on corporate debt or to speculate on creditworthiness, decreased 1.2 basis points to a mid-price of 86 basis points as of 12:24 p.m. in New York, according to index administrator Markit Group Ltd. said the central bank may boost purchases of debt. The gauge has further declined on speculation that President The swaps benchmark has dropped from 99.4 at the end of November as Chairman Ben S. BernankeBarack Obama’s extension of his predecessor George W. Bush’s tax cuts will help spur economic growth and investors wager Europe’s sovereign debt crisis will be contained. “With the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts fueling the rally, and, in turn, entirely displacing the sovereign story from the headlines, markets are poised to continue their grind tighter, especially as we head into the holidays,” Michael Reiner, a New York-based credit strategist with Societe Generale, said today in an e-mailed note.
- No New Normal Next Year Seen by Strategists Predicting 11% Gain in S&P 500. Rising profits and cash balances will push the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to the biggest three- year advance since the 1990s, surpassing forecasts for below- average returns, strategists at Wall Street’s biggest banks say.
- Reviving Consumers Snap Up Tiffanny(TIF) Keys, Blue Nile(NILE) Pearls.
- Thermo Fisher to Acquire Dionex for $2.1 Billion. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the world’s largest maker of laboratory instruments, agreed to acquire Dionex Corp. for about $2.1 billion to expand in the water-analysis business in China. The $118.50-a-share price represents a premium of 21 percent over the closing value of Dionex on Dec. 10, the last trading day before the announcement.
- Hedge Funds Raise Bets on Commodity Rally to Highest Level in Four Years. Hedge funds and large speculators increased their bets on a commodity rally to the highest level since at least 2006 as copper and gold gained to records. An index tracking speculative positions in 20 commodity futures in the U.S. advanced 8.4 percent from the week before to 1.54 million contracts as of Dec. 7, the highest level since at least February 2006, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show.
- Orange Juice Jumps to Three-Year Highs as Florida Freeze May Damage Citrus. Orange-juice futures jumped to the highest price in more than three years after Florida, the biggest grower after Brazil, declared a state of emergency because of the threat of severe cold and crop damage. Governor Charles Crist said “extreme temperatures” and possible crop destruction threatens the state with a “major disaster.” Some areas may be subject to freezes through Dec. 15, Crist said in a Dec. 10 statement posted on the Florida government’s website, citing National Weather Service forecasts. Prices jumped as much as 6.2 percent.
- OPEC Cheating Most Since 2004 as Options Signal Oil Hitting $100 Next Year. OPEC is breaching its production limits the most in six years, signaling the world’s biggest suppliers are ready to pump more crude next year as oil rallies toward $100 a barrel. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries excluding Iraq pumped 26.78 million barrels a day this year, exceeding the quotas by an average of 1.934 million a day, the highest level since 2004, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
- 'Shadow' Lenders' Emergency Fed Loans Boosted Aid to Barclays(BCS), Citigroup(C). The Federal Reserve gave more support to the world’s biggest financial companies, including Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc. and Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, than the direct loans it disclosed this month in response to congressional mandates. That’s because about $140 billion, or 20 percent of the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility, went to affiliates of four firms that provided financing to banks and other companies: Hudson Castle, BSN Holdings, Liberty Hampshire Co. and Northcross, central bank data show.
- Moody's Maintains Negative Outlook on Spanish Banks. The outlook for the Spanish banking system remains negative because profitability will be “severely tested” as loan demand falls and defaults and funding costs increase, Moody’s Investors Service said.
- Senators Brown, Snowe Said to Seek Yuan Measure as Amendment to Tax Bill. Two U.S. senators are preparing to propose a China currency measure as an amendment to legislation extending tax breaks, according to two people familiar with the proposal. Senators Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, and Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, plan to submit the amendment today, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the amendment hasn’t been filed. The action may lead to a vote in the Senate this week on the measure aimed at pressing China to revalue it’s currency.
Wall Street Journal:
- Judge Calls Health Law Unconstitutional. A federal judge ruled Monday that a central plank of the health law violates the Constitution, dealing the biggest setback yet to the Obama administration's signature legislative accomplishment. In a 42-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson said the law's requirement that most Americans carry insurance or pay a penalty "exceeds the constitutional boundaries of congressional power." While Monday's decision creates a headache for the law's supporters, it doesn't mean that states or the federal government must stop implementing the law. Judge Hudson didn't grant the plaintiffs' request for an immediate nationwide injunction against the entire law or against the requirement that most Americans carry insurance. That requirement begins in 2014.
- Marketers Test Ads In E-Books. The marketing world is drawing up plans to invade one of the last bastions of media that is largely advertising-free: books. As e-books proliferate, advertisers are experimenting with ways to pitch to consumers while they read, a trend that could change the publishing business but faces opposition from some traditionalists. Marketers are exploring a variety of formats, including sponsorships that give readers free books. Videos, graphics or text with an advertiser's message that appear when a person first starts a book or along the border of the digital pages are also in the works. Ads can be targeted based on the book's content and the demographic and profile information of the reader.
- Firms Feel Pain From Health Law. Big employers faced with incorporating the first round of health-care changes next month are grappling with how to comply with the long list of new rules. Many companies are hiring consultants to help sort though the mountain of new mandates, which include extending dependent coverage to children up to age 26, and may eventually result in covering more employees. Some are also considering changes to their plans—including pushing costs to workers.
- Hoyer Hopes to Complete Tax Bill This Week. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) said Monday that the House of Representatives will vote on a bill extending the Bush-era tax cuts and that he hopes to complete work on legislation by the end of the week.
- Christmas 2010 Could be Merriest Since Recession: Survey. Christmas 2010 could turn out to be the merriest since the recession began, with the exclusive CNBC All-America Economic Survey finding Americans somewhat more optimistic but real optimism remains elusive.
- Racketeering Suit Raises New Questions About Madoff Son. In addition to Mark Madoff's children being sued—three days before his suicide—by Bankruptcy Trustee Irving Picard, Mark Madoff himself was implicated in another lawsuit Picard filed on Friday.
- It Begins: Credit Card Companies Start Raising Limits and Cranking Out The New Offers.
- Gasparino: As Many as 50 Companies Have Now Been Subpoenaed by the FBI.
- Young Billionaire John Arnold Finds Himself Among The 21 Worst Hedge Fund Managers This Year.
Tickerspy:
- Apple(AAPL) Higher as Goldman Gushes. Apple (AAPL) shares are continuing their bullish ways today, moving higher by 1%, after Goldman Sachs Group (GS) added the high-flying stock to its Conviction Buy list with a $430 price target, implying 34% upside from where the stock currently trades.
Boston Herald:
- Massachusetts Business Group Challenges Wind Power Deal. A Massachusetts business group is asking the state’s highest court to set aside state approval of the power-purchase deal between the Cape Wind project and utility National Grid. The 6,000-member Associated Industries of Massachusetts said in a statement Monday the Department of Public Utilities overstepped its powers and set a dangerous precedent for allowing utilities to negotiate agreements outside the competitive bidding process when it approved the deal last month. The business group said the agreement will drive up electricity rates.
- Snooty Europhiles Should Be Forced to Crawl in Penitence. The 'blimpish Little Englanders’ who opposed monetary union were right all along, says Boris Johnson. I think we deserve an apology. By “we” I mean all the Euro-sceptics, Euro-pragmatists, Euro-realists and Euro-hysterics who were alarmed by some of the optimism that surrounded the birth of the single currency. Do you remember the disdain with which we were treated? We were told that we were boss-eyed Little Englanders. They used to say we were a bunch of xenophobic, garlic-hating defenders of the pint and the yard and the good old bread-filled British banger. Whenever we protested about any detail of the plan for monetary union, we were told that we were in danger of stopping the great European train, boat, bus, bicycle or whatever it was. We were a blimpish embarrassment to our country, a bunch of idiot children who had to be shooshed while the grown-ups got on with their magnificent plans.
- Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain owe German banks $551 billion, citing data from the Bank for International Settlements. The sum constitutes about one fifth of the countries' foreign debt.
Xinhua:
- The Beijing municipal government plans to limit car use or purchases to help relieve the city's worsening traffic problems, citing a draft traffic plan.
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