Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

• Credit-Default Swaps Index Little Changed From Near 8-Month Low. The cost to protect U.S. corporate bonds was little changed from near an eight-month low. The Markit CDX North America Investment Grade Index, which investors use to hedge against losses on corporate debt or to speculate on creditworthiness, fell 0.1 basis point to a mid- price of 85.6 basis points as of 11:17 a.m. in New York, according to index administrator Markit Group Ltd.
• London Copper Stockpiles May Be 80% to 89% Held by One Company, LME Says. The potential share of London Metal Exchange copper stockpiles held by one unidentified company fell to 80 percent to 89 percent, from at least 90 percent. The holding covers inventory already owned and contracts expiring in the next two trading days, according to the Dec. 23 data, released today. One party actually owned 50 percent to 79 percent of the stockpiles, not counting open futures positions, as of Dec. 23, according to the exchange.
• India's New Home Sales Drop Up to 25% on Higher Rates, Knight Frank Says. India’s new home sales fell as much as 25 percent after prices reached a record earlier this year and aren’t expected to recover in the next six months following six interest rate increases, Knight Frank LLP said. “The first half of next year will be damp for home sales and prices,” Mumbai-based Anand Narayanan, national director of residential agency at the Indian unit of real-estate brokerage Knight Frank, said in an interview yesterday. “We could see a 5 percent correction in prices through incentives given by builders to woo customers.”
• Equinix(EQIX) Call-Option Trading Jumps to Record With Bet on 25% Gain.
• Potash Corp.(POT) Shares Advance as Corn, Soybeans Seen Extending Price Gains. Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., the world’s largest producer of its namesake crop nutrient, rose the most in more than two months in New York amid speculation corn and soybean futures will extend price gains into next year. Potash Corp. climbed $7.41, or 5.1 percent, to $152.08 at 12:51 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
• Blackstone(BX) Said Among Bidders Interested in Centro Properties. Blackstone Group LP, the world’s largest private-equity firm, has made a preliminary bid for assets of Australian shopping-mall owner Centro Properties Group, according to a person briefed on the offer.

Wall Street Journal:

• Insurers Bid for State Medicaid Plans. Health insurers are preparing to capitalize on $40 billion of new opportunities to run privately managed Medicaid plans for the states, which would position insurers to benefit from the health overhaul's expansion of Medicaid in 2014. Medicaid, the state and federal program for the poor, has become a growth area for big insurers such as UnitedHealth Group Inc. and more specialized plans such as Molina Healthcare Inc. Texas and Georgia will solicit new contracts for their private Medicaid plans early next year, while California, Florida and others are likely to meaningfully expand their programs, companies and states have said.
• Capitol Friends With Benefits. In 2010, short-sellers scored a knockdown against for-profit education stocks, but a well-financed lobbying campaign could spur Congress to punch back on the industry's behalf.
• Oil Industry Cranks Up Spending. Big Jump in Capital-Expenditure Budgets for 2011 Signals Rising Demand, Rebound in Fuel Prices.

CNBC:

• Treasurys Bounce Back as Traders Flock to 7-Year Sale. The bond market recovered Wednesday from the previous day's miserable auction, receiving strong demand for a $29 billion sale of seven-year notes in a sale that helped push Treasurys prices higher.
• US Foreclosures Jump in 3Q: Regulators. U.S. home foreclosures jumped in the third quarter and banks' efforts to keep borrowers in their homes dropped as the housing market continues to struggle, U.S. bank regulators said on Wednesday.
• OPEC Not Likely to Stand in the Way of $100 Oil. Oil has burst above top exporter Saudi Arabia's preferred $70-$80 range and yet OPEC is unlikely to stop the rally, helping to prepare the way for the market to bound above $100 a barrel.

Business Insider:

• Drum Roll Please....Here Are THE Entrepreneurs of 2010.
• Petrobras(PBR) Prepares For More Deep Water Drilling Than You Can Imagine, With "Underwater Cities".
• Bill Ackman: Ignore Plummeting House Prices and Real-Estate Doomsayers - Houses Are a Screaming Buy.
• Illinois's Plan To 'Balance' The Budget: Borrow $15 Billion And Ignore $185 Billion Hole. The state of Illinois elected a Keynesian nutcase of epic magnitude in Governor Quinn. Quinn's latest brainstorm is to borrow $15 billion to "stabilize things".

Zero Hedge:

• NYSE November Margin Debt Rises to Fresh Post-Lehman High. (graph)

New York Post:

• Private-Equity Firm Mulls Hostile Takeover of BJ's(BJ). BJ's Wholesale Club still isn't safe from the clutches of private equity. Leonard Green & Partners -- a Los Angeles buyout firm that disclosed a 9.5 percent stake in the warehouse chain in July -- remains keen to acquire the retailer and may launch a hostile bid if an auction isn't initiated in the coming weeks, sources told The Post.
  

New York Times:

• Suspicious Death Ignites Fury in China. The photograph is so graphic that it appears cartoonish at first glance. A man lies on a road with his eyes closed, blood streaming from his half-open mouth, his torso completely crushed under the large tire of a red truck. One arm reaches out from beneath the tire. His shoulder is a bloody pile of flesh. His head is no longer attached to the flattened spinal cord. The man in the photograph, Qian Yunhui, 53, has become the latest Internet sensation in China, as thousands of people viewing the image online since the weekend have accused government officials of gruesomely killing Mr. Qian to silence his six-year campaign to protect fellow villagers in a land dispute. Illegal land seizures by officials are common in China, but the horrific photographs of Mr. Qian’s death on Saturday have ignited widespread fury, forcing local officials to offer explanations in a news conference.
• California Woman Charged in Insider Trading Inquiry. Federal authorities on Wednesday charged Winifred Jiau of Fremont, Calif., with conspiracy and securities fraud in the ever-widening insider trading investigation. Prosecutors say that Ms. Jiau provided two money managers at different hedge funds with nonpublic information about Marvell Technology Group and other companies.
• China Cracks Down on Illegal Rare Earth Mines.
  

Forbes:

• Google(GOOG) and Yahoo(YHOO): Buy Both, Analyst Says. For Google, which yesterday closed a little under $600, he sets a $750 target. “Continued product improvements, accelerated shift of local advertising dollars online, and growth from emerging countries should drive double-digit search growth over the medium term,” he writes, adding that “mobile searches are quickly becoming material” – and incremental – to the top line. And he contends that “the risks from social networks and other emerging online businesses are overblown.”

Washington Post:

• Stimulus On the Slow Track. When Democratic senators and representatives voted to approve the $787 billion stimulus package nearly two years ago, the ones who came from swing states and districts knew they were taking a political risk. What they didn't know was that the economic benefits of the stimulus would become so entangled in red tape that even today, much of that money remains unspent. A story that ran Sunday in the Los Angeles Times estimated that only a quarter of the $630 million in federal funds allotted to the city of Los Angeles had been spent. Los Angeles is in no way exceptional.

AppleInsider:

• Apple's(AAPL) iTunes Rental Service Believed to be 10% the Size of Netflix(NFLX). Though it is half as old as Netflix, Apple's iTunes rental service is believed to be about one-tenth the size of the competing rental service, one analyst has projected. Analyst Brian Marshall with Gleacher & Company said Wednesday he believes Apple sells about 475,000 rentals daily through iTunes, compared to the 5.1 million daily rentals seen by Netflix. iTunes rentals began in 2005, while Netflix first launched in 1999. If Apple can grow its rental business at the same rate as Netflix, Marshall believes annual TV and movie rental revenue from iTunes could exceed $1 billion within 5 years. Assuming Apple keeps about 30 percent of that, it would be another $300 million per year for Apple's bottom line.
  

Wired:

• Algorithms Take Control of Wall Street.

Real Clear Politics:

• Promises and Riots by Thomas Sowell. Economists are the real "party of No." They keep saying that there is no such thing as a free lunch-- and politicians keep on getting elected by promising free lunches. Such promises may seem to be kept, for a while. There are ways the government can juggle money around to make everything look OK, but it is only a matter of time before that money runs out and the ultimate reality hits, that there is no free lunch. We are currently seeing what happens, in fierce riots raging in various countries in Europe, when the money runs out and the brutal truth is finally revealed, that there is no free lunch.

Reuters:

• S&P 500 Eyes Best December Since 1991. The S&P 500 has gained 6.7 percent so far this month and has risen in 17 of the last 20 sessions.
• Major Banks' Economic Outlooks for 2011.
  

Financial Times:

• Supplies of grain are likely to be tight until well into 2011, according to Alberto Weisser, the chief executive officer of Bunge Ltd.(BG), a U.S. company that trades in agricultural products.
• Chilly Tests Loom for Eurozone Bonds. Banks forecast eurozone nations could attempt to borrow up to €80bn in January. The European Union and the European financial stability facility, the eurozone’s bail-out fund, are likely to be in the market for up to €13bn to go towards the Irish bail-out.

Telegraph:

• G20 and EU 'Posturing' Could Exacerbate Future Banking Crises. The efforts of the G20 and European Union to overhaul financial regulations have been lambasted for being "disingenuous political posturing" that are "increasing the likelihood of future meltdowns", an influential think-tank has warned. The TaxPayers' Alliance has published a paper accusing politicians and regulators of basing their response to the financial crisis on a "mistaken view of its causes" and "political considerations". The paper, which was co-written with the Lagatum Institute, an academic group that focuses on wealth, attacks the key aim of politicians including Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne for internationally co-ordinated regulation. It warns that "global regulation causes global crises". The authors, Dalibor Rohac of the Legatum Institute and Matthew Sinclair of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said in the report: "Common capital adequacy rules, while increasing transparency, also encourage homogeneity in investment strategy and undertaking of risk, leading to a high concentration of risk. That means that global regulations can be dangerous because they increase the amplitude of global credit cycles." The paper adds: "The Basel regulations may still be procyclical, imposing more onerous requirements on institutions at times when the system is in trouble." The authors claim the new regulations, including the G20-sponsored Basel rules and the Capital Requirements Directive of the EU, have been based on too narrow a view that "greed and insufficient regulation" were the causes. They argue that "regulations and poor policy choices" were also to blame - and that the authorities are in danger of making similarly dangerous mistakes. The paper claims that parts of the G20 agenda are "completely irrelevant" to reducing risk in the system. It argues: "The idea that "tax havens" and banking secrecy are among the issues that contributed to the financial crisis is completely unfounded. If anything, tax competition could curb some of the excesses of the big, fiscally irresponsible, welfare states by making it difficult for governments to impose too onerous fiscal burdens on mobile tax bases."

Kathimerini:

• Residential property prices in Greece are likely to fall 5-10% next year because of a squeeze on income, unemployment and a drop in bank lending, citing Babis Charalampopoulos, president of the Hellenic Institute of Valuation. Price declines may be higher in some areas, reaching 15% in northern regions including Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city.

Xinhua:

• China needs to stabilize commodity prices, boost employment and maintain social stability, citing Chinese President Hu Jintao.
• China will "resolutely" enhance property measures and curb excessive price gains in 2011, citing Housing Minister Jiang Weixin. The nation plans to increase its housing supply in 2011 and the government is preparing more macro control policies.
  

DigiTimes:

• NAND Flash Contract Prices Flat in 2H December. Late December 2010 contract prices for most MLC NAND flash chips have remained flat with mainstream 16Gb and 32Gb parts quoted at US$3-3.50 and US$4-5, respectively, according to industry sources. The sources expect prices for the first quarter of 2011 to be buoyed by Toshiba's NAND supply cutback as well as demand coming from the tablet PC sector. A recent power outage in Yokkaichi, Japan hit Toshiba's shipments, with NAND flash chips estimated to fall by up to 20% in January and February. A reduction in global supply is anticipated simultaneously to prop up prices during the period, the sources said. Meanwhile, if consumption of NAND flash in tablet devices expands at a fast pace, chip prices will see more significant growth in the first quarter of 2011, the sources indicated.

21st Century Business Herald:

• China won't loosen curbs on the property market in 2011 and will continue to crack down on speculative housing purchases, citing Jiang Weixin, minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.