Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

• Spain's Default Risk Is Rising, Buiter Says: Tom Keene. Spain has never been so close to default and Greece, Ireland and Portugal may need further bailouts, Citigroup Inc.(C) chief economist Willem Buiter said. “Spain is the key country about which I’m most worried,” Buiter, a former Bank of England policy maker, said in a radio interview today on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene and Ken Prewitt. “It’s really moved to the wrong side of the spectrum and is now at greater risk of sovereign restructuring than ever before.”
• Bernanke Says Higher Energy Prices Constitute a Threat to the US Economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told Congress that higher energy prices may weaken the U.S. economy by sapping consumer spending. “Higher energy prices would probably slow growth, at least in the short run,” Bernanke said today in response to questions from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Rising fuel prices “create at least short-term inflation pressures, and moreover, they act as a tax on household purchasing power and reduce consumption spending, and that also is a drag on the economy.”
• Oil Climbs After U.S. Inventories Unexpectedly Decline in Report. Oil increased after the U.S. Energy Department said that crude inventories unexpectedly dropped 1.16 million barrels last week. Futures rose as much as 1.4 percent as the report showed supplies fell for the first time in five weeks as imports decreased. Stockpiles were forecast to gain 2.2 million barrels, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Crude oil for May delivery climbed 88 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $106.95 a barrel at 1:08 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil traded at $106.36 a barrel before release of the inventory report at 10:30 a.m. Prices have risen 8.2 percent this year. Brent oil for May settlement rose 13 cents to $124.25 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange.
  
• Sales of Existing US Homes Hold Steady. Purchases dropped 0.9 percent to a 4.59 million annual rate from a revised 4.63 million pace in January that was faster than previously estimated and the highest since May 2010, a report from National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. The median price increased over the past year for the first time since November 2010. The number of previously owned homes on the market rose by 100,000 to 2.43 million in February, today’s report showed. At the current sales pace, it would take 6.4 months to sell those houses, up from 6 months in January. Today’s report showed purchases declined in two of four regions, led by a 3.3 percent drop in the Northeast. Sales in the Midwest increased 1 percent. Distressed sales, comprised of foreclosures and short sales in which the lender agrees to a transaction for less than the balance of the mortgage, accounted for 34 percent of total demand last month, little changed from January’s 35 percent. Home foreclosures may remain a persistent concern. Filings fell 8 percent in February, the smallest year-over-year decrease since October 2010, as lenders began working through a backlog of seized properties, RealtyTrac Inc. said last week. “February’s numbers point to a gradually rising foreclosure tide,” Brandon Moore, RealtyTrac’s chief executive officer, said in the statement. “That should result in more states posting annual increases in the coming months.”
• China's Closed-Door Politics Risks Blindsiding Traders After Bo. China’s ouster of senior Communist Party official Bo Xilai last week added a new dimension to an opaque leadership transition under way in Beijing this year: news about the succession has become tradable. Speculation of a coup yesterday spread on the Internet, helping spark the biggest jump in credit-default swaps for Chinese government bonds in four months. China’s capital was calm hours after the alleged disruption, with foreign executives including former U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez attending a meeting in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound.
• BofA's(BAC) McNiff Said to Resign From Mortgage-Trading Unit. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Bank of America Corp., the two biggest U.S. banks, are cutting senior mortgage traders and salesmen amid a decline in the asset-backed securities market, people with knowledge of the moves said. Raphael Gonzalez, JPMorgan’s co-head of trading in subprime mortgages, and John Angelica, a securitized-products salesman, resigned from the New York-based bank within the past four weeks in exchange for severance packages that included all of their deferred stock awards, said the people, who declined to be identified because the terms are private. Roy Kim, who traded adjustable-rate mortgages, left on his own accord with a similar exit deal, the people said.
• Goldman Sachs(GS) Trader Raj Sethi Said to Quit, May Join Hedge Fund. Raj Sethi, a managing director in Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s commodity-derivatives trading group, quit after 14 years and may join a hedge fund, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
• Solar's 80% Plunge Hurts Utilities From Hawaii to Spain. On grassy pasture in western Spain, Fotowatio SL is preparing to build a solar plant to supply electricity 25 percent cheaper than a local utility charges for traditional power, a breakthrough that’s sending tremors through the global energy industry. The Spanish developer, which was funded by General Electric Co. (GE), learned how to squeeze construction costs setting up 21 photovoltaic plants in southern Europe during the last six years. By October, its newest unit will begin beating the rate small businesses and homes pay for the first time in Spain. “There are no limits for this technology,” Mariano Berges, chief technology officer at the Madrid-based company and a former natural gas utility engineer, said in an interview. “The decline in prices has been incredible.”

Wall Street Journal:

• High Court Limits Clean Water Act Enforcement. The Supreme Court on Wednesday curbed the government's power to enforce the Clean Water Act, ruling unanimously that landowners can sue to void compliance orders issued by the Environmental Protection Agency.
  

MarketWatch:

• Green Mountain(GMCR) Shares Gain On New Starbucks(SBUX) Deal.

CNBC.com:

• Higher Mortgage Rates May Hamper Obama's Housing Plan. With disappointing results from his foreclosure rescue program and an election year on the horizon, President Obama last fall set his sights on refinancing, specifically helping borrowers who owe far more on their mortgages than their homes are currently worth.

Business Insider:

• Citi: The US Energy Industry Is Going To Grow So Fast, It Will Spark A New 'Industrial Revolution'.
• The $2 Trillion Corporate Cash Hoard Is Only Getting Bigger. (graph)
• The NYPD Says Iran Conducted Surveillance In NYC.
• Limbaugh: Maybe The Conservative Alternative to Romney is... Romney. Earlier this morning we told you that Jeb Bush was endorsing Mitt Romney after his win in the GOP Illinois primary last night. It seemed like a sign that the Republican establishment was rallying around the man they regard as the presumptive nominee. Well this afternoon, shortly after he opened his show, Rush Limbaugh seemed to be coming around to Romney, and trying to take his audience with him. He played a clip from the speeches last night.
  
• How $5 Gas Will Change Every Aspect of the American Economy.
• French Shooter Was Planning More Attacks Before Today's Police Raid and Standoff. Police are laying siege to an apartment in Toulouse where the gunman behind shootings of French paratroopers and Jewish schoolchildren is thought to be hiding, the BBC reports. The shooter is a 24-year-old Frenchman of Algerian origin. Mohammed Merah has claimed that he is linked with al-Qaeda and acted to "avenge Palestinian children".
• The Dallas Fed is Calling for the Immediate Breakup of Large Banks.
  

Zero Hedge:

• Goldman's(GS) Jan Hatzius Says That Americans Haven't Learned Anything From The Crisis.
• Mark Grant's Wake Up Call: Italy Has $211 Billion In Notional Exposure To Derivatives, And Other Trivia.
• A Few Quick Reminders Why NOTHING Has Been Fixed In Europe (And Why LTRO 3 Is Not Coming).
  

Washington Examiner:

• Over 10 Years, Obama's Buffett Rule Would Pay For Less Than 5 Days Of Federal Government Spending.
  

Rolling Stone:

• Bank of America(BAC): Too Crooked to Fail by Matt Taibbi. The bank has defrauded everyone from investors and insurers to homeowners and the unemployed. So why does the government keep bailing it out?
  

Reuters:

• Baker Hughes Sees Q1 Hit On Customers' Shift To Oil. Baker Hughes Inc expects first-quarter profit margins to fall sharply as the disruption of North American clients bailing out from natural gas fields proves rougher than expected for the third-largest oilfield services company. Shares of Baker Hughes fell 4.8 percent.