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Bloomberg:
- Amazon.com Inc.(AMZN), the world’s largest Internet retailer, reported profit that topped analysts’ estimates after discounts and the Kindle fueled sales. The shares jumped 15 percent in late trading.
- Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed former owner of OAO Yukos Oil Co. and once Russia’s richest man, said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s handling of the Russian economy can be compared with a horse-cart on a superhighway. “We’re passengers in this cart, and the manure from under the horse’s tail is the unavoidable option,” Khodorkovsky, 46, said in written answers to more than 100 readers’ questions published by online newspaper Gazeta.ru yesterday.
- California’s push to lead U.S. sales of electric cars may result in higher power rates for consumers in the state, as a growing number of rechargeable vehicles forces utilities to pay for grid upgrades. The impact of the vehicles on electricity fees is being reviewed this month by California’s Public Utilities Commission as the most populous U.S. state will require Toyota Motor Corp., General Motors Co., Honda Motor Co., Ford Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. to sell more vehicles that can be powered at electric outlets from late 2011.
- Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said he will be more aggressive in pressing for higher interest rates than other central bank policy makers. “It’s always been a challenge for the Fed to know when to raise rates,” Plosser said in an interview today on Bloomberg Radio. “My instinct is the time for raising rates will be before many of my colleagues” think it is.
- American International Group Inc.’s(AIG) highest paid executives in the unit blamed for pushing the insurer to the brink of collapse haven’t returned bonuses as they’d promised, according to the Obama administration. Four of five managers in AIG’s Financial Products unit that are under the jurisdiction of pay master Kenneth Feinberg didn’t make good on pledges to return the bonuses as of August, Feinberg said in documents released today. The fifth employee hadn’t made any promise, Feinberg said. “The performance of AIG Financial Products has contributed significantly to the deterioration in AIG’s financial health,” Feinberg said. Compensation proposed by AIG for the staff doesn’t “adequately reflect the role of AIG Financial Products” in the decline of the insurer, he said. AIG, which received a $182.3 billion
- Hynix Semiconductor Inc., the world’s second-largest computer-memory chipmaker, reported its first quarterly profit in two years on higher prices after an industrywide production cut helped ease a glut.
Wall Street Journal:
- A group of victims of terror attacks by Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers rebels filed suit against Raj Rajaratnam, the Galleon Group hedge-fund founder charged in an insider-trading case, accusing him of funding the Tigers' "crimes against humanity." The suit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in
- In a one-two punch at the pay culture of banks and Wall Street firms blamed for the financial crisis, the
IBD:
Business Week:
- Financial firms under pay restrictions in the U.S. and Europe find their top executives and traders are targeted by headhunters.
Rasmussen:
Traders Magazine:
The Business Insider:
- Earlier this week, investors got a rude shock from
- BlackRock(BLK) head Larry Fink is enraged that Andrew Ross Sorkin's book Too Big to Fail
claims that his firm's balance sheet was badly hurt by subprime during the financial crisis, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Reuters:
- CIT Group Inc (CIT), a large finance company trying to avoid bankruptcy, reached a tentative agreement with Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS) over a disputed payment on a $3 billion loan, Dow Jones Newswires reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. An agreement over the $1 billion "make whole" payment could be made final within 24 hours, the news service said, citing one of the sources. Goldman would be entitled to the $1 billion payment under the $3 billion rescue package it provided in June 2008, six months before the U.S. government invested $2.33 billion in CIT through the Troubled Asset Relief Program. CIT lends close to 1 million small- and mid-sized companies. If it went bankrupt, the case would be one of the five largest
Financial Times:
- The multi-billion dollar travails of two Saudi companies have caused international banks to demand greater financial disclosure from family businesses in the Gulf and curb lending until standards improve, according to executives. The tightening of lending criteria is a ramification of the problems faced by Saad Group, owned by Saudi billionaire Maan al Sanea, and Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi and Brothers (AHAB). These have put the practice of “name lending,” whereby banks have lent to families and private companies on reputation alone, under renewed scrutiny. “Now everybody is asking for more information, more transparency – it’s no more like it was before,” said Henry Azzam, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, Middle East and
- Total, the French oil group, has warned politicians that they risk accelerating an oil supply crunch if they enact environmental policies that deter investment in oil and gas before enough viable alternatives are available. “Governments need to assess the needs of this planet in terms of energy and stop saying we will develop solar and then not have enough,” Christophe de Margerie, Total’s chief executive, said in an interview with the Financial Times. “Carbon is not the enemy; carbon is life.” Mr de Margerie has a relatively moderate position on climate change among his peers. He wants governments to enact clear, far-reaching policies to reduce carbon emissions so the oil industry can make investment decisions. “We as companies cannot take the risk. We are investing without knowing what the contractual framework on carbon will be,” he said. Mr de Margerie is the most vocal of his peers in terms of insisting environmental policy needs to go hand in hand with energy security policy. He warned policymakers heading to December’s climate change conference in Denmark: “Don’t go to Copenhagen only with your concern about the environment. We also have a concern over energy access. If you take only one [concern with you], we are dead and we don’t want to die.”
Late Buy/Sell Recommendations
Citigroup:
- Rated (PPL) Buy, target $35.
- Reiterated Buy on (AMZN), raised estimates, boosted target to $140.
- Reiterated Buy on (HOT), target $40.
- Reiterated Buy on (COF), boosted target to $44.
Kaufman:
- Rated (VPRT) Buy, target $60.
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10:00 am EST
-.Existing Home Sales for September are estimated to rise to 5.35M versus 5.1M in August.
Upcoming Splits
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- The Fed’s Bernanke speaking and the Fed’s Kohn speaking could also impact trading today.
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Bloomberg:
- U.S. Steel Corp.(X), Nucor Corp.(NUE), and Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co.(RS) shares all dropped on the New York Stock Exchange after metal makers said prices may fall following four months of gains. Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. fell as much as 8.7 percent after saying today that it wouldn’t offer a profit forecast for the fourth quarter and that prices may decline. Nucor shares fell as much as 3.5 percent after the company said it may have reduced operating volumes in the current quarter. U.S. Steel, which reports third-quarter results next week, fell as much as 4.3 percent. Other steelmakers including Steel Dynamics Inc., AK Steel Holding Corp. and Allegheny Technologies, Inc. also declined.
- U.S. colleges aren’t adequately preparing teachers for jobs in the nation’s elementary and secondary classrooms, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. “By almost any standard, many, if not most of the nation’s 1,450 schools, colleges, and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st century classroom,” Duncan said today in a speech at Columbia University in New York.
- Craigslist won dismissal of a lawsuit filed by the sheriff of Cook County, Illinois, that accused the classified ads Web site of creating a public nuisance by providing a forum for prostitution services. U.S. District Judge John F. Grady in Chicago threw out the lawsuit filed by Sheriff Tom Dart, finding that the site was only a conduit for others to publish the ads and wasn’t legally responsible for their content.
- China and India’s joint plan to cut greenhouse-gas emissions gives the developing world an alternative to the climate treaty that wealthier nations want them to sign in Copenhagen, analysts said. Asia’s two biggest polluters from burning carbon-based fuels announced their collaboration on renewable power and energy-efficiency projects in a memo of understanding yesterday in New Delhi. They again rejected limits on emissions blamed for global warming that industrialized nations have proposed. “They’re trying to gain leverage going into Copenhagen and show the world they have other options if the global talks break down,” said Olav Roenningen, senior analyst at the carbon- markets advisory firm Markedskraft in Arendal, Norway. The New Delhi accord shows how support may be eroding for a global treaty that United Nations negotiators aim to conclude this December in Copenhagen. Led by China and India, developing nations are devising similar regional agreements after failing to convince wealthier countries including the U.S. to share clean-energy technology or to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions by 40 percent in 2020 from 1990 levels. Speculation that countries won’t produce a treaty has grown this month after Yvo De Boer, the UN’s top climate official, said on Oct. 13 that the Copenhagen summit may be “half-baked” unless richer nations agree to do more to trim gas emissions.
- Ford Motor Co.(F) is moving production of a small sport-utility vehicle from Europe to the U.S. to take advantage of lower labor costs and the weaker dollar, according to three people familiar with the plan.
Wall Street Journal:
- Prominent banking analyst Dick Bove, who caused a stir Wednesday with seemingly contradictory remarks on Wells Fargo, has decided he’ll no longer provide immediate earnings commentary on air. “I’m not going to do it anymore. I’m going to have to see the numbers before I go on air,” Bove told Dow Jones Newswires Thursday. “It creates an untenable situation.”
CNBC:
FINalternatives:
- Galleon Group, which announced it would close its hedge funds yesterday after its founder was arrested on insider-trading charges, is not the only hedge fund firm struggling amidst those charges, which ensnared five others. New Castle Partners also saw its founder arrested in the alleged $20 million scam, as well as a consultant for the firm. And like Galleon, whose founder Raj Rajaratnam was the headliner of Friday’s arrests, the scandal is already taking its toll on New Castle’s bottom line, with Union Bancaire Privée’s decision to fire the firm and liquidate a fund it managed for the Swiss private bank. Mark Kurland, a co-founder and partner of the hedge fund, has taken a leave of absence from the firm, while Danielle Chiesi, the consultant, is no longer working for it, New Castle said. Kurland has been charged with conspiracy, while Chiesi faces conspiracy and securities fraud charges.
Forbes:
- The Senate has confirmed former United Mine Workers union official Joseph Main to head the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration. Main spent 22 years heading the United Mine Workers' Occupational Health and Safety Department before retiring. His nomination had been praised by union activists, but greeted with some trepidation by coal companies.
- The government's economic stimulus spending has already had its biggest impact and probably won't contribute to significant growth next year, a top White House adviser said Thursday. Christina Romer, the chair of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, said the initial jolt of the $787 billion stimulus expanded the economy in the second and third quarters of this year. But she said the remaining spending will simply keep the economy from slipping. "By mid-2010," she said, "fiscal stimulus will likely be contributing little to further growth." That assessment underscored the fragility of an economic recovery marked by stubbornly high unemployment. Unemployment will remain high, at or above 9.6 percent, through the end of 2010, Romer predicted. The pace of the recovery and the unyielding jobless numbers pose significant political and policy problems for the president and for congressional Democrats who face midterm elections next year. Republicans were skeptical of Romer's claims of stimulus success. "The impacts of the stimulus are wildly exaggerated," said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said the administration's push for health care and climate change legislation have also created uncertainty among employers who worry about tax increases and are thus unwilling to take risks that could create jobs.
- Why Doctors Are Worried. The troubles of the impending health care reform are upon us. Thinking about her and those like her makes me very angry. Should I tell her that the very art of medicine that I rely on to take care of her is in mortal jeopardy? I barely have enough time with my growing list of patients to concentrate on her case as it is, and the reform will bring me more patients with lower payments. Should I mention that many of my contemporaries (the network she relies on) are no longer accepting her Medicare, even before the reform bills sink their claws into it and cut Medicare to the bone with hundreds of billions in cuts? Should I say that primary care doctors like me already designate an employee to deal entirely with insurance, and that this problem will only get worse as we move in the direction of comparative effectiveness studies and bundling payments based on so-called quality? I lay awake at night thinking of the services I will deliver only to be denied payment.
DetroitFreePress:
- A key union leader said today he is opposed to a tentative agreement reached between UAW leaders and Ford Motor Co.(F), providing fresh evidence that opposition to a proposal first announced last week persists. “I decided for the first time in my 17-year career as a union official to go against the international leadership” of the UAW, said Nick Kottalis, president and chairman of the Dearborn Truck Plant unit of UAW Local 600.
CNN:
- As President Obama navigates his way through a series of issues as controversial as they are vital, he's getting a yellow flag from the American people. For the first time since Obama took office, fewer than half of Americans agree with the president on issues important to them, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Tuesday. A majority, 51 percent, disagree -- a jump of 10 percentage points since April. In Obama's case, legislation to overhaul health care has not been kind to his numbers. And about the Nobel Peace Prize, even the president seems stunned he got it. "To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honored by this prize," Obama said after the award's announcement. Americans apparently agree. About a third believe the president deserved the prize, according to this week's CNN/Opinion Research poll. Fifty-six percent say they disapprove of the Nobel Prize Committee's decision to honor him, the survey found. The most popular person in the Obama administration is not the still-popular president. It's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Sixty-five percent of Americans view Clinton favorably, outshining even first lady Michelle Obama by a percentage point, according to the survey.
Miami Herald:
- The number of Americans who believe there is solid evidence that the Earth is warming because of pollution is at its lowest point in three years, according to a survey released Thursday. The poll of 1,500 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that only 57 percent believe there is strong scientific evidence that the Earth has gotten warmer over the past few decades, and as a result, people are viewing the problem as less serious. That's down from 77 percent in 2006. The steepest drop occurred during the last year, as Congress and the Obama administration have taken steps to control heat-trapping emissions for the first time. Despite misgivings about the science, half the respondents still said they supported limits on greenhouse gases, even if it could lead to higher energy prices. But many of those supporters have heard little to nothing about cap-and-trade, the main mechanism for reducing greenhouse gases favored by the White House and central to legislation passed by the House and a bill the Senate will take up next week. Under cap-and-trade, a price is put on each ton of pollution and businesses can buy and sell permits to meet emissions limits. Other results of the survey also suggest that it will be tough politically to enact a law limiting emissions of global warming pollution. While three-quarters of Democrats believe the evidence of a warming planet is solid, and nearly half believe the problem is serious, far fewer conservative and moderate Democrats see the problem as grave as they did last year. Regional differences were also detected. People living in the Midwest and mountainous areas of the West are far less likely to view global warming as a serious problem and to support limits on greenhouse gases than those in the Northeast and on the West Coast. Both the House and Senate bills have been drafted by lawmakers from Massachusetts and California.
Politico:
- Top White House and Senate officials are leaning towards including a public option - with a provision for states to opt out of it - in the Senate health care bill, as the Senate leadership heads to the Oval Office Thursday for a meeting with the president. Two Democratic senators said Thursday that they have been told negotiators are zeroing in on creating a national government health plan, but allowing states to drop out of it or choose a different competitor to private insurance. "I keep hearing there is a lot of leaning toward some sort of national public option, unfortunately, from my standpoint," said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a key swing vote on health reform. "I still believe a state-based approach is the way in which to go. So I'm not being shy about making that point." Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said he has been told the same regarding the direction of the talks, but was assured the government plan would not be tied to Medicare rates.
Reuters:
- Acer, the world's No. 2 PC maker, aims to boost its revenue by more 70 percent over the next three years, while maintaining margins to avoid repeating a similar meteoric rise and fall less than a decade ago.
- The United States, which posted a record deficit in the last fiscal year, may lose its Aaa-rating if it does not reduce the gap to manageable levels in the next 3-4 years, Moody's Investors Service said on Thursday. The U.S. government posted a deficit of $1.417 trillion in the year ended September 30 as the deep recession and a series of bank rescues cut a gaping hole in its public finances. The White House has forecast deficits of more than $1 trillion through fiscal 2011. "The Aaa rating of the U.S. is not guaranteed," said Steven Hess, Moody's lead analyst for the United States said in an interview with Reuters Television. "So if they don't get the deficit down in the next 3-4 years to a sustainable level, then the rating will be in jeopardy." Moody's has a stable outlook on the U.S. rating, which indicates a change is not expected over the next 18 months. Hess said that reducing the budget deficit would be a challenge. "Raising taxes is never popular and difficult politically so we have to see if the government can do that or cut expenditure," he said while adding it would be tough to reduce expenditure.
- AIG Chief Executive Robert Benmosche has moved to assure employees that recently appointed U.S. pay czar Kenneth Feinberg will not attempt to claw back compensation. "It is important that all of you know that the Special Master's jurisdiction is quite limited, and we expect Feinberg's upcoming decisions on compensation to cover only the top 25 employees at AIG," Benmosche said in an internal memo distributed around the company late on Wednesday. The memo, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, said the company was in "direct, near-daily discussions" with Feinberg, who has told AIG he will not seek retroactive salary adjustments. In the months since its bailout, AIG has become a lightning rod for public anger as it agreed to stick to million-dollar bonus agreements for employees, including nearly $500 million for those working within AIG Financial Products, the unit at the center of its financial meltdown. Federal officials have approved AIG's plan to pay Benmosche an annual salary of $3 million in cash and $4 million in fully vested stock. He also could receive a bonus valued as high as $3.5 million. AIG, once the world's largest insurer, got a $180 billion bailout in September 2008. The assistance included more than $80 billion in taxpayer loans to shore up a cash shortage after bets AIG took on the U.S. residential market soured in value, leaving the insurer short of funds to meet collateral calls.