BETWEEN THE HEDGES

Bloomberg:

- Apple Inc.(AAPL) founder and Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs is prone to fits of passion, table pounding and screaming. Tim Cook, who will oversee the company while Jobs takes medical leave, never raises his voice. Still, Cook’s management style won’t be a shift for employees. He’s been quietly running the company for several years, said Mike Janes, who worked with the executive for five years at Apple. “Steve is the public face of Apple and nothing beats when he goes out and says, ‘Ta-da,’” said Janes, who ran Apple’s online store. “But at the end of the day, someone has to take all those amazing product designs and turn them into that big pile of cash you see in the company’s bank account. That’s Tim.”

- Russia may have a $124 billion budget deficit this year if the price of Urals crude averages $32 a barrel and the average exchange rate is 34 rubles to the dollar. With $32 oil, budget revenue would be 5.6 trillion rubles and inflation would rise to 15% for the year, citing people “close to the government.”

- Russia plans to spend about $124 billion to rearm the military through 2011, citing Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

- Jan de Laat, global head of energy, trade and commodity at Rabobank Internatinoal, says oil may fall below $30 a barrel. (video)

- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, supplier of more than 40 percent of the world’s oil, said demand for its crude will fall 4.2 percent this year as the deepening recession reduces spending on fuels. Consumption of OPEC’s crude will shrink 1.4 million barrels a day to 29.5 million barrels a day, according to a monthly report from the producer group today. That level of demand is 720,000 barrels less than it predicted last month. OPEC also shaved its world oil demand estimate for 2009 to 85.66 million barrels a day.

- A group led by Paul Volcker, an adviser to President-elect Barack Obama, called for a regulatory crackdown that would curtail risk-taking by systemically important financial institutions and limit their share of deposits.

- Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair said today said she would be “very surprised” if the government took over any large U.S. banks. “I’d be very surprised if that happened,” Bair told reporters in New York, responding to a question about whether the agency would have to nationalize any large banks.

- President-elect Barack Obama’s administration will use $50 billion to $100 billion in financial-rescue funds to ease the mortgage-foreclosure crisis, his top economic adviser said.

- Attorney General-designate Eric Holder called waterboarding a form of illegal torture and promised to restore the credibility of a Justice Department he described as “badly shaken” by “improper political interference.” At Senate confirmation hearings, Holder signaled that President-elect Barack Obama will suspend military tribunals used to try suspected war criminals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The tribunals must be “substantially revamped” to provide defendants with more due process and ensure fair treatment for suspects, he said. Holder also pledged to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he would “protect the American people from terrorism” while adhering to “the letter and the spirit of the Constitution.”

Wall Street Journal:

- International Business Machines Corp.(IBM) said it plans to open a new remote computer-services center in Dubuque, Iowa, that will employ up to 1,300 people by the end of 2010. IBM, which has been criticized in the past for moving jobs to India and other offshore locations, said the Dubuque site would be its biggest new U.S. facility in 10 years.

CNBC.com:
- President-elect Barack Obama should cut all taxes on savings by the US middle class to help recharge the investment pool, former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said.

USA Today:

- Tired of forms? IRS expands free online filing program.

LA Times:

- After buying Washington Mutual Bank last fall in a government-backed deal, JPMorgan Chase & Co.(JPM) intends to discard the giant thrift's brand name in the spring and to add branches in California this year despite the ailing economy. New York-based JPMorgan, which currently has no retail presence in California, will rebrand the 708 WaMu branches in California with Chase's octagonal blue logo on March 30, JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Fox Business:

- Bank of America (BAC) will receive $15 billion in additional bailout money from the U.S. government to help complete its merger with Merrill Lynch, a source told FOX Business on Thursday.

Vedomosti:

- Russia cut its 2009 oil forecast to $40/bbl.

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Etemaad:

- Iran’s former President Mohammad Khatami, said Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government has made mistakes and should acknowledge them. “If current officials want to participate in the coming elections and get the people’s vote it’s to their benefit to admit the path they took was wrong,” Khatami said. The rise of oil prices in past years hasn’t resulted in increased production or decreased poverty, said Khatami, who has indicated he may run himself in the June 12^th race.

BETWEEN THE HEDGES

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