Bull Radar

Style Outperformer:
Small-cap Value (+5.47%)

Sector Outperformers:
Road & Rail (+9.62%), Airlines (+7.15%) and Steel (+7.13%)

Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume:
DB, HBC, CRZO, ARD, MBT, CCI, BBL, CLF, SNP, PCZ, CALM, SOHU, DWSN, KAMN, WYNN, CELG, ASIA, PWRD, APOL, ATLS, CMED, CREE, SCHN, CEDC, OMGI, FOSL, SCHL, SNDA, QSII, ADSK, IXG, UNF, KUB, IIT, PXQ, KMX, SWM, ALV and RZG

Stocks With Unusual Call Option Activity:
1) SYNA 2) STP 3) ICE 4) BEC 5) OI

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Thursday Watch

Late-Night Headlines
Bloomberg:

- Leaders of the most powerful nations meet today amid signs that the world economy is stabilizing after months of freefall. The Group of 20 summit convenes in London as some reports suggest the pace of decline is easing. U.S. durable-goods orders and home sales rose in February, Chinese urban investment surged 26.5 percent in the first two months of the year, and German investor confidence in March reached its highest level since July 2007. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index last month rallied the most in seven years.

- News media comparisons of the current recession to the Great Depression may stoke fear among consumers while misleading them about the depth of the downturn, according to a study by Charles Gascon, research associate with the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank. “Fortunately,” there is a “vast” difference between saying the current downturn is the worst since the 1930s and saying it’s as bad as the Depression, Gascon wrote in the St. Louis Fed’s “Regional Economist” publication. Indicators such as declines in employment, income, spending and stock prices match or exceed those reached in the last six recessions, although they are nowhere near the lows of the 43- month Depression that began in 1929, he wrote.

- Leaders of the Group of 20 nations may agree to regulate large hedge funds and ``avoid competitive devaluations,'' Reuters reported, citing a draft communique. Leaders also may set up a supervisory body to oversee the global financial system and work together to revive economic growth, the news service reported yesterday from London.

- K+S AG, Europe’s largest salt producer, confirmed a report by the Financial Times Deutschland that it is bidding for Dow Chemical Co.’s Morton Salt unit. “We definitely have an interest in the deal, but at this time we have no more information we can provide,” Oliver Morgenthal, spokesman for K+S, said in a telephone interview. “But we can confirm that what Financial Times Deutschland said earlier is correct and that we have come to a certain agreement with Rohm & Haas.”

- Borrowers who were minorities didn’t pay higher interest rates for subprime mortgages and often paid lower ones, according to a New York Federal Reserve Bank study of more than 75,000 adjustable-rate subprime loans. The findings published today appear to contradict earlier private and government research showing minority borrowers and neighborhoods might have been targeted for expensive credit from 2004 to 2006, the peak period for subprime lending. The study merges data on the race, ethnicity and gender of borrowers as reported by lenders under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act with data on mortgage pricing and risk variables such as credit scores as reported by the mortgage research firm First American LoanPerformance. The results “provide no evidence of adverse pricing by race, ethnicity or sex of the borrower” for either the initial interest rate or the rate to which the loan subsequently adjusted, the study said. “If any pricing differential exists, minority borrowers appear to pay slightly lower rates.” The study was conducted by Joseph Tracy, director of research at the New York Fed, Andrew Haughwout, head of microeconomics and regional studies at the New York Fed, and Christopher Mayer, a professor of real estate finance and economics and vice dean of the Columbia University Business School.

- Steel prices this year will be 19 percent lower than its prior estimate because of falling demand from construction companies and carmakers, Morgan Stanley said. Global steel prices will average $502 a metric ton, down from a previous forecast of $619 and below last year’s $854 a ton, the bank said today in a report. Morgan Stanley lowered its forecast for next year by 32 percent to $485 a ton and cut the 2011 prediction by 30 percent to $526 a ton. “Steel markets are starting to look oversupplied as inventories in China, the largest consumer of steel globally, have reached record highs,” the bank said. Prices of hot-rolled coil, an industry benchmark, have more than halved since June to $490 a ton, according to industry publication Metal Bulletin. Global steel demand will shrink by 11 percent this year, double its previous estimate for a 5.5 percent contraction, Morgan Stanley said. Demand in China will decline 5.5 percent, the “first contraction in a decade,” returning usage of the metal to 2005 levels, the bank said.

- Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and AstraZeneca Plc’s proposed new diabetes pill is safe enough for the heart to be allowed on the market, a U.S. panel recommended.

- Junk bonds offered the biggest returns since 2003 as investors bet that yields on the debt will offset defaults amid the deepest global slowdown since the Great Depression. High-yield, high-risk, or junk, bonds returned 5.02 percent in the first quarter, the best performance since the fourth quarter of 2003, according to Merrill Lynch’s U.S. High Yield Master II index.

- Victims of Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme filed a petition to put the fraudster in personal bankruptcy to ensure that all his assets are used to pay them, the victims’ lawyer said. “It’s an important step to ensure that all Madoff assets are brought before the bankruptcy court to be used for victims of this massive fraud,” said Jonathan Landers, a lawyer with Milberg LLP, which represents more than 70 victims, in a phone interview.

- The U.S. Treasury injected $46 billion in emergency funds into government-controlled mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Treasury payout yesterday included a $15.2 billion investment in Fannie’s preferred stock and a $30.8 billion purchase of Freddie’s preferred shares, the companies said in separate filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission today. The companies must pay a minimum dividend of 10 percent.

- The European Central Bank may cut its key interest rate to a record low of 1 percent today, increasing pressure on policy makers to use new tools to fight the worst recession in more than 60 years. ECB officials meeting in Frankfurt will lower the benchmark rate by half a percentage point, according to 49 of 55 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Such a reduction would probably mark the end of the ECB’s current round of rate reductions, a separate survey shows.

- French authorities rarely investigate or punish cases of police brutality, leading to “de facto impunity” for security forces in the country, Amnesty International said in a report. While victims of alleged police brutality in France come from all ages and groups, the majority are from ethnic minorities or are foreigners, the human rights group said.

- Patients who start antiviral drugs before their immune systems are damaged by the AIDS virus substantially cut their risk of death, according to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

- The yen fell against the euro as Asian stocks gained on optimism the worst of the global recession is ending, spurring investors to increase purchases of higher-yielding assets. The euro rose versus the dollar on speculation European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet will signal the bank will refrain from cutting interest rates further after lowering them later today. New Zealand’s dollar may decline against the greenback after Finance Minister Bill English said a stronger currency would make it difficult for the nation to snap out of its worst slump in more than three decades. “Asian and Japanese stocks are rising, reflecting an improvement in risk appetite,” said Hideki Amikura, deputy general manager of foreign exchange in Tokyo at Nomura Trust and Banking Co., a unit of Japan’s largest brokerage. “This is leading to selling of the yen.”

Wall Street Journal:

- "Don't think we're not keeping score, brother." That's what President Barack Obama said to Rep. Peter DeFazio in a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic Caucus last week, according to the Associated Press. A few weeks ago, Mr. DeFazio voted against the administration's stimulus bill. The comment from Mr. Obama was a presidential rebuke and part of a new, hard-nosed push by the White House to pressure Congress to adopt the president's budget. He has mobilized outside groups and enlisted forces still in place from the Obama campaign.

- Navigation systems provider TomTom NV has signed a deal with TrafficCast International Inc. to provide real-time information about traffic, weather patterns and the cheapest nearby gasoline to TomTom's first wireless navigation device. TomTom, which is based in Amsterdam and already offers wireless devices in the European market, is seeking to expand its U.S. presence with the Go 740 Live device, its first traffic device connected to U.S. wireless networks. Because it has a two-way wireless connection, the device will also send anonymous information about the subscriber's location and speed to supplement other sources of road and weather information.

- Network Hard Disk by Western Digital(WDC) Offers Easy Backup.

- Here's the match-up. In the right corner we have Omar al-Bashir, for 20 years the Islamist dictator of Sudan and the man most responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of Darfuris. In the left corner we have six former Bush Administration officials who were given the task after September 11 of formulating America's response to the atrocities. Who do you think is in the greatest legal jeopardy?

MarketWatch.com:
- The U.S. markets reversed sharply last month, spiking 25% from the March trough to peak. And following a run of this magnitude, a consolidation phase is in order. Yet as long as the pullbacks aren't too aggressive, the sector rotation underlying the March recovery was constructive, and very well may lay the groundwork for further gains.

- Emerging Europe will suffer its biggest fall in real gross domestic product since the collapse of communism in the early 1990s, underlining the severity of the trade and financial shocks that have hit the region, Fitch Ratings said in a new report on Wednesday. GDP growth is likely to contract by 3.1% this year in Emerging Europe, according to the ratings agency. That would be a severe recession after growth of 4% in 2008 and an average of 6.8% in the five years to 2007. Fitch expects only a modest recovery of 1.4% in 2010, which would be "insufficient to prevent further rises in unemployment and pressure on public finances."

- Following on the furor over multimillion-dollar bonuses paid to traders at American International Group, the House approved legislation Wednesday that would limit compensation for executives and employees at financial institutions receiving money from the government's $700 billion financial bailout package.

CNBC.com:
- Gartman thinks that we’re building so few houses right now (400,000 new units in a year) that “we’re going to have a shortage of housing in the not too distance future and I want to own the things that go into building.” You read it here. Dennis Gartman foresees a housing shortage!

- U.S. Marshals on Wednesday seized a $9.4 million mansion in Florida belonging to disgraced Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff and his wife after earlier confiscating two of the couple's leisure boats.

NY Times:

- Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that.

Politico:

- For the second time in less than a week, a Democratic leader is calling on liberal groups to back off in their efforts to target moderate Democrats who have been skeptical of President Barack Obama's ambitious budget. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen, in a Wednesday afternoon news conference, said that a wide range of attack ads by groups like MoveOn.org could hurt potentially vulnerable Democrats in their 2010 races. “What I’ve been warning people very clearly is, beware of forming a circular firing squad,” Van Hollen said. “We believe people should be focusing their efforts on expanding the Democratic majority, and that should be their singular focus." In recent weeks, MoveOn.org and labor-backed Americans United for Change have launched ad campaigns targeting moderate Democrats like Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana to back Obama’s budget.

Chicago Tribune:

- Sending text messages, downloading ring tones and surfing the Web while driving would be banned under legislation the House approved today as lawmakers decried what they said was a growing epidemic of fatal accidents caused by distracted driving. "I don't want to go to another funeral and have a mother, a brother, a father, a sister, a grandmother or a child look at me and tell about one of their loved ones has died because they thought they could get away with texting a message," said Rep. Tom Holbrook (D-Belleville).

Forbes.com:

- 10 Most Heavily Taxed Stares.

Reuters:

- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday he would consider forcing out chief executives of banks that receive government bailouts if they were not managing their businesses properly. In an interview with CBS, Geithner said economic recovery depends on a financial system that effectively provides credit, and the government would hold companies receiving public aid accountable. When asked whether he left open the option to pressure a bank CEO to resign, Geithner responded, "Of course. Of course."

- AT&T Inc (T) is looking into offering a new range of more flexible data service fees to encourage more consumers to use its wireless network to connect electronics devices to the Internet, according to a top executive for the service provider.

- The U.S. audit watchdog will evaluate final mark-to-market rule changes to determine if it also needs to issue new guidance to auditors, a Public Company Accounting Oversight Board spokeswoman said Wednesday. The Financial Accounting Standards Board, which sets U.S. accounting rules, is meeting on Thursday to fine tune proposals that will give banks more flexibility in valuing toxic assets in the current illiquid markets.

- The U.S. economy is showing the first signs in months that it could be getting ready to crawl out of a long recession, the top economist at Goldman Sachs GS.N said on Wednesday. Jim O'Neill, Goldman's head of global economic research, said among key leading indicators, the measure of "new orders less inventories," derived from the Institute for Supply Management March factory report was a bright light. That data point is included in Goldman's monthly "Global Leading Indicators" index. At +9 in March, against -0.7 in February, it was "the best sign for a few months that the severity of the U.S. recession might be easing," O'Neill said while giving a presentation to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. China last month proposed a sweeping overhaul in the global monetary system, suggesting the U.S. dollar could eventually be replaced as the world's main reserve currency by the IMF's Special Drawing Right. O'Neill, acknowledged as one of the world's top currency analysts, said such a "radical shift in the role of the dollar" was not "close." China's idea will be most interesting if it is paired with more flexibility in the rate of its currency, the renminbi, O'Neill said. "If it isn't, it's not of much use at all."

Financial Times:
- The number of hedge funds managing more than $1bn fell by more than 40 per cent globally last year, according to a survey that reveals the extent of the damage inflicted on the world's largest funds by volatile markets and tight funding conditions. The annual hedge fund database survey from PerTrac Financial Solutions, to be published today, says about 200 funds held assets in excess of $1bn, down from 350 in the previous year's survey. The survey shows a 1.3 per cent drop since last year in the number of hedge funds and funds of hedge funds in the 11 databases that make up the survey's sample. It found a total of about 22,350 distinct investment vehicles among those databases at the end of last year. Total assets stood at $1,330bn, down more than a third from the year before. Approximately 15,150 single-manager hedge funds and 7,200 funds of hedge funds were identified. This compares with 15,250 single-manager hedge funds and 7,400 funds of hedge funds in the previous study. "While the total number of funds showed a perhaps surprisingly small decrease, reported assets among single-manager hedge funds declined a marked 36.1 per cent between year-end 2007 and 2008, down to $1,330bn."

- Foreign investors in Chinese banks will in future be forced to accept a lock-up period of at least five years, China’s top banking regulator said, after a series of share sales by US and European financial institutions. In recent months, companies such as Bank of America, UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland have sold down all or part of their stakes in China’s largest state-owned banks immediately after lock-up periods of three years expired. BofA, RBS, Goldman Sachs, Germany’s Allianz, Singapore’s Temasek and others bought shares in China Construction Bank, Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China with promises they would help to improve the Chinese banks’ risk management and managerial capabilities. But apart from a few minor initiatives, the partnerships largely failed to produce tangible results and when three-year lock-up periods started to expire in recent months most of these “strategic” investors sold all or part of their holdings at a profit at a time when most global banking institutions were in dire need of fresh capital.

- Europe’s leaders are not doing enough to convince voters of the need to win the war in Afghanistan, Robert Gates, US defence secretary, has warned on the eve of Friday’s Nato summit. “I have not seen the kind of effort that I would have hoped for in terms of European governments trying to persuade their people that attacks such as those that took place in Madrid and London . . . emanated from the Afghan-Pakistani border area,” Mr Gates said in an interview with the Financial Times. “The British do a good job of making that case to their people, but on the Continent I have not seen that kind of effort,” he said. “This problem out there is as big a threat to the Europeans as it is to us.”

DNA:

- Rating downgrades, defaults soar in India as slowdown pinches.

Livemint.com:

- Bangalore: In a telling indicator of slowing international trade, goods handled at India’s busiest container port fell as much as 11% in the fiscal year ended 31 March, compared with the preceding fiscal. The state-owned Jawaharlal Nehru Port at Nava Sheva near Mumbai, which accounts for almost 60% of the container cargo traffic in India, handled 3.95 million standard containers in fiscal 2009, a port official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. The port handled 4.06 million standard containers in the year ended March 2008.

Late Buy/Sell Recommendations

CSFB:

- Rated (GS) and (BX) Outperform.

Night Trading
Asian Indices are +1.0% to +3.50% on average.
S&P 500 futures +1.46%.
NASDAQ 100 futures +1.26%.

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Earnings of Note
Company/EPS Estimate
- (SCHN)/.16

- (KMX)/.02

- (MON)/2.07

- (MU)/-.62

- (MDRX)/.13

- (GPN)/.42

- (AYI)/.54

Economic Releases

8:30 am EST

- Initial Jobless Claims for last week are estimated to fall to 650K versus 652K the prior week.

- Continuing Claims are estimated to rise to 5590K versus 5560K prior.

10:00 am EST

- Factory Orders for February are estimated to rise 1.5% versus a 1.9% decline in January.

Upcoming Splits
- None of note

Other Potential Market Movers
- The Fed’s Hoenig speaking, weekly EIA natural gas inventory report, (NYX) shareholders meeting, (ADSK) investor day and the (KBH) shareholders meeting could also impact trading today.

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are sharply higher, boosted by financial and technology stocks in the region. I expect US equities to open modestly higher and to build on gains into the afternoon, finishing higher. The Portfolio is 100% net long heading into the day.

Stocks Finish Higher, Boosted by Technology, Airline and Commodity Shares

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In Play

Stocks Rising into Final Hour on Less Economic Fear, Diminishing Financial Sector Pessimism, Short-Covering, Lower Energy Prices

BOTTOM LINE: The Portfolio is higher into the final hour on gains in my Technology longs, Financial longs and Retail longs. I added to my (DISCA) long and took profits in another trading long today, thus leaving the Portfolio 100% net long. The tone of the market is positive as the advance/decline line is slightly higher, most sectors are rising and volume is above average. Investor anxiety is above average. Today’s overall market action is neutral. The VIX is falling 2.83% and is very high at 42.85. The ISE Sentiment Index is around average at 152.0 and the total put/call is slightly above average at .91. Finally, the NYSE Arms has been running low most of the day, hitting .49 at its intraday trough, and is currently .67. The Euro Financial Sector Credit Default Swap Index is rising 3.42% today to 181.33 basis points. This index is down from its record March 10th high of 208.75. The North American Investment Grade Credit Default Swap Index is rising 4.00% to 202.97 basis points. This index is still below its Dec. 5^th record high of 285.99. The TED spread is falling 2.74% to 96 basis points. The TED spread is now down 367 basis points since its all-time high of 463 basis points on October 10th. The 2-year swap spread is rising 2.68% to 57.50 basis points. The Libor-OIS spread is falling .52% to 96 basis points. The 10-year TIPS spread, a good gauge of inflation expectations, is rising 3 basis points to 1.34%, which is down 130 basis points since July 7th. The 10-year TIPS spread bottomed at .65% in October 1998 during the Asian financial crisis and at 1.24% in October 2001 during the technology bubble-bursting meltdown. The 3-month T-Bill is yielding .21%, which is up 1 basis point today. It is a good sign that (XLF)/(IYR) are maintaining yesterday’s gains. It is also a big positive that the TED spread continues to trend lower. The ongoing drop in mortgage rates remains a huge positive, as well. The MS Cyclical Index is substantially outperforming the broad market today, rising 3.5%. Nikkei futures indicate an +209 open in Japan and DAX futures indicate an +20 open in Germany tomorrow. I expect US stocks to trade modestly higher into the close from current levels on short-covering, less economic fear, diminishing financial sector pessimism and lower energy prices.

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

- Mortgage applications in the U.S. rose for a fourth consecutive week as a decline in borrowing costs prompted more refinancing. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s index of applications to purchase a home or refinance a loan rose 3 percent to 1,194.4 in the week ended March 27 from 1,159.4 the prior week. The group’s refinancing gauge gained 3.7 percent, following a 41 percent gain the prior week, and its purchase index rose 0.1 percent. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate loan fell to 4.61 percent, the lowest level since the mortgage bankers group began records in 1990, from 4.63 percent the prior week.

- Bonds backed by mortgages on everything from California homes to New York skyscrapers are rallying on speculation that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s latest effort to bolster prices will succeed and potentially spur banks to boost lending. Top-rated commercial-mortgage bonds rose 6.2 percent since March 20 to almost 80 cents on the dollar on average, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. indexes. The most-senior class of benchmark 2005 securities backed by fixed-rate Alt-A home loans, or those ranked between prime and subprime, increased about 12 percent to about 54 cents, according to Deutsche Bank AG. “If we can bring a new buyer in, accepting lower yields due to the magic of leverage, maybe prices can close the gap that now exists” between what investors are willing to pay and the price banks are willing to sell at, said Dan Nigro, who helps oversee $2.5 billion of home-loan bonds as a money manager at New York-based Dynamic Credit Partners LLC.

- The number of Americans signing contracts to buy previously owned homes unexpectedly rose in February, reinforcing signs that the housing slump in its fourth year may be near a bottom. The index of signed purchase agreements, or pending home resales, gained 2.1 percent to 82.1, from 80.4 in January, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. “We are seeing a bottom in housing sales,” David Wyss, chief economist with Standard & Poor’s in New York, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “People are coming in as bargain hunters. This is a good time to be buying a house.”

- German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy stepped up their calls on fellow leaders from the Group of 20 nations to agree on tighter regulation of the global financial system. The two leaders, appearing together just hours after President Barack Obama and U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown shared a podium to call for unity, demanded new rules governing hedge funds, steps to control executive pay and new financial “architecture” to ensure no repeat of the global crisis. “Germany and France will insist that our intentions don’t just remain statements but that they become reality,” Merkel told reporters at a joint press briefing with Sarkozy in London today before the start of the G-20 summit. “We want results but we don’t want results that have no effect in practice.”

- U.S. regulators accused New York hedge-fund manager Edward T. Stein of running a “classic Ponzi scheme” that moved more than $55 million through accounts while preying on friends and acquaintances. Stein, 59, who manages the Gemini Fund I hedge fund and founded DISP LLC, a firm investing in life settlement policies, has defrauded clients since 1992 and later resorted to stealing their assets, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said in a lawsuit at federal court in Manhattan today.

- Crude oil fell after a government report showed that U.S. oil stockpiles rose to a 15-year high and gasoline supplies unexpectedly increased as the recession curbed fuel demand. Crude-oil inventories climbed 2.84 million barrels to 359.4 million in the week ended March 27, the highest since July 1993, the Energy Department said today. “We will need to see demand come back before there is any sustained rally in this market,” said Kyle Cooper, an analyst at energy consultant IAF Advisors in Houston. “At this point demand is still falling.” “The tanks are brimming,” said Adam Sieminski, the chief energy economist at Deutsche Bank AG in Washington. “The numbers today show there’s plenty of supply.” Total daily fuel demand averaged over the past four weeks was 18.9 million barrels, down 4.4 percent from a year earlier, the report showed. It was the lowest consumption for a four-week period since October.

- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said there are “encouraging signs” that financial markets are recovering and expressed confidence in the response of global policy makers to the crisis. “You’re seeing encouraging signs of improvement in our markets -- we want to reinforce that,” Geithner said today in a Bloomberg Television interview in London.

- European unemployment increased more than economists expected in February to the highest in almost three years as the recession forced companies across the continent to cut output. The jobless rate in the euro zone rose to 8.5 percent from a revised 8.3 percent in January, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today.

Wall Street Journal:

- President Barack Obama conceded the U.S.'s culpability in events leading to the global economic crisis, but, in his first public appearance at a world economic summit here, was quick to warn that other countries must step up with solutions that don't rely on American consumers.

- Republicans in the House Wednesday pressed a budget plan that would cut taxes and radically overhaul Medicare, offering a stark alternative to blueprints offered by President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies. The plan, drafted by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the top Republican on the Budget Committee, also freezes overall spending on domestic programs passed by Congress each year and repeals most of the spending in Mr. Obama's recently passed economic-stimulus bill.

- Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. and Tickets.com Inc. are launching services to let customers buy tickets directly from their mobile phones, in an ambitious attempt to extend Internet commerce to cellphone screens.

- USA Today President and Publisher Craig Moon announced his sudden retirement Tuesday, leaving the country's largest newspaper with its top two jobs unfilled during perhaps the most difficult stretch in its 27-year history. He also said the newspaper has lost about 100,000 subscribers just from the slowdown in travel.

- The home electricity meter is getting a high-tech makeover, and chip makers stand to benefit. With a shove from the Obama administration's stimulus package, utilities are replacing rusty electricity meters in favor of digital "smart meters" as part of a much broader update of U.S. energy infrastructure. The update of meters alone could represent billions in revenue for chip makers over the next decade, though how quickly utilities will roll out the new products remains unclear. Gartner expects more than 150 million smart meters to be installed world-wide in the next five years, with approximately 50% installed in North America. Between 2007 and 2012, Gartner expects smart meters to create $2 billion in business for semiconductor makers. Over the next decade, however, Texas Instruments Inc. expects much more. Mark Buccini, head of TI's smart grid strategic business development, said smart meters could be a $7.5 billion market for chip makers. When including ancillary products -- such as digital, connected thermostats and other devices -- that number could roughly double. Analog chip companies in particular -- such as TI, Analog Devices Inc., STMicronelectronics NV , Freescale Semiconductor Inc. and others -- will see most of the gains as the market expands. Meanwhile, Intel Corp. and others will likely benefit from the need for more computing power to manage data and electricity infrastructure.

CNBC:

- Job cuts appear to be slowing in the US after businesses slashed payrolls in November through February, John Challenger of Challenger, Gray & Christmas said. “It looks at least for now that the heaviest downsizing has started to pass us,” said Challenger.

- Bidding Wars Over a House? Real Estate Pros See Bottom.

- The U.S. economy will have negative growth for 2009 before it improves slowly in 2010, Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher told CNBC Wednesday. "Obviously we're under duress right now. I expect a gradual lifting of performance, getting less bad as we go through the year, but still I expect negative growth for this year, and improvement for the subsequent year," he said.

Barron’s:
- Home Sales May Have Already Bottomed. The steep declines in home prices along with a 200-basis-points decline in conforming mortgage rates from peak 2008 levels have combined to drive housing affordability to record levels. We thus continue to believe home sales bottomed in January and that housing prices will level out later in 2009.

NY Times:

- The Obama administration’s $500 billion or more proposal to deal with America’s ailing banks has been described by some in the financial markets as a win-win-win proposal. Actually, it is a win-win-lose proposal: the banks win, investors win — and taxpayers lose.

Washington Post:

- The Obama administration will play a key role in reshaping General Motors'(GM) board of directors over the next six months, potentially giving it even greater control in the management of the storied American manufacturer. The president said Monday that "the United States government has no interest in running GM." But in practice it is already exerting tremendous influence over it, a situation that has triggered fierce debate over how much power the government should wield over the companies that it aids. Some critics characterize the White House's removal of Wagoner as a move toward European socialism. "They have opened Pandora's box -- the U.S. government has decided they know better than the private company," said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) "There is no question that this country is moving down a very different and foreign path. We have crossed this threshold: We own this company and we are telling it what to do."

The Detroit News:

- Lynn Allen is busy squirreling away marijuana seeds - at $5 a shot - as he prepares to take advantage of a new state law that will allow seriously or terminally ill patients to legally smoke pot to ease their pain and suffering. The 52-year-old married father of two from Williamston is confined to a wheelchair and unable to work because of a lack of stamina. He is one of an estimated 50,000 Michigan residents who may qualify for medical marijuana use once the state begins accepting applications on Saturday.

Politico:

- Senate Democrats won an early test vote Tuesday in support of climate change legislation, but the partisan tone was ominous for President Barack Obama if he is to really move ahead on this issue while also coping with a weakened economy. The 54-43 roll call came as top Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee unveiled their own ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gases, promote energy efficiency and require the greater use of renewable resources to generate the nation’s electricity. Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) set out a schedule of moving to a full committee markup by mid-May, but the early skirmishes on the Senate floor are telling of the steep road ahead. Not a single Republican joined with Democrats in supporting a relatively innocuous budget amendment giving Senate committees the flexibility to design a cap-and-trade system that does not increase “the overall burden on consumers.”

USA Today:

- Smokers are gasping at higher cigarette and cigar prices as the largest federal tobacco tax increase in history takes effect. "Oh my gosh," Bernardo Torres said Tuesday when a clerk at a CVS Pharmacy in Falls Church, Va., told him the new price, which went up in anticipation of the tax increase. Torres wanted to buy his aunt two cartons of cigarette-size cigars, but he walked away empty-handed after hearing the new price: $134. The tax on little cigars went from 4 cents to $1.01 a pack. "I don't know what to do. This is going to hit her hard," Torres said of his disabled aunt, 64, a heavy smoker who won't quit. The increases, which raise the federal cigarette tax from 39 cents a pack to $1.01, applies to all tobacco products. It comes as more than two dozen states, desperate for revenue in a sunken economy, consider boosting their own tobacco taxes this year.

Reuters:
- Hedge funds may be sniffing around the growing mountain of troubled European companies, picking out those they see as most likely candidates to undertake bond exchanges as a way to make money, according to market talk. Debt-laden Dutch NXP Semiconductors NXP this week managed to cut its debt by about $465 million in an example of a debt-swap restructuring deal that has been more common in the United States up until now. This type of deal is expected to become more prevalent in Europe now, however, as a way to salvage firms with good business models but which have been saddled with too much debt. Hedge funds can make significant returns by buying bonds that have fallen to low double-digit prices in companies where a possible debt exchange would give them a better recovery rate on their investment.

- Taliban insurgents reject a U.S. offer of "honorable reconciliation," a top spokesman said on Wednesday, calling it a "lunatic idea" and saying the only way to end the war was to withdraw foreign troops. If the U.S. plan fails to show results, analysts say, time is on the Taliban side. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an international conference on Afghanistan on Tuesday that those members of the Taliban who abandoned extremism must be granted an "honorable form of reconciliation."

- A top Federal Reserve official said on Wednesday she expects the U.S. economy to stabilize this year and begin to recover in 2010. "I expect economic conditions to stabilize by the end of the year and then begin to recover next year as the fiscal stimulus boosts spending and as we work off excess inventories," Cleveland Fed President Sandra Pianalto said in a speech to a bankers' group.

Financial Times:
- Large US banks like Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo stand to receive a surprise first-quarter earnings boost from Thursday’s expected loosening of controversial accounting rules by the Financial Accounting Standards Board.Wall Street executives and auditors say the accounting watchdog’s likely approval of changes to “mark-to-market” rules could lead to increases of up to 20 per cent in quarterly profits of large commercial banks.

- Anti-capitalist demonstrations spiraled into violence in the City on Wednesday as protesters smashed their way into a bank branch sparking clashes with riot police. Demonstrators broke windows at the RBS branch on Threadneedle Street, threw missiles and smoke bombs and some forced their way inside. The building was daubed with graffiti, including the slogan “thieves”, and activists vandalised the branch, throwing out computers, chairs and office equipment. The flashpoint came after activists had pledged peaceful demonstrations under the G20 Meltdown banner ahead of the summit of world leaders at the ExCeL centre in Docklands today.

Handelszeitung:

- Fiat SpA CEO Sergio Marchionne said Chrysler LLC is “nothing” and the “big three” US carmakers should all go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing an interview. “Thirty-five percent of nothing is still nothing,” Marchionne was quoted as saying, responding to a question as to whether Fiat is planning to take a 35% stake, free of debt, in Chrysler.

Le Monde:

- European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said the US and Europe should be careful not to push spending and deficits too far, citing an interview.

Xinhua:
- International Monetary Fund Managing Directro Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the US dollar hasn’t lost its dominance in the global currency system.

Milliyet:
- Turkish opposition party leaders rejected a request by President Barack Obama to hold joint talks on April 6 during Obama’s visit to Ankara.