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Bloomberg:
- The payroll count in the US may surge by about 800,000 workers in May 2010, the peak month of hiring by the federal government of people to conduct the Census that takes place every 10 years, according to a forecast by economists at BofA Merrill Lynch in NY. The stimulus bill that President Barack Obama signed in February and additional funding requests by the administration that Congress is still considering will provide enough money to temporarily hire about 1.4 million Americans to administer the count, three times as many people as in 2000. The new Census employees will start trickling into the numbers in January and increase in the subsequent four months, boosting federal government payrolls by about 700,000 in May alone, according to a forecast by Lori Helwing, an economist at BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research in NY. Add about 100,000 more for the rest of the economy, and the total change in payrolls may reach about 800,000, she said.
- The cost to protect U.S. corporate bonds from default fell to the lowest in almost two months, trading in a benchmark credit derivatives index shows. Credit-default swaps on the Markit CDX North America Investment-Grade Index, used to speculate on the creditworthiness of 125 companies in the U.S. and Canada or to protect against losses on their debt, fell 1.5 basis point to 96.25 basis points as of 11:48 a.m. in New York, according to broker Phoenix Partners Group. The index declined to its lowest since Oct. 14, according CMA DataVision. “It’s clearly a very positive sign to see that we’re moving out of this stressed period and into one of less government involvement,” Ashish Shah, U.S. credit strategist at Barclays Capital in New York, said in an interview. Contracts on Citigroup tightened 5 basis points to 165 basis points, and those on rival Morgan Stanley narrowed 4 basis points to 122 basis points, according to CMA. Credit default swaps on Deere & Co. narrowed 5 basis points to 56 basis points and those on ConAgra Foods Inc. tightened 6 basis points to 44 basis points.
- Dubai shares rose the most worldwide after Emaar Properties PJSC abandoned plans to combine with real-estate units of Dubai Holding LLC. Nakheel PJSC’s $3.52 billion bond due Dec. 14 posted the best gain in nine months. The DFM General Index advanced 7 percent to 1,640.76 at the close of trading in Dubai, the steepest rise since Feb. 23. The Nakheel bond climbed to 51.6 cents on the dollar at 11:33 a.m. in New York from 45 cents yesterday, also the biggest rally since Feb. 23, Citigroup Inc. prices show. Shares of Emaar, the developer of the world’s tallest tower, jumped 15 percent.
- Crude oil fell below $70 a barrel for the first time in two months as the dollar gained and ample U.S. fuel supplies undermined confidence demand is recovering. Prices have dropped 11 percent in seven days, the longest losing stretch since September 2006, as gasoline supplies climbed to the highest level since April and a stronger dollar curbed investor appetite for commodities. “Prices are still quite high given the fundamentals of the market,” said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts. “We may see a lot of positions cashed in between now and the end of the year. This may lead prices to $60 or even lower.” Gasoline stockpiles climbed 2.25 million barrels to 216.3 million last week, the highest since the week ended April 17, an Energy Department report showed yesterday. Supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, where New York- traded West Texas Intermediate oil is stored, surged 8 percent to 33.4 million barrels, the highest level since August.
- Executives from 12 banks, including Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., will participate in a Dec. 14 White House meeting with President Barack Obama to discuss his proposals to boost small- business lending and overhaul industry regulations, an administration official said. Also represented will be Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Company, Capital One Financial Corp. and American Express Co., said the official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Rounding out the guest list are executives from Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Morgan Stanley, PNC Financial Services Group Inc., U.S. Bancorp and State Street Corp., the official said.
- China, the world’s largest steel consumer, will impose provisional duties on some U.S. and Russian imports following anti-dumping and subsidy investigations, escalating a trade spat started in September. Flat-rolled electrical steel products from steelmakers including AK Steel Holding Corp., OAO Novolipetsk Steel and Allegheny Ludlum Corp., would attract duties of as much as 25 percent from tomorrow, China’s commerce ministry said in two statements on its Web site today.
- Billionaire George Soros asked the richest nations to use $100 billion of foreign-exchange reserves to finance emissions-reducing projects in poor countries. The reserves, from the International Monetary Fund, would go into a “green fund” to make investments in rain forests, agriculture and land use that will lower carbon-dioxide emissions, the financier said today at climate-treaty negotiations involving about 192 nations in Copenhagen. “I have talked to a lot of financial officials and they say this is do-able.” Soros drew support from the leader of the strongest lobby group for developing nations at the Copenhagen talks. “As we sit here today, the IMF is sitting with more than $200 billion of SDRs that are not being used,” Lumumba di- Aping, a Sudanese envoy who speaks for 130 developing nations and China, told reporters. “That money should be made available to solve the problem of climate change.” China and many poor nations are demanding 1 percent of global gross domestic product annually from richer countries to help them adapt to climate change as well as reduce their own greenhouse-gas emissions. There will be objections to using money for financing that was meant for reserves, Soros said, without saying who may support his green-fund proposal.
Wall Street Journal:
- Hedge funds known to scavenge for distressed assets are buying up Nakheel's pending $3.52 billion bond, complicating restructuring talks with creditors. Nakheel, part of Dubai World, has a $3.52 billion Islamic bond due Dec. 14 that could default and trigger a damaging grab by creditors of its parent's assets. Dubai World shocked international investors on Nov. 25 when it asked for a debt standstill of at least six months as it restructures $26 billion of debt. Banks holding Nakheel's debt worry that hedge funds are buying up large portions of the bond to influence a settlement between creditors and the issuer. Lenders would prefer to reach an agreement to restructure Nakheel's debt, arguing that hedge funds want to force the company into default to pick off prized assets, people familiar with the matter told Zawya Dow Jones.
- The Internal Revenue Service will expand a program designed to catch tax cheats that searches for inconsistencies between mortgage payments and income. After prompting from an IRS auditor, the agency will study whether it should make greater use of data on mortgage-interest payments provided to it by banks. The IRS currently uses such data to send notices to non-filers who it believes should have filed a return. The data could also be used to target for audits individuals who don't file tax returns, or who report less income than they paid in mortgage interest, according to a letter released Monday by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration.
- McDonald's Corp.(MCD) will start offering breakfast for a buck with the launch of a national dollar menu in January. The breakfast dollar menu will be backed with advertising across the U.S., and will feature five items:
CNBC:
NYPost:
- Disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been privately talking with friends about a possible comeback, and is considering a run for statewide office next year, several sources told The Post. Less than 18 months after he left Albany in a prostitution scandal, Spitzer has held informal discussions in recent weeks about the possibility of making a bid for state comptroller or the US Senate seat currently held by Kirsten Gillibrand, sources said. The hooker-happy Democrat has also discussed his own halfway-decent poll numbers in recent surveys, which have shown him more popular than Gov. Paterson, whose own numbers have tanked.
Forbes:
- The China Bubble. China’s economy is humming along in high gear, thanks to a fast-growing pile of dicey debt. Such booms tend to end badly. China's economy is the envy of the world. As developed nations struggle to eke out a bit of growth and to get unemployment rates out of double digits, Chinese output gallops ahead at an 8% annual rate. This $4.7 trillion economy, it seems, is the world's dynamo and the prototype for the future. Take a close look, however, and you may come away thinking China resembles nothing so much as Japan shortly before its stock and property markets melted down two decades ago. A speculative frenzy of borrowing and bidding up is at work. If and when prices crash, there will be hell to pay. Signs of the times: government bureaucracies funding themselves by foisting debt on state-owned business enterprises; local governments raising capital by selling land at sky-high prices to corporations they own; and a People's Bank of China lavishing liquidity on the entire system in a way that makes Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke look downright stingy. "It's a Ponzi scheme whose head is the central bank, and it can print money," says Victor Shih, a China expert at Northwestern University.
The Business Insider:
American Thinker:
Detroit News:
Real Clear Politics:
- When Science Becomes a Casualty of Politics.
Politico:
- President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize by laying out a detailed case for war, making the argument that the Afghanistan conflict is necessary to keep America and other nations safe. “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth,” Obama said, repeatedly evoking the notion of a “just war.” “We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”
- If White House officials were peeved at Gallup Poll for its reporting on President Barack Obama’s recent slide to 47 percent approval — and they were — imagine the reaction at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to the survey released Wednesday by Public Policy Polling, which also reported the president’s approval rating at 47 percent, but added this analysis: “Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama’s declining support is that just 50 percent of voters now say they prefer having him as president to George W. Bush, with 44 percent saying they’d rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term, that’s somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama.
CharlotteObserver:
- Bank of America Corp.(BAC) is unlikely to name a new chief executive until next week, because of a stipulation in the securities offering the Charlotte bank used to pay back government aid. According to a securities filing, the bank must wait five business days from Wednesday before any event occurs that would make previous disclosures related to the offering "untrue."
Reuters:
- A supply glut could see uranium prices tumble over coming months, but that will be a buying opportunity as demand from nuclear reactors over coming years is expected to surge. Governments around the world are sizing up nuclear energy -- a means of generating electricity -- as an alternative to expensive fossil fuels such as crude oil and coal, which pollute the atmosphere when burned. Uranium on the spot market could fall to $35 a lb over the next quarter, to its lowest since late 2005 from around $45 a lb currently and $136 a lb in June 2007.
- In its quarterly Flow of Funds report, the U.S. central bank said household net worth -- the difference between the value of assets and liabilities -- rose 5 percent from the second quarter.
- Iraq is offering some of the world's largest remaining untapped oilfields in an auction that will spark fierce competition as the world's largest energy companies fight for rare access to cheap Middle East reserves. Iraq holds the world's third-largest oil reserves. The quality of the reserves -- sitting in huge fields that are cheap to pump -- offers an unparalleled opportunity for oil giants. It is is one of the largest auctions ever held, with around the same reserves on offer as all the oil in OPEC-member Libya.
Financial Times:
- The Dollar’s Fall Reflects a New Role for Reserves by Martin Feldstein. It is prudent for any country with large foreign exchange balances to diversify those funds. It is not surprising then that countries such as China and Korea are diversifying away from dollars, primarily into euros. That diversification cuts demand for the dollar, putting pressure on its value. Market participants should see this as a natural consequence of the shift of foreign exchange balances from liquid dollar emergency reserves to longer-term multi-currency investment portfolios. But even as countries diversify away from exclusive reliance on dollars, the dollar will continue to be the main form of liquid investment for countries around the world. As this portfolio rebalancing comes to an end, demand for dollars will stop falling. At the same time, the dollar’s reduced value will shrink the US trade deficit, reducing the annual supply of dollars. This stronger demand for dollars and reduced supply can end the dollar’s decline. What looks like a crisis of confidence in the dollar as a reserve currency is just part of the evolutionary process that will eventually halt the dollar’s decline.
Style Underperformer:
Small-Cap Value (+.11%)
Sector Underperformers:
Banks (-.74%), Gold (-.44%) and Steel (-.33%)
Stocks Falling on Unusual Volume:
FSYS, CIEN, LIWA, PSYS, FUQI, IT and GEF
Stocks With Unusual Put Option Activity:
1) NBR 2) PTEN 3) ENER 4) GCI 5) LLY
Style Outperformer:
Mid-Cap Growth (+1.02%)
Sector Outperformers:
HMOs (+2.30%), Medical Equipment (+1.62%) and Retail (+1.40%)
Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume:
CMED, OMI, IOC, PXP, SHLD, KTC, SMCI, ORCL, KSS, AA, HES, SU, EGO, KIRK, SFLY, CMED, CRNT, GSIC, FORM, CENX, SHLM, GTIV, RIMM, GPOR, AMSC, PLCE, ENOC, ATHN, WCRX, TROW, MELI, GIL, OXM, ATU, EDU, OMI and PLL
Stocks With Unusual Call Option Activity:
1) ENER 2) ANR 3) WLP 4) MTG 5) DKS
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