Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
- Home prices are likely to remain around current levels rather than drop, according to Morgan Stanley economists.
- US Treasuries are rising, pushing the benchmark 10-year note’s yield to a five-week low.
- Motorola’s(MOT) biggest shareholders increased their stakes in recent months, signaling confidence in a company that is grappling with the exit of its mobile-phone unit head and demands by activist Carl Icahn.
- Goldcorp. Inc.(GG), the world’s third-largest gold producer by market value, said gold production in 2007 will rise 54% to 2.6 million ounces.

Wall Street Journal:
- Nymex Holdings(NMX), which operates the NY Merc, palns a share sale that might raise more than $1 billion for its owners.
- A growing number of US doctors are using computer software and getting rid of nurses, receptionists and waiting rooms to curtail costs to maintain basic traditional practices on their own.
- Global terrorism has added legal tactics to its armory to gain an edge in national and international courts and a moral advantage over opponents, David Rivkin and Lee Casey wrote. An al-Qaeda training manual instructs detained fighters to claim torture or abuse, a tactic used by detainees at Guantanamo Bay to generate demands from European and other officials to close the camp and release the inmates. So-called “lawfare” is also being used to discredit the legality of US military action and undermine domestic support for the war on terror, Rivkin and Casey wrote.
- Vietnam’s stock market index rose 145% in 2006 and it’s up another 44% so far this year, bringing the total market value of quoted companies in the Southeast Asian country to more than $15 billion. That’s still not much, but it’s been enough to attract the attention of a swarm of hedge funds. The funds have been buying into Vietnam-oriented closed-end funds, pushing some premiums above 50%. Vietnam’s stock boom is, however, showing signs of a bubble and foreign purchases of stocks in Vietnam last month exceeded those in Taiwan.
- Some mutual fund companies are hunting for leveraged buyout candidates, a practice which lets small investors profit from the private-equity boom.

NY Times:
- Air conditioners in India and southern China, which use refrigerants banned in Europe and being phased out in the US, are causing the ozone hole to remain larger than it otherwise would.

Washington Post:
- US Democrats want to ask the Senate next week to repeal the 2002 resolution authorizing the ousting of dictator Saddam Hussein and use of force in Iraq.
- Former US President Bill Clinton got paid $40 million in speaking fees during the past six years, citing financial disclosure statements.

NY Daily News:
- Crime in NYC has declined 10% this month, which may make it the safest February since monthly tracking began 13 years ago, citing Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Times-Picayune:
- Marathon Oil(MRO) announced the contractors who will expand its Garyville, Louisiana, refinery’s capacity by 180,000 barrels a day to 425,000 barrels a day.