Bloomberg:
- The cost of borrowing in dollars in London fell for a sixth day as signs the worst of the global financial turmoil may be over made banks less wary of lending. The London interbank offered rate, or Libor, that banks say they charge each other for three-month loans dropped half a basis point to 1.16 percent today, the British Bankers’ Association said, bringing its decline in the past three weeks to 16 basis points. The Libor-OIS spread, a measure of the reluctance of banks to lend, was little changed at 94 basis points, down from 98 basis points on March 27. Libor dropped every day this week as reports showed U.S. consumer spending stabilized in the first two months of the year and home sales rose in February.
- The U.S. and Germany led declines in the cost of hedging against losses on government debt as investors speculated the Group of 20 policy makers’ summit will help ease the global credit crisis. Credit-default swaps linked to U.S. Treasuries fell 10.5 basis points to 50, the lowest since Dec. 1, according to CMA DataVision prices.
- U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is delivering what he promised five months ago, record- low mortgage rates and a refinancing boom that’s putting cash in consumers’ pockets. Fixed 30-year mortgage rates fell to a record low for the second consecutive week last week, hitting 4.78 percent, Freddie Mac said yesterday in a statement. The rates are the lowest in records dating to 1971, and come after Bernanke told Congress in November that helping the most creditworthy borrowers was essential to reviving the economy. Mortgage applications in the U.S. rose for the fourth straight week last week as a decline in borrowing costs spurred homeowners to refinance, while purchases of new houses unexpectedly rose in February. The Fed’s effort to bring down fixed rates may give consumers as much as $25 billion, said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com. “It certainly gives further fuel to consumer spending,” said Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “It puts more money into circulation.”
- The SEC is considering dictating when traders can bet that stocks will fall, after lawmakers said short-sellers fueled the financial crisis by driving down shares, according to two people familiar with the matter. The agency may offer two proposals April 8th . One option under SEC consideration resembles the uptick rule because it would bar investors from betting against a stock until it sold at a higher price than the preceding trade. The alterative that the SEC’s five commissioners may consider would only allow short sales at prices exceeding the best bid.
- Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair was scheduled to travel to New York today to pitch the government’s latest plan to save banks to potential investors including Lone Star Funds and five state pension funds, people familiar with the matter said. The invitation-only meetings are taking place at the New York office of the FDIC’s financial adviser, Perella Weinberg Partners LP, the people said. Besides Dallas-based Lone Star and Chicago’s Citadel Investment Group LLC, pension-fund managers from New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and California will also participate.
- Emerging-market stocks are poised to fall after a flood of money into developing-nation equity funds surpassed a level that foreshadowed previous market selloffs, according to Bank of America. Investors poured $1 billion into emerging-market funds during the past week, bringing inflows during the past four weeks to 1.7% of their total assets under management, Michael Hartnett, Bank of America’s co-head of international investment strategy, wrote, citing data from EPFR Global. That triggered a sell signal from Hartnett’s fund flows “trading rule,” which says four-week inflows totaling more than 1.5% of assets under management precede market declines.
- Gold prices fell, heading for a second straight weekly loss, on speculation that the U.S. economy will rebound, eroding the precious metal’s appeal as an alternative investment. Silver also declined. U.S. stocks were poised for a fourth straight weekly gain after a government report showed the unemployment rate in March matched estimates by economists. Investment in the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest exchange-traded fund backed by bullion, has been unchanged since March 27.
- The US dollar’s role as a reserve currency won’t be threatened by a nine-fold expansion in the International Monetary Fund’s unit of account, according to UBS AG, ING Groep NV and Citigroup Inc. Group of 20 leaders yesterday gave approval for the agency to raise $250 billion by issuing Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, the artificial currency that the IMF uses to settle accounts among its member nations. It also agreed to put another $500 billion into the IMF’s war chest. “I don’t think that will dent the importance of the dollar,” Wang Tao, head of China research at UBS AG and former IMF economist, said in an interview today. “They are not talking about an expansion in the use of the SDR.”
- President Barack Obama said a launch by North Korea of a satellite-bearing missile would be a “provocative” act that threatens to endanger six-party talks aimed at eliminating nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula. “The response so far from the North Koreans has been not just unhelpful, but has resorted to the sort of language that has led to North Korea’s isolation in the international community for a very long time,” Obama said in Strasbourg, France, today alongside French President Nicolas Sarkozy. North Korea’s plan to launch a missile carrying a communications satellite this month has met strong condemnation by world leaders, who point to evidence suggesting the secretive state is instead planning to test a Taepodong-2 missile capable of reaching Alaska. A launch would violate a United Nations resolution, the Obama administration and allies have said.
- A bill to raise taxes on executives at hedge funds and private-equity and venture-capital firms was introduced today in the U.S. House as Democrats renewed a fight to close what they call an unfair tax loophole. Representative Sander Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said his legislation would tax carried interest, the portion of profits that managers take as compensation, as ordinary income rather than as capital gains. That would boost the tax rate to as high as 35 percent from as low as 15 percent.
Wall Street Journal:
- While the “news” that Google(GOOG) was in “late-stage” talks to acquire Twitter, which TechCrunch reported last night, certainly sounds exciting, it isn’t accurate in any way, according to a number of sources BoomTown spoke to close to the situation. In fact, Twitter and Google have simply been engaged in “some product-related discussions,” according to one source, around real-time search and the search giant better crawling the microblogging service.
- In a compensation program that has drawn angry protests from politicians, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac expect to pay about $210 million in retention bonuses to 7,600 employees over 18 months, according to a letter from the mortgage companies' regulator to Sen. Charles Grassley. The maximum retention bonus for any individual executive under the plan will total $1.5 million during the 18 months ending in early 2010, according to the letter, which provides previously undisclosed details about the bonuses.
- U.S. President Barack Obama took his new strategy for the war in Afghanistan on Friday to North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders reluctant to commit significant new forces. The 28-nation alliance is more eager to repair relations with a resurgent Russia, whose president cautioned NATO against further eastward expansion in a warning ahead of the alliance's 60th anniversary summit.
- The House and Senate are preparing to pass President Barack Obama's radical budget blueprint, with only minor modifications, by using (abusing would be more accurate) the budget "reconciliation" process. This process circumvents the Senate's normal rules requiring 60 votes to prevent a filibuster. Reconciliation was created by Congress in the mid-1970s to enforce deficit reduction, the opposite of what the president and his party are aiming for. The immense increase in nondefense spending and taxes, and the tripling of the national debt in Mr. Obama's budget, have been the subject of considerable scrutiny since it was announced.
MarketWatch:
Cable-television bigwigs believe wireless technology will play a bigger role in their future. They just aren't sure exactly how.
Chicago Tribune:
- White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was the target of attempted extortion by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, according to a source and a federal indictment filed Thursday alleging a state grant for a Portage Park neighborhood school was used as bait for a fundraising demand. Emanuel, a confidant to both Blagojevich and President Barack Obama, is described by prosecutors as "Congressman A," an identity confirmed by a White House aide.
Daily Record:
- With signs that the New Jersey housing market is beginning to emerge from a long slump, more young families are being noticed at homebuying seminars offered by the Housing Partnership, Executive Director Susan Zellman said. With signs that the housing market is beginning to emerge from a long slump, more young families are being noticed at homebuying seminars offered by the Housing Partnership, Executive Director Susan Zellman said. Adding to the interest, the association said, is the new $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers available through Dec. 1.
Digitimes:
- OmniVision(OVTI) has received 3.2-megapixel CMOS image sensor (CIS) orders for Apple's next-generation iPhone, according to market sources. The company is also said to have secured 5-megapixel CIS orders for another Apple product expected to be launched later in the year. OmniVision beat out STMicroelectronics and Aptina Imaging for the Apple orders, the sources added.
Platts:
- The glut of liquefied natural gas cargoes expected to head to the US this
coming summer could leave even relatively ample US storage facilities unable
to handle the volumes, the head of Cheniere Energy warned Thursday. In a conference call with analysts moderated by Teri Viswanath, director of commodity research for Credit Suisse, Cheniere CEO Charif Souki said that between 2 Bcf/d and 2.5 Bcf/d of additional LNG will be available to the Atlantic Basin market in 2009 as a result of the reduction in global demand. Construction delays at liquefaction facilities meant that "2008 was less promising than we had expected" in terms of supply growth, Souki said. But in 2009, the completion of several liquefaction projects and the resolution of force majeure situations at a number of existing liquefaction facilities will likely bring significant amounts of LNG onto the global market -- even as the global economic crisis is stifling gas demand worldwide. "Whether we have room for it or not, the LNG is going to try to come to the United States," Souki said. But since US gas production has not yet fallen back and storage inventories are unusually high, "we might not be able to accommodate the LNG that comes." He surmised that US storage facilities could reach "full" levels as early as August or September 2009. Should that happen, LNG tankers will either be turned away from the US, or gas prices will plummet as those cargoes displace domestic gas plays, which "are not rational" below a price of about $4/MMBtu.
Detroit Free Press:
- General Motors(GM) is seeking $2.6 billion in low-interest government loans to develop two spin-offs of the electric-drive Chevrolet Volt and a third hybrid vehicle, according to new government filings. This week's application to the U.S. Department of Energy is GM's third request to the so-called Section 136 loan program set up last year to help automakers develop advanced-technology vehicles. In total, GM has asked for $10.3 billion under the program. The fund, aimed at retooling factories for more fuel-efficient vehicles, was set up in 2008 with $25 billion, and it has already received requests for more money than originally set aside. This funding request is different from the one that provided GM with $13.4 billion in government loans to stay afloat.
USAToday:
- More, more, more. That's the message President Obama will take to this weekend's NATO summit in France, where the need for the United States' allies to contribute more troops, funds and military training programs in Afghanistan will overshadow celebrations of the security organization's 60th anniversary. In an interview with USA TODAY on Thursday, the top coalition commander in Afghanistan called on NATO to expand its role there to include training Afghanistan's nascent police force, which has lagged its army in training and effectiveness. "I think if NATO and other military contributors to this campaign don't put an effort into working with the police the same as we put into working with the (Afghan) army, then I think we're short-sighted in our approach here," U.S. Gen. David McKiernan said in Kabul.
Financial Times:
US officials are considering whether to accept Iran’s pursuit of uranium enrichment, which has been outlawed by the United Nations and remains at the heart of fears that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability. As part of a policy review commissioned by President Barack Obama, diplomats are discussing whether the US will eventually have to accept Iran’s insistence on carrying out the process, which can produce both nuclear fuel and weapons- grade material. “There is a growing recognition in [Washington] that the zero [enrichment] solution, though still favored, simply is unfeasible,” says Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council. On Friday, Mr Obama summarized the US message to Iran as, “Don’t develop a nuclear weapon” – a form of words that would not rule out a deal accepting Iranian enrichment. Mr Bush was much more specific in calling Iran to halt enrichment. A series of UN Security Council resolutions since 2006 has forbidden Iran from enriching uranium, with the European Union, Russia and China backing US calls for Tehran to halt the process. But Iran has sped up its program during that time and has installed more than 5,500 centrifuges to enrich uranium and has amassed a stockpile of more than 1,000kg of low-enriched uranium – enough, if it were enriched to higher levels, to produce fissile material for one bomb. “Across the political spectrum in Iran, enrichment as a right has become a non-negotiable position,” Mr Parsi said
RIA Novosti:
- Russia’s gross domestic product contracted 7% in the first quarter of 2009, citing Economy Minister Elvira Nabiullina. That compares with record 8.5% growth in the same period last year.
Baltic News Service:
- Estonian new car registrations fell 65% in March from a year earlier, citing data from the Estonian motor vehicle registration center said.
Caijing:
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