Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

- Credit-default swaps on sovereign debt rose on investor concern that Greece may be unable to borrow unless it gets a pledge of financial support from the European Union. Greece needs to raise 53 billion euros ($72 billion) this year and faces about 16 billion euros of bond redemptions by May as it struggles to narrow a budget deficit that’s more than four times the EU limit. A political ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday that “not a single euro” should go to help Greece. “It feels a bit like we are in the Twilight Zone,” Jim Reid, head of fundamental strategy at Deutsche Bank AG in London, wrote in a note to investors. “We are left with a stand-off that probably has to be resolved before Greece next comes to the market.” Credit-default swaps on Greek government debt climbed 10.5 basis points to 361.5, according to CMA DataVision prices at 10 a.m. in London. Contracts on Portugal increased 6 basis points to 180 and Spain rose 2 to 134, CMA prices show.

- Investors are demanding more yield to purchase bonds offered by Dubai and its state-controlled companies, suggesting they aren’t convinced oil-rich Abu Dhabi will bail out the emirate should the need arise. The extra yield investors demand to hold Dubai’s five-year, fixed-rate bonds over the Abu Dhabi equivalents widened to 692 basis points, the most since April 29. It has doubled since a Jan. 7 low for 2010.

- Crude oil’s rally is set to fail within the next two weeks as prices first rise to $80 a barrel and then plunge toward their 55-week moving average around $65, according to technical analysis by Commerzbank AG.

- President Barack Obama greeted the Dalai Lama in a private White House meeting today on notice that the talks will anger China’s leadership and add tension to an already strained relationship.

- A “golden cross” of two moving price averages of the Dollar Index for the first time in 18 months indicates that the really in the greenback may accelerate, Auerbach Grayson & Co. and Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. say. The index may rise to 84.0, the highest level since May, in three months as the 50-day moving average crossed above the 200-day mean, said Richard Ross, a global technical strategist at Auerbach in NY. It’s a “good sign” for medium-term investors in addition to the dollar’s long-term bullish trend, said Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers in NY. “This is important for all fund managers as they may want to leave more money at home this year.”

- The difference in yield between Treasury 2- and 10-year notes, known as the yield curve, steepened to a record as reports showed that Philadelphia region manufacturing and U.S. leading indicators rose.

- Iran boosted its uranium stockpile and enriched the heavy metal used for nuclear power and atomic bombs to levels needed to fuel a Tehran research reactor, United Nations inspectors said today in a restricted report. Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium grew to 2,065 kilograms (4,553 pounds) from 1,700 kilograms in November, the International Atomic Energy Agency said today in a report obtained by Bloomberg News. Iran produced uranium enriched to 19.8 percent, said the report.

Wall Street Journal:

- WSJ Poll Shows China Growth Slowed Ahead of Government Tightening. Most private analysts who study China think its economic recovery lost some momentum in the fourth quarter of 2009, a new poll by The Wall Street Journal shows. The finding runs counter to official statistics that indicate a recent acceleration in growth, and highlights the conflicting signals China’s economy is sending at a time when the leadership is trying to contain potential bubbles without derailing the expansion.

- Hackers in Europe and China successfully broke into computers at nearly 2,500 companies and government agencies over the last 18 months in a coordinated global attack that exposed vast amounts of personal and corporate secrets to theft, according to a computer-security company that discovered the breach.

- The market for sovereign credit default swaps needs to be regulated more firmly, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said Thursday, adding that speculation is partly to blame for the euro zone's current debt troubles. Ms. Lagarde's statement, which echoes comments she made in a closed-door hearing Wednesday at the French National Assembly, underscores the European Union's anxiety about lightly regulated financial instruments and the firms that trade them. Spreads on sovereign credit default swaps - which provide a kind of insurance against government default - recently have faced scrutiny in the euro zone. That's because burgeoning budget deficits are fueling fears that Greece or another country could wipe out its creditors. A widening in a country's spreads can add to those fears, to the chagrin of government officials who say that the widening comes from purely speculative bets in a volatile market, rather than the underlying soundness of a country's finances.

CNBC:

- The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for unemployment insurance unexpectedly surged last week, while producer prices increased sharply in January, raising potential hurdles for the economic recovery. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 31,000 to 473,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That compared to market expectations for 430,000.

- At long last I have found my new hero. He is rotund and profound, graced with a hint of "Sopranos" and a hefty dose of obstinate common sense. He is Chris Christie, the newly elected governor of New Jersey, and this morning on CNBC’s "Squawkbox" he his first national TV appearance since his Obama-smiting election—and Christie crushed it.

FoxNews:

- Exclusive: Obama Eyes Western Land for National Monuments, Angering Some. More than a dozen pristine landscapes, wildlife habitats and scenic rivers in 11 Western states, some larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined, are under consideration by the Obama administration to become America's newest National Monuments -- a decision the administration can make unilaterally without local input or congressional approval.

The Business Insider:

- Kindle Finally Comes To The BlackBerry.

- The Manifesto Of Austin Texas Crash Pilot Joseph Andrew Stack. Check out the anti-big brother rant on EmbeddedArt.com that's almost certainly from the pilot of the crash. The manifesto is dated today, and it even anticipated his death.

- Last year the story was all about diversifying away from the dollar. China engaged in a major project to diversify reserves, and many banks started purchasing euros. The conventional wisdom of course was that the dollar would be toast. But as Dennis Gartman points out in his latest letter, suddenly all these central banks are starting to doubt that decision, because if there's one currency in the world that looks like it could collapse right now, it's unquestionably the euro.

zerohedge:

- Taibbi: “Goldman Raped The Taxpayer, And Raped Their Clients” Nothing really new, just the most searing and comprehensive evisceration of the vampire squid's "profitability tactics" to date, packaged in a box of exquisite semantic brilliance that only Matt Taibbi can provide, and comprehensible enough for anyone to understand. Taibbi points out: "the fact that we haven't done much of anything to change the rules and behavior of Wall Street shows that we still don't get it. Instituting a bailout policy that stressed recapitalizing bad banks was like the addict coming back to the con man to get his lost money back. Ask yourself how well that ever works out. And then get ready for the reload." It is time to break up the market monopolizing force known as Goldman Sachs. Published in Rolling Stone magazine

LA Times:

- Federal Government Must Help California.

Politico:

- Four more Democratic senators have signed on to a letter asking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring the public option back up for a vote. Today, Sens. Al Franken, Pat Leahy, John Kerry and Sheldon Whitehouse signed on to the letter sent to Reid yesterday. The original signers were Sens. Michael Bennet, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jeff Merkley and Sherrod Brown. With Democrats pursuing a reconciliation strategy that requires only 51 votes to pass a bill, progressive groups have pushed Democrats to reintroduce the public option in the debate after it failed to get 60 votes in the Senate.

- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is getting her hands dirty. The Pelosi offensive is part of a coordinated effort between the White House, the Democratic National Committee and congressional Democrats, who say they’re tired of being on the defensive on the stimulus. Pelosi’s office will follow up in the coming days by releasing reports from economists, will put forward experts in various sectors to talk about jobs created, and will continue to show which Republican districts they believe benefited from the stimulus. “We’re coordinating on all cylinders now — we’re not going to let up,” a Democratic aide said.

IBD:

- Obama Takes Deficits To New Frontier.

AP:

- Top U.N. climate change official Yvo de Boer told The Associated Press Thursday that he was resigning after nearly four years, a period when governments struggled without success to agree on a new global warming deal. His departure takes effect July 1, five months before 193 nations are due to reconvene in Mexico for another attempt to reach a binding worldwide accord on controlling greenhouse gases. The media-savvy former Dutch civil servant and climate negotiator was widely credited with raising the profile of climate issues through his frequent press encounters and his backstage lobbying of world leaders. But his constant travel and frenetic diplomacy failed to bridge the suspicions and distrust between developing and industrial countries that barred the way to a final agreement at the climate change summit in Copenhagen in December. People who know de Boer say he was more disheartened by the snail-paced negotiations than he was ready to admit. He said the high point of his efforts was the agreement by developing countries, reached at the 2007 conference in Bali, Indonesia, to join in efforts to contain global warming in return for financial and technical help from the wealthy nations. His assertiveness sometimes led to accusations that he was overstepping the bounds of a neutral U.N. facilitator. "They are absolutely right. I did that because I felt the process needed that extra push," he told the AP.

EuroIntelligence:

- The Ignominious Role of Goldman Sachs(GS). The heat is on Goldman Sachs.

The FT reports that Angela Merkel has sharply criticised the banks for helping Greece circumvent EU budget rules. She is quoted as saying: “It would be a disgrace if it turned out to be true that banks that already pushed us to the edge of the abyss were also party to falsifying Greek statistics.”

Globe and Mail:

- As skiers fly down Whistler's slopes, a leading U.S. resort company is making a play for ownership control of the prized Whistler Blackcomb mountain, site of the Olympic ski events. Colorado's Vail Resorts Inc.(MTN) headlines a list of several bidders for the property, according to financial industry sources, while the current owner, private equity group Fortress Investment Group LLC, vies to keep control of the resort and troubled parent Intrawest Holdings.