AP - California and New York, the key holdouts in a long-awaited settlement over foreclosure abuses, moved closer Monday to backing a deal that would force the five largest mortgage lenders to reduce loans for about 1 million households. More than 40 U.S. states have agreed to a nationwide settlement.
Source: Yahoo! News: Business News | 7 Feb 2012 | 5:03 am
Activists say that the army is trying to enter the opposition stronghold of Bab Amr with ground troops
Source: Financial Times - US homepage | 7 Feb 2012 | 5:01 am
A roundup of the latest corporate earnings reports and what companies are saying about future quarters.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 7 Feb 2012 | 5:01 am
Dixons, Comet and Argos have pledged to improve the way extended warranties for electrical goods are sold, the Office for Fair Trading says.
Source: BBC News - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:59 am
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to a dip at the open on Wall Street on Tuesday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.06 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.05 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.05 percent at 5:30 a.m. ET.
Reuters - Stock index futures pointed to a dip at the open on Wall Street on Tuesday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.06 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.05 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.05 percent at 5:30 a.m. ET.
Reuters - Stock index futures pointed to a dip at the open on Wall Street on Tuesday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.06 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.05 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.05 percent at 5:30 a.m. ET.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp raised its full-year profit forecast by more than a third as it cuts costs, trims spending and expects Japanese government schemes to boost sales, though the guidance was still some way below analysts' expectations.
Americans remained pessimistic about the economy last year. Confidence has improved recently, reaching its highest levels since last spring, but has fallen from -28 in 2010 to -37 in 2011, according to the Gallup Economic Confidence Index. And while all of the individual states remain negative on the economy, some are less pessimistic than others. 24/7 [...]
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Source: 24/7 Wall St. | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:52 am
Italy imposes emergency measures on businesses to conserve gas as freezing weather continues to grip the country and much of Europe.
Source: BBC News - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:51 am
Instead of admitting that it has, in the past, sold food with too much sodium, salt and sugar, Walmart (NYSE: WMT) has made a public relations bonanza of its decision to sell more healthy food. The world’s largest retailer will put “Great for You” badges on products backed by “rigorous nutrition criteria.” Walmart has had [...]
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Source: 24/7 Wall St. | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:51 am
Big government and corporations are careful to bury their failures in the fine print. The Treasury Department released its January analysis of the Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP) program. Readers must sift through a large number of statistics to find that only 933,000 homes mortgages have been permanently modified since April 1, 2009. Politicians, the press [...]
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Source: 24/7 Wall St. | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:50 am
Steel maker ArcelorMittal was cautiously optimistic about its near-term prospects even after it reported a heavy fourth quarter loss generated by a deteriorating European economy and big...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:50 am
AP - Steel maker ArcelorMittal was cautiously optimistic about its near-term prospects even after it reported a heavy fourth quarter loss generated by a deteriorating European economy and big tax and restructuring charges.
Source: Yahoo! News: Business News | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:50 am
The Greek ruling coalition has said it will cut 15,000 government workers as an austerity sacrifice to the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund. The “troika,” with Germany in the background, believe that Greece has still not made enough budget cuts to lower a deficit that continues to grow — to some [...]
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Source: 24/7 Wall St. | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:50 am
Greece continues to demonstrate that it can teeter almost indefinitely between austerity and the grant of aid packages without a short-term resolution to its sovereign debt crisis. The latest development is that the ruling coalition has agreed to cut 15,000 public jobs. Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos has set yet another meeting to get the nation’s most powerful politicians to [...]
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Source: 24/7 Wall St. | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:49 am
Steel maker ArcelorMittal reports a loss for the final three months of last year, but forecasts better times ahead.
Source: BBC News - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:49 am
Glencore and Xtrata agree to a $90 billion merger. (Reuters) Greek leaders face a deal for settling sovereign debt matters as workers strike. (Reuters) Toyota (NYSE: TM) posts good third-quarter profits and says the U.S. will be a difficult market. (Reuters) Boeing (NYSE: BA) may have trouble with its 787 deliveries after flaws were found [...]
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Source: 24/7 Wall St. | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:49 am
AP - Greek party leaders on Tuesday will meet to seek a long-delayed agreement on harsh cutbacks demanded to avoid looming bankruptcy, amid intense pressure from its bailout creditors to reach a deal, a general strike disrupting public services and thousands of protesters taking to the streets of Athens.
LONDON (Reuters) - Two top 10 shareholders in miner Xstrata said on Tuesday they would vote against a takeover by commodities trader Glencore, threatening the industry's biggest deal to create a powerhouse spanning mining, agriculture and trading.
Dutch vice-president of the European Commission says Greece could leave the euro without damaging the EU's monetary union as pressure mounts to agree terms for the country's €130bn bail-out.
Belfast International Airport says a passenger plane has made a safe emergency landing after developing technical problems. The airport says the plane landed at around 1130 GMT (6:30...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:41 am
SHANGHAI/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc has named an industry veteran, but a relative newcomer to China, to run what is a strategically crucial business for the world's biggest retailer as it faces tougher competition in the fastest growing major economy.
Most European stock markets edge lower Tuesday, as investors focus on a merger deal in the resource sector, while Greece prepares to continue austerity talks.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:40 am
U.S. stocks were set to open little changed Tuesday, as investors sit on their hands and wait for Greek leaders to agree on the terms of a new bailout package, a key step to avoiding a default.
Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:37 am
New proposal would ensure bondholders were paid off while other funds could be held back if Athens did not live up to reform pledges
Source: Financial Times - US homepage | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:37 am
BERLIN (Reuters) - German industrial output posted its biggest fall in December since the depth of the financial crisis at the start of 2009, the Economy Ministry said on Tuesday,...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:33 am
Anglo-Swiss mining group Xstrata announces a $90bn merger with Glencore, the world's largest commodity trader.
Source: BBC News - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:32 am
TUI Travel, the owner of Thomson Holidays, said bookings had outpaced the UK market as it benefited from the woes of rival Thomas Cook. Source: Finance News - Business news from the UK and world | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:30 am
Belfast International Airport says a passenger plane is making an emergency landing after it developed a technical problem. The airport said Tuesday that the Thomas Cook Airbus A320 was...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:28 am
The vice president of the Swiss National Bank says Switzerland's economy is expected to "slow considerably" despite the Swiss franc falling back against the euro. Thomas Jordan told the...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:26 am
* Platinum set to take support from supply issues (Updates throughout, changes dateline, pvs SINGAPORE)
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:25 am
Greek riot police have fired tear gas at hundreds of anti-austerity protesters who tried to break a cordon outside Parliament. No arrests or injuries were reported after Tuesday's...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:22 am
Public transport and ports have ground to a halt in Greece as two of the country's largest public-sector unions strike in protest at continuing austerity.
Source: BBC News - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:21 am
LONDON (Reuters) - BP said it was preparing "vigorously" for lawsuits related to its Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which are due to start later this month, as it unveiled a rise in fourth-quarter earnings boosted by higher oil prices and one-off gains.
Reuters - BP said it was preparing "vigorously" for lawsuits related to its Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which are due to start later this month, as it unveiled a rise in fourth-quarter earnings boosted by higher oil prices and one-off gains.
Source: Yahoo! News: Business News | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:19 am
U.S. stock index futures trade slightly lower Tuesday as investors eye ongoing talks on Greek debt amid mounting default fears and await congressional testimony by Ben Bernanke.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:15 am
Investment groups Standard Life and Schroders led a backlash against the proposed $90bn tie-up between Glencore and Xstrata
Source: Financial Times - US homepage | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:12 am
Glencore and Xstrata on Tuesday announced an all-share merger that would create a $90bn giant, combining the world's largest commodities trading house with one of the biggest miners of thermal coal, copper,...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:12 am
After seeing enrollment decline for the first time in a decade, the University of Charleston, in West Virginia, slashed tuition by 22% for the upcoming school year hoping to entice more students.
Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:11 am
Carmaker Toyota raises its profits forecast, saying its recovery is on track following setbacks caused by the Japanese tsunami, Thai floods and the strong yen.
Source: BBC News - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:10 am
Fisker Automotive, the electric car company that received a half-billion dollars in Energy Department loan guarantees, announced layoffs at its Delaware production facility Monday.
Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:07 am
Lagardre, the Paris-based media conglomerate, is to take a 900m writedown related in part to its struggling sports-marketing business, providing further ammunition for critics of Arnaud Lagardre, the group's...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:04 am
PARIS, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Nuclear reactor maker Areva is close to clinching a long-term uranium supply deal with French state-owned nuclear power producer EDF, Areva's Chief Executive Officer Luc Oursel...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:03 am
Xstrata was amongst the sharpest fallers on a weaker benchmark index after its merger with Glencore received a mixed reaction. Source: Finance News - Business news from the UK and world | 7 Feb 2012 | 4:00 am
An Obama administration lending program set up to funnel cash to small banks was expected to cost taxpayers $1.3 billion. Instead, it will turn a profit of $80 million.
Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:52 am
ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS predicted further weakness in investment banking after a restructuring of the business failed to prevent an earnings hit from the euro zone debt crisis and worries about the global economy.
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek party leaders face crunch talks on Tuesday to secure a new international bailout and avoid a chaotic debt default, caught between EU demands that they accept painful reforms now and a national strike against more austerity.
French flag-carrier Air France warned it would cancel up to half of its long-haul flights Tuesday as employees pursued a strike against plans to require them to give 48 hours notice of a...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:44 am
Glencore International PLC, the giant commodities trader which went public last year, and Xstrata PLC, one of the world’s biggest miners, formally announce on Tuesday plans to merge, creating a $90 billion natural-resources behemoth.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:44 am
Resource sector suitors Glencore and Xstrata moved to opposite ends of the FTSE 100 after the terms of their merger were confirmed on Tuesday as the index remained stuck around six-month highs. Miner Xstrata...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:43 am
LONDON (Reuters) - European banking regulators pore over plans this week from 31 lenders to plug a 115 billion euro ($150 billion) hole in their capital cushions and help restore investor confidence shattered by the euro zone debt crisis.
Facebook's upcoming IPO will make founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg a billionaire -- but it will also stick him with an eye-popping tax bill that could reach as high as $2 billion.
Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:41 am
BP announces sharply higher profits and increases its dividend to shareholders for the first time since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.
Source: BBC News - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:36 am
The commodities trader Glencore and the Swiss miner Xstrata have confirmed a $90bn merger: Rupert Nathan of Fat Prophets explains how they can benefit.
Source: BBC News - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:31 am
More than one in three Americans lived in households that received Medicaid, food stamps or other means-based government assistance, according to a new report.
Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:29 am
Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos and party leaders were set to meet again Tuesday to work out an agreement on fresh austerity measures seen as necessary to avoid a disorderly default as the country’s workers planned a daylong strike.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:28 am
Reuters - Greek party leaders face crunch talks on Tuesday to secure a new international bailout and avoid a chaotic debt default, caught between EU demands that they accept painful reforms now and a national strike against more austerity.
Source: Yahoo! News: Business News | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:26 am
Toyota raised its full-year net profit forecast by 11 per cent to Y200bn (US$2.6bn) on Tuesday, citing an accelerating recovery from two natural disasters last year that severely disrupted its production...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:26 am
If welfare recipients want to dole out the dollar bills at a strip club, they'd better make sure it's not government money ... at least if a bill in Congress becomes law.
Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:21 am
Reuters - Two top 10 shareholders in miner Xstrata said on Tuesday they would vote against a takeover by commodities trader Glencore, threatening the industry's biggest deal to create a powerhouse spanning mining, agriculture and trading.
Source: Yahoo! News: Business News | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:20 am
India's economic growth is likely to dip below 7% for the 2011-12 financial year, new government statistics show.
Source: BBC News - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:18 am
AP - Stocks were trading lower on Tuesday as talks dragged on in Greece to agree the terms of a second bailout — and avoid looming bankruptcy — despite intense pressure from the country's euro partners.
EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes piles pressure on Greece to agree tough reforms, saying a euro exit would be "no man overboard".
Source: BBC News - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:14 am
Oil company BP posted increased fourth quarter profits and raised its dividend on Tuesday, hailing the improved result as a turning point in the long climb back from Gulf of Mexico oil spill of 2010.
Source: Business and financial news - CNNMoney.com | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:13 am
Britain’s benchmark stock index pushes lower on Monday, as mining stocks slip and worries about a second bailout package for Greece persist.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:12 am
Tuesday 10:00 GMT. Worries over whether Athens and its creditors can reach a bond restructuring agreement is again hobbling the recent impetus of the growth-focused asset rally. The FTSE All-World equity...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:10 am
The high court will vote this year on a requirement in Obama's healthcare reform law that people buy insurance, which insurers see as a quid pro quo for accepting those with preexisting conditions.
It remains anyone's guess how the Supreme Court will vote this year on whether Congress can require people to buy insurance as part of President Obama's healthcare reform law.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:10 am
Miner Xstrata and trading house Glencore have unveiled a $90bn (£56.9bn) all-share merger to create the world's fourth largest natural resources company.
Shares in TalkTalk rose 10 per cent after the broadband provider upgraded its profit guidance in spite of its customer base continuing to shrink. The FTSE 250 group said on Tuesday it had lost a net 60,000...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:03 am
Lower demand for holidays in north Africa and the financial crisis in Europe pushed Tui Travel to a 131m loss in the final three months of last year. The period is typically a slow season for holiday companies,...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:02 am
BP sought to draw a line under the past two years since the Gulf of Mexico crisis, raising its dividend for the first time since it resumed pay-outs a year ago and hailing the return of "operational momentum"...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:02 am
Oil group bullish ahead of a civil trial in New Orleans over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, claiming that ‘operational momentum’ returns
Source: Financial Times - US homepage | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:02 am
The Japanese government has confirmed that it intervened unannounced in foreign-exchange markets to weaken the yen last year, for the first time since 2004. Ministry of Finance data released on Tuesday...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 3:00 am
AP - Toyota's quarterly profit slid 13.5 percent on production setbacks caused by last year's tsunami disaster and the flooding in Thailand, but Japan's top automaker raised its annual earnings forecast, saying a recovery is on track.
Reuters - Toyota Motor Corp raised its full-year profit forecast by more than a third as it cuts costs, trims spending and expects Japanese government schemes to boost sales, though the guidance was still some way below analysts' expectations.
Reuters - The euro was underpinned by hopes a way would be found to push through a second bailout deal for Greece, though poor results from some top European firms on Tuesday rekindled unease about the region's debt crisis, sending shares lower.
Commodity prices have fallen 2 per cent since the start of the year. On Friday the benchmark gauge of the markets, the Reuters-Jefferies CRB index, hit an 18-month low, just 1.5 per cent from its lowest...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNPaperBusiness | 7 Feb 2012 | 2:40 am
Chinese shares fall to lead major Asian markets down as investors disappointed by lack of monetary easing sell down stocks across the board.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 7 Feb 2012 | 1:41 am
(Reuters) - The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will unveil proposals aimed at stabilizing money-market funds in the event of another financial panic, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Reuters - The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will unveil proposals aimed at stabilizing money-market funds in the event of another financial panic, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Source: Yahoo! News: Stock Markets News | 7 Feb 2012 | 1:12 am
The figure — a relatively modest number — represented 11% of the 5.6 million U.S. people who switched banks in the last three months of 2011, according to a financial services market-research firm.
About 610,000 U.S. bank customers switched to a smaller institution in the last three months of 2011 to protest plans by major banks to impose monthly charges for using debit cards, according to a financial services market-research firm.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 1:00 am
More than 40 states signed onto a proposed $25-billion deal with major mortgage servicers over faulty foreclosure practices. New York, Nevada and Delaware joined California in holding out for better terms.
More than 40 states signed onto a proposed $25-billion settlement with major mortgage servicers over faulty foreclosure procedures, but California, New York and other key states were still not among them.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 1:00 am
Redbox also agrees to buy the Blockbuster-branded DVD rental kiosks operated by NCR Corp. The moves create more formidable competition for Netflix.
Redbox is hooking up with Verizon Communications Inc. as part of a major step forward to compete with Netflix Inc. in both the digital and physical worlds.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 1:00 am
The venture would be a bid by both companies to enter new territory. Disney's ABC would join the cable news war, and Univision would use the channel to reach English-speaking Latinos.
Walt Disney Co. and Univision Communications Inc., the nation's leading Spanish-language broadcaster, are in talks about launching an English-language cable news channel, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 1:00 am
An improving economy boosts demand for oil, driving up pump prices and crimping consumers' budgets.
Last month turned out to be the most expensive January ever at U.S. gasoline pumps, boosted by growing economic strength.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 1:00 am
A UCLA study of California's film tax credit program concludes that it 'is creating jobs and is likely providing an immediate economic benefit to the state' but not as much as some claims state.
California's film tax credit is providing an economic benefit to the state, but it may not be providing as much of a return to taxpayers as an earlier study claimed.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 1:00 am
Global smartphone shipments grew sharply last year as mobile handsets increased in capability and were made available at lower prices, according to International Data Corp.'s latest Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker quarterly report.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 1:00 am
The cellphone carrier's MuveMusic service has helped labels tap a vast underserved audience: people who can't afford computers. Muve users can download songs directly to their phones. In less than a year it has grown to more than 500,000 subscribers.
For the embattled music industry, hope lies inside a small corner store in the City Heights section of San Diego.
Source: L.A. Times - Business | 7 Feb 2012 | 1:00 am
The performance of Electrocomponents is tied to industrial production around the world as it supplies all the electrical bits and pieces that manufacturers and engineers need. Thankfully, measures of industrial production have been on the upside.
The U.S. dollar extends its recent gains amid concern about Greece’s debt crisis, while reports of secret forex intervention in Japan appear to weigh on the yen.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 6 Feb 2012 | 11:59 pm
Australian shares close lower after the Reserve Bank of Australia unexpectedly kept its key cash rate on hold at 4.25%.
Source: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories | 6 Feb 2012 | 11:03 pm
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Facebook's corporate governance rules, which give shareholders little say in how the social networking website would be run as a public company, are raising the hackles of one of the largest U.S. investors, the California State Teachers' Retirement System.
While other parts of the economy struggled the past two years, large companies managed to rack up higher profits quarter after quarter. Now reality is catching up with big business.As companies close their books on the final three...
Source: nzherald.co.nz - Business | 6 Feb 2012 | 7:30 pm
$$$“At UBS we promote a corporate culture that adheres to the highest ethical standards across all areas of our business. Our commitment to excellence in all we do, combined with a desire to understand and fulfil our clients’ requirements translates into our client dining experience. That is why, where possible, our menus are crafted from the finest seasonal produce which is ethically sourced, organic and unsurpassed in quality and value. Just like our business.”How could you possibly object to that? [FT]
Prime Minister John Key insists that Government stability is not at risk over the Waitangi clause in the legislation allowing the partial sale of four state-owned assets.He told reporters at Parliament this morning believed that...
Source: nzherald.co.nz - Business | 6 Feb 2012 | 7:15 pm
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Blooomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas says fund flows into exchange-traded funds in January suggest investor appetite for risk is growing. Bloomberg Radio's Catherine Cowdery reports on Exchange Traded Funds.
(Source: Bloomberg)
Source: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 6 Feb 2012 | 6:47 pm
Why have there been multiple instances of guys dressed up as chickens descending on RBS’s Stamford trading floor, the most recent one being this past Friday? Well, last time we checked, RBS doesn’t have to explain itself to you but if you must know, apparently it’s kind of their special birthday thing. Got a birthday? You get a visit from a guy in a chicken suit. It’s unclear if last week’s special guest “lead half the trading floor in the chicken dance while a good chunk of surrounding desks clapped along in unison,” as had been done in the past, but it stands to reason.
…compensation costs remained stubbornly high, due in part to management’s decision to pay employees most of their bonuses immediately, rather than deferring big portions of pay to future years as some rivals have done. “We are very comfortable with our approach on deferrals at the firm and we didn’t need to increase it,” Chief Executive Kenneth Jacobs said in an interview. “There’s just no free lunch there.” [Reuters]
Forty-five percent of respondents said “bonuses matched their expectations,” 11 percent received “a higher payout than they had anticipated,” and 34 percent were “disappointed by their bonus.” The results included financial services employees whose compensation was communicated by January 16, which means it excludes those who work at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, and Deutsche Bank. [Bloomberg]
What is the essence of your business?Do you think it's easier for someone from the 'outside' to look in to an industry and understand the essence of whom - or what - their competition is, and what service, benefit they...
Source: nzherald.co.nz - Business | 6 Feb 2012 | 6:00 pm
Ditching shares for bonds might not be best long term, writes Andrew Gawith, director at Gareth Morgan Investments. It's been a tough time for investors lately with the world's major sharemarkets struggling to produce any meaningful...
Source: nzherald.co.nz - Business | 6 Feb 2012 | 5:30 pm
Waiwera Thermal Resort is under fire for its new policy of banning people from bringing their own food and drink.The country's largest thermal pools resort, 35km north of Auckland, announced the crackdown on February 1, saying it...
Source: nzherald.co.nz - Business | 6 Feb 2012 | 5:10 pm
New Zealand wage inflation accelerated for private sector workers and slowed for public servants in the fourth quarter, leaving overall labour costs benign enough to ensure the central bank keeps interest rates low.The labour cost...
Source: nzherald.co.nz - Business | 6 Feb 2012 | 5:00 pm
Deal of the Day: The fiercest competition at the 2012 Summer Games in London may be for hotel rooms and tickets.
Source: SmartMoney.com: Homepage | 6 Feb 2012 | 4:52 pm
Reuters - Congress made a mistake when it stripped away most of the Securities and Exchange Commission's authority to police the holding companies of broker-dealers for risks, according to the SEC's newest commissioner.
Source: Dealbreaker | 6 Feb 2012 | 4:29 pm
Alternatively, things are looking up for those hoping to romance an Olympic synchronized swimmer.
“Traditionally EMEA analysts and associates joining a US bank will be given the summer ‘training’ in New York; hotel, flights, etc are paid for and it’s well-known to be a last view of sunshine. This year at BofA however, due to cost-cutting, it’s based in London. Looks like they won’t be getting their Vitamin D.”
International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) may be loved by Warren Buffett now with the huge stake owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A), but it turns out that the brokerage firm Stern Agee loves Big Blue as well. The firm has started new coverage of IBM with a “Buy” rating, but more impressive is [...]
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Source: 24/7 Wall St. | 6 Feb 2012 | 4:29 pm
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Hugh Willis, chief executive officer of BlueBay Asset Management, predicts emerging market growth of 5.3% for 2012. Willis talked to Hays and Vonnie Quinn on "The Hays Advantage" on Bloomberg Radio on February 3, 2012.
(Source: Bloomberg)
Source: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 6 Feb 2012 | 4:16 pm
AP - Stock indexes closed slightly lower Monday as talks dragged on between Greek political leaders over a fresh cost-cutting package required for the country to get more bailout loans.
Showing during Sunday night’s Super Bowl football game, the ad with Clint Eastwood was seen by some as an endorsement of Barack Obama’s re-election
Source: Financial Times - US homepage | 6 Feb 2012 | 3:44 pm
Tauranga-based Heilala Vanilla has taken on investors famous for making cheese and vodka in a bid to accelerate export growth of its premium-priced vanilla products.The company has signed an investment deal which will see the New...
Source: nzherald.co.nz - Business | 6 Feb 2012 | 3:30 pm
For weeks, financial experts and the media have said that the $1.2 billion in customer money “lost” by MF Global would never been found. Now, the trustee for the customers reports that “The trustee’s investigators have now traced a majority of the cash transactions, totaling more than $105 billion, made in and out of MF [...]
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Source: 24/7 Wall St. | 6 Feb 2012 | 3:29 pm
Last week some guys at Credit Suisse got in a bit of trouble for marking some structured credit assets at fantasy valuations in order to appease their bosses and get better bonuses. I commented that this was a bit different from the run of CDO-fraud cases we’ve seen: the CS guys seemed to think they had a better chance of passing off fake-o valuations on their bosses than they would on the market, and so rather than dumping those assets on unsuspecting clients, they held on to them and hoped/lied.
They might have chosen differently had they met Bobby L. Hayes:
BOBBY L. HAYES, an engineering entrepreneur in Incline Village, Nev., used to trust financial institutions. This is the story of why he no longer does.
Short version of the story is: Because he got stuffed with the equity tranche of a CLO that had bought loans at par when they were really worth 95, making his equity tranche worth zero.*
This is sort of Version 2.0 of the usual synthetic CDO fraud/fraudishness where it’s like Party A wants to bet Thing X will go down, Party B wants to bet that things of Class XYZ will go up, Bank C convinces Party B to go long Thing X because it’s in Class XYZ, Thing X and the rest of Class XYZ go down, and Party B is shocked, shocked, to find GAMBLING against Thing X (really “gambling AGAINST Thing X” which is even dumber) and it’s all sort of woolly-headed. Here, the claim is not that the investors were deceived about who was on the other side of the trade, but about the market value of the underlying securities. That sounds worse. But I’m not so sure it is.
What happened here is that a CLO manager bought commercial loans to package into a collateralized loan obligation, holding them in a warehouse facility until the CLO was complete. The manager bought $400mm face value of loans for a bit over par, and sold CLO interests for a total of about $403mm. The CLO’s private placement memo basically says “we’ll buy the loans from the warehouse at the acquisition price, which will be no more than 100.3%”; it does not say “and that will happen to coincide with the market price.” Elsewhere the PPM says that the collateral manager will in the future do arms-length-y things to buy loans fairly, but it doesn’t say that about the warehoused loans. And it appears, per some people who looked at it, that those loans were “worth” around 95, based on (apparently) changes in the trading level of the relevant index between the purchase time and the CLO issue date. So if the CLO was carrying them at 100.3, it had an immediate loss when it was sold to the public. And that loss ate up the BB-rated Class E tranche and most of the BBB-rated Class D tranche in this capital structure:
And that in turn ate up Bobby L. Hayes and his trust in financial institutions:
Mr. Hayes said he told his broker that he didn’t want to take risks with the money that went into the investment, a collateralized loan obligation known as Lyon Capital Management VII that was issued in July 2007. “I was a trusting client, and it was like a bad dream,” Mr. Hayes said. “I had a lot more assets in the bank, and it was unfathomable to me that they would deliberately do this to even a small depositor.” …
MR. HAYES had been sold the riskiest piece of the loan pool, known as the equity or E tranche. Because of the way losses are distributed in these instruments, the loans in the pool had to decline only by one-half of 1 percent before Mr. Hayes’s investment would be wiped out. The entire security was liquidated at a loss of around $75 million about 16 months after it was sold.
There is a lot that’s suspicious here, starting with “I didn’t want to take any risk … so I bought half of the BB rated tranche paying Libor + 500bps that was subordinated to paper with a face amount greater than the face amount of underlying loans.” I mean, maybe that is what happened – he told his broker “no risk” and the broker just put him in maximum risk anyway – but no risk rarely means L+500.
More generally, I am not a huge fan of the narrative of:
(1) banks had some bad things;
(2) they packaged those things in confusing ways with the intention of tricking clients;
(3) it worked, shifting bad things to clients at off-market prices.
There are a number of reasons for doubting that narrative, including the fact that banks ended up with a whole lot of bad things themselves, and the fact that clients can mostly read and do their own homework and there’s no reason that putting $380mm worth of loans into a box and calling the box a CLO would make hedge funds any more likely to pay $400mm for that box.
There are specific reasons for doubting it here. For instance, you could doubt that this CLO was created to help BofA offload its bad shit, because the underlying loans weren’t BofA’s – they were originated in various places and acquired in the market by the CLO. How do you know that? Well, BofA will tell you, if you call them up and ask them. The PPM says that the underlying loans were owned by the CLO, not BofA, though it also says that BofA may have provided warehouse financing. They probably did, which might give them some incentive to move the thing along – I suspect the CLO manager was not super well capitalized and so BofA probably had some risk in getting these loans out.
More importantly, you know this wasn’t exactly BofA dumping its bad loans because of how loans work if you’re BofA. Specifically banks like BofA don’t mark their commercial loans to market: you put on a loan at 100, you carry it at 100, minus some reserve, as long as it performs. The loans here were performing – their market value had just (allegedly) dropped on some index-adjusted basis. So unlike the Credit Suisse guys who were marking their trading books to fantasy because that got them a nice bonus, BofA bankers had no (personal, current-P&L-driven) need to offload loans just because their market value had dropped – they wouldn’t even notice that market value. Nobody was paying them based on the market value of their loans, so they had no incentive to conceal it when it went south.
But that’s not really the point – even if BofA was misvaluing a third-party CLO manager’s loans in selling them to its clients, that still looks bad. And I can’t really tell if they were. The case was decided by arbitration so the decision doesn’t tell you much of what’s going on, but the arbitrators seem to have believed that the loans were worth $380mm and BofA lied to Mr. Hayes. This does not, though, seem to be a case of actively traded loans where you could look at screen prices that day and see what they were worth – rather, BofA thought they were worth $400mm based on purchase price, performance, ratings, whatever, while Hayes’s experts thought they were worth $380mm based on where a comparable index traded. (In fact, they were “worth” way less than either number in the sense that there was worse performance in the future and the market value ended up being like $325mm when the CLOs were terminated, but no one knew that at the time.)
Without unambiguous trading data in the specific loans, I guess they were worth what a buyer would pay for them. And there was a buyer who paid for them and it was – the CLO investors. And there’s no particular claim about any actual deception at all. BofA said there were loans, they had a certain rating, future loans would be bought at market prices, previous loans would be valued at acquisition price – nothing at all was said about the market values of the existing loans. The investors could have diligenced to their heart’s content. Except that the PPM didn’t identify the underlying loans. So they couldn’t have.
This all seems very strange and there’s fault to share. Hayes probably shouldn’t have bought equity in unidentified loans carried at their purchase price from months ago. BofA maybe should have done more to assure him that those loans were worth their purchase price. But you could compare this transaction to the other way a retail-ish investor, like Hayes, could have bought equity in a set of not-marked-to-market commercial loans. He could have bought equity in a bank. BofA, say. Which held loans on its books at acquisition prices, not mark-to-market prices.
The CLO at issue here didn’t just slice up and tranche out some commercial loans. It also did a subtler kind of magic. It took loans that were trading on the market as mark-to-market assets and transformed them into acquisition-price, held-to-maturity looking assets. Just for long enough to sell them to investors, like Hayes, who didn’t really know the difference.
* Nah, kidding. Not zero. If Thing Y pays off (Value of Thing X – $100), and Thing X has a possible value in three years of between $0 and $102 and is currently trading at $95, what is Thing Y worth? Zero is in any case the wrong answer.
Any time you have a shareholder talking up a company, you have to understand that they are talking up their book. Billionaires do this, and they tend to be listened to more than others when it comes to money. After the close of trading on CNBC, Maria Bartoromo interviewed Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia. The prince [...]
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Source: 24/7 Wall St. | 6 Feb 2012 | 3:26 pm
AP - GREECED: The Dow dropped 17 points and other stock indexes dropped slightly as talks dragged on between Greek political leaders over a fresh cost-cutting measures required for Greece to get more bailout loans.
Source: Yahoo! News: Stock Markets News | 6 Feb 2012 | 3:00 pm
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters was briefly denied the chance to address asset-sale protesters at Parliament today during an argument with the rally's organiser over whether he was allowed to speak.About 50 protesters marched...
Source: nzherald.co.nz - Business | 6 Feb 2012 | 3:00 pm
Marketing consultant Graham McGregor on the power of stories to increase sales. In selling you often need to get your customers thinking differently before you can make a sale.And stories can be a very powerful way to do that....
Source: nzherald.co.nz - Business | 6 Feb 2012 | 3:00 pm
AP - Stock indexes closed slightly lower Monday as talks dragged on between Greek political leaders over a package of spending cuts and other measures required for the country to get more bailout loans.
Source: Yahoo! News: Stock Markets News | 6 Feb 2012 | 2:44 pm
Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM) is showing that not all international stories are cautious. The owner of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC reported earnings for the fourth quarter. For the quarter, earnings came in at $0.75 EPS versus the Thomson Reuters estimate of $0.74. Sales were listed as $4.11 billion versus the $4.03 billion expected. [...]
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Source: 24/7 Wall St. | 6 Feb 2012 | 2:26 pm
Consumers worried about the price of milk will find out this month whether a parliamentary investigation into the high-profile issue will resume or get the can.The retail price of milk has become a hot topic, with a Consumer NZ...
Source: nzherald.co.nz - Business | 6 Feb 2012 | 2:00 pm
Though as a whole companies remain in relatively good shape, smaller groups look vulnerable to looming debt repayments
Source: Financial Times - US homepage | 6 Feb 2012 | 1:08 pm
The economists who predicted the housing crisis tend to be a gloomy bunch, as Adam Davidson notes in his latest Times Magazine column. Dean Baker is the rare exception. In the following guest post, he explains why he has parted ways with the economic pessimists.
For more than five years before the recession began in December of 2007, I was one of the leading economic pessimists, warning of the housing bubble and the damage that its collapse would do to the economy. I based this pessimism on my analysis of the housing market, not a genetic disposition to pessimism. Given the economy's current situation, I find the warnings of the pessimists – the double-dip gang – to be wrongheaded and seriously counterproductive.
First to the economy's near-term prospects: the economy is growing and will in all probability continue to grow. Economies do generally grow. We see new investment, leading to more employment and higher productivity, which leads to higher profits and higher wages.
In the past when the economy has fallen into a recession it has been the result of plunges in house sales and car sales. Neither possibility seems plausible at the moment, primarily because both remain at extraordinarily low levels that leave little room for them to fall further. Even if they did fall, it would have only a limited impact since current demand is already so depressed.
It's difficult to see what else could cause another recession at this point. Cutbacks in government spending have been a drag on the economy the last two years. But state and local governments have largely adjusted to the plunge in tax revenues caused by the recession. There will be further cuts in many places, but they will likely be much smaller than the ones we have seen thus far.
Similarly, the federal budget deficit will fall through some mix of spending cuts and higher taxes. But this adjustment is unlikely to be so rapid as to raise any risk of recession, barring a very large political shake-up in the next election.
There is the possibility of a major event abroad causing a recession in the U.S. The two most-often mentioned candidates are a collapse of the euro or a collapse of the housing bubble in China and a meltdown of the Chinese economy.
While either of these events could cause huge disruptions to the U.S. financial system, both are highly unlikely. The European Central Bank and major European powers understand the risks of a disorderly default by Greece or another troubled European country. At the moment, they are playing games to extract as many concessions as possible, but there is little doubt that they would move aggressively if it appeared that things were unwinding.
Similarly, some of the people who are projecting a meltdown in China have been making such predictions for more than a decade. China's government has shown a remarkable ability to manage its economy through an enormous amount of economic turbulence.
In short, there seems little prospect that the U.S. economy will crater on its own. And the foreign events that could lead to a recession in the United States seem highly unlikely.
But it does matter hugely that the people putting forward the double-dip warnings are being taken seriously.
The problem is that if a double-dip recession is viewed as a serious possibility, even weak growth looks good by comparison. That is certainly what we saw in the second half of 2011, when the economy grew 1.8 percent in the third quarter, and 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter. Both reports were treated as good news since the economy was avoiding the dreaded double-dip recession.
In reality, this rate of growth is dismal for an economy that has been through a bad recession and is operating far below its potential. Following less severe downturns in 1974-75 and 1981-82, we saw several years in which the economy grew by more than 5 percent per year. The economy grew by 8 percent from the first quarter of 1983 to the first quarter of 1984.
In order for the economy to get back near its potential and to return to something resembling full employment in a reasonable period of time, we need much more than 2 to 3 percent growth. This sort of weak growth will needlessly condemn tens of millions of workers to unemployment or underemployment.
But if people think there's a high risk of a double-dip recession, then the public will end up being grateful for any growth whatsoever. And that would be the pessimists' fault.
A while back, the MIT economist Andrew Lo set out to review a couple books about the financial crisis. Those books led to a couple more books, which led — you see where this is going — to 17 more books.
He knew going in that there was still disagreement over the finer points of the crisis. But reading all those books showed him that the debate runs much deeper than he thought.
"If you got five economists in a room and you asked them what caused the crisis, you'd probably get eight different opinions," he says.
For Lo, this is a problem. His dream is for economists to look at the crisis the way climatologists look at climate change.
You have ... hundreds of scientists who have a number of varying perspectives. They're fiercely independent. They've got huge egos. And yet they all seem to be able to come together around the data about climate change. At this point, I don't think there's any dispute in the academic world about whether or not global warming is a fact.
Lo knows that there aren't "laws of physics that will govern all economic behavior." Still, he says, economists ought to be able to agree on a basic set of facts about what caused the crisis.
And for all of his worry over the debate, Lo does offer his own, broad account of what went wrong in the crisis. On the surface, he says, it looks a lot like most crises. It starts with an economic boom.
In that kind of a climate of prosperity, people begin to lose fear. They begin to become much more relaxed in much the same way that somebody who has a little bit too much to drink becomes a lot more relaxed ... After a while we get lulled into false sense of safety, security and prosperity. And we begin to start cutting corners. ... we start building up the kind of risks that end in financial crises.
The difference this time, Lo says, is that the combination of technology and new financial products allowed a larger buildup of risk around the world.
"If you're drunk and you're playing around with a [hand] saw, there's not a whole lot of damage you can do," he says. "But if you're drunk and you're playing around with a chainsaw, that's another matter."
Several weeks back, Barclays CEO Bob Diamond said in an interview that his firm received “applications from 107,000 kids at university, of which we had positions for 1,500.” Diamond threw out the numbers to show that, despite profits not being what they used to, people still want to work on Wall Street. And, more to the point, that those currently employed in the financial services industry who’ve threatenedto quit in the last month over bonuses that did not meet their expectations can and will be easily replaced. But perhaps the line didn’t work on you? Perhaps you shrugged off the “threat” of a bunch of faceless 21 year-olds with zero skills taking your job? While you may have been right to not quake in your boots over the vast majority of Diamond’s li’l worker bees, you might want to worry a little bit about one aspiring young junior mistmaker in particular.
[...]
He recently applied for a first-year analyst gig at several bulge-brackets but it’s clear he could easily come in at MD and/or take on multiple positions at once. Nervous it could be yours? Might want to start whaling on your pecs and lats, then.
EU remains determined to include all airlines that take off or land in the 27-member bloc in the green scheme
Source: Financial Times - US homepage | 6 Feb 2012 | 12:31 pm
Video: SmartMoney reporter Quentin Fottrell visits Mean Street to discuss how the company's future could significantly change.
Source: SmartMoney.com: Homepage | 6 Feb 2012 | 11:10 am
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Scott Wren, senior equity strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors, says retail investors remain "gun shy" of stocks. Wren talks with Bloomberg's Ken Prewitt and Tom Keene on Bloomberg Radio's "Bloomberg Surveillance."
(Source: Bloomberg)
Source: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 6 Feb 2012 | 10:45 am
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- John Chachas, Methuselah Capital Advisors, says federal policy is "diminishing" small town America. Chachas talks with Bloomberg's Ken Prewitt and Tom Keene on Bloomberg Radio's "Bloomberg Surveillance."
(Source: Bloomberg)
Source: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 6 Feb 2012 | 10:43 am
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) - Jonathan Friedman and Kevin Wilson, who captured prizes for their Doritos Super Bowl commercials featuring "Sling Baby" and "Man's Best Friend," say an idea doesn't have to be expensive to strike a chord. Friedman and Wilson talk with Bloomberg's Ken Prewitt and Tom Keene on Bloomberg Radio's "Bloomberg Surveillance."
(Source: Bloomberg)
Source: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 6 Feb 2012 | 10:40 am
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Cliff Corso, chief executive officer at Armonk, New York-based Cutwater Asset Management, which oversees about $3.5 billion in municipal bonds, says muni bonds "offer pretty decent value." Corso talks with Bloomberg's Ken Prewitt and Tom Keene on Bloomberg Radio's "Bloomberg Surveillance."
(Source: Bloomberg)
Source: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 6 Feb 2012 | 10:36 am
Equity funds which fell out of favour for much of last year attracted $3.5bn in the week ending February 1, the most in almost a year
Source: Financial Times - US homepage | 6 Feb 2012 | 10:35 am
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania, says as long as home prices continue to decline, "it's hard to get too enthusiastic about the economy." Zandi talks with Bloomberg's Ken Prewitt and Tom Keene on Bloomberg Radio's "Bloomberg Surveillance."
(Source: Bloomberg)
Source: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 6 Feb 2012 | 8:55 am
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The prepackaged reorganization for Jobson Healthcare Information LLC is an example of using bankruptcy court to kick the can down the road, as Bloomberg Law's Lee Pacchia and Bloomberg News bankruptcy columnist Bill Rochelle discuss on their podcast. The podcast continues by describing how CME Group Inc., the owner of the world's largest futures exchanges, is putting $100 million aside to assure farmers and ranchers they won't incur another loss if they hedge crops by buying futures contracts. Rochelle explains how Eastman Kodak Co. is becoming a test case for whether supposedly "critical vendors" will disrupt an otherwise successful reorganization if their pre-bankruptcy unsecured debts aren't paid. The podcast ends with discussion of another appeals court decision demonstrating how federal courts more than state courts are requiring mortgage lender to comply with law before being permitted to foreclose.
(Source: Bloomberg)
Source: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 6 Feb 2012 | 7:29 am
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Gregory Valliere, chief political strategist at the Potomac Research Group, says Republican attacks on each other "have done real damage" in the race for the presidential nomination. Valliere talks with Bloomberg's Ken Prewitt and Tom Keene on Bloomberg Radio's "Bloomberg Surveillance."
(Source: Bloomberg)
Source: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 6 Feb 2012 | 7:17 am
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- John Casesa, senior managing director at Guggenheim Partners LLC, says Japan "has lost its competitive advantage" in the auto industry. Casesa talks with Bloomberg's Ken Prewitt and Tom Keene on Bloomberg Radio's "Bloomberg Surveillance."
(Source: Bloomberg)
Source: Bloomberg - All Podcasts | 6 Feb 2012 | 7:15 am
It’s undeniable that small businesses today benefit greatly from the use of social media sites. Whether for promoting their enterprise, reaching out to clients and responding to queries from customers, regular networking efforts on social media indeed has its rewards.
A big chunk of entrepreneurs using Facebook, Twitter and so on belong to the small business industry. It should be noted, however, that even the Fortune 500 companies are also taking advantage of these sites.
Apart from the real time communication that the sites offer, it’s absolutely free to promote a business and keep in touch with customers. One does not need to have technical skills to be able to manage a social media account and this ease of using the sites is what primarily attracts business owners to use them.
Below we share an infographic design from Infographic Labs showing the latest studies and surveys on how businesses are using and benefiting from the top social networking sites. Recent figures tell only one thing – entrepreneurs regardless of the field they’re in will continue to tap social media for their marketing campaigns.
Reuters - Stock index futures pointed to a dip at the open on Wall Street on Tuesday, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.06 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.05 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.05 percent at 5:30 a.m. ET.
AP - Greek party leaders on Tuesday will meet to seek a long-delayed agreement on harsh cutbacks demanded to avoid looming bankruptcy, amid intense pressure from its bailout creditors to reach a deal, a general strike disrupting public services and thousands of protesters taking to the streets of Athens.
AP - Stocks were trading lower on Tuesday as talks dragged on in Greece to agree the terms of a second bailout — and avoid looming bankruptcy — despite intense pressure from the country's euro partners.
AP - Toyota's quarterly profit slid 13.5 percent on production setbacks caused by last year's tsunami disaster and the flooding in Thailand, but Japan's top automaker raised its annual earnings forecast, saying a recovery is on track.
Reuters - Toyota Motor Corp raised its full-year profit forecast by more than a third as it cuts costs, trims spending and expects Japanese government schemes to boost sales, though the guidance was still some way below analysts' expectations.
AP - Oil prices hovered near $97 a barrel Tuesday in Asia amid trader concern U.S. crude supplies will continue to rise because of weak demand.
Why have there been multiple instances of guys dressed up as chickens descending on RBS’s Stamford trading floor, the most recent one being this past Friday? Well, last time we checked, RBS doesn’t have to explain itself to you but if you must know, apparently it’s kind of their special birthday thing. Got a birthday? You get a visit from a guy in a chicken suit. It’s unclear if last week’s special guest “lead half the trading floor in the chicken dance while a good chunk of surrounding desks clapped along in unison,” as had been done in the past, but it stands to reason.
AP - Stock indexes closed slightly lower Monday as talks dragged on between Greek political leaders over a fresh cost-cutting package required for the country to get more bailout loans.
Last week some guys at Credit Suisse got in a bit of trouble for marking some structured credit assets at fantasy valuations in order to appease their bosses and get better bonuses. I commented that this was a bit different from the run of CDO-fraud cases we’ve seen: the CS guys seemed to think they had a better chance of passing off fake-o valuations on their bosses than they would on the market, and so rather than dumping those assets on unsuspecting clients, they held on to them and hoped/lied.
Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images 9())
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Several weeks back, Barclays CEO Bob Diamond said in an interview that his firm received “applications from 107,000 kids at university, of which we had positions for 1,500.” Diamond threw out the numbers to show that, despite profits not being what they used to, people still want to work on Wall Street. And, more to the point, that those currently employed in the financial services industry who’ve threatened to quit in the last month over bonuses that did not meet their expectations can and will be easily replaced. But perhaps the line didn’t work on you? Perhaps you shrugged off the “threat” of a bunch of faceless 21 year-olds with zero skills taking your job? While you may have been right to not quake in your boots over the vast majority of Diamond’s li’l worker bees, you might want to worry a little bit about one aspiring young junior mistmaker in particular. 
January performance means a lotta salsa victory dancing going on at the office today.
