Reuters: Thain regrets nothing he did at Merrill Lynch and during its merger with Bank of America (NYSE:BAC).
Reuters: Trump put his support to the bondholders of his casino business.
FT: A Chinese court ruled against Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) in an intellectual property case. Read More
There are two sides to every story, and sometimes three, four or five. An audit by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program claims that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York allowed banks to get 100% of the value of complicated financial instruments that they had insured with AIG (NYSE:AIG). The transactions involved over $60 billion. The full report was issued today.
The inspector general Neil M. Barofsky claims that the Fed “refused to use its considerable leverage” to force major banks to make concessions on the money they were owed as part of their relationships with AIG. Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) was among the firms that benefited from the Fed’s action while Credit Suisse (NYSE:CS) actually offered to take less than 100 cents on a dollar for its insurance claims and was turned down.
Reuters: China is the key stop on Obama’s tour of Asia.
Reuters: South Korea’s businesses may start to feel more pressure from China competitors..
Reuters: Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) bought 3Com (NYSE:COM) for $3.1 billion.
Reuters: Lou Dobbs left CNN (NYSE:TWX) Read More
Robert Benmosche, the CEO of AIG (NYSE:AIG) is known for being hot-headed, mercurial, self-centered, brilliant, ill-tempered, and gifted. He is just the sort of executive who threatens to quit his job several times a year. He probably likes to hear his board and colleagues say how much they need him.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Benmosche told his board that he was ready to quit because pay czar Kenneth Feinberg would not go along with requests from AIG to allow key employees to have base salaries above those Feinberg was prepared to approve. AIG claimed that it could not retain its best talent with the prospect of only modest compensation. There is nothing unusual about that. The chairman of GM made a similar statement about the difficulty of hiring and retaining talent at the car company when the federal government is unbending in its plan to keep pay scales low at firms with TARP investments. Read More
American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG) is under pressure today after its new CEO Robert Benmosche, who has not even had a full three months yet on the job, has effectively threatened to walk out as CEO of AIG. The reasoning is over the intense restrictions of being under the government, particularly as it pertains to compensation limits. What is interesting is that this may be a strong CEO throwing the gauntlet at the government. But we also want to explore what Benmosche is actually worth in real dollar terms to AIG today. Chances are it is far more than just this 4% we have seen the stock drop today.
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These are this morning’s top day trader and active trader alerts seen in the pre-market trading hours. We also included some options color from yesterday. A link has been provided for more detailed analysis and data for each stock over at VSInvestor.com:
American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG) is down only about 2% after reports that the company could find itself leaderless again.
A123 Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: AONE) is trading down 3% after earnings and concerns over a partnership.
MBIA Inc. (NYSE: MBI) is trading up over 3% this morning after getting crushed yesterday, M.J. Whitman’s Third Avenue took a stake.
Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) is running over 3% on an analyst call.
Sigma Designs, Inc. (NASDAQ: SIGM) is down 8% on a downgrade.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: REGN) is trading up 10% after Sanofi-Aventis expanded its antibody pact substantially.
We have many options on watch as well:
You can join our open email distribution list which goes out several times per week to be notified of key merger news, key analyst calls, top early morning day trader alerts, along with news of IPO’s, key offerings, guru investor data on Buffett and others, mergers, and more.
JON C. OGG
Updated throughout the day.
11:45 AM EST: Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) may seek to sell its Home & Networking division for about $4.5 billion according to WSJ. -Jon Ogg
American Air (NYSE:AMR) may team with private equity firm TPG to make an investment in Japan Air. (Bloomberg)
AIG (NYSE:AIG) CEO Robert E. Benmosche may resign. (WSJ)
Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) plans to release a new programming language called Go that can help computer coders improve efficiency (CNET)
China may benchmark the yuan against currencies other than the dollar. (CNBC)
Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) may hold a critical edge against the EU in the antitrust battle.
General Electric (NYSE:GE) is in talks to sell its security systems unit to United Technologies (NYSE:UTX) for over $1.5 billion. (FT)
Douglas A. McIntyre
Reuters: Two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers were acquited.
Reuters: Zucker, NBCU’s current CEO, will head the company when Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) buys a majority of the company from GE (NYSE:GE).
Reuters: Dodd’s super-bank regulator fights a uphil battle in Congress.
Reuters: Fed officials see an uneven recovery. Read More
American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG) is running this morning. The stock is trading higher this morning on a debt rating comment from last night. It turns out that Moody’s might have some relevance after all with the gains we are seeing. Moody’s issued a report last night noting that AIG will be able to repay its Federal Reserve credit line, and that it will be able to repay much or all of the investment from the US Treasury Department’s if financial markets stabilize. That is still an “IF” and not a definite event.
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General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) may be the one single bright spot taking the market higher this Friday when you consider the 10.2% unemployment rate and when you look over the latest round of earnings. Both Oppenheimer and Bernstein raised their official GE ratings to “Outperform” in research calls this morning. It depends upon which way the wind blows, but there are many times that GE trades more like some of the troubled financial stocks rather than as the top industrial stock in America.
American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG), Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) are all headed in opposite direction of GE. We noted that Fannie had broken the buck in pre-market trading and is back above the $1.00 level now. It is also dragging down Freddie Mac. AIG is adding to larger losses seen at the open.
GE shares are trading up 5.4% at $15.21 and we have already seen over 30 million shares trade hands in the first 20 minutes and pre-market period.
JON C. OGG
Updated throughout the day.
Citigroup (NYSE:C) will re-launch some of its least successful hedge funds (FT)
The stock market is at risk of not holding 10,000. (TheStreet)
AIG (NYSE:AIG) will not hold a conference call to avoid uncomfortable questions about its balance sheet (The Deal)
Sales of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows 7 are outpacing those after the launch of Vista (Apple Insider)
Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE:ANF) are likely to fall sharply (Barron’s)
BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP) may make another bid to buy rival Rio Tinto (NYSE:RTP) (FTAlphaville)
“Governments may take as long as a decade to cut debt issuance back to the levels before global markets seized up following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. last year.” (Bloomberg)
Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) is likely to go through a period of sharp job cuts. (Business Insider)
Douglas A. McIntyre
It is of little surprise that CIT Group, Inc. (NYSE: CIT) is seeing clobbered today. The company has finally filed its pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy package and that has CIT shares down a sharp 63% at $0.26 on triple its average volume. By now, the game is probably known by everyone that bankruptcy usually leaves shareholders of common stock out in the cold. Should it be of any surprise that the “other troubled financial stocks” are seeing their shares head south?
It was just a week ago that I discussed the Fannie-Freddie equity conundrum. Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) are down further. After all, these two are in government conservatorship. It is even easy to argue that these are just being kept alive so that Uncle Sam doesn’t have to include the obligations on the Fed’s balance sheet. And how many investors in these companies really believe that they are holding anything more than a long-term warrant or LEAP option that is way out of the money? Fannie Mae is down 7.4% at $1.00 and Freddie Mac is down almost 9% at $1.12, and neither are on active volume today.
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Reuters: House Democrats unveiled their healthcare bill.
Reuters: Senators may extend home purchase credits until April.
Reuters: China will launch a case against The Big Three auto companies.
Reuters: Galleon paid Wall St. bankers millions to give data that would allow a trading “edge.” Read More
Updated throughout the day.
Updated 10.21 AM EST: The pricing of the Ancestry.com IPO may be much too high. (BreakingViews).
Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) new social search feature may not include industry leader Facebook (TechCrunch)
David Sokol interim CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) subsidiary NetJets Inc, is the top candidate to take Warren Buffett’s job (The Deal)
There could be another seven million home foreclosures in the US. (TheStreet.com)
Home prices could drop another 5% to 10% by mid-2010. (Bloomberg)
United Technologies (NYSE:UTX) has is the frontrunner in the bidding for GE’s (NYSE:GE) fire alarm and surveillance systems business. (Bloomberg).
Former AIG (NYSE:AIG) boss Hank Greenberg is actively stealing talent from his old company. (NYTimes)
NBC Universal which is 80% owned by GE, could be spun out as an IPO. (CNBC)
“The Obama administration is scheduled to announce Tuesday where it is spending $3.4 billion of stimulus money on 100 smart-grid projects in 49 states. As part of the funding, utilities are contributing $4.7 billion to the projects, making the total spending $8.1 billion. (CNET)
Nintendo may launch a large screen DSi which could be a challenge to Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Sony (NYSE:SNE) game system sales. (TechTree)
Douglas A. McIntyre
Reuters: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) beat earnings forecasts.
Reuters: The IRS is probing some homebuyers’ tax credit gains.
Reuters: The US is ready to bring more insider trading cases.
Reuters: More US companies are cutting bonuses. Read More
Reuters: Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and IBM (NYSE:IBM) posted strong results.
Reuters: Bank of America’s (NYSE:BAC) Lewis will skip 2009 pay.
Reuters: Japan Airlines says bankruptcy is an option to solving its problems.
Reuters: Soros says US economy will drag on world growth. Read More
Reuters: Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) is having trouble justifying its huge bonuses.
Reuters: Bruce Wasserstein, M&A giant and head of Lazard (NYSE:LAZ), died.
Reuters: Congress will probe compensation at AIG (NYSE:AIG).
Reuters: US foreclosures fell for a second month but stayed high. Read More
Updated throughout the day.
Updated 12.02 PM EST: Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) will have a national roll-out of its “no contract” cellular service which could put sales pressure on Sprint (NYSE:S) (Reuters)
Updated 9.23 AM EST: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (NYSE:NWS) and John Malone’s Liberty Media (NASDAQ:LINTA) are interested in GE’s NBCU (Reuters & CNBC)
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is shipping versions of its 3Gs iPhone with alterations to fight back at hackers. (iClarified)
RBS (NYSE:RBS) may sell 300 branches. (FT)
The head of AIG’s (NYSE:AIG) International Lease Finance aircraft leasing firm, Steven Udvar-Hazy, may buy $2 billion in planes from the huge insurance firm to start his own company. (Bloomberg)
Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) in interested in NBC Universal because it thinks it can buy the company well below its value because of GE’s (NYSE:GE) desperation to exit the business. Vivendi is playing hardball on the price of its 20% stake in NBCU (NYPost).
Net neutrality and the rise in the transfer of large data files will make the internet collapse (Ars Technica)
Former employees of Citadel Investment Group will start their own hedge fund (WSJ)
The release of Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows 7 could push up Apple’s Mac sales. (Fortune)
You can join our open email distribution list to get updates each morning on analyst upgrades and downgrades, top day trader alerts, IPO’s and secondary offerings, Warren Buffett and other guru activity, M&A and more.
Douglas A. McIntyre
AIG (NYSE:AIG) is a meritocracy. One of the firm’s best kitchen workers got a $7,70o retention bonus as part of the firm’s plan to keep key employees. According to the FT, the payment was made in March.
Kenneth Feinberg, the government’s pay czar is asking that AIG retention bonuses be cut by $198 million for 2010 and that the company “claw back” $45 million from last year. Read More
Reuters: Aggressive trading in gold in China may be pushing the price of the metal up.
Reuters: Blackstone’s (NYSE:BX) CEO says the worst of the crisis is over.
Reuters: The House has begun to create a financial regulation bill. Read More
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