Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Now let's see how many buyers there are
MRCY +10.52% now, $12.50, been posting since the open
OIL falling -0.79% ($73.17), DJI 10,024, EURO: 1.3717, USD: 80.245, GOLD 1068, NDX 1,745, SPX -44%: 1,065
Yes, those put sellers are out in force...which makes you think that they are anticipating a bounce next week?
BL: Republicans May Gain From Voter Discontent in Midterm Elections, Poll Says
By Kate Andersen Brower
Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- More U.S. voters would choose a Republican over a Democratic candidate in their congressional districts if the midterm elections were held today, according to a poll.
The ABC News/Washington Post poll released today found that 48 percent of registered voters would pick a Republican candidate for Congress, while 45 percent said they would vote for a Democratic candidate. Republicans have led Democrats six times in dozens of ABC/Washington Post polls since 1981, according to the pollsters.
Democrats lead Republicans by six points on voter trust, down from a 33-point lead in a survey released Dec. 14, 2008, after President Barack Obama’s election. Forty-three percent said they trust Democrats to handle the country’s major problems, while 37 percent said they trust Republicans.
“The momentum that Democrats had in 2006 and 2008 has reversed; now Republicans have that momentum,” said Charlie Cook, publisher of the independent Cook Political Report. “Democrats went in with a huge wave of support in January last year and have been extremely unsuccessful.”
Obama is urging Democrats and Republicans to work together to end the impasse over U.S. health care. On Feb. 7, he invited lawmakers from the House and Senate in both parties to a Feb. 25 meeting to discuss ways to get an overhaul of the health-care system through Congress.
Losing Faith
Voters are losing faith in the Democratic-controlled Congress. The survey found that 71 percent disapprove of Congress, the highest percentage since 1994, when Republicans won control by sweeping the midterm elections.
The survey showed that 88 percent say the recession isn’t over and 72 percent say they don’t think the economy will begin improving for more than a year, fueling discontent with the Congress and Obama.
Cook said congressional Democrats have been “obsessed with health-care reform,” when the economy should have been their main focus.
“It should have been a ‘Houston we have a problem’ moment when, during the first week of August, we got reports that showed three consecutive months where unemployment was over nine percent,” he said in a telephone interview.
Marist Poll
A Marist Poll released two days ago found more than half of U.S. voters who describe themselves as independents disapprove of the president’s job performance for the first time since he took office in January 2009.
The Marist Institute of Public Opinion survey found that 57 percent of independent voters have a negative view of Obama’s job performance, up from 44 percent in a Dec. 8 survey. Twenty- nine percent of independents approve, down from 41 percent, and 14 percent said they were unsure.
The ABC/Washington Post poll was based on telephone interviews with a random national sampling of 1,004 adults conducted from Feb. 4 to 8. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kate Andersen Brower in Washington at Kandersen7@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 10, 2010 10:34 EST
>>Gainers: ATHX +27.47%, OPEN +18.81%, LIOX +15.54%, NTGR +11.49%, BIDU +8.91%, DDSS +7.37%, CLSN +6.88%, CPST +6.14%, AINV +5.50%, HYTM +3.49%, STEM +3.42% STEM +3.42%, BRCD +3.02%, CERN +2.53%, AVNR +2.31%, ATVI +2.31%, WU +1.92%, DELL +1.85%, ADBE +1.45%, JPM +1.35%, MS +1.26%, GE +1.41%, RF +1.11%, HIG +0.85%, GS +0.84%, BAC +0.76%, WFC +0.60%
alotta banks up today
ty! stick around, we serve donuts later :)
>>Greek Crisis? Play EFA puts: $51 puts +36.07%
EFENY
EFA = MSCI index ETF
http://i46.tinypic.com/2aag2er.png
>>MRCY Now +9.46%, posted earlier at +2.12%, been gaining steadily on light vol, fwiw
>>NBG (National Bank of Greece) -2.82%, $4.14, red after yesterday's big run
Was it all just short covering?
This story is still unfolding
UAUA gone green, UAUA calls the flavor for about 30 mins now...running into earnings
Very interesting...I should look deeper into that technology. Seems like a big winner for the media and smart phone age
Zenverge ICs are uniquely capable of addressing advanced digital media requirements in every step of the end-to-end media flow - from the broadcast center to the home. They are designed to enrich products in several high volume market segments including service provider set-top boxes and media gateways, consumer electronics such as Blu-ray recorders/players and HDTVs, notebook and desktop media PCs, and headend video networking equipment.
Is there a ticker for Zenverge ?
BL: EU to Push Greece on Budget, Stop Short of Aid Announcement, Official Says
By Tony Czuczka and Brian Parkin
Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- European Union leaders meeting in Brussels tomorrow will probably press Greece to present more detailed budget cuts and stop short of announcing an aid package for the debt-stricken nation, a German government official said.
As officials in Berlin, Paris and Brussels thrashed out potential aid plans to add to political pressure, Greece faced street protests and strikes that shut down schools, hospitals and flights in response to government plans to freeze wages and cut benefits.
Germany and France are leading talks to provide help for Greece under “tough pre-conditions,” said Markus Ferber, a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bloc in the European Parliament, citing discussions his group had with the federal officials in Berlin. He said they prefer a bilateral approach over an EU plan.
“It’s a tightrope walk for European governments,” said Henrik Enderlein, a political economist at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. The dilemma is “to signal confidence, because there is no technical reason why Greece should default,” while avoiding a “full-scale bailout.”
For weeks, European officials insisted that no bailout was planned and that Greece’s effort to reduce its deficit, estimated at 12.7 percent of gross domestic product, should be given a chance to work.
The euro’s slide to a nine-month low and a slump in bond prices prompted leaders to drop their resistance to rescuing Greece and to protect the rest of the euro region from market turmoil. Prospects that the EU would extend a financial lifeline to Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou at the summit sent Greek bonds to their biggest rally since the introduction of the euro today.
German Briefing
German Finance Wolfgang Schaeuble told lawmakers in Berlin today that options for helping Greece extend beyond loan guarantees, according to a lawmaker who attended today’s briefing in Berlin and spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were private. EU rules on aid are more flexible than the German government first thought, he said.
Schaeuble told reporters today he had “no intention to participate in speculation.”
EU law bars the ECB or national central banks from bailing out EU countries through buying their debt or offering loans, the German parliament’s research unit said in a report published yesterday.
“Help for Greece is obviously on the way,” said Joerg Kraemer, chief economist at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. “The EU seems bent on making sure that it reacts in time and not at the last minute.”
EU Rules
An EU official said today all options are being considered, including a standing facility to provide credit guarantees. The official told reporters the measures under consideration could be national or directed by the EU. An announcement of a plan may be made today, said the official, who declined to be identified because the talks remain confidential.
Papandreou, who met French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris today, has failed to convince investors that his plan of spending reductions, a wage freeze and stepped-up tax collections to cut the EU’s biggest deficit will work.
“We have submitted a very specific stability and growth pact to the European Commission and it will be implemented in every detail,” the Greek leader told reporters in Paris today.
EU leaders and European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet will discuss Greece over lunch tomorrow, though no decision on aid has been taken and none is on the agenda, the German official told reporters in Berlin today on condition of anonymity. The onus will lie with Papandreou to send the strong signal that markets are waiting for, the official said.
Spread Narrows
Signs of a rescue helped ease investor concerns that Greece’s worsening finances would derail the global recovery. The risk premium investors demand to buy Greek debt over comparable German bonds tumbled for a second day to 2.80 percentage points, the lowest since Jan. 19. It reached as high as 3.96 percentage points on Jan. 28.
The gains in Greek securities may be short-lived.
There will be “blood on the walls” in credit markets if the EU fails to agree to a package for Greece tomorrow, Gary Jenkins, head of credit strategy at Evolution Securities Ltd. in London, said in a note to investors. “They must be aware of that and thus it is an extremely unlikely scenario,” he said.
The French government is “busy working” on possible solutions for Greece and Sarkozy plans to hold a joint press conference with Merkel after the summit, spokesman Luc Chatel said in Paris today. Both leaders have a united stance ahead of the summit, the German official said.
‘Strict Conditions’
Aid would come “under strict conditions and if the Greek government undertakes far-reaching state reforms,” Michael Meister, financial-affairs spokesman for Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, said yesterday.
Merkel, facing rising unemployment and declining support for her three-party coalition, may face domestic criticism over an attempt to help Greece. Lawmakers from her Free Democratic Party junior coalition partner have spoken out against aid for Greece.
“We don’t help the alcoholic by giving him another bottle of schnapps,” Frank Schaeffler, the party’s senior member on the finance committee, said in a speech to lawmakers in Berlin.
To contact the reporters on this story: Brian Parkin in Berlin at bparkin@bloomberg.net; Tony Czuczka in Berlin at aczuczka@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 10, 2010 10:39 EST
>>CASINO stocks falling, PUTS up 15-40% (eom)
>>Hmm, so they're still trying to figure out whether or not they can or should even offer aid to Greece?
It sounds like this is getting bogged down in bureaucratic nuances. Bureaucracy, of course, is the special love and main export product of Belgium.
If this drags on for long, markets will not be happy - yikes!
imho!
BL: Bernanke Says Federal Reserve May Opt to Raise Discount Rate `Before Long'
By Scott Lanman and Craig Torres
Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve may raise the discount rate “before long” as part of the “normalization” of Fed lending, a move that won’t signal any change in the outlook for monetary policy, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said.
Bernanke repeated the Federal Open Market Committee statement that low rates are warranted “for an extended period” in testimony prepared for the House Financial Services Committee. The Fed may also temporarily replace the federal funds rate as a policy guide with interest it pays on banks’ deposits should fed funds become a “less reliable indicator than usual,” Bernanke said.
Bernanke, who this month started his second four-year term as Fed chief, previewed what would be the first interest-rate move in more than a year while giving more details on several tools that may be used to tighten credit “at some point.” Bernanke, 56, and his fellow policy makers are preparing to remove unprecedented monetary stimulus as the U.S. economy is forecast to grow at the fastest pace since 2006.
“Before long, we expect to consider a modest increase in the spread between the discount rate and the target federal funds rate,” Bernanke said in the testimony for a hearing originally scheduled for today and postponed because of a snowstorm. A new date hasn’t been announced.
Two-year Treasury securities fell, pushing the yield to 0.84 percent at 10:07 a.m. in New York from 0.83 percent yesterday. U.S. stocks extended declines, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index falling 0.5 percent to 1,064.77. The dollar extended gains against the euro.
Outlook for Policy
The changes “are not expected to lead to tighter financial conditions for households and businesses and should not be interpreted as signaling any change in the outlook for monetary policy, which remains about as it was at the time of the January meeting of the FOMC,” Bernanke said.
In December 2008, the Fed cut the discount rate, charged on direct loans to commercial banks, to 0.5 percent as it lowered the separate federal funds rate, which banks use for overnight loans to each other, to a range of zero to 0.25 percent. Both rates have been unchanged since then.
“Although at present the U.S. economy continues to require the support of highly accommodative monetary policies, at some point the Federal Reserve will need to tighten financial conditions by raising short-term interest rates and reducing the quantity of bank reserves outstanding,” Bernanke said.
Lending Freeze
Before August 2007, the discount rate was set at one percentage point above the federal funds rate. As bank lending began to freeze that month, the Fed reduced the difference to a half-point and narrowed it again, to a quarter-point, in March 2008 in conjunction with its rescue of Bear Stearns Cos.
The central bank has already reduced the maximum term of discount-window loans to banks to 28 days from 90 days, “and we will consider whether further reductions in the maximum loan maturity are warranted,” Bernanke said.
The Fed incurred no losses on its $1.5 trillion of emergency lending programs, and the Board of Governors “continues to anticipate” it will not lose money on the bailouts of Bear Stearns and New-York based insurer American International Group Inc. The Fed’s portion of those rescues totals about $116 billion, Bernanke said.
The Fed’s unprecedented actions under Bernanke have helped thaw credit markets.
The Libor-OIS spread, a gauge of banks’ willingness to lend, has narrowed to 0.10 percentage point from a record 3.64 points in October 2008. The TED spread, the difference between what the Treasury and banks pay to borrow dollars for three months, has narrowed to 0.15 percentage point from as high as 4.64 percentage points in October 2008.
Deposits at Fed
Separately, Bernanke said raising the interest rate paid on funds deposited by banks at the Fed, as well as so-called reverse repurchase agreements that temporarily drain cash from the banking system, will probably be the first tools for tightening credit.
Bernanke said he doesn’t expect the Fed “in the near term” to sell the $1.43 trillion of housing debt being purchased through next month, “at least until after policy tightening has gotten under way and the economy is clearly in a sustainable recovery.” Fed officials may decide “in the future” to sell securities, he said.
“Any such sales would be at a gradual pace, would be clearly communicated to market participants and would entail appropriate consideration of economic conditions,” Bernanke said.
The purchases have helped push total assets on the Fed’s balance sheet to $2.25 trillion from $925 billion at the start of 2008. Excess reserves in the banking system total more than $1 trillion.
Removing Reserves
The central bank can use several tools to temporarily remove those reserves from the financial system and thereby raise the federal funds rate. Bernanke said the Fed is expanding the set of counterparties for reverse repurchase agreements, under which it provides securities as collateral in exchange for a short-term cash loan.
Bernanke said “one possible sequence” of the exit strategy involves first testing tools for draining reserves “on a limited basis.” Then, “as the time for the removal of policy accommodation draws near, those operations could be scaled up to drain more significant volumes of reserve balances to provide tighter control over short-term interest rates,” he said.
‘Firming’ of Policy
The Fed would then execute the “actual firming of policy” by raising the interest rate on bank reserves, Bernanke said. Congress granted the Fed the power in October 2008 as part of the law creating the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.
While Fed officials have previously said the deposit rate will play a major role in the exit strategy, Bernanke said the rate may replace the federal funds rate, the policy benchmark for the past two decades, until reserves are “much lower.”
“It is possible that the Federal Reserve could for a time use the interest rate paid on reserves, in combination with targets for reserve quantities, as a guide to its policy stance, while simultaneously monitoring a range of market rates,” Bernanke said.
The Fed may be months away from tightening credit. U.S. central bankers will begin raising rates in November and increase the benchmark lending rate to 0.75 percent by the end of the year, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News in January.
The U.S. economy will expand 2.7 percent this year, according to the median estimate. The timing and speed of rate increases may also depend on how quickly the economy can begin to generate job growth.
“It is great that he is laying out a blueprint. It will reduce market uncertainty,” said Karl Haeling, head of strategic debt distribution at Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany’s third-largest bank, before the release of the testimony.
To contact the reporters on this story: Scott Lanman in Washington at slanman@bloomberg.net; Craig Torres in Washington at ctorres3@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: February 10, 2010 10:12 EST
(SPY/QID/DIA) Stocks in U.S. Extend Decline as Fed Signals It May Increase Discount Rate
U.S. Stocks Retreat as Bernanke Prepares to Raise Discount Rate
By Rita Nazareth
Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks slid as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank may raise the discount rate it charges for direct loans to banks “before long” as policy makers unwind economic stimulus measures.
Newmont Mining Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. led producers of raw materials and energy to the steepest declines among 10 groups in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index after the Fed released Bernanke’s prepared congressional testimony. Sprint Nextel Corp. lost 9 percent as the third-largest U.S. wireless carrier reported sales that trailed analyst estimates, while Dean Foods Co. slumped 13 percent after the nation’s biggest dairy processor forecast profit below projections.
“Finally, the U.S. is taking Greece off the cover page,” said Joseph Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Chatham, New Jersey-based Themis Trading LLC. “The Fed’s announcement certainly did not help the market. Nobody expects them to be raising rates like they normally do. So they’re trying something creative. These are different times now.”
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.7 percent to 1,062.7 at 10:24 a.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 71.19 points, or 0.7 percent, to 9,987.45 and the Nasdaq Composite Index decreased 0.7 percent to 2,135.14. Investors said they expected trading to be slower than average because of a snow storm in the U.S. Northeast.
U.S. benchmark indexes fluctuated earlier as investors weighed the prospects of a possible financial bailout of Greece by fellow European Union country Germany.
Greece Concern
Equity-index futures erased an early advance before the open of U.S. exchanges as a German official said no decision has been made on a Greek rescue. Stocks rallied yesterday, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average back above 10,000, as prospects for a Greek bailout eased concern that deteriorating government finances will derail the global economic recovery. The Dow increased 1.5 percent, the biggest gain since Nov. 9.
An official said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told lawmakers that options for helping Greece extended beyond loan guarantees. The lawmaker, who attended a briefing at the Parliament in Berlin today, spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential.
So far, 327 companies in the S&P 500 have reported fourth- quarter earnings since Jan. 11, and about 76 percent have beaten analysts’ estimates, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Confidence in the world economy dropped in February on concern worsening government finances in some European nations will derail the global recovery, according to a Bloomberg survey of users on six continents.
Confidence Slumps
The Bloomberg Professional Global Confidence Index dropped to 54.9 from 66.6 in January, when the reading was at the highest level since the series began two years ago. The index exceeded 50 for a seventh month, which means there were more optimists than pessimists. The survey was conducted last week, before Germany and other European Union nations signaled they may help support Greece’s government finances.
Most Bloomberg users were less optimistic on the outlook for their equity markets in the next six months, with respondents in the U.S., the U.K. and Spain turning bearish.
Sprint Nextel dropped 9 percent to $3.32. The third-largest U.S. wireless carrier reported fourth-quarter sales that missed analysts’ estimates after losing contract customers to rivals. Sales dropped 6.7 percent to $7.87 billion, while analysts in a Bloomberg survey projected $8.04 billion on average.
Dean Foods lost 13 percent to $15.82. The biggest U.S. dairy processor forecast 2010 profit excluding some items of $1.64 a share at most. On average, the analysts surveyed by Bloomberg estimated earnings of $1.70.
Micron Technology Inc. declined 7 percent to $8.44. The biggest U.S. producer of computer memory agreed to buy flash- chip maker Numonyx Holdings BV for about $1.27 billion to help it compete better with Samsung Electronics Co.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rita Nazareth at rnazareth@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: February 10, 2010 10:29 EST
BL: Dollar Optimism Rises to 15-Month High on Global Budget Concern
By Daniel Kruger
Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Investors are the most bullish on the U.S. dollar since November 2008 on concern that weakening government finances in European nations will hurt the global economic recovery, a survey of Bloomberg users showed.
The world’s reserve currency will rise over the next six months, according to respondents in the Bloomberg Professional Global Confidence Index. Confidence about the outlook for the global economy among the 2,486 participants in the survey, taken before European Union officials said they may aid Greece yesterday, dropped from the highest level since the series began two years ago.
The dollar rose last week to its strongest level against the euro since May as Greece struggled to convince investors the government can cut its deficit below the European Union’s ceiling of 3 percent of gross domestic product. Spain and Portugal are also trying to control widening deficits, prompting investors to drive the euro down 3.8 percent this year.
The drop in the euro “shows you the magnitude and momentum of the fears associated with Greece,” said Andrew Busch, a global currency strategist at Bank of Montreal in Chicago, and a survey participant.
Sentiment toward the dollar reached 55.72 this month, from 53.11 in January and 42.42 in December, according to the survey. The measure is a diffusion index, meaning a reading above 50 indicates Bloomberg users expect the dollar to strengthen.
The last time the reading was this high was November 2008, when it was 59.83. That was when the U.S. pledged to spend record amounts to bail out the financial system as credit markets froze. The Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Index for the dollar rose as much as 10 percent the next four months.
Euro Confidence Tumbles
The fallout from the budget crisis in Greece has led German investors to become the most bearish on the 16-nation currency since November 2007, when Bloomberg began tracking survey data. Sentiment from German participants dropped to 37.5, while the readings for respondents in Spain declined to 25.19 and slid to 30 for those in France.
European officials said yesterday they may assist Greece to prevent its budget deficit from eroding confidence in the euro. Options for Greece include bilateral aid or a package put together by a group of countries using the euro, said Michael Meister, financial affairs spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union.
“We are talking about support in the broad sense,” Olli Rehn, the EU’s economic affairs commissioner, said yesterday. Meister said that aid would come “under strict conditions and if the Greek government undertakes far-reaching state reforms.”
Paradigm Shift
Speculation that economic growth will lag behind the U.S. and that the region’s debt won’t fall to pre-financial crisis levels for at least five years also are weighing on the euro, as well as assets denominated in the currency.
“There does seem to be a slight shift in the paradigm,” said Samarjit Shankar, a managing director for the foreign- exchange group in Boston at Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the world’s largest custodial bank, with more than $20 trillion in assets under administration and a survey participant. “No longer is just risk aversion beneficial to the dollar. The dollar has its own set of drivers.”
The Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Index for the dollar has risen 6 percent from last year’s low on Nov. 25 as U.S. government reports showed the unemployment rate fell last month. Before the Dec. 4 payrolls report, the index fell about 21 percent from its peak last year in March as investors bought higher-yielding assets funded with dollars.
Government Bond Yields
“There are some good reasons to be confident about the dollar,” Busch said. “The economy’s coming back.”
The U.S. economy will expand 2.7 percent in 2010, about twice as much as in the euro zone and Japan, according to the median forecasts in Bloomberg surveys of economists.
The budget crisis in Greece has also bolstered the appeal of U.S. government debt. Yields on 10-year notes ended yesterday at 3.65 percent, down from the 4 percent high for the past year set in June.
The prospect for an increase in 10-year Treasury note yields declined to 68.30 in February, from a peak of 76.65 a month earlier, the survey showed.
Expectations for higher yields also declined in Germany, France and Spain last month. The index for German respondents dropped to 69.08 from 72.71. Pessimism fell to 66 from 72.08 among French participants, the least since October. In Spain, the measure slumped to 73.36 from 75.2, which was the highest since the surveys began.
To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Kruger in New York at dkruger1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 10, 2010 07:00 EST