STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 26 February 2014

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday, 26 February 2014[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 25 February 2014

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 25 February 2014
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Dow Jones 16,179.66 -27.48 (-0.17%)
S&P 500 1,845.12 -2.49 (-0.13%)
Nasdaq 4,287.59 -5.38 (-0.13%)


[font color=green]10 Year 2.70% -0.02 (-0.74%)
30 Year 3.66% -0.02 (-0.54%) [font color=black]


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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]

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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
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The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
Wall Street on Parade
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.
08/01/13 Fabrice Tourré convicted on six counts of security fraud, including "aiding and abetting" his former employer, Goldman Sachs
08/14/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, and conspiracy in connection with JP Morgan's "London Whale" trade.
08/19/13 Phillip A. Falcone, manager of hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, agrees to admit to "wrongdoing" in market manipulation. Will banned from securities industry for 5 years and pay $18MM in disgorgement and fines.
09/16/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout officially indicted on charges associated with "London Whale" trade.
02/06/14 Matthew Martoma convicted of insider trading while at hedge fund SAC (Stephen A. Cohen) Capital Advisors. Expected sentence 7-10 years.








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[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]

[Warpy]

1. Well, it does take them a little longer to reboot

but by three months after a minimum wage increase, everybody but the libertarians has rebooted and realize the increase was a good thing that should have happened far earlier.

Libertarians live in some kind of lala land where they never notice that sometimes government interference in the economy can be a good thing.

[Demeter]

2. They've had it their way since Nixon, and what do they have to show for it?

Compared to the lost opportunity...nothing much.

[Demeter]

3. Chris Hedges: Our Sinister Dual State

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/our_sinister_dual_state_20140216

... the former National Security Agency official and whistle-blower William E. Binney and I will debate Stewart A. Baker, a former general counsel for the NSA, P.J. Crowley, a former State Department spokesman, and the media pundit Jeffrey Toobin. The debate, at Oxford University, will center on whether Edward Snowden’s leaks helped or harmed the public good. The proposition asks: “Is Edward Snowden a Hero?” But, on a deeper level, the debate will revolve around our nation’s loss of liberty.

The government officials who, along with their courtiers in the press, castigate Snowden insist that congressional and judicial oversight, the right to privacy, the rule of law, freedom of the press and the right to express dissent remain inviolate. They use the old words and the old phrases, old laws and old constitutional guarantees to give our corporate totalitarianism a democratic veneer. They insist that the system works. They tell us we are still protected by the Fourth Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Yet the promise of that sentence in the Bill of Rights is pitted against the fact that every telephone call we make, every email or text we send or receive, every website we visit and many of our travels are tracked, recorded and stored in government computers. The Fourth Amendment was written in 1789 in direct response to the arbitrary and unchecked search powers that the British had exercised through general warrants called writs of assistance, which played a significant part in fomenting the American Revolution. A technical system of surveillance designed to monitor those considered to be a danger to the state has, in the words of Binney, been “turned against you.”

We live in what the German political scientist Ernst Fraenkel called “the dual state.” Totalitarian states are always dual states. In the dual state civil liberties are abolished in the name of national security. The political sphere becomes a vacuum “as far as the law is concerned,” Fraenkel wrote. There is no legal check on power. Official bodies operate with impunity outside the law. In the dual state the government can convict citizens on secret evidence in secret courts. It can strip citizens of due process and detain, torture or assassinate them, serving as judge, jury and executioner. It rules according to its own arbitrary whims and prerogatives. The outward forms of democratic participation—voting, competing political parties, judicial oversight and legislation—are hollow, political stagecraft. Fraenkel called those who wield this unchecked power over the citizenry “the prerogative state.”

MORE DEPRESSING REVELATIONS AT LINK

[Demeter]

4. Snowden Documents Reveal Covert Surveillance and Pressure Tactics Aimed at WikiLeaks and Its Support

IS THIS THE FIRST ARTICLE FROM THE NEW MEDIA?

Snowden Documents Reveal Covert Surveillance and Pressure Tactics Aimed at WikiLeaks and Its Supporters By Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher


https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/18/snowden-docs-reveal-covert-surveillance-and-pressure-tactics-aimed-at-wikileaks-and-its-supporters/



Top-secret documents from the National Security Agency and its British counterpart reveal for the first time how the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom targeted WikiLeaks and other activist groups with tactics ranging from covert surveillance to prosecution.

The efforts – detailed in documents provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden – included a broad campaign of international pressure aimed not only at WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but at what the U.S. government calls “the human network that supports WikiLeaks.” The documents also contain internal discussions about targeting the file-sharing site Pirate Bay and hacktivist collectives such as Anonymous.

One classified document from Government Communications Headquarters, Britain’s top spy agency, shows that GCHQ used its surveillance system to secretly monitor visitors to a WikiLeaks site. By exploiting its ability to tap into the fiber-optic cables that make up the backbone of the Internet, the agency confided to allies in 2012, it was able to collect the IP addresses of visitors in real time, as well as the search terms that visitors used to reach the site from search engines like Google.

Another classified document from the U.S. intelligence community, dated August 2010, recounts how the Obama administration urged foreign allies to file criminal charges against Assange over the group’s publication of the Afghanistan war logs....

[Demeter]

5. THE PLOT SICKENS

In 2008, not long after WikiLeaks was formed, the U.S. Army prepared a report that identified the organization as an enemy, and plotted how it could be destroyed. The new documents provide a window into how the U.S. and British governments appear to have shared the view that WikiLeaks represented a serious threat, and reveal the controversial measures they were willing to take to combat it.

In a statement to The Intercept, Assange condemned what he called “the reckless and unlawful behavior of the National Security Agency” and GCHQ’s “extensive hostile monitoring of a popular publisher’s website and its readers.”

“News that the NSA planned these operations at the level of its Office of the General Counsel is especially troubling,” Assange said. “Today, we call on the White House to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the extent of the NSA’s criminal activity against the media, including WikiLeaks, its staff, its associates and its supporters.”

MORE HORROR SHOW AT LINK

[Demeter]

6. They've basically reinstituted the Inquistion!

[Demeter]

7. Another "Successful Banker" Found Dead

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-24/another-successful-banker-found-dead



The dismal trail of dead bankers continues. As The Journal Star reports, a successful Lincoln businessman and member of a prominent local family died last week. Former National Bank of Commerce CEO James Stuart Jr. was found dead in Scottsdale, Ariz., the morning of Feb. 19. A family spokesman did not say what caused the death. This brings the total of banker deaths in recent weeks to 9 as Stuart is sadly survived by three sons and four daughters.

Mr Stuart's background (via The Journal Star),

Stuart was a native of Lincoln and graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a degree in Business Administration.

In 1969, Stuart joined Citibank in New York City and served as a loan officer until 1973, when he joined First Commerce Bancshares (then NBC Co.) as executive vice president. He was named president in 1976, chairman and CEO in 1978, and also became chairman and CEO of National Bank of Commerce in 1985. Stuart spent his life building the organization into an important business voice in Lincoln, friend and colleague Brad Korell said.

“He was a very successful banker,” said Korell, who worked with Stuart for more than 30 years. “I always felt that he was a visionary. He really did build one of the most successful and admired banking organizations in the Midwest.”

Stuart spent much of his career with First Commerce Bancshares, a $3 billion multi-bank holding company headquartered in Lincoln. First Commerce was sold to Wells Fargo in 2000.

He is a former member of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and was appointed by Gov. Dave Heineman to the board of the Nebraska Environmental Trust in 2008. Stuart was also involved with natural resources-related groups such as Nature Conservancy, Ducks Unlimited and U.S. National Forest Foundation.

He served on the international board of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and the boards of the University of Nebraska Foundation and Nebraska Wesleyan University.

According to Korell, Stuart was living in Scottsdale, overlooking his family's financial investments, as well as golfing and fishing.

Which brings the total number of recent banker deaths to 9 (via Intellihub):

1 – William Broeksmit, 58-year-old former senior executive at Deutsche Bank AG, was found dead in his home after an apparent suicide in South Kensington in central London, on January 26th.

2- Karl Slym, 51 year old Tata Motors managing director Karl Slym, was found dead on the fourth floor of the Shangri-La hotel in Bangkok on January 27th.

3 – Gabriel Magee, a 39-year-old JP Morgan employee, died after falling from the roof of the JP Morgan European headquarters in London on January 27th.

4 – Mike Dueker, 50-year-old chief economist of a US investment bank was found dead close to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State.

5 – Richard Talley, the 57 year old founder of American Title Services in Centennial, Colorado, was found dead earlier this month after apparently shooting himself with a nail gun.

6 -Tim Dickenson, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG, also died last month, however the circumstances surrounding his death are still unknown.

7 – Ryan Henry Crane, a 37 year old executive at JP Morgan died in an alleged suicide just a few weeks ago. No details have been released about his death aside from this small obituary announcement at the Stamford Daily Voice.

8 - Li Junjie, 33-year-old banker in Hong Kong jumped from the JP Morgan HQ in Hong Kong this week.

BUT WHO'S COUNTING?

[jtuck004]

8. The founders of WhatsApp. Get an idea, create the product, sell to facebook for $19 billion.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/600599#i5,p0,d2

One of them grew up in the Ukraine, till he was 16. He dropped out of San Jose State because of his full-time job at Yahoo. The other founder worked there, and they quit one day, created this app, made it functional and it began to spread, and have now sold it to Zuckerberg.

They are each worth about 6 to 7 billion now. For an application which is free the first year, $1 a year after that. Great work if you can get it.

[Demeter]

9. The DotCom bubble lives on

Everybody looking for a tulip bulb.

[xchrom]

10. Credit Suisse Said to Face SEC Probe of Accounting Moves

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-26/credit-suisse-said-to-face-sec-probe-of-accounting-moves.html

U.S. regulators are investigating whether Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) improperly shifted money in its private banking unit to obscure a drop in asset growth amid a U.S. probe of tax evasion at Swiss banks, a person familiar with the matter said. The shares slid.

The Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating the conduct last year, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the matter isn’t public. The bank is also conducting an internal investigation to determine whether it violated accounting rules in the U.S. or Switzerland, according to a Senate report released yesterday.

Credit Suisse touted the amount of “net new assets,” or net cash inflows, to its private banking business as a key gauge of the lender’s ability to generate earnings, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said in the report. Those inflows began to dry up in 2011 and 2012 as Swiss banks faced growing scrutiny for helping tax evaders, according to an internal e-mail cited by the report.

The shares declined as much as 3.5 percent, the biggest loss since Nov. 4, and dropped 2.4 percent to 27.53 euros at 11:31 a.m. in Zurich, paring this year’s gains to 1 percent. The Bloomberg Europe Bank & Financial Services Index dropped 0.3 percent today.

[xchrom]

11. Merkel Said to Urge Stronger EU in Disappointment to Cameron

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-25/merkel-said-to-call-for-stronger-eu-in-disappointment-to-cameron.html

Chancellor Angela Merkel will call for a stronger European Union in a speech in London that may disappoint Prime Minister David Cameron, according to a German government official with direct knowledge of her preparations.

While Merkel will use her address tomorrow to echo Cameron’s calls for reform of the EU, she will stress that all changes must be carried out to strengthen and not weaken the 28-nation bloc, said the official, who asked not to be named because the diplomacy before the trip is private. Only through a stronger EU can Europe remain competitive in a globalized economy, Merkel will say, according to the official.

“The expectations of the British press are clearly too high,” Steffen Seibert, Merkel’s chief spokesman, said in Jerusalem yesterday when asked about the chancellor’s speech. He declined to comment on the specific content of her address.

Merkel, 59, Germany’s first woman chancellor, its first from the former communist East and the first to be born after World War II, will allude to both world wars in her speech, said the official. She will refer to how the EU has helped to overcome wartime divisions, the official said.

[xchrom]

12. Irish Bank Standoff Tells ECB Cautionary Tale for Asset Review

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-26/irish-bank-standoff-tells-ecb-cautionary-tale-for-asset-review.html

Ireland, home to one of the world’s biggest banking implosions, is now the scene of a skirmish between lenders and regulators that offers a warning to the European Central Bank as it conducts its own probe into the region’s balance sheets.

Bank of Ireland Plc, the nation’s largest lender, has disputed what it claims is the Irish central bank’s estimate that it should set aside an extra 1.1 billion euros ($1.5 billion) to cope with souring loans. The central bank hasn’t confirmed the figure and the resolution of the quarrel, which started in December, won’t be clear until Bank of Ireland publishes full-year results on March 3.

The spat shows the risk of potentially destabilizing squabbles in the financial system when audits of bank balance sheets are kept under wraps, as the ECB plans to do in a much-larger exercise this year. The Frankfurt-based institution has built in a three-month hiatus between auditors leaving banks’ premises at the end of its Asset Quality Review and publication of the results in October.

[xchrom]

13. Europe Stocks Fall With Natural Gas as China Shares Gain

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-25/asian-futures-drop-as-yen-climbs-while-gold-holds-advance.html

European stocks retreated from a six-year high while Chinese shares led gains in emerging markets. U.S. equity-index futures signaled the gauge will rise and natural gas extended its biggest decline in six years.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 0.3 percent at 7:20 a.m. in New York, after closing yesterday at the highest level since January 2008. A gauge of Chinese stocks in Hong Kong snapped a six-day drop. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) futures added 0.2 percent. U.S. natural gas slid 5.4 percent. The yield on German 10-year bonds rose one basis point to 1.66 percent after the government failed to reach its maximum target at a debt sale.

More than $2.1 trillion has been added to the value of equities worldwide this month on speculation the global economy is strong enough to withstand cuts in U.S. stimulus. Data on American home sales is scheduled for today, and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will testify tomorrow on monetary policy before the Senate.

“There isn’t blind enthusiasm in the market like we had last year,” said Tobias Britsch, who helps oversee about $32 billion at Meriten Investment Management GmbH in Dusseldorf, Germany. “Valuations are not cheap and there may be a little nervousness pushing investors to be more conservative now. Improvements in economic growth and an earnings rebound still need to be proven before many are willing to pile in more aggressively.”

[xchrom]

14. Reid Insists on $10.10 Wage as Some in Party Set to Talk

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-25/minimum-wage-vote-probably-to-be-delayed-in-u-s-senate.html

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid won’t consider raising the U.S. minimum wage to any level less than $10.10 an hour, though some of his fellow Democrats say they are ready to negotiate a lower amount.

Three Senate Democrats seeking re-election in November expressed concerns yesterday about raising the federal wage floor to $10.10 an hour. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mark Warner of Virginia are in races both parties view as competitive.

“There ought to be an increase in the minimum wage,” Warner said in an interview. “I think there’s a valid debate about amount and timing.”

[xchrom]

15. Stocks So Many Love to Hate Buoyed by Fed’s Jobs Priority

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-26/stocks-so-many-love-to-hate-buoyed-by-yellen-s-priority-on-jobs.html

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX)’s 5.8 percent drop between Jan. 15 and Feb. 3 prompted hedge funds to push short sales to the highest level since 2012 and spurred the fastest withdrawals from exchange-traded funds in more than a year. Both moves backfired amid a three-week rally that restored $1.5 trillion to American share prices.

While stocks remain subject to shocks, it’s taking less time for them to dissipate as investors acclimate to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s plan for removing economic stimulus. The S&P 500 is within 0.2 percent from a record and poised to erase its loss six weeks faster than the average recovery from declines of 5 percent or more since the bull market began in 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“It’s very hard to be a bear on U.S. equities,” Michael Purves, chief global strategist at Weeden & Co. in Greenwich, Connecticut, said via phone. His year-end target for the S&P 500 is 2,100, the highest among 21 strategists surveyed by Bloomberg. “U.S. equities are the most logical place to go. I’m a bull on equity prices but it’s going to be a rockier ride in 2014 than it was in 2013.”

After sliding in six of the eight days ending Feb. 3 on concern turmoil in emerging markets would curb global growth, the S&P 500 has rebounded 5.9 percent, including a four-day gain ending Feb. 11 that was the biggest advance in more than a year. That surge concluded with a 1.1 percent rally as Yellen pledged to maintain Ben S. Bernanke’s policy of cutting bond purchases in measured steps. Economic growth has strengthened and there is “broad improvement” in the labor market, she said. Futures on the gauge climbed 0.3 percent at 8:12 a.m. in London today.

[xchrom]

16. Foreclosures Climaxing in New York-New Jersey Market: Mortgages

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-26/foreclosures-climaxing-in-new-york-new-jersey-market-mortgages.html

The epicenter of the U.S. foreclosure crisis is shifting to New Jersey and New York, threatening a housing rebound in one of the country’s most densely populated areas.

New Jersey has surpassed Florida in having the highest share of residential mortgages that are seriously delinquent or in foreclosure, with New York third, a Mortgage Bankers Association report showed last week. By contrast, hard-hit areas such as Arizona and California have some of the lowest levels of soured loans after allowing banks to quickly foreclose after the 2007 property crash.

The number of New York and New Jersey homeowners losing their houses reached a three-year high in 2013. Banks in these states have been slowly working through a backlog of delinquent loans that enabled borrowers to skip mortgage payments for years. Now these properties are poised to empty onto a market where affluent Manhattan suburbs neighbor blighted towns that are struggling most with surging defaults.

“It is really a delayed reaction in New Jersey and New York,” said Michael Fratantoni, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington. “Loans that were made pre-crisis have been in this state of suspended animation for a number of years. And now, we are beginning to see the pace of resolution pick up.”

[xchrom]

17. German Bonds Drop as Bids at Auction Fall Short of Sales Target

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-26/german-bonds-slip-as-bids-at-auction-fall-short-of-sales-target.html

Germany’s 10-year bonds declined after bids at an auction of 30-year securities failed to meet the maximum target as an improving economy damps demand for the euro region’s safer fixed-income securities.

Benchmark bunds snapped their biggest advance in almost two weeks as an industry report showed German consumer sentiment is poised to improve to a seven-year high in March. The nation attracted bids for 2.79 billion euros ($3.83 billion) of bonds maturing in August 2046, less than the maximum 3 billion euros for sale. Last week, demand at an offering of securities due in a decade also missed the highest amount available. Greek bonds rallied, pushing 10-year yields to the lowest since 2010.

“It’s probably that people are keen on going for some yield pick-up elsewhere rather than in Germany where yields are very low,” said Annalisa Piazza, a senior fixed-income strategist at Newedge Group in London. “Within Germany, the 10-year bond is better than the 30 year at the moment.”

Germany’s 10-year yield climbed one basis point, or 0.01 percentage point, to 1.65 percent at 12:31 p.m. London time after dropping three basis points yesterday, the most since Feb. 13. The 1.75 percent bund due in February 2024 fell 0.06, or 60 euro cents per 1,000-euro face amount, to 100.915.

[xchrom]

18. Hedge Funds Betting on Danish Crisis Face Losses, Banks Say

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-26/hedge-funds-betting-on-danish-crisis-face-losses-banks-say-1-.html

The biggest banks in Denmark’s $550 billion mortgage market say hedge funds looking for ways to bet against the industry are setting themselves up for losses.

Europe’s largest issuer of mortgage-backed covered bonds, Nykredit Realkredit A/S, says speculation the AAA-rated Danish economy may be headed for a debt crisis ignores some basic facts. Near record-low yields at mortgage bond auctions that started last week are proof that most investors agree, according to the bank.

“Funds can speculate on whatever they want,” Soeren Holm, chief financial officer at Nykredit, said in a telephone interview. “But I don’t think it’s good business to speculate against Denmark.”

The comments follow reports earlier this month that Owl Creek Asset Management LP, a $3.2 billion New York-based hedge fund, was betting against Danish government debt and buying credit default swaps on Danske Bank A/S (DANSKE), the country’s biggest bank and owner of its second-largest mortgage lender. It’s not possible to purchase default swaps on closely held Nykredit, Denmark’s biggest mortgage bank.

[xchrom]

19. Traders Reject Lagarde’s Warning as Volatility Falls: Currencies

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-26/traders-reject-lagarde-s-warning-as-volatility-falls-currencies.html

Currency traders are rejecting warnings from International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde that volatility will increase as the Federal Reserve pares its unprecedented stimulus program.

After peaking at a four-month high earlier this month, a measure of anticipated global price swings has fallen back to the lowest level since October, seven weeks before the U.S. central bank announced a cut in its bond purchases. Average implied volatility for the currencies of Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey -- which Morgan Stanley dubbed the “fragile five” last year because they’re vulnerable to capital flight -- has fallen to the lowest in three months.

Traders are emboldened by forecasts that the U.S., the world’s largest economy, will grow at the fastest pace since 2005 this year and by the Fed’s pledge this month that it will taper stimulus in “measured steps.” Lagarde said in an interview after the Group-of-20 meeting at the weekend that increased volatility would be a “spillover” of the Fed’s actions.

“A jump in volatility starting from emerging markets is unlikely as long as the recovery in developed economies continues,” Yuji Kameoka, the chief currency strategist in Tokyo at Daiwa Securities Co., said in a Feb. 24 phone interview. “Once developed markets stabilize, global markets stabilize. And that’s a positive for emerging economies.”

[xchrom]

20. China Shows Bulls With $500 Billion Yuan Bets It’s in Charge

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-25/china-shows-bulls-with-500-billion-of-yuan-bets-who-s-in-charge.html

Efforts by China to damp speculation in the yuan risks driving away investors just as the nation attempts to open up its capital markets in a once-in-a-generation economic overhaul.

After allowing the currency to steadily rise in each of the past four years, China’s central bank let it tumble about 1 percent over the past week, the most since at least 2007. Volatility in the yuan has jumped the most this month among 31 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg.

Policy makers are moving to drive away speculators as President Xi Jinping seeks to liberalize interest rates, allow more room for the yuan to fluctuate and set up currency trading hubs around the world. Further price swings may squeeze bullish yuan bets that Deutsche Bank AG estimates at $500 billion.

“We are not used to volatility in the Chinese currency,” Jens Nordvig, the New York-based managing director of currency research at Nomura Holdings Inc., said yesterday in an interview on Bloomberg Radio’s “Surveillance” with Tom Keene and Michael McKee. “It’s very painful for market participants because, in a low-volatility environment, it’s possible to carry large positions.”

[xchrom]

21. Credit Suisse 'aided' US tax evaders

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26335432

Credit Suisse "helped its US customers conceal their Swiss accounts" and avoid billions of dollars in American taxes, a report has alleged.

It claims the bank opened Swiss accounts for more than 22,000 US customers, with assets totalling $12bn (£7.2bn) at their peak.

The report alleges bankers helped clients create offshore shell entities and design transactions to avoid arousing suspicion.

Credit Suisse declined to comment.

[xchrom]

22. Putin's Difficult Decision: Ukraine Remains a Danger for Russia

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/situation-in-ukraine-puts-putin-in-a-difficult-spot-a-955604.html

For a brief moment, Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed relaxed, content and proud. During a meeting with the champions from the Russian Olympic team in Sochi, he praised their "triumphal" results: 13 gold medals, 11 silver and 9 bronze. The athletes, Putin said, embodied Russian dignity.

The successful games mean a lot for the self-confidence of a country that was on the brink of disintegration just a decade and a half ago. At the time, just a few hundred kilometers from Sochi, armed separatists in Chechnya had created a gangster republic.
Successors to those rebels are still carrying out attacks in the North Caucasus. But an enormous security effort managed to keep the games in Sochi safe and prevent terrorist attacks. The two-week event was as peaceful as could be and on Sunday, it came to a satisfactory close, with a giant bear blowing out the Olympic torch.

But the torch of instability which is currently being borne aloft in Ukraine is not one that the Russian bear can extinguish.

Last Thursday, Putin spoke at the Kremlin at an event held prior to Defender of the Fatherland Day. His focus was global security, but he didn't explicitly mention Ukraine. Russia, he said, "must not only be vigilant, but also prepared for all developments." Many of his listeners, no doubt, thought of Kiev.

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23. Kirch Settlement: Deutsche Bank's Ongoing Legal Woes

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/deutsche-bank-reaches-deal-in-kirch-case-but-faces-further-troubles-a-955390.html

An opera premiere is always a social occasion, including in Munich. A new production of Mozart's "La clemenza di Tito" at the State Opera on February 10 was attended by a host of industry leaders, from Linde CEO Wolfgang Reitzle and his wife to Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler, co-owner of the Schaeffler Group, and her partner. Also present were two other top managers, who appeared less interested in what was happening on-stage than in shop-talk: one was Paul Achleitner, head of Deutsche Bank's supervisory board, and the other was Peter Löscher, former CEO of Siemens.

They shared a secret -- they both likely already knew a bit of news that would only become public 10 days later: Deutsche Bank had unexpectedly reached an agreement with the Kirch Group, ending a legal battle that had lasted more than a decade. Achleitner was one of the main driving forces behind the deal, while Löscher sits on the supervisory board, which was informed last Wednesday of the €900 million settlement.

The bank was brought to its knees by pressure from public prosecutors, who are also investigating co-CEO Jürgen Fitschen and four other former management board members for attempted fraud in connection with the Kirch case.

But no one is exactly relieved. The resolution of this landmark dispute is too ignominious an outcome for the mighty bank. It was humiliated by Kirch's lawyers and the court. The public will remember this settlement as an admission that Deutsche Bank and its then head Rolf Breuer, who in early 2002 cast aspersions in a TV interview on Kirch's creditworthiness, did indeed have a hand in the collapse of the media concern.

[DemReadingDU]

24. PBS correspondent Miles O'Brien has arm amputated

2/25/14 PBS correspondent Miles O'Brien has arm amputated

PBS science correspondent Miles O'Brien said Tuesday his left arm was amputated above the elbow after an apparently minor injury put his life in jeopardy.

In a blog post on his personal website Tuesday, which was verified by PBS, O'Brien recounted the Feb. 12 blow to his arm he suffered while on assignment in Asia and the medical emergency that followed.

He was diagnosed with "acute compartment syndrome," O'Brien said, in which blocked blood flow in an enclosed space in the body can cause life-threatening consequences. Part of his arm was removed in a choice between "a life and a limb," O'Brien said, quoting his doctor. He is grateful to be alive, the PBS reporter said. O'Brien has continued working despite the ordeal, PBS spokeswoman Anne Bell said.

The former CNN anchor, science and space correspondent covers science for "PBS NewsHour" and is a correspondent for public TV's documentary series "Frontline" and the National Science Foundation's Science Nation online magazine.

According to his blog, O'Brien was securing cases filled with camera gear on a cart as he wrapped up a reporting trip to Japan and the Philippines. One of the cases fell onto his left forearm, he wrote, adding, "It hurt, but I wasn't all '911' about it." The arm was sore and swollen the next day but worsened on the next, Feb. 14, and he sought medical care. O'Brien did not detail where he was and PBS couldn't immediately provide the information. At the hospital, as his pain increased and arm numbness set in, a doctor recommended an emergency procedure to relive the pressure within the limb, O'Brien wrote. "When I lost blood pressure during the surgery due to the complications of compartment syndrome, the doctor made a real-time call and amputated my arm just above the elbow," O'Brien wrote.

He typed the blog post with one hand and help from speech recognition software, he noted, and ended it with dark humor. "Life is all about playing the hand that is dealt you. Actually, I would love somebody to deal me another hand right about now - in more ways than one," O'Brien wrote.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pbs-correspondent-miles-obrien-has-arm-amputated/

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25. Friedman, 1970: "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits"

http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/friedman-soc-resp-business.html

The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970. Copyright @ 1970 by The New York Times Company.

When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the "social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system," I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life. The businessmen believe that they are defending free en­terprise when they declaim that business is not concerned "merely" with profit but also with promoting desirable "social" ends; that business has a "social conscience" and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing em­ployment, eliminating discrimination, avoid­ing pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of re­formers. In fact they are–or would be if they or anyone else took them seriously–preach­ing pure and unadulterated socialism. Busi­nessmen who talk this way are unwitting pup­pets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.

The discussions of the "social responsibili­ties of business" are notable for their analytical looseness and lack of rigor. What does it mean to say that "business" has responsibilities? Only people can have responsibilities. A corporation is an artificial person and in this sense may have artificial responsibilities, but "business" as a whole cannot be said to have responsibilities, even in this vague sense. The first step toward clarity in examining the doctrine of the social responsibility of business is to ask precisely what it implies for whom.

Presumably, the individuals who are to be responsible are businessmen, which means in­dividual proprietors or corporate executives. Most of the discussion of social responsibility is directed at corporations, so in what follows I shall mostly neglect the individual proprietors and speak of corporate executives.

.....
In either case, the key point is that, in his capacity as a corporate executive, the manager is the agent of the individuals who own the corporation or establish the eleemosynary institution, and his primary responsibility is to them.