Opening Bell: 02.10.09

Posted by William Richards, Feb 10, 2009, 7:40am

Picture 696.pngUBS Posts $6.9B Quarter Loss (NYT)
We've seen a lot of posturing in the past couple of weeks out of UBS: the pre-announcement on behalf of the government; that they're not going to close their Investment Banking arm. It appears the effort was well justified:

"UBS, the Swiss banking giant that sought help from the nation's central bank last year, said Tuesday it lost 8.1 billion Swiss francs, or $6.9 billion, in the fourth quarter as it continued to write down the value of some debt assets and wealth management clients withdrew funds.

The loss, which was bigger than some analysts expected, compares with a not-gain of 13 billion francs in the fourth quarter of 2007 and a profit in the third quarter of last year."

GM To Cut Jobs (WSJ)
"General Motors will cut 10,000 jobs, or 14% of its salaried work force, this year as the auto maker struggles to cope with a steep drop in world-wide vehicle sales. The job cuts are part of the plan the company submitted to Congress in December to secure bailout funding from the federal government. Also, most salaried employees will see a 3% to 7% pay cut, while executives will get a 10% reduction."

This Morning Is A Game Of Sit And Wait (Reuters)
The full details are set to be dropped at 11:00 ET, but the MM outlets are calling for a $500B mix of public and private capital to pull the assets of the books of the banks. You have to look at this with skepticism: there needs to be a very real consideration that funds aren't going to seek to aid the President in his recovery plan, though I admit that the psychological impact of having the two forces united in this goal would be a strong indicator of resolve going forward.

"U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will lay out a bank-rescue plan on Tuesday that will rely on public and private funds to take $500 billion of bad assets off banks' books, sources said.

The plan would also extend a Federal Reserve program aimed at shoring up consumer lending to the troubled mortgage sector, allowing the U.S. central bank to extend up to $1 trillion in loans to holders of a wide variety of asset-backed securities, according to sources."

Kevin Bacon Lands New HBO Film (AP)
We were all worried when Mr. Hollywood lost his ass in the Madoff run; it's good to see he's back at the table making some money:

"The 50-year-old actor was in town for the D.C. premiere of his new HBO film "Taking Chance," at the Motion Picture Association of America. The film premieres Feb. 21 on HBO.

Russia Squirms (Bloomberg)
"Laine Santana, a spokeswoman at HSBC in Hong Kong, was unable to comment. A Deutsche Bank AG official in Singapore declined to comment. Deutsche Bank is among the foreign banks that indicated it would welcome Russian government involvement, Nikkei reported."

Goldman Moves Vegas Trip To Bay Area (CNBC)
Whereas Wells flat out cancelled its excursion, Goldman has decided to move theirs to San Francisco. The move apparently cost the company around $600k in relocation expenses, but it was probably well justified from the bank's perspective if it keeps the talking heads off of the television. Still though: you have to question to the quality of brass in the pants up there - for god's sake, the Griswalds went to Vegas. It is a family fun learning environment, people.

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