• 25 Feb 2011 at 9:30 AM

Opening Bell: 02.25.11

Obama Tells Panel US Recovery Harmed By Jobless Rate (Bloomberg)
“The biggest challenge that we’re seeing right now is that unemployment is way too high,” Obama told the 23-member President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness yesterday…In the month since he delivered his State of the Union address, Obama has sought to make the case that investments in education, infrastructure and innovation will help create more jobs. He reiterated that message yesterday, telling members of the panel, “We’re going to have to up our game in this newly competitive world.”

Hedge Funds Wary Of Punts On North African Turmoil (Reuters)
Only a handful are starting to hunt ways to profit with investments, for example, in oil and credit protection. “It’s a little like the financial crisis in 2008. Many managers are saying, ‘how am I supposed to figure this one out?,’” said Morten Spenner, who heads hedge fund of fund manager International Asset Management. “If (Libya’s) Gaddafi said tomorrow, ‘Look, we’ve sorted it all out’, oil prices could fall as much as 5 or 6 dollars a barrel in a day. And you could be really badly hurt.”

Oil Markets Calmer As Libya Supply Fears Ease (WSJ)
“The market is now realizing that there is enough supply to cope with the Libyan disruption,” said Christophe Barrett, a global oil analyst at Crédit Agricole. As much as 75% of Libya’s oil production may have stopped as rebel forces clash with the country’s leader, Moammar Gadhafi. However, European refineries that use Libyan crude are likely to source other oil available in the Mediterranean region, including production from Algeria and Azerbaijan, while members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries could also raise production to make up for the short-fall.

Citi: US Will Be The World’s Third Largest Economy (CNBC)
The world is going to become richer and richer as developing economies play catch up over the coming years, according to Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup. “China should overtake the US to become the largest economy in the world by 2020, then be overtaken by India by 2050,” he predicted.

US Economy Grew Slower Than Thought In Fourth Quarter (WSJ)
The U.S. economy sped up slightly at the end of 2010, but the acceleration was slower than previously believed as consumers spent less than first estimated by the government while trade made a smaller contribution to growth. Gross domestic product rose at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 2.8% in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday.

Charlie Sheen Blasts Two And A Half Men Producer (NYDN)
“What does this say about [Chuck Lorre] after he tried to use his words to judge and attempt to degrade me,” Sheen wrote. “I gracefully ignored this folly for 177 shows…I fire back once and this contaminated little maggot can’t handle my power and can’t handle the truth,” he went on. “I wish him nothing but pain in his silly travels especially if they wind up in my octagon.” He boasted that he had “defeated this earthworm with my words” and said that Lorre is lucky he didn’t use his “fire breathing fists.” He implored his fans to rally around him. “I urge all my beautiful and loyal fans who embraced this show for almost a decade to walk with me side-by-side as we march up the steps of justice to right this unconscionable wrong,” Sheen wrote.

How to End a Top-Rated TV Sitcom: The Charlie Sheen Interview (The Atlantic)
Sheen on Chuck Lorre (the co-creator of Two and a Half Men): “I embarrassed him in front of his children and the world by healing at a pace that this un-evolved mind cannot process… I’ve spent, I think, close to the last decade, I don’t know, effortlessly and magically converting your tin cans into pure gold. And the gratitude I get is this charlatan chose not to do his job, which is to write.” Sheen on People Who Gossip About Him: “They lay down with their ugly wives and their ugly children and just look at their loser lives and then they look at me and say, ‘I can’t process it.’ Well, no, and you never will! Stop trying! Just sit back and enjoy the show… I’m dealing with fools and trolls. I’m dealing with soft targets, and it’s just strafing runs in my underwear before my first cup of coffee.” Sheen on Alcoholics Anonymous: “I can’t use the word sober because that’s a term from those people, and I have cleansed myself. I have closed my eyes and in a nanosecond I cured myself from this ridiculous model of disease … It’s just the work of sissies. The only thing I’m addicted to right now is winning. You know? This bootleg cult arrogantly referred to as Alcoholics Anonymous now supports a 5 percent success rate. My success rate is 100 percent. Do the math!”

Bank of America, Foreclosure Accord, Card Access: Compliance (Bloomberg)
Bank of America Corp. won dismissal of claims by investors that it misled them about the liquidity of its auction-rate securities and manipulated the market for the investments. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in San Francisco said in an order yesterday that investors could renew market- manipulation claims if they added more information to their complaints.

London Stock Exchange Hit By Technical Glitch (Reuters)
The UK exchange, which has been working hard to update its trading systems in recent years, did not start trading as planned at 0800 GMT and opened instead at 1215 GMT, with the LSE blaming a technical glitch.

Hedge Funds Cut Food-Price Bets as Grains Take `Harrowing’ Fall (Bloomberg)
The 8.6 percent plunge in wheat since Feb. 18 and a decline in corn and soybeans means speculators probably kept cutting positions this week, said Nic Johnson, who helps manage about $30 billion in commodities at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach, California. Speculators reduced bets on rising wheat prices by 23 percent in the week ended Feb. 15, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Bullish bets on soybeans fell 18 percent and those for corn slid 3.4 percent.

Comments (40)

  1. Posted by Spartacus | February 25, 2011 at 3:10 PM

    C.S. is absolutely killing it these days.

  2. Posted by Spartacus | February 25, 2011 at 3:10 PM

    C.S. is absolutely killing it these days.

  3. Posted by Spartacus | February 25, 2011 at 3:10 PM

    C.S. is absolutely killing it these days.

  4. Posted by Spartacus | February 25, 2011 at 3:10 PM

    C.S. is absolutely killing it these days.

  5. Posted by Guy Who's Not Kidding Himself | February 25, 2011 at 3:18 PM

    I’d still trade places with Charlie Sheen faster than you can say “bat-fuck crazy.”

  6. Posted by Guest | February 25, 2011 at 3:33 PM

    Lenny made him do it.

  7. Posted by Guest | February 25, 2011 at 3:38 PM

    I would like to hear what Gary Busey has to say about this.

  8. Posted by Chuck Sheen | February 25, 2011 at 3:38 PM

    Chuckles is the f’in man!!

    Favorite quote from that rant:

    “I got magic and I got poetry in my fingertips, most of the time, and this includes naps, I’m an F-18 bro and I will destroy you in the air and I will deploy my ordinance to the ground.”

  9. Posted by Chuck Sheen | February 25, 2011 at 3:38 PM

    Chuckles is the f’in man!!

    Favorite quote from that rant:

    “I got magic and I got poetry in my fingertips, most of the time, and this includes naps, I’m an F-18 bro and I will destroy you in the air and I will deploy my ordinance to the ground.”

  10. Posted by Guest | February 25, 2011 at 3:40 PM

    Is that “US will be 3rd richest country” supposed to scare us? It will be great if China takes over from us and starts spending all its disposable income on product the US sells. Bring it on!

  11. Posted by General Disarray | February 25, 2011 at 3:53 PM

    That picture looks like Charlie just pimp-slapped someone important at CBS and said “Bitch where’s my money”

  12. Posted by Guest | February 25, 2011 at 4:08 PM

    yeezy taught me.

  13. Posted by Guest | February 25, 2011 at 4:09 PM

    is he referring to furiously masturbating into a cup?

  14. Posted by Guest | February 25, 2011 at 4:09 PM

    per capita GDP. check it bitches.

  15. Posted by derp | February 25, 2011 at 4:12 PM

    “Guys, it’s right there in the thing, duh! We work for the Pope, we murder people. We’re Vatican assassins. How complicated can it be? What they’re not ready for is guys like you and I and Nails and all the other gnarly gnarlingtons in my life, that we are high priests, Vatican assassin warlocks. Boom. Print that, people. See where that goes.”

  16. Posted by Brass_balls_dont_lie | February 25, 2011 at 4:15 PM

    “Sheen … inexplicably harped on Lorre’s Jewish birth name – “Chaim Levine.”

    I can tell you from my PR experience that this is a common method for character assassination.

    Lucas Van Praag (f/k/a Levi Goldberger)

  17. Posted by Brass_balls_dont_lie | February 25, 2011 at 4:15 PM

    “Sheen … inexplicably harped on Lorre’s Jewish birth name – “Chaim Levine.”

    I can tell you from my PR experience that this is a common method for character assassination.

    Lucas Van Praag (f/k/a Levi Goldberger)

  18. Posted by trojan | February 25, 2011 at 4:16 PM

    Bess Levin > Chaim Levine

  19. Posted by trojan | February 25, 2011 at 4:16 PM

    Bess Levin > Chaim Levine

  20. Posted by Guest | February 25, 2011 at 4:17 PM

    Somewhere Ted “voice from God” Williams smiling in admiration.

  21. Posted by Guest | February 25, 2011 at 4:17 PM

    Somewhere Ted “voice from God” Williams smiling in admiration.

  22. Posted by AmericanBandersnatch | February 25, 2011 at 4:22 PM

    Charlie Sheen’s comments seem somewhat strange. I would recommend he get a good night’s sleep and consider taking a public speaking course.
    - Head of Operational Due Diligence, Fairfield Greenwich Group

  23. Posted by Guest | February 25, 2011 at 4:24 PM

    That’s great coming from Carlos Irwin Estevez.

  24. Posted by AmericanBandersnatch | February 25, 2011 at 4:26 PM

    These long-term predictions are always a challenge.
    - Guy who learned Japanese in the 1980s because if trends continued …

  25. Posted by Gary Busey | February 25, 2011 at 4:30 PM

    Charlie is awesome! The F-18 comment makes me think he’s dialing in oxycontin and some good weed, not slurring so probably off the booze for now.

  26. Posted by Guest | February 25, 2011 at 4:33 PM

    In vino veritas, in aqua sanitas, in cocaini bat excrementum delirus.

  27. Posted by Guest | February 25, 2011 at 4:33 PM

    In vino veritas, in aqua sanitas, in cocaini bat excrementum delirus.

  28. Posted by Anonymous | February 25, 2011 at 4:43 PM

    I don’t understand- Mr. Sheen’s comments sound perfectly reasonable to me.

    Muammar el-Khadaffy
    The Bunker
    Tripoli, Libya

  29. Posted by Anonymous | February 25, 2011 at 4:43 PM

    I don’t understand- Mr. Sheen’s comments sound perfectly reasonable to me.

    Muammar el-Khadaffy
    The Bunker
    Tripoli, Libya

  30. Posted by Anonymous | February 25, 2011 at 4:43 PM

    I don’t understand- Mr. Sheen’s comments sound perfectly reasonable to me.

    Muammar el-Khadaffy
    The Bunker
    Tripoli, Libya

  31. Posted by Nodding Car People | February 25, 2011 at 4:46 PM

    I concur.

    -J. Macke

  32. Posted by Nodding Car People | February 25, 2011 at 4:46 PM

    I concur.

    -J. Macke

  33. Posted by Addict | February 25, 2011 at 5:01 PM

    Addiction. I has it.

    -Charlie Sheen

  34. Posted by Von Sloneker | February 25, 2011 at 5:08 PM

    Sucker for latin…semper ubi sub ubi

  35. Posted by Shithouse Rat | February 25, 2011 at 5:18 PM

    This motherfucker is crazier than a shithouse rat.

  36. Posted by Dominus Vobiscum | February 25, 2011 at 5:20 PM

    Ergo, which is latin for therefore….

  37. Posted by He Who Observes Writing | February 25, 2011 at 5:23 PM

    The Charlie Sheen Writing Formula: Charlie writes with slight Shakespearian insults, and refers to himself as powerful, smart, handsome, a fighter pilot, a superhuman capable of changing his fists into the four earth signs at will, a self healing shaman who is mathematically quick with many poetic verbal weapons. To write like Charlie, without using certain ingested chemicals, would be easy. To wit:

    “My opponent is a one suited lily-livered mullett affected by his thick brow. On the other hand, I am a nobel laureate of language and the coded language of my Speedo will never be reflected back to him because of my pubic hair’s “dumbass” absorbing qualities. He stopped my show with an unoriginal ploy because of his addiction to ugly women from whom he only gets one channel. I’m not his slave and the only cotton I’ll “radar lock” J-DAM will be that which I pluck from my underwear, a balcony from which he can only see his Juliet of the show. I’ll take his words of low cunning and smear them on my like words of the Koran on a Russian baby’s leg and reflect them back on his stupidity and loser-like qualities with my winning tonsils of flame.”

  38. Posted by Lord Humongous | February 25, 2011 at 5:34 PM

    Strafing runs in his underwear? Sounds like the situation is quite fluid. Other than that, no concerns.

  39. Posted by J. Epstein | February 25, 2011 at 6:17 PM

    He’s right. Never lay down with ugly children, or you could end up having to pay for an extra half-hour.

  40. Posted by Fucus | February 26, 2011 at 5:23 PM

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