Bernanke Faces Possible Fed Split On Maintaining Stimulus (Bloomberg)
A “few” among the central bank’s 17 governors and regional bank presidents said tighter credit may be warranted this year, while a “few others noted that exceptional policy accommodation could be appropriate beyond 2011,” the Federal Open Market Committee said in the minutes, released yesterday in Washington.

Buffett’s Policies Went Unheeded (WSJ)
An independent committee of the conglomerate’s board will be reviewing the transaction and Mr. Sokol’s trades to determine whether there was a violation of the trading policy, a person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Buffett didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on his directive and whether Mr. Sokol’s actions violated it. Berkshire CFO Marc Hamburg said Mr. Buffett intends to field questions on the matter at the April 30 annual meeting in Omaha and isn’t expected to comment publicly before then.

SEC Unveils Plan To Reign In Market Volatility (Reuters)
The so-called “limit up-limit down” proposal, announced by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, would require trades in U.S.-listed stocks to be executed within a range tied to recent prices. If approved, it would replace existing single-stock circuit breakers that were implemented through a pilot program shortly after the flash crash.

Contrarian Adding Bets In Mideast (NYT)
“The Middle East is printing money and it’s used to operating in chaos,” said Mr. Barrack, who runs Colony Capital, which controls $36 billion in private equity and real estate investments around the globe, including more than $200 million in the Arab world. “In fact, it tends to do better in times of chaos than it does in times of peace. Regime changes are just a fact of life.” While other private equity investors back away from the area, Mr. Barrack said he was “looking hard” at adding to his holdings there, which include hotels in Cairo and Bahrain, and grocery stores in Syria.

US Closes In On Trade Deal With Colombia (WSJ)
The U.S. and Colombia will likely announce an agreement Wednesday on a free-trade deal after several weeks of intensive talks on labor issues, a senior Obama administration official confirmed Tuesday.

SEC Fannie Mae Probe Said to Examine CEO’s Testimony to Congress (Bloomberg)
As the housing market deteriorated in April 2007, Fannie Mae Chief Executive Officer Daniel Mudd reported to Congress on his company’s health. The firm’s exposure to subprime loans, he told lawmakers, “remains minimal, less than 2.5 percent of our book.” Within 18 months, U.S. regulators seized the government- sponsored mortgage firm and its smaller sibling, Freddie Mac, after losses on soured loans pushed them to the brink of insolvency. The two firms have drawn more than $150 billion in life support from the Treasury since then. Mudd’s statements to Congress are being scrutinized as part of a Securities and Exchange Commission probe, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Portugal Borrowing Costs Surge at T-bill Auction (Reuters)
“A bailout was very highly likely even before the auction, and it is now even more so,” said Orlando Green, debt strategist at Credit Agricole.

German Banks May Add To Capital (WSJ)
Deutsche Bank in the invitation to its May shareholder meeting that it would seek approval to raise as much as €18 billion ($26 billion) in fresh capital. Commerzbank, meanwhile, outlined plans Wednesday for a capital increase of up to €11 billion as the bank looks to emerge from a multibillion-euro government bailout it received during the financial crisis. Continue reading »

$$$ New international bank capital standards are excessive and may impede economic growth, Jamie Dimon warned on Tuesday. “It will stifle economic growth and I already believe it is,” said Dimon, who was speaking at the annual spring meeting of the Council of Institutional Investors. [Reuters]

$$$ The Private Equity Parallels With Buffett [Dealbook]

$$$ Facebook Implements Insider Trading Policy [Digits via DI] Continue reading »

David Sokol’s Ways Questioned In Past Suits (NYT)
The most serious lawsuit centered on the accounting of an irrigation project by MidAmerican Energy, where Mr. Sokol was chief executive when Berkshire bought it in 1999. In a rebuke last year, the judge ruled in that case that MidAmerican had improperly changed its accounting on the project and criticized Mr. Sokol directly. The change in accounting was “intended to eliminate the minority shareholders’ interests,” the judge wrote, awarding more than $32 million to the minority shareholders. The case had taken more than five years to work its way through the courts. During that time, Warren E. Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire, expressed confidence in Mr. Sokol by broadening his portfolio beyond MidAmerican to include Netjets, a company that sells fractional use of private aircraft.

Bernanke Downplays Inflation (WSJ)
Bernanke said the recent rise in prices of oil, grains, and other global commodity prices is likely to be temporary and won’t translate into a broader inflation problem. However, the Fed chief was quick to add that if his prediction is wrong and inflation begins to mark strong gains, the central bank would respond. “I think the increase in inflation will be transitory,” Bernanke said. He attributed the sharp increases in prices for oil and food to “global supply and demand conditions,” adding he reckoned these prices “will eventually stabilize.”

Geithner Sees ‘Severe Hardship’ If Debt Limit Isn’t Reached (Bloomberg)
Congress needs to raise the limit to maintain vital services and avoid “questions about our ability to defend our national security interests,” Geithner said. The U.S. would face sharply higher interest rates and would have to stop or delay payments to the military, retirees and others, he said. “Default would cause a financial crisis potentially more severe than the crisis from which we are only now starting to recover,” Geithner said. “For these reasons, default by the United States is unthinkable.”

Apple Crunched In Nasdaq Rebalance (WSJ)
In a move likely to ripple across the stock market, Nasdaq OMX plans to announce Tuesday a rare rebalancing of its Nasdaq-100 index, which will reduce the big weighting of Apple Inc. The company currently makes up more than 20% of the index.

Barclays Chief Set To Raise Appetite For Risk (FT)
Bob Diamond has decided Barclays must increase its risk appetite amid internal expectations at the bank that a key measure of its profitability will fall or stay stagnant this year. Barclays’ new chief executive is considering increasing the bank’s risk profile, in order to hit profitability targets over the next three years, according to people familiar with the bank’s thinking. Mr Diamond, who began in his job in January, has set a target of achieving a 13 per cent return on equity by 2013. Continue reading »