Opening Bell: 11.18.09

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Citi Boosts Base Salaries Of Some Senior Employees (Reuters)
CFO John Gerspach's annual base salary will increase to $500,000 effective November 1 from $400,000 prior to November, while James Forese is receiving $475,000, compared with $225,000. Gerspach is also receiving $2.92 million of stock salary for 2009, while Forese will get $5.4 million. And a sad trombone for Vikram, who will make $1 for the year, with no stock salary.

Blankfein Apologizes for Goldman Sachs Role in Crisis (Bloomberg)
In case you missed it, Blankfein and Co. are kinda sorry about some stuff they got peer-pressured into going along with. Also, fuck the haters: The firm is "very concerned" about the criticism because "our reputation is very important to us," said Blankfein. "I don't love it, we kind of sigh," he said of the criticism. Instead of responding directly to critics, the company instead had tried provide "the kind of constructive suggestions that people would think a Goldman Sachs would be able to come up with."
Fearing IRS, 14,700 Disclose Disclosed Offshore Accounts (NYT)
Great news for Tim Geithner: "We are talking about billions of dollars coming into the U.S. Treasury," Douglas H. Shulman, the I.R.S. commissioner, said Tuesday.


GMAC's Michael Carpenter To Executives: Stay! (WSJ)
Don't ever leave him ('cause he'll find you): " Michael A. Carpenter, the new chief executive of GMAC Financial Services, launched a charm offensive to hold onto executives lured to the giant auto lender by ousted predecessor Alvaro de Molina. The 62-year-old Mr. Carpenter spent part of Tuesday in one-on-one conversations with Mr. de Molina's former lieutenants, said a person familiar with his thinking. Mr. Carpenter is concerned about potential defections from the top ranks, remade by Mr. de Molina during his 19 months as chief executive."
Trump Settles For 10% Of Casino Company (AP)
Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino and Trump Marina Hotel Casino will retain the Don's name though, which is what's important.
At Hearing, Questions About BofA C.E.O. Candidate (NYT)
Rep. Elijah Cummings would appreciate it if the BAC board would let him know who he should be calling a chump, ASAP: Mr. Cummings pushed Bank of America director Charles Gifford on whether Brian Moynihan is a serious candidate for Bank of America's top job. "Is this the guy we have got to face when we are dealing with Bank of America?" Mr. Cummings asked. "I am not asking you for your decision. I am just asking if he is one of your top candidates."

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Triumph Of The Nerds: Nate Silver Wins In 50 States (Mashable) The Fivethirtyeight.com analyst, despite being pilloried by the pundits, outdid even his 2008 prediction. In that year, his mathematical model correctly called 49 out of 50 states, missing only Indiana (which went to Obama by 0.1%.) This year, according to all projections, Silver’s model has correctly predicted 50 out of 50 states. A last-minute flip for Florida, which finally went blue in Silver’s prediction on Monday night, helped him to a perfect game. Loser Ryan Also A Winner (NYP) The Republican vice-presidential hopeful hedged his bet by running for re-election to his congressional seat in Wisconsin — where last night, he was declared the winner for an eighth straight time. Goldman Partners Pocket $22 Million (WSJ) More than 30 executives, including Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein, recently cashed in stock options awarded in the afterglow of the company's initial public offering in 1999. According to a securities filing, the executives, all Goldman partners, pocketed a total of $21.8 million by exercising options and selling the underlying shares in the three days after the firm reported third-quarter results in mid-October. The options expire at the end of November, and cashing in produced instant profits because Goldman's share price is more than 50% higher than when the options were awarded in 2002. "By exercising 10-year-old options before they expired later this year, executives captured some of the value we have built for shareholders over that period," said a spokesman for the securities firm. In contrast, many of the executives' remaining options are worthless, at least for now, because they were granted from 2005 to 2008. The stock peaked in October 2007 at about $239, or 89% higher than Tuesday's closing price of $126.25 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading at 4 p.m. The biggest gain went to Michael S. Sherwood, a Goldman vice chairman and the firm's top executive in Europe, who received $5.2 million from exercising options on 115,211 shares. Mr. Blankfein collected $3.1 million, while departing Chief Financial Officer David A. Viniar got $2.3 million, the filing shows. JPMorgan Nears SEC Settlement (WSJ) JPMorgan is close to a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission that would end one probe into how the company's Bear Stearns Cos. unit packaged and sold home loans to investors, according to people familiar with the case. A pact with the nation's largest bank by assets would be the first tangible victory in a wide-ranging SEC investigation into Wall Street's sale of mortgage-backed securities before the onset of the financial crisis. Since 2010, the SEC has issued more than 300 subpoenas or document requests related to the probe and collected more than 30 million pages of documents, enforcement chief Robert Khuzami said earlier this year. 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Hopefully the House of Representatives can hold our country together for four more years…stay strong and never give up! House of Representatives shouldn’t give anything to Obama unless he terminates Obamacare.” And finally: “This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!” Fitch: No Fiscal Honeymoon For President Obama (CNBC) President Barack Obama will need to quickly secure agreement on avoiding the "fiscal cliff" and raising the debt ceiling following Tuesday's elections, Fitch Ratings said. The economic policy challenge facing the president is to put in place a credible deficit-reduction plan necessary to underpin economic recovery and confidence in the full faith and credit of the U.S., according to Fitch. Resolution of these fiscal policy choices would likely result in the U.S. retaining its triple-A status from Fitch, the firm said. 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Woman Wearing MIT Shirt Nearly Banned From Voting In Boca Raton (BNN) A woman attempting to vote in West Boca Raton yesterday was initially prohibited from entering the polling place because she was wearing a t-shirt with the letters MIT. BocaNewsNow.com heard from multiple sources that an election supervisor at the polling place ultimately realized that MIT stands for “Massachusetts Institute of Technology” — a school where students tend to know how to spell — and was not a campaign shirt for the Republican candidate, who spells his name MITT. Campaigning is not permitted within several yards of a polling place. The woman was ultimately allowed to vote.

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