Opening Bell: 01.05.10

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Bernanke Should Start Exit Now If He Thinks Recovery Is Strong, Roach Says (Bloomberg)
"There is never an easy time to do it," Roach said on Bloomberg Television today. "The longer they wait, the greater the chance they sow the seeds for the next bubble. So I'm in favor of an early exit strategy."
Investors sue Credit Suisse for $24B (NYP)
Resort property owners L.J. Gibson and Beau Blixseth are demanding that the bank and real estate group Cushman & Wakefield fork over a whopping $24 billion to make up for the money they lost on Ginn Sur Mer Resort in the Bahamas, the Tamarack Resort in Idaho, the Lake Las Vegas resort in Nevada and the Yellowstone Club in Montana.
BofA CEO Disagrees With Bank Break - Up Calls (Reuters)
Brian Moynihan said "the financial industry needs to embrace a looming regulatory overhaul instead of fighting it, but added that breaking up the biggest U.S. banks would be a mistake."
Moore Hires Brevan Howard Founding Partner Blochet as Manager (Bloomberg)
Blochet will start at Moore in a couple weeks. Also: "He completed the Marathon des Sables, a six-day, 151-mile (243 kilometer) foot race across the Sahara desert, in 2006. Competitors cover the equivalent of five and a half marathons over six days in temperatures reaching 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 Celsius), with packs for food and sleeping gear on their backs. The race, which raises money for charities, was described as "The Toughest Footrace on Earth" in the 2007 book "Seven Days in the Sahara" by an event competitor. Blochet finished the race 157th out of 800 participants, according to Marathon des Sables' Web site.
Morgan Stanley Shuffles Leadership (WSJ)
Morgan Stanley has named Jonathan Pruzan and Eric Bischof coheads of its financial institutions group.
NY SEC Head Gives Perspective on Hedge Fund Exams (HedgeFund.net)
"We have planned a number of significant sweeps of investment advisors," George Canellos, the N.Y. SEC Regional Director tells HedgeFund.net. "In the last few months -- really in the last year or two -- we have tried to orient our program, especially the investment management program, more toward cause- and risk-based exams."
Continental CEO: Don't Pay Me Unless We're Profitable
Taking a page from the John Mack playabook.

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Falcone Agrees To Step Aside (WSJ) Hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone agreed to step aside eventually as the public face of his LightSquared Inc. venture, a concession that may keep the wireless-telecommunications company from defaulting on its debt, people familiar with the negotiations said. Mr. Falcone's compromise is expected to prompt LightSquared's lenders to approve a one-week extension on a debt-term violations waiver that expires Monday morning, the people said. If a deal is finalized, Mr. Falcone and LightSquared's lenders plan to continue negotiations for a longer extension of somewhere between 18 months and two years, the people said...Mr. Falcone has said he viewed bankruptcy as the "best way" for him to keep control of the company and keep it from creditors he believes want to "take control and flip" the firm. Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Disruption of Status Quo May 1 (Bloomberg) In New York, Occupy Wall Street will join scores of labor organizations observing May 1, traditionally recognized as International Workers’ Day. They plan marches from Union Square to Lower Manhattan and a “pop-up occupation” of Bryant Park on Sixth Avenue, across the street from Bank of America’s Corp.’s 55-story tower. “We call upon people to refrain from shopping, walk out of class, take the day off of work and other creative forms of resistance disrupting the status quo,” organizers said in an April 26 e-mail...Tomorrow, beginning at 8 a.m. in Bryant Park, scheduled events include teach-ins, art performances and a staging area for “direct action and civil disobedience,” such as bank blockades. RBS M&A Bankers Plan Boutique Spin-Off (Reuters) The bank, 82-percent owned by the British government, is exiting mergers and acquisitions as part of a restructuring announced in January aimed at reducing costs and exposure to areas of investment banking deemed risky by the authorities. Sources told Reuters last week that the M&A business would be spun off, with around 45 bankers from RBS joining the new firm led by John McIntyre, currently head of corporate finance for EMEA at the bank. Romney Holds Fund Raiser At John Paulson's House (TDB) FYI: A neighbor who witnessed the event from across the street described it to as a large crowd of “older white people, mostly men,” who started showing up around 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Around 8 p.m., sirens started blaring as more and more people started to show. Hedge Funds Hurt By Volatility (WSJ) All told, U.S.-based funds that bet on and against stocks had a median return of -0.92% from April 1 through April 13, according to data from Morgan Stanley's MS -1.51% prime brokerage, after having returned 1.16% in March. Returns improved as the markets stabilized. Through April 26, the median return was down 0.03% for the month. City Mulls Happy Hour Ban (NYP) “It’s absolutely been discussed,” confirmed a department source. “It goes to show you the spirit with which they operate. Everyone is a child.” High-level conversations have gone beyond merely “throwing pencils on the ceiling and seeing what sticks,” another Health source revealed. Sources said the happy-hour ban is being pushed by the agency’s marathon-running boss, Commissioner Thomas Farley, and is serious enough for one source to say the alcohol lobby had better find itself a good lawyer. Agency spokesman Sam Miller denied existing “plans to pursue any policy around discount-alcohol sale.” Goldman: US Likely Added Only 125,000 Jobs in April (CNBC) The forecast is far lower than the Reuters estimate of 170,000, and the average 177,250 jobs created every month from December to March. Hedge Funds Bet Against Eurozone (FT) “The deeper balance of payments problems in the eurozone remain unresolved, and cannot be resolved by liquidity assistance alone,” noted Brevan Howard, Europe’s biggest global macro hedge fund in its last letter to investors. Shiller: We Are in Age of ‘Late Great Depression’ (CNBC) “Our whole economy has been affected by variations in confidence. Central banks are sort of trusted, but the actions they have often affect people’s confidence by appearance rather than substance. We’re not in the most trusting mood now,” Shiller said. Goldman’s O’Neill Reported Among Candidates for BOE Chief (Bloomberg) When asked in September 2007 if he would be interested in the role at a time when the government was considering whether to reappoint King, O’Neill told John Dawson onBloomberg Television that he couldn’t imagine that “anyone would be daft enough to offer it to me.” He added that he very much enjoyed his then job as head of global economic research at Goldman Sachs. Titanic II Planned by Billionaire Palmer in Chinese Yard (Bloomberg) Australian mining billionaire Clive Palmer plans to build a 21st-century replica of the Titanic and sail it from England to New York accompanied by the Chinese navy by the end of 2016. He has signed a first-stage agreement with Nanjing-based CSC Jinling Shipyard to build the ship as part of a planned fleet of luxury liners, the Gold Coast, Queensland-based businessman said in an e-mailed statement today.

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