Opening Bell: 04.21.10

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Morgan Stanley Tops Estimates (MarketWatch)
MS reported income of $1.8 billion, or $1.03 per diluted share, from continuing operations applicable to Morgan Stanley for the first quarter ended March 31, 2010, compared with a loss of $17 million, or $0.41 per diluted share, for the same period a year ago. Net revenues were $9.1 billion for the current quarter, compared with $2.9 billion a year ago.

Wells Fargo Posts $2.5 Billion Profit (CNN Money)
First-quarter net income of $2.5 billion, or 45 cents per share, for the first three months of 2010. That's down from net income of $3.05 billion, or 56 cents per share, in the first quarter of 2009. Analysts had forecast earnings of 42 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters.

Paulson Confronts Goldman Fallout (WSJ)
Paulson held a conference call with about 100 investors late Monday and sent a letter to investors Tuesday night saying that in 2007 his firm wasn't seen as an experienced mortgage investor, and that "many of the most sophisticated investors in the world" were "more than willing to bet against us."

Government Has Testimony From Former Paulson Official That Contradicts Its Case (CNBC)
Steve Liesman: "In an interview with Paolo Pellegrini, a government official asked him about a meeting with ACA CDO manager Laura Schwartz, who he told Paulson and Co was interested in taking a short position in Abacus. The SEC does not mention this information in its complaint."

SEC Weighs Rules On 'Masking' Bank Debt (WSJ)
Ms. Schapiro said the commission is gathering detailed information from large banks, "so that we don't just have them dress up the balance sheet for quarter end and then have dramatic increases during the course of the quarter." She added: "We are considering whether...we need new rules to prevent sort of the masking of debt or liquidity at quarter end, as we saw Lehman do with the Repo 105 transaction."

Largest Hedge Fund Political Donations Go to Democrats (ABC)
With $94,100 in contributions over the past year, Jim Simons is the single largest political donor among hedge fund managers. Simons gave almost all of that total to Democrats, including Senators Harry Reid, Chris Dodd, and Charles Schumer. Eric Mindich gave $89,600, all to Democrats, including Reid, Dodd and Kirsten Gillibrand. Steve Cohen gave $68,400, all but $4,800 of which went to Republicans, including Eric Cantor and John Ensign. Cliff Asness donated $71,600 to Republicans, including $30,400 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Asness gave Dodd $490.

Woman gets Chinese accent after bad migraine: reports (SMH)
A British woman has suddenly started speaking with a Chinese accent after suffering a severe migraine, she said in comments quoted by British media on Tuesday. Sarah Colwill believes she has foreign accent syndrome, which has caused her distinctive West Country drawl to be replaced with a Chinese twang, even though she has never even visited the country.

Deutsche Trader Lippman Steps Down (NYT)
Greg announced in late February that he planned to leave the bank for a hedge fund founded by Fred Brettschneider, Deutsche Bank’s former head of global markets.

Goldman Sachs Says SEC Case Hinges on Actions of One Employee (Bloomberg)
“It’s all going to be a factual dispute about what he remembers and what the other folks remember on the other side,” Greg Palm, Goldman Sachs’s co-general counsel, said in a call with reporters yesterday, without naming Tourre. “If we had evidence that someone here was trying to mislead someone, that’s not something we’d condone at all and we’d be the first one to take action.”

Lagarde: Goldman Case Warrants Full French Probe (Reuters)
May not be as pleasant as it sounds.

Rattner Has Key Role In New Bloomberg Firm (NYT)
Rattner, according to the three people, has told friends that he is “working with the mayor,” and he has repeatedly appeared at the 78th Street office that houses the Bloomberg Family Foundation and the mayor’s new investment office. A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, Stu Loeser, declined to comment on the details of Mr. Rattner’s work with Mr. Bloomberg, but said, “He is a friend whose advice the mayor has and continues to rely on.”

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At Core Of Greek Chaos, A Reviled Tax (WSJ) So despised is the property tax that its critics—which is to say, most of Greece—refer to it as the haratsi, after a per capita tax imposed by the occupying Ottomans. About three-quarters of Greece's households own their homes. Like many other European countries, Greece already has some property taxes. But those have been aimed mostly at higher-value properties and raised little revenue. JPMorgan To Spin Out 'Special Investments' (FT) The unit, whose investments include LightSquared, the wireless internet provider, will be moved to the bank’s corporate division and prevented from seeking fresh investment opportunities, bankers were told on Wednesday. Woman Who Wouldn't Be Intimidated By Citigroup Wins $31 Million (Bloomberg Markets) Sherry Hunt never expected to be a senior manager at a Wall Street bank. She was a country girl, raised in rural Michigan by a dad who taught her to fish and a mom who showed her how to find wild mushrooms. She listened to Marty Robbins and Buck Owens on the radio and came to believe that God has a bigger plan, that everything happens for a reason. She got married at 16 and didn’t go to college. After she had her first child at 17, she needed a job. A friend helped her find one in 1975, processing home loans at a small bank in Alaska. Sherry Hunt never expected to be a senior manager at a Wall Street bank. She was a country girl, raised in rural Michigan by a dad who taught her to fish and a mom who showed her how to find wild mushrooms. She listened to Marty Robbins and Buck Owens on the radio and came to believe that God has a bigger plan, that everything happens for a reason. She got married at 16 and didn’t go to college. After she had her first child at 17, she needed a job. A friend helped her find one in 1975, processing home loans at a small bank in Alaska...In March 2011, more than two years after Citigroup took $45 billion in bailouts from the U.S. government and billions more from the Federal Reserve -- more in total than any other U.S. bank -- Jeffery Polkinghorne, an O’Fallon executive in charge of loan quality, asked Hunt and a colleague to stay in a conference room after a meeting. The encounter with Polkinghorne was brief and tense, Hunt says. The number of loans classified as defective would have to fall, he told them, or it would be “your asses on the line.” Hunt says it was clear what Polkinghorne was asking -- and she wanted no part of it. Jobless Claims Increased Last Week (Bloomberg) First-time claims for jobless benefits increased by 10,000 to 383,000 in the week ended May 26 from a revised 373,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said today. The initial claims exceeded the median estimate of 370,000 in a Bloomberg News survey of economists. The number of people on unemployment benefit rolls dropped. For French CEO's, Politics Means Big Pay Cuts (WSJ) Top managers at France's state-owned companies are expected to face significant pay cuts next month, when Socialist President François Hollande plans to begin enforcing salary caps as part of his broader electoral pledge to get tough on the rich. During the presidential campaign, Mr. Hollande vowed to curb "excessive" remunerations at France's 52 state-controlled or partially state-owned companies by ordering that executive pay not exceed 20 times the salary of the lowest-ranking employees. New York Plans to Ban Sale of Big Sizes of Sugary Drinks (NYT) The proposed ban would affect virtually the entire menu of popular sugary drinks found in delis, fast-food franchises and even sports arenas, from energy drinks to pre-sweetened iced teas. The sale of any cup or bottle of sweetened drink larger than 16 fluid ounces — about the size of a medium coffee, and smaller than a common soda bottle — would be prohibited under the first-in-the-nation plan, which could take effect as soon as next March. Gorman, Greifeld ‘Face’ off (NYP) Morgan Stanley is prepared to take Nasdaq to court to recoup money it believes it lost in the flubbed Facebook initial public offering. CEO James Gorman’s investment bank, which led the now-notorious, snafu-ridden Facebook IPO, believes Bob Greifeld’s Nasdaq owes it roughly $10 million, sources said. The investment bank, which quarterbacked the $16 billion Facebook offering, had to shell out to clients a seven-figure sum to resolve a litany of Nasdaq trading glitches. Morgan Stanley's Facebook Analyst: Sober Man in World of Hype (Reuters) Scott Devitt was one of a number of analysts to lower his revenue and earnings expectations for the social media giant after the company informed analysts that it was dropping its quarterly and annual revenue guidance. Facebook also issued an amended prospectus cautioning that the shift of its users to mobile platforms could have a negative impact on revenue growth. Such a move was highly unusual because it occurred just days before Facebook's highly anticipated IPO, whose lead underwriter was Morgan Stanley, Devitt's employer. The investment bank not only had control over the process, but over 38 percent of Facebook shares being sold. Devitt's and other analysts' revised revenue forecasts were shared via phone calls with institutional investors, but not with retail investors, before the stock began trading publicly. That in turn raised questions over whether the playing field was skewed against Main Street investors from the start and sparked lawsuits. Citigroup Debt Viewed As Risky (WSJ) Gimme Credit, a fixed-income research company based in New York, said it expects debt issued by the third-biggest U.S. bank by assets to perform less well over the next six months than bonds issued by the company's peers. Russian Zuckerberg Throws Money Paper Planes At Passersby (MSN) Russian millionaire Pavel Durov reportedly spent last weekend flying paper airplanes made from 5,000-ruble notes (equal to about $160) out the window of his office in St. Petersburg. The 27-year-old gave away around $2,000 before he stopped because "people turned into animals" grabbing the cash. Durov is the CEO of Russia's largest social network Vkontakte, which sort of makes him the Russki Mark Zuckerberg. Scarf-Wearing Pig Stuns Motorists (UPI) Pennsylvania State Police said a baby pig wearing a scarf crossed rush hour traffic in Pittsburgh and disappeared into the woods. Police said the fashionable swine was spotted crossing the inbound lanes of Parkway West near the Green Tree exit around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, and many motorists pulled off the parkway and stopped to take pictures of the unusual pedestrian. Troopers said the pig had crossed over a guardrail and into the woods by the time they arrived, and they were unable to locate the animal.

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Greek Socialist Make Last-Ditch Attempt At Government (Reuters) With new elections likely in three or four weeks and Athens, due to run out of cash in June, needing to impose new austerity measures in exchange for funds, the financial daily Kerdos to warn on its front page: "Time is running out." Bernanke Gets 75% Approval From Investors (Bloomberg) Bernanke, whom Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he wouldn’t reappoint for running too lax a monetary policy, receives a favorable assessment from three of four of those surveyed in the latest Bloomberg Global Poll. Respondents to the survey of investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers also rate U.S. financial markets highly: 46 percent say they will be among the best performers over the next year, double the percentage that select China, in second place. Goldman Had One Day Of Losses In First Quarter (WSJ) The loss was up to $25 million, the firm said. In contrast, Goldman reported 24 days of trading gains of $100 million or more. US Jobless Claims Decline (Bloomberg) Jobless claims dropped by 1,000 to 367,000 in the period ended May 5, in line with the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey and the lowest since the end of March, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The number of people on unemployment benefit rolls was the smallest since July 2008. Goldman Redeems $250 Million Hedge-Fund Stakes on Volcker (Bloomberg) Under the Volcker rule provision of the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law, federally backed banks are required to limit their investments in private equity and hedge funds to no more than 3 percent of the fund or 3 percent of the bank’s Tier 1 capital. Goldman Sachs’s fund stakes were worth $17.2 billion at the end of March and the firm was committed to providing an additional $7.77 billion to the funds, the filing showed. “We currently expect to redeem up to approximately 10 percent of certain hedge funds’ total redeemable units per quarter over 10 consecutive quarters, beginning March 2012 and ending June 2014,” Goldman Sachs said in the filing. “In addition, we have limited the firm’s initial investment to 3 percent for certain new funds.” John Manning, a Bloods gang member, told police outside City Hall he wanted to fight Mayor Michael Bloomberg (NYDN) John Manning, 27, of Newark, a gang member with 12 arrests in the Garden State, showed up at the security entrance of the government building while the mayor held an outdoor press conference on the city’s new bike share program on Monday. “I want to take on the mayor in a fight. Man vs. man, and knock him out,” he told cops at the Broadway and Murray St. entrance around 11:30 and to attend the event. When he was asked to leave, Manning refused, saying, “I'll wait as long as it takes.” He was arrested and charged with trespassing and obstruction of government administration. Five Arrested At Bank of America Protest (AP) Five people have been arrested as they tried to force their way into the annual Bank of America shareholders' meeting in Charlotte, and police used a new ordinance to declare the gathering an extraordinary event subject to special restrictions. Hundreds gathered on the streets Wednesday morning as dozens of police officers worked to contain the protest. Johnny Rosa of Framingham, Mass., was one of those arrested. Before being taken into custody, Rosa said his home had been foreclosed. He wanted to tell shareholders the foreclosure was wrong because he wanted to make payments. By law, if a gathering in Charlotte is deemed an extraordinary event, authorities can designate areas where people aren't allowed to carry backpacks, magic markers and other items. Brian Gets Broiled At BofA Meeting (NYP) “Let Bank of America take care of America,” one attendee yelled at Moynihan. “This is America. Listen to the people in this room.” One shareholder even called the bank “a felon.” “We abide by the law every day,” Moynihan shot back. Citi’s Buiter: Time for 'Helicopter Money Drops' (CNBC) “We think central banks in the U.S., euro area, Japan, and the U.K. could and should do much more” to stimulate growth, said the firm’s economists, led by Willem Buiter. Yes, these institutions, which have already pushed their respective interest rates to historic lows and made unprecedented efforts to buy government bonds and other securities, are not being aggressive enough, the firm argues. Extremely rare calico-colored lobster found at Massachusetts restaurant (NYDN) The unusually colored “calico” lobster is marked by bright orange and yellow spots. But the extraordinary find could have easily ended up in someone's belly at Jasper White's Summer Shack restaurant in Cambridge. “We happened to be cleaning the tank and I happened to be there," White said. "One of my guys said, 'Chef, look at this lobster,' and from across the room I knew it was special." The lobster is destined for the Biomes Marine Biology Center in Rhode Island, with a stopover at Boston's New England Aquarium, which released a photo on Wednesday. White named the lobster Calvin.

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