Opening Bell: 11.05.10
RBS Faces `Long, Hard Slog' as Hester Forecasts Reduced Loss (Bloomberg)
The loss for the year will be “nominal,” Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hester, 49, said on a conference call with journalists today, following a 3.6 billion-pound ($5.8 billion) loss in 2009. The third quarter net loss narrowed by 36 percent to 1.15 billion pounds from 1.8 billion pounds in the year- earlier period as impairments fell, RBS said in a statement...“There are inevitably clouds still out there on the horizon,” Hester said. “We still have our raincoats on.”
HSBC Profit Growth Slows, Sees 'Bumps in the Road' (Bloomberg)
“Our latest data from emerging markets points to a slowdown in the rate of recovery and the likelihood of some bumps in the road ahead,” Chief Executive Officer Michael Geoghegan said in the statement. “We believe the long-term fundamentals for emerging economies are as compelling as ever.”
German Finance Minister: US Policy 'Clueless' (Reuters)
"With all due respect, U.S. policy is clueless," Wolfgang Schaeuble said at a conference.
AIG Posts $2.4 Billion Loss (AP)
AIG lost $2.4 billion, or $17.62 per share, compared with earnings of $92 million, or 68 cents per share, a year ago.
Representative Bachus Warns Geithner On Volcker Rule (Reuters)
"If the Volcker Rule's prohibitions are expansively interpreted and rigidly implemented against U.S. institutions while other nations refuse to adopt them, the damage to U.S. competitiveness and job creation could be substantial," Bachus wrote in the November 3 letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other top regulators.
GM Touts Its Profit Potential In IPO Pitch (WSJ)
GM tells investors the company can generate $11 billion to $13 billion in annual pretax profit and profit margins of 7% to 8% as the North American auto market recovers, according to a video in the presentation by Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell that was available Thursday on a website used by underwriters to distribute IPO information. Mr. Liddell says GM should be able to hit those targets as the industry moves up from the trough of 2009. When the car market is at its strongest, he says, GM will be capable of delivering pretax annual profit of $17 billion to $19 billion, with profit margins of 9% to 10%.
Octogenarian Finds Copper With China as Biggest Customer (Bloomberg)
In the snake-infested jungle of southeastern Ecuador, the American explorer David Lowell found himself sliding over a waterfall and heard his head bounce off a rock “like a melon being hit by a hammer,” he says. Lowell was 72 and prospecting for copper that day in May 2000. He stepped into the slippery streambed for a vantage point free of vipers and vines. A broken rib and throbbing head diverted him to a nearby hamlet in search of help. “There was one man in the village who was a combination chiropractor and mortician,” Lowell says. “We decided to just buy a little tin of liniment with the picture of a dragon on it.” The expedition carried on. In the clear water of the stream, Lowell saw enough to help him find one of South America’s richest copper deposits. This May, a joint venture of Chinese state-owned companies paid $652 million to buy Lowell’s partner in the exploration, Vancouver- based Corriente Resources Inc. Lowell kept a stake there for himself, though local opposition has prevented mining. In a career spanning six decades and 44 countries, Lowell has made 14 major discoveries, including the world’s largest copper deposit in Chile. He found treasures where others detected nothing worth mining. Lowell revolutionized exploration and unearthed metals that helped the U.S. build the world’s largest economy. He also made investors billions.
BlackRock Fund To Finance, Securitize US Mortgages (Reuters)
The $1 billion BlackRock Mortgage Investors Fund will provide capital for prime "jumbo" loans through lenders under strict underwriting guidelines, said Randy Robertson, a managing director and co-head of securitized products.
FrontPoint Cautioned Manager On Trades (WSJ)
FrontPoint Partners manager Joseph F. "Chip" Skowron, who has been put on leave pending the outcome of an insider-trading investigation concerning a biotechnology stock, was warned by supervisors about trading other securities he or others on his team discussed with a network of health-care advisers, said people familiar with the matter.
Spoonachos Are The Holy Grail Of Chips (Gizmodo)
Dare to dream.
Volcker: Future Inflation Risk Limits Easing Effect (Reuters)
Volcker told reporters after a lecture in Seoul that short-term U.S. interest rates had almost no room to go down further, while long-term bond prices were under pressure from increasing concern about future inflation.
'Pay To Play' Guilty Plea Expected (WSJ)
Henry "Hank" Morris, who was an adviser to former New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi, was accused by the state's attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, in March 2009 of taking kickbacks disguised as "placement" fees in exchange for arranging business for investment firms from New York's $125 billion Common Retirement Fund, one of country's largest public pension funds. [He] has agreed to plead guilty to a felony in the long-running corruption investigation, people familiar with the situation said.
Banks Face $31 Billion Loss on Mortgage Buybacks (NYT)
So sayeth Standard & Poor's.
HSBC Says British Remuneration Rules Hurt Hiring (Dealbook)
HSBC finds it increasingly difficult to compete for talent with banks from the United States and local rivals in Asia, Stuart T. Gulliver, chief executive of HSBC’s investment banking business, said Friday. “We’re competing against the local banks and against the American banks, which are not subject to the same remuneration rules, which means we simply can’t pay what these guys are paying,” Mr. Gulliver, who is set to take over as chief executive of HSBC this year, said on a media call about the banks’ third-quarter earnings.