Opening Bell: 04.05.13
U.S. Economy Adds Just 88,000 Jobs (WSJ)
U.S. employers added jobs at the slowest pace in nine months in March, suggesting weakening economic growth as higher taxes and government spending cuts start to have an impact. Employers added 88,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate, obtained by a separate survey of U.S. households, fell one-tenth of a percentage point to 7.6%, largely because of people dropping out of the work force. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expected nonfarm payrolls to rise by 200,000.
Obama Budget to Include Cuts to Programs in Hopes of Deal (NYT)
In a significant shift in fiscal strategy, Mr. Obama on Wednesday will send a budget plan to Capitol Hill that departs from the usual presidential wish list that Republicans typically declare dead on arrival. Instead it will embody the final compromise offer that he made to Speaker John A. Boehner late last year, before Mr. Boehner abandoned negotiations in opposition to the president’s demand for higher taxes from wealthy individuals and some corporations. Congressional Republicans have dug in against any new tax revenues after higher taxes for the affluent were approved at the start of the year.
Big inflows into bonds undercut the "Great Rotation" (Reuters)
Big names like Pacific Investment Management Co (PIMCO), DoubleLine, Loomis Sayles and TCW have seen their main bond funds take in an aggregate total of roughly $5 billion during January and February. Vanguard's indexed Total Bond Market portfolios have received over $5.6 billion for the same period, according to the latest data provided by Morningstar. More broadly, while U.S. funds that invest in stocks have gained $78.88 billion in new cash so far this year amid the U.S. stock market's run-up, taxable bond mutual funds have garnered roughly the same - $76.41 billion, according to data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service.
Finding a Rate That’s Fairer Than Libor (NYT)
Mr. Gensler would like to develop an alternative and points to two options. One would essentially be dependent on the Federal Reserve’s setting of the federal funds rate — the rate at which it will lend to banks. The other would be based on rates charged on secured loans. In each case these are real markets, at least in dollar-based transactions. He would like to phase in one of them as a replacement for Libor.
Autonomy deal debacle takes toll at HP (FT)
Hewlett-Packard’s chairman and its longest-serving directors resigned from their positions on Thursday in a delayed reaction to last year’s disastrous $8.8bn writedown relating to the company’s $11bn acquisition of Autonomy. Ray Lane will be succeeded as chairman temporarily by Ralph Whitworth until a permanent replacement is identified. Mr Whitworth, an activist investor who joined the board as an independent director in 2011, is HP’s fifth chairman in a decade.
Argentina's Cristina Kirchner 'is an old hag' (Telegraph)
Uruguay's President Jose Mujica has been left red-faced after apparently saying his Argentine counterpart Cristina Kirchner was "an old hag" in remarks picked up by an open microphone. ... "This old hag is worse than the cross-eyed man," Mujica was caught saying at the start of a news conference while speaking quietly with another official. El Observador newspaper, which posted the audio on its website, said Mujica was referencing the Kirchners and did not realise that the microphones were already on. Nestor Kirchner died suddenly of a heart attack in 2010 and had a lazy eye.
Millionaires Got $80 Million in Jobless Aid in Recession (Bloomberg)
The U.S. government paid almost $80 million in unemployment benefits during the worst of the economic downturn to households that made more than $1 million, including a record $29.9 million in 2010, tax records show. Almost 3,200 households -- about 20 percent of them from New York -- that reported adjusted gross income of more than $1 million received jobless-insurance payments averaging $12,600 in 2010, the latest year for which figures are available, according to IRS data compiled by Bloomberg. Those payments outpaced the total incomes for about 25 million U.S. households.
Wells Hit on Pace of Mortgage Relief (WSJ)
New York's top prosecutor is raising concerns about the pace of relief provided to the state's mortgage borrowers by Wells Fargo WFC -1.38% & Co. under a landmark $25 billion settlement, in the latest sign of dissatisfaction with the foreclosure-related legal remedies agreed to by banks and state and federal officials. "We are concerned that Wells Fargo is underperforming compared to other banks," said Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. "By identifying this pattern early, there is still time to address this issue and increase activity so that Wells's customers will be afforded meaningful assistance to keep their homes."
Stephen Friedman to Retire From Goldman Board (DealBook)
A onetime leader of Goldman who worked at the firm for nearly 30 years, Mr. Friedman is stepping down on May 22, the day before Goldman’s annual shareholder meeting. He will be replaced by Adebayo O. Ogunlesi, a well-known figure on Wall Street who joined the board last fall. ... Upon stepping down from the helm of Goldman in 1994, Mr. Friedman dismissed rumors that he was in poor health. “Only on Wall Street,” he told The New York Times at the time, “do people think it bizarre that I don’t want to spend half of my day on the telephone and the other half on an airplane.”
Historical Echoes: Central Bank and Paper Money Innovator Given Death Sentence for His Efforts (Liberty Street Economics)
In 1668, but still: watch out Bernanke.
University of Rhode Island campus gunman scare may have been sparked by 'Humans vs. Zombies' game
A police probe revealed that there never was a gun or active shooter on the Kingston campus, and that no one was ever in danger. However, Nerf guns were uncovered during a room-by-room search of Chafee Hall, which is where the incident started. The toy guns, which blast out foam balls or darts, are used in a game called “Humans vs. Zombies,” campus police Major Stephen Baker told WPRI. On Thursday, a student group was in the middle of a week-long round of the game, which is an extreme version of tag popular on college campuses across the country.