Portugal Seeks Budget Options (WSJ) Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said he would look for fresh spending cuts to keep Portugal's €78 billion ($101 billion) international bailout program on track following a Constitutional Court decision that threw his government into crisis by striking down some of its planned austerity measures. Hedge Fund Star Gets A Hip-Check (WSJ) Jeffrey Vinik's Tampa Bay Lightning are struggling, but the performance of his National Hockey League team isn't the only worry for the veteran stock-picker. Investors have asked to pull around $1.5 billion from his hedge-fund firm after a period of poor performance, according to people briefed on the matter. The withdrawal requests amount to around 18% of the roughly $8 billion that was run by Vinik Asset Management. The redemption requests have come as Mr. Vinik, who rose to fame in the 1990s as the manager of Fidelity Investments' Magellan fund, has added a new investment team and moved from Boston to Tampa to be closer to the Lightning, the franchise he owns. The moves have raised concerns in some quarters that Mr. Vinik, 54 years old, may have become less focused on investing, according to people familiar with the firm. Lew To Press For Policy Changes (NYT) Jacob J. Lew began his first trip to Europe as Treasury secretary on Sunday, a four-city tour in which he is expected to try to persuade finance ministers to pursue a little more growth and a little less austerity to improve the economic fortunes of the Continent and the world. Rogue Trader Leeson to Advise Irish Borrowers on Bank Debts (Bloomberg) Nick Leeson, the trader whose wrong- way bets on Japanese stocks ruined Barings Plc, is joining a mediation firm to advise Irish borrowers looking to renegotiate debts in the wake of the real estate collapse. Leeson, 46, who has lived in Ireland for more than 10 years, will join GDP Partnership as a principal as it expands into Dublin, the company said in a statement posted on Twitter by Leeson. There is “a lot of fear and stress currently in the country with debt the root of the problem,” it said. Greek Bank Merger Halted (WSJ) Greece's two largest lenders are heading for state control after their merger was halted by the government over the weekend. The unexpected move came after National Bank of Greece and Eurobank came up short in their plans to raise capital and amid fears by the country's international lenders that the combined entity could become too big to be bailed out by the government. Putin Faces Down Topless Protest In Germany (Reuters) Russia urged Germany to punish a group of women who staged a bare-breasted protest against President Vladimir Putin on Monday during a visit to a trade fair in Hanover with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Three members of the women's rights group Femen, which has staged protests against Russia's detention of the feminist punk band P*ssy Riot around Europe, disrupted a visit by Putin and Merkel to an industry fair focusing on Russian business. They stripped off to the waist and shouted slogans calling the Russian leader a "dictator" before being covered up and bundled away by security men. "This is ordinary hooliganism and unfortunately it happens all over the world, in any city. One needs to punish (them)," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Investors Bankroll Lawsuits (WSJ) A new generation of investors is plunging into "litigation finance," putting up millions of dollars to fund lawsuits in hopes of collecting when verdicts come down. Established financiers are expanding into new areas, including loans to law firms, and finding clients among the biggest American companies. Meredith Whitney Blasts Critics In Debut Book (NYP) Prominent bank analyst Meredith Whitney comes out swinging at critics in her debut book, “Fate of the States.” The Wall Street financial analyst, who made headlines with her accurate 2007 prediction that Citigroup would cut its dividend amid the unfurling financial crisis, says she was “pilloried in the financial press” after she warned of looming state- and city-bond defaults resulting from budget shortfalls. Whitney, who made her forecasts on CBS’s “60 Minutes” back in December 2009, blasted critics who claim her prediction of municipal-bond defaults suggested they would all happen at once: “For the record, I never said those 50 to 100 defaults would all happen in 2011.” Hedge Funds Cut Bets Most Since ’08 as Prices Slump: Commodities (Bloomberg) Hedge funds reduced bets on a commodity rally by the most since 2008 as rising supplies of everything from copper to sugar and slowing U.S. growth drove prices to the biggest slump in six months. General Electric to Buy Lufkin Industries for $3.38 Billion Cash (Reuters) Lufkin, which sells and services oilfield pumping units and power transmission products, has operations in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, the Middle East, and Europe. Man shot with arrow at gentleman's club (KN) The incident occurred around 3:30 a.m. Sunday at The Ball Gentleman’s Club at 3005 Alcoa Highway. Police responded to a E-911 call that someone had been shot, but upon arrival they discovered it wasn’t with a gun. A member of The Ball Gentleman’s Club security personnel appeared to have been shot with an arrow Powell said. Officers conducted an immediate search of the area, but were unable to locate the suspect. The victim was treated on scene.

Goldman Names New Finance Chief (WSJ) Mr. Viniar has told colleagues he wants to spend more time at his home in Santa Barbara, Calif., where he often returns on the weekends. His thrice-weekly basketball game has been on hold since he underwent knee-replacement surgery this year. Goldman's New CFO Harvey Schwartz to Receive $1.85 Million in Annual Salary (Reuters) Schwartz's predecessor is among the best-paid executives on Wall Street. He earned $15.8 million last year and held 1.8 million shares of Goldman as of March 26, according to a proxy filing. In 2007, he made $58.5 million. Mary Schapiro May Be Heading For Exit (NYP) Sources say that Schapiro is chafing under the political gridlock in Washington that she feels has stymied a number of her initiatives. “Part of the problem for [Schapiro] is that the tone in Washington has been so partisan,” said Christopher Whalen, of Tangent Capital Partners. The chairwoman’s recent handling of talks surrounding new rules governing money-market funds, some detractors say, has also created bad blood within the SEC. “She’s just frustrated,” Whalen noted. However, Schapiro’s critics say she hasn’t cracked the whip hard enough on Wall Street bad guys. One former Washington insider said that Schapiro is liked by President Obama and would stay on until a replacement is named, should he win re-election. One possible early front-runner to replace Schapiro may be FINRA CEO Richard Ketchum, sources speculate. For Superfast Stock Traders, A Way To Jump Ahead In Line (WSJ) Haim Bodek was a Wall Street insider at Goldman Sachs and UBS before launching his own trading firm. Now he is taking on the financial establishment that spawned him. Mr. Bodek approached the Securities and Exchange Commission last year alleging that stock exchanges, in a race for more revenue, had worked with rapid-fire trading firms to give them an unfair edge over everyday investors. He became convinced exchanges were providing such an edge after he says he was offered one himself when he ran a high-speed trading firm—a way to place orders that can be filled ahead of others placed earlier. The key: a kind of order called "Hide Not Slide." The encounter set off an odyssey for Mr. Bodek that has fueled a sweeping SEC inquiry into the activities of sophisticated trading firms and stock-exchange operators—including Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., NYSE Euronext, Direct Edge Holdings LLC and BATS Global Markets—according to exchange and other officials, and lawyers with knowledge of the inquiry. Vulture Funds Seek Fresh Meat (WSJ) “There hasn’t been a big bankruptcy in the last six to nine months,” said a hedge fund investor. “More stuff is coming out of distress than is going in.” US corporate bankruptcy filings peaked in the second quarter of 2009, at around 16,000, and have been trending downward ever since. In the first quarter of 2011, they hit about 11,000, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. Silver Point co-founder Edward Mulé is optimistic the feast will continue. The $6.7 billion firm has had one of the best performances of distressed funds. It gained 10.36 percent this year through August and is up 98.6 percent since January 2009. “The tail of the 2008/2009 distressed credit cycle, coupled with weak global growth and de-leveraging, will continue to generate a steady stream of interesting opportunities,” said Mulé in a recent investor letter. Inside The Dark World Of Online Sugar Daddies (BuzzFeed Shift) Shortly after my profile's approval, emails started flooding my new fake account. One was from "International Finance Don Juan." He wrote: "You look hot. Let's meet." He claimed he was exotic and athletic, over six feet and an independent stockbroker on his profile. After some small talk, he asked to meet me at the W — a "cool" luxury chain where seemingly all these guys wanted to meet or get a hotel room. “Don Juan” had sent a face shot of himself. It was cropped and a little blurry, but I had a general idea of what he looked like. When he walked in to the lobby bar, though, instead of "athletic," he looked as if he could have checked off "more to love." I guess all that matters is that these guys have the cash they say they have...He asked what I'd like to drink. I said I liked pinot noir or champagne. "Oh, Prosecco is basically the same thing," he said, and ordered me one. I had made up a story that I was a graduate student in literature at Sarah Lawrence so I was only in the city once or twice a week to see friends. He wasn't trying to feign interest, but was looking my body over in a conspicuous way. "You've got an amazing ass," he said. "I looked when we were walking in. I hope you don't mind." He attempted to wink, but it seemed more like a tic. I said thanks in the most convincing way I could to a sweaty, slobbering guy with the most repugnant perpetual hard-on visible through his khakis. "You like me?" he asked. "You seem very nice. I'm just, I'm just suddenly not feeling well," I blurted out. "You feel sick, or you're not into me?" he asked. "You know, if you want, I live close. You could come and lie down and I can give you a massage. Since it's our first time meeting, once you're better, you could just give me a blow job. How about $550? Probably the quickest $550 you'll ever make, huh?" Soros Fund Invests in Mozambique Ethanol Project (WSJ) The Soros Economic Development Fund on Wednesday said its investment will give it a 19% stake in the $20 million project, started by food-and-energy company CleanStar Mozambique. Executives say the investment is in line with the fund's aim of backing businesses that provide a return on capital and spur broader economic development. US Fiscal Cliff Trumps EU Crisis as Top Worry (CNBC) A looming fiscal problem in the U.S. is now identified as the top tail risk for investors, marking the first time in 17 months that Europe’s debt crisis was not seen as the biggest concern for fund managers, a monthly survey by Bank of America/Merrill Lynch shows. The U.S. “fiscal cliff,” a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts set to come into force in January 2013, was identified by 35 percent of respondents as the largest risk going forward, up from 26 percent in August. In contrast, 33 percent of the respondents rated the euro zone debt crisis as their biggest concern, down from 48 percent in August. The survey of 186 fund managers, who oversee a combined $524 billion, was conducted from Sept. 7 to 13. BOE Looks Set For More Stimulus (WSJ) Rate-setters think the annual rate of inflation will take longer to fall to its 2% target than they thought last month because of rising commodity prices and an increase in companies' labor costs, according to the minutes of the September meeting of the central bank's Monetary Policy Committee, published Wednesday. Annual inflation was 2.5% in August. Lindsay Lohan arrested in New York after striking pedestrian outside nightclub (NYDN) Lohan was arrested early Wednesday in New York after hitting a pedestrian with a Porsche, police said. The troubled actress was maneuvering around a crowd of people in an alley between the Dream Downtown, a hotel and nightclub in the Meatpacking District, and the Maritime restaurant. "She's driving in this freight area, going very slow," a police source said. "She's hitting her horn because there's a lot of people in the area. The crowd moves but she kind of brushes against this one guy. Lohan was driving a 2010 black Porsche Carrera, not hers, when the incident occured around 12:30 a.m. Lohan and friends went inside the club, and the man — who hasn't been named but is 34 — called police. Lohan was later arrested about 2:30 a.m. and booked for leaving the scene of an accident with an injury. She was issued a desk appearance ticket. Her lawyer took the car after the arrest.

Fresh Budget Fights Brewing (WSJ) If Congress doesn't do more in the coming months, Moody's warned, the company could follow Standard & Poor's in downgrading U.S. debt. "Further measures that bring about a downward debt trajectory over the medium term are likely to be needed to support the AAA rating," Moody's said Wednesday. But the battles on how to do that are far from over. Republicans say any further deficit reduction or legislation to avoid across-the-board spending cuts should come from reducing spending. President Obama and many Democrats advocate a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. The most serious skirmish will arrive toward the end of February, when the U.S. Treasury is expected to be unable to pay all the government's bills unless Congress boosts the federal borrowing limit. Then on March 1, the across-the-board spending cuts of the fiscal cliff, deferred in this week's deal, are scheduled to begin slicing into military and domestic programs. And on March 27, a government shutdown looms unless Congress approves funding for government operations for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. CEOs Pan Fiscal Cliff Deal, Vow to Continue Debt Fight (Reuters) "I think this deal's a disaster," said Peter Huntsman, chief executive of chemical producer Huntsman Corp. "We're just living in a fantasy land. We're borrowing more and more money. This did absolutely nothing to address the fundamental issue of the debt cliff." Former Wells Fargo CEO Dick Kovacevich said the agreement confirms that Washington and both parties are totally out of control. "I think it's a joke," Kovacevich said of the deal. "It's stunning to me that after working on this for months and supposedly really getting to work in the last 30 days that this is what you come up with." Obama’s Warning to Boehner Started Road to Budget Plan (Bloomberg) President Barack Obama had a warning for John Boehner at a Dec. 13 White House meeting: Stop opposing higher tax rates for top earners, or the president would dedicate his second term to blaming Republicans for a global recession. The next day, the House speaker called the president and said he was open to a tax-rate increase on annual income of more than $1 million...While the budget deal Obama and Boehner were negotiating fell apart, the speaker’s concession on tax rates ultimately allowed Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, to craft the last-minute plan Congress passed Jan. 1. Nouriel Roubini: US Will Soon 'Get Messy' Again (CNBC) "It won't be long before there is another crisis. Two months, in fact." Pershing to Take 'Passive Shareholder' Role in General Growth (WSJ) Pershing Square Capital Management LP agreed to sell $271.9 million in General Growth Properties warrants to Brookfield Asset Management Inc., as part of a deal between the mall owner's two biggest shareholders that would resolve their recent disputes and see Pershing become a passive shareholder. Brookfield, in turn, offered to sell the warrants, which represent the right to acquire 18.4 million shares of General Growth stock, back to General Growth for the same purchase price. Pershing also agreed to limit its ownership stake in General Growth to no more than 9.9% and intends to become a passive shareholder. Brookfield agreed to limit its ownership in General Growth to 45%. Bank Of Canada won’t discuss melting plastic bills, says national security behind silence (NP) Disclosing details of behind-the-scenes discussions about tales of melting banknotes could endanger national security or international relations, says Canada’s central bank. In response to a formal request from The Canadian Press, the Bank Of Canada released 134 pages of internal records — almost completely blanked out — concerning allegations its new polymer bills melted in the scorching summer sun. The bank began issuing $100 polymer banknotes in late 2011, saying they were harder to counterfeit than paper notes and would last much longer. Unconfirmed reports of cooked currency emerged in July when a Kelowna, B.C., bank teller said she had heard of cases in which several bills had melted together inside a car. Soon after, Mona Billard of Cambridge, Ont., reported that she had returned eight plastic bills in January, after her son stashed his $800 Christmas bonus in a tin can and hid it near a baseboard heater. When he retrieved them the next day to make a deposit, the $100 banknotes had shriveled and melted. Ms. Billard exchanged clean bills for the shrunken, unusable ones. “The leather couch is up against the baseboard heater, it doesn’t melt,” she said. “The kids’ toys are back there, they don’t melt.” The Bank of Canada will reimburse damaged notes, but only if they clear an examination by an Ottawa laboratory. Paulson&Co Added To Abacus Suit Against Goldman (Bloomberg) Paulson & Co. was named as a defendant in a proposed revised lawsuit by ACA Financial Guaranty Corp. against Goldman Sachs over a collateralized debt obligation called Abacus. Paulson conspired with Goldman Sachs to deceive ACA Financial, which provided financial guaranty insurance for the deal, ACA Financial said in papers filed yesterday in Manhattan. Private Sector Added 215,000 Jobs Last Month (WSJ) Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expected ADP to report a gain of 150,000 private jobs. Preet Bharara and other financial heavyweights opposing Paul Singer's attempt to get Argentina to pay debt (NYP) US Attorney Preet Bharara and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink are among the latest bold-faced names to oppose Singer’s attempt to get Argentina to pay him and others $1.3 billion on defaulted debt. Singer, the hedge fund billionaire who runs Elliott Management, is among the 8 percent of Argentina debtholders who refused to accept a 70 percent haircut following a 2001 default by the embattled South American country. Singer inched closer to winning the epic legal showdown in November when a federal judge ruled Argentina could not pay Fink’s BlackRock or other holders of the reorganized debt without putting money in escrow for Singer’s band of investors. An appeals court slowed Singer’s victory parade but refused to set aside the judge’s order. Now, Bharara, Fink’s $3.67 trillion bond firm and others are urging the appeals court to throw the case out. Basel Becomes Babel as Conflicting Rules Undermine Safety (Bloomberg) While higher capital requirements, curbs on banks trading with their own money and other rules have reduced risk, they have magnified the complexity of supervision, according to two dozen regulators, bankers and analysts interviewed by Bloomberg News. Even if the new regulations can be enforced, they don’t go far enough to ensure safety, said Robert Jenkins, a member of the Bank of England’s financial policy committee. Cops: Woman, 50, Battered Boyfriend, 32, Because Six Came Before Nine (TSG) Jennie Scott, 50, was booked into the Manatee County lockup on a misdemeanor charge stemming from the 11 PM encounter in the Palmetto bedroom of Jilberto Deleon, 32. Scott has dated Deleon “for the last 5 years on and off,” according to a sheriff’s report. Deputies were summoned to Deleon’s home by a witness who heard the couple arguing and saw Scott atop Deleon “punching and scratching him.” She also allegedly struck Deleon with a stick and threatened to hit him with a wrench before the tool was taken from her hand by the witness. When questioned by a cop, Scott explained that she and Deleon “were giving each other oral pleasure in the bedroom” when Deleon “finished first and stopped pleasuring her.” Scott added that she “became upset and they began arguing.” A deputy noted that Scott said that she was also mad at Deleon because she had “heard [him] having sex with another woman over the phone earlier in the day.” Scott struggled with deputies before being placed in a police cruiser, where she kicked a window until being warned that she would be maced unless she stopped.