Asia up by 1%, oil higher by 0.45 and the dollar is lower.
Related: S&P futures are up 3.5.
Comments »Monthly Archives: June 2011
GSVC Purchase Values Facebook at $70 Billion
Micro cap company, GSV Capital (GSVC), reported they took a 225,000 share stake in privately held Facebook at $29.28 per share, valuing Facebook at more than $70 billion.
The transaction makes up 15% of GSV’s portfolio, who focuses on taking stakes in privately held companies, typically around the $100 million to $1 billion range.
CEO, Michael Moe said “Facebook is a one-of-a-kind business which has created enormous network effects. With over 650 million people on its platform, or approximately 1/10 of the world’s population, Facebook has established itself as a next generation social communications platform.”
Shares of GSVC soared by 41% today, making it a highly visible way to invest in soon to be public Facebook.
Comments »Nike Posts $1.24 EPS vs Consensus of $1.16 EPS on Revenues of $5.77bn vs consensus of $5.54 Billion…Stock Pops in A.H.
Tyson Foods Pays $4 Million Fine For Bribery
Blagojevich found guilty of bidding public office
Comments »CHICAGO — A jury has convicted Rod Blagojevich of nearly all the corruption charges against him, including trying to sell or trade President Obama’s old Senate seat.
Jurors delivered their verdicts Monday after deliberating nine days.
Blagojevich had faced 20 charges, including the Senate seat allegation and that he schemed to shake down executives for campaign donations. He was convicted on all charges regarding the Senate seat.
He testified for seven days, denying wrongdoing. Prosecutors said he lied and the proof was on FBI wiretaps. Those included a widely parodied clip in which Blagojevich calls the Senate opportunity “f—— golden.”
Jurors in his first trial deadlocked on all but one charge, convicting Blagojevich of lying to the FBI.
Blagojevich already faces up to five years for the lying conviction.
$90 Billion a year needed for farm investment
This study was commissioned by several agricultural companies.
Comments »Investment in agriculture must rise by $90 billion a year to meet the world’s growing food needs, according to a study sponsored by businesses including Monsanto Co. (MON), DuPont Co., Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Deere & Co. (DE)
The “investment gap” requires more private-sector involvement in agricultural and rural development, according to a report issued today by the Global Harvest Initiative, a collaboration between companies and nonprofits such as the World Wildlife Fund.
“There are simply not enough resources in either developed or developing nations to bridge this sizable gap, so enhanced private-sector involvement is the key to improving agricultural and rural development to ensure that the world’s future agricultural needs are met,” William Lesher, the executive director of the initiative, said in a news release.
The United Nations has said that by 2050, food production must increase by 70 percent to feed an estimated world population of 9 billion people, up from almost 7 billion this year. Global food prices have increased 37 percent in the past year, reaching a record in February, according to UN estimates.
The study is the last of five on hunger and agricultural development created by the initiative.
In Vitro Meat: Test Tube Food
This looks very interesting. Perhaps this will put companies like Monsanto out of business.
It also means less chemicals in the food chain, more available land, preserving of rain forests, no ecoli, cleaner water tables, no dead zones in bays, and many other things i can’t think of right now….
Comments »Fun With Monsanto
Yeah i know why bring up the past…..sometimes the past can predicate future behavior. Short this evil POS.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tznQ2Bko5X4 450 300] Comments »A Closer Look At What is Being Traded in a GS Dark Pool
Barron’s Reports on a Private Mortgage Insurer Meltdown
There is $700 billion worth of mortgages that private insurance companies are responsible for. Some insurers in the spotlight are MGIC, Radian and PMI….
Comments »The Obama Administration Looks To Raise $600 Bn Through Taxes and Retiring Corporate Welfare
Here is how they plan to raise the funds:
Analysts Double S&P Forecasts
Revenues are expected to climb 10%; more than double last years pace. Experts also expect to see more efficiency and productivity gains.
Comments »Dirty Laundry: Ex Citi VP Accused of Embezzlement
Why a Rally May Still be in the Cards
Headwinds are expected to be temporary. Market activity also suggests that upside is coming; since the market has failed to crash.
Comments »Crack Spreads Soar
Up 6% to $25.07
Comments »Germans disenchanted with Euro
Comments »BERLIN (MarketWatch) — Two years ago, at a semi-official Anglo-German meeting with financial and business figures in London, I asked a well-known German bank chairman with whom I have a reasonable acquaintance how he would react if Greece one day asked to leave the euro. This was an open question-and-answer session in front of about 50 people “I would act like Clint Eastwood,” my banker friend said, with rollicking good humor. “I would say, ‘Go ahead, make my day.'”
Rather revealing.
That was back in the good old days. Spreads between Greek and German 10-year bonds had started to widen. But there was nothing like the same crisis-laden atmosphere as now. I relate the story fairly often to illustrate that, in truth, there’s not a great deal of love lost between the Germans at the core of the euro and the outlying states.
Highlighting the mood of growing dismay, an opinion poll in the Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper indicated that 71% of Germans no longer trust the euro — up from 66% in April and less than 50% in 2008.
The Germans are happy enough to pool their currency with a bunch of homogenous states with which they have stable trading links and share similar economic and business characteristics. Countries that leave them alone, don’t make them feel guilty and don’t ask them for money. They are not too happy, though, about extending the relationship to countries which — for whatever reasons — are piling up debts owed to the Germans and other creditor nations that will never be repaid.
Chinese local governments amass $1.6 trillion in debt
Comments »BEIJING (AP) — China’s local governments have piled up debts of $1.6 trillion, the national audit agency announced Monday, amid mounting concern Chinese banks might be hurt if borrowers cannot repay loans.
It was the first public accounting of massive borrowing by local governments to pay for construction and other spending. The announcement, following months of speculation about the scale of the debt, might help to mollify worries about possible risks facing banks that also lent heavily to help China ward off the 2008 global crisis.
Analysts say some local governments might be unable to repay loans but a banking crisis is unlikely because China’s state-owned lenders are flush with cash and avoided the mortgage-related turmoil that battered Western institutions.
Beijing has flexibility because economic growth is strong and its total government debt is well below that of the United States, Japan and some European economies, said Zuo Xiaolei, chief economist for Galaxy Securities in Beijing.
“But the government must bear the risks in mind and try to prevent the local debts expanding too fast,” she said.
The National Audit Office report gave no indication what portion of local government debt might not be repaid. Its total figure was in line with estimates by outside analysts but it was unclear whether that included all government debts.
The audit office said local governments owe 9 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion) to banks and other lenders and might be responsible for an additional 1.6 trillion yuan ($200 billion) in debt. The disclosure came in a report to China’s legislature that was released on the agency website.
“Due to inadequate repayment ability, some local governments can only pay their debts by taking on still more debt,” the report said.
UBS economist Tao Wang, in a report this month, said local governments eventually might be unable to repay 2-3 trillion yuan ($300-$450 billion) in loans, equivalent to 4-5 percent of total lending by Chinese banks.
Many local Chinese governments created investment agencies over the past decade to invest in construction and other projects, financed by borrowing from state banks.
An American researcher, Victor Shih of Northwestern University, has estimated total local government borrowing in 2004-09 at 12 trillion ($1.6 trillion).
Bank lending was a key element of Beijing’s 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus that helped China rebound from the global economic crisis. Beijing provided only about 25 percent of the total. The rest came from local governments, state companies and bank loans.
Regulators began to tighten controls early last year amid warnings local governments were borrowing too much.
A central bank deputy governor, Su Ning, said in March 2010 that banks might face risks if local governments defaulted. But the Finance Ministry and bank regulator later issued a statement saying risks were under control.
Many loans are likely to be repaid because they were invested in projects that will produce taxes and other revenues, analysts say. But they say some were given without required collateral, some borrowing was used for regular spending instead of investment and some governments committed the same future revenues to multiple projects.
China’s top state-owned banks are among the world’s biggest, with several having more than $1 trillion in assets.
Beijing injected tens of billions of dollars into China’s biggest banks over the past decade to clear away mountains of unpaid loans.
“It can’t be excluded that the government might remove bad debts from the banks again if there were debt defaults,” said Zuo. “But that would be no good for the development of the economy and the banks as well.”
AP researcher Yu Bing contributed.
Moody’s Warns Over Greek Bank Deposit Deterioration AKA Run on The Banks
From Moody’s: “a sustained decline of deposits by more than 35% (roughly equal to the consolidated banking system’s liquid assets and ECB funding availability) within a short period of time, would cause a severe shortage of cash among banks.”
Comments »Credit Card and Revolving Debt at Highest Levels in 10 Years
Soros: ‘Probably Inevitable’ That Weak Nations Will Abandon Euro
“We are on the verge of an economic collapse which starts, let’s say, in Greece, but it could easily spread. The financial system remains extremely vulnerable.”
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