Politicians Use Debt Ceiling Limits as Extortion

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“HONG KONG—China is accelerating efforts to push its currency deeper into world markets, racing ahead with a series of moves toward a new financial ecosystem with the yuan at its center.

A senior Hong Kong monetary official told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that China’s central bank is “actively considering” new rules that would make it easier to bring yuan funds raised offshore back onto the Chinese mainland.

Changing those rules would remove a choke point threatening the fast-growing market for the Chinese currency—also known as the renminbi—that is developing in Hong Kong and elsewhere outside mainland China’s borders. Currently, Chinese officials have to approve bringing any sizeable amount of currency—foreign and domestic—into the country. That system is aimed at closely managing the exchange rate and preventing speculation in the yuan.”

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“Joint bidders NASDAQ OMX and IntercontinentalExchange just threw another $350 mn chip on the table to sweeten their merger offer for long-time rival NYSE Euronext.

NASDAQ and ICE today boosted their offer for the Big Board by adding a $350 mn ‘reverse termination fee’ and put renewed pressure on NYSE’s board to meet with them.”

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“[T]here is … no valid technical reason to exclude satellite broadband providers from participating fully and directly,” they noted.

Joint statement by DISH, Hughes Communications (now owned by DISH), Viasat and Wildblue Communications (now owned by Viasat)

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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmTxV5UaIbU 450 300]

Due to Japanese supply bottlenecks, garbage is about to hit the market.

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“The post-earthquake deterioration in business sentiment, and the drop in exports stemming from supply-side bottlenecks such as supply chain disruptions and electric power shortages have become clearly evident,“ Masayuki Kichikawa, chief economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in Tokyo.

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Yahoo! beats by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides Q2 revs in-line (16.12 -0.22)
Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.17 per share, $0.01 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.16; revenues fell 5.8% year/year to $1.06 bln vs the $1.06 bln consensus. Co issues in-line guidance for Q2, sees Q2 revs of $1.075-1.125 bln vs. $1.1 bln Thomson Reuters consensus.

Juniper Networks guidance crossing wires sees Q2 $0.31-0.34 vs $0.36 Thomson Reuters consensus; sees revs $1.13-1.18 bln vs $1.16 bln Thomson Reuters consensus

Big beat for INTC

Intel sees Q2 revs $12.35-13.35 bln vs $11.87 bln Thomson Reuters consensus

IBM raises FY11 to at least $13.15 from $13.00 vs $13.08 Thomson Reuters consensus

Ticker RVBD

Another win for ISRG

CSX beats by $0.02, beats on revs (75.94 +0.59)
Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $1.06 per share, $0.02 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $1.04; revenues rose 12.4% year/year to $2.8 bln vs the $2.74 bln consensus. “CSX delivered record financial results and achieved growth across nearly all markets in a growing economy… We expect these positive trends to continue, allowing CSX to make critical investments and meet the future transportation needs of our customers and the nation.” Consistent with prior guidance, CSX expects to deliver a high-sixties operating ratio in 2011, which keeps the company on a path to a 65 percent operating ratio by no later than 2015.

VMware sees Q2 revs $860-880 mln vs $846.21 mln Thomson Reuters consensus

WYNN jumping on the news.

Cree prelim $0.27 vs $0.29 Thomson Reuters consensus; revs $219.2 mln vs $217.43 mln Thomson Reuters consensus
Cree sees Q4 $0.25-0.31 vs $0.36 Thomson Reuters consensus; sees revs $225-245 mln vs $243.78 mln Thomson Reuters consensus

One of China’s largest social networking websites, Renren, is slated to ipo on May 4th, ticker symbol RENN.

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