By: John Carney
Senior Editor, CNBC.com

It’s bonus day at Goldman Sachs.

Officially known as “Compensation Communication Day,” today is the day when many at Goldman are finding out what their bonus will be.

And it’s “really ugly” today, according to one Goldman employee.

A midlevel Goldman Sachs [GS  108.74    1.06  (+0.98%)   ] employee who works in the Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities division put it this way: “It’s a bloodbath. People are trying to put on a strong face but there are a lot of clenched jaws.”

One thing that makes the situation even more intense is that many receive the news of their bonus in a very public way.

Read the rest here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHegVr-armo&feature=related

The S&P 500 Technology sector has gotten off to a great start to 2012.  While it has gotten a bit overbought in the short term, the sector is closing in on a key resistance level that bulls would love to see broken.  This resistance level is the sector’s pre-financial crisis closing high of 441.36, which is just 1.59% away from where the sector is currently trading.

Read the rest and see the pretty graphs here.

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — The revamped school lunches at Los Angeles Unified School District have won awards, commending them for improving the menu at the second largest school district in the nation. Too bad the students don’t agree.

Rejecting healthful alternatives like vegetarian curries and tamales, quinoa salads and pad Thai noodles, students are throwing them in the trash by the thousands, bringing junk food from home and buying instant noodles and other decidedly unhealthy fare from the “black markets” that have begun to thrive at campuses across the district, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The wholesale rejection to its healthy menu comes about a year after a very public food fight with TV chef Jamie Oliver. Oliver filmed a few weeks of his ABC series “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” at one LAUSD campus, but the permit was terminated abruptly.

The series’ first season featured Oliver trying to revolutionize the eating habits and food policies of Huntington, W. Va.

The district said they welcomed Oliver, but not his cameras, in an effort to avoid gimmicks, like filling a school bus with 57 tons of white sand to represent the amount of sugar LAUSD students consume weekly in flavored milk.

The kerfluffle led to LAUSD’s decision to change the menu in favor of healthier options. The district decided to do away with chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milk.

Now, the Times reports cartons of plain milk are being thrown away en masse, unopened, along with uneaten entrees. Participation in the school lunch program has dropped by thousands of students, who are ditching lunch and are suffering from hunger-related ailments.

The complaints have been heard and LAUSD is planning changes to the menu, the Times reports. Burgers and (healthy) pizza are coming back, and dishes like quinoa salads and brown rice cutlets are out.

Read the rest here.

H/T Ritholtz

As for all federal taxes, CBO found that in 2007 the top 1% paid an average rate of a little under 30%, compared to 15.1% for middle-income earners. In calculating this overall tax burden, CBO takes account of payroll taxes, which moves the rate of the lowest 20% of earners into positive territory at 4.7%. CBO also apportions to individuals who are shareholders the tax that corporations pay on corporate profits.

The main point is that the average effective tax rate on the richest 1% is already twice as high as that of the middle class. No matter how many times Mr. Buffett asserts it, secretaries and plumbers do not on average pay a higher tax rate or less in taxes than do CEOs. Here is what the CBO concludes: “Taken as a whole, the federal tax system is progressive.”

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5 CNAM 19.80
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7 ASIA 18.70
8 CPSL 18.48
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13 NOAH 14.24
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15 SHLD 13.26
16 BSPM 12.33
17 NBS 12.31
18 SWKS 11.44
19 CNTF 11.35
20 TRIT 11.11
21 SINO 10.12
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24 NEP 8.86
25 IPHI 8.30
26 MERC 8.29
27 UXG 8.21
28 ONSM 8.20
29 RDNT 8.16
30 CNIT 8.10
31 OREX 8.10
32 TNP 8.09
33 ATSG 7.95
34 CAK 7.69
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36 LEE 7.32
37 HTCH 7.25
38 KUTV 7.21
39 SIGA 7.17
40 HHGP 7.14
41 WEBM 7.11
42 EXE 7.10
43 SATC 7.00
44 RAS 6.91
45 RENT 6.84
46 TWMC 6.77
47 EMAN 6.71
48 IMN 6.71
49 FORM 6.56
50 BIOD 6.47

Jan 20 (IFR) – European banks are preparing for a potential worsening of the region’s sovereign and banking crisis, with many firms stockpiling cash and cutting back on loans to new clients as they seek to protect themselves against a possible seizing-up of financial markets.

Faced with 650 billion euros of debt coming due this year – almost 40 percent of which matures before the end of March – lenders are choosing to build up a cash cushion to ensure they can cover redemptions, creating a squeeze on the wider economy in the process.

Such hoarding illustrates the nervousness of lenders even after the European Central Bank injected 489 billion euros of cash into the banking system in December. Cash deposits at the ECB have ballooned since then, reaching a record 528 billion euros this week – higher than after the Lehman Brothers collapse.

“The big concern is that things might get worse,” said Bernd Hartwig, treasury manager at Nord/LB. “Political decisions are taking too long and most banks are building up liquidity just in case something happens. They are very worried that a new crisis could be a bigger than 2008.”

System-wide hoarding is the reverse of what happened the last time central banks injected hundreds of billions of long-term money into the system. Then, banks moved quickly to put the money to work and generate returns, sparking bond and equity market rallies – and economic growth.

The US Federal Reserve almost trebled the size of its balance sheet to more than $2 trillion in the months after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, pumping cash into the banking system through programs such as the Term Auction Facility. The ECB grew its balance sheet by about a quarter in that time.

“This film explores the historical role of the Democratic Party as the graveyard of social movements, the massive influence of corporate finance in elections, the absurd disparities of wealth in the United States, the continuity and escalation of neocon policies under Obama, the insufficiency of mere voting as a path to reform, and differing conceptions of democracy itself.

Lifting the Veil is the long overdue film that powerfully, definitively, and finally exposes the deadly 21st century hypocrisy of U.S. internal and external policies, even as it imbues the viewer with a sense of urgency and an actualized hope to bring about real systemic change while there is yet time for humanity and this planet.

Noble is brilliantly pioneering the new film-making – incisive analysis, compelling sound and footage, fearless and independent reporting, and the aggregation of the best information out there into powerful, educational and free online feature films – all on a shoestring budget.”

Enjoy your weekend

(via CNN)

PETA wants O.J. Simpson’s house.

Why?

To set up a “Meat Is Murder” museum, of course.

In a letter addressed to Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals asked if the bank would either donate or sell the house to the animal rights group for a “nominal sum” once the bank completes the foreclosure it’s pursuing on Simpson’s home.

Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s president, assured Dimon in the letter that if the organization is able to acquire the five-bedroom Kendall, Fla. home, it would put it to good use by turning it into a “Meat Is Murder” museum that would teach visitors that “nonviolence begins on our plates.”

A Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) spoksesman said the bank would not comment on the matter.

PETA said it chose Simpson’s home because the former football star actively endorsed the consumption of meat. Simpson, they said, was a spokesman for a chicken restaurant chain, owned two restaurants himself and held an ownership stake in several HoneyBaked Ham stores.

The organization said it was serious about its request.

O.J. Simpson faces foreclosure in Florida

“Hope springs eternal.” said Newkirk. “We said we wanted a building in Los Angeles a couple years ago and Bob Barker came up with $4 million to buy it.”

In addition to educating visitors about the treatment of animals used for meat, the museum would offer free samples of foods made from healthy, plant-based proteins, including veggie burgers and faux chicken.

“If they say yes, we’ll be working on the menu,” said Newkirk.

Simpson is currently serving a prison sentence of up to 33 years for a 2007 armed robbery and kidnapping in Nevada. According to a source familiar with the matter, he stopped making payments on his Florida home in 2010.

In November, his attorney filed a motion to dismiss the foreclosure proceedings. But the bank is moving forward with the action, the source said.  

Unreal squeeze ever since CIT cut funding.

(via TMZ)

2011 was up 1.7% yoy.

median home price down 2.2% yoy

Seems that way since bankers were in the know. Why then have they not been prosecuted ?

Now +4.4% for the day, near $22.

10 yr +5.3% to 5.5% and 2 yr +7.6% to 3.4%

Full report

Gapping up

INTC +0.5%,KGC +1.2%, CLGX +10%, GALE +11.3%, SWKS +6.3%, MPC +4.6%, ZOLL +4%, CTIC +3.5%, BCS +3.5%, CLD +3%, IBM +2.1%, MSFT +2.1%, IBKR +1.8%,

RBS +3.9%, HBC +0.9%, DB +0.6%,

Gapping down

NCIT -19.7%, GOOG -8.1%, HTGC -4.6%, ISRG -4.6%, ZIOP -4.5%, COF -4.4%, MMLP -4.2%, BWP -4.1%, ARCC -3.7%, CCL -3.5%, MT -3.3%, EZPW -2.9%,

SQNM -2.4%, WLL -2.4%, AXP -2.1%, TOT -1.8%, BIDU -1.6%, BP -1.6%, GPS -1.3%, E,

Source

BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK) Cut to Neutral at Citigroup.
EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) Reiterated Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) Maintained Buy but cut target to $700 at Canaccord Genuity.
Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) Cut to Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
ICICI Bank Ltd. (NYSE: IBN) Cut to Underperform and named Bear of the Day at Zacks.
Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) Cut to Hold at Kaufman; Reiterated Outperform and raised target to $35 at Credit Suisse; Maintained Hold with $24 target at Canaccord Genuity.
JDS Uniphase Corporation (NASDAQ: JDSU) Raised to Buy at Stifel Nicolaus.
Johnson Controls Inc. (NYSE: JCI) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
NCI. Inc. (NASDAQ: NCIT) Cut to Underperform at Wells Fargo.
Tsakos Energy Navigation Ltd. Co. (NYSE: TNP) Raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) Cut to Hold at Needham.
Tractor Supply Co. (NASDAQ: TSCO) Reiterated Buy and raised target to $92 at Argus.
Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO) Reiterated Buy with $35 price target at Argus.
Western Union Co. (NYSE: WU) Reiterated Outperform as Bull of the Day at Zacks.

Carnival Corporation (NYSE: CCL) and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE: RCL) lowered targets and estimates by Credit Suisse.