Antitrust EU Regulators Lays Out $1.9 Billion in Fines to ‘TV-Monitor-Tube-Cartels’

Speaking of cartels who will lay fines against central banks ?

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“The Securities and Exchange Commission launched an inquiry into a $10 million sale of stock by Big Lots Inc. BIG +10.33% Chief Executive Steven Fishman before the company announced news that sank its stock, a person familiar with the inquiry said.

Big Lots said Tuesday that Mr. Fishman, 61 years old, intends to retire in order to spend time with his family. The discount retailer said it hadn’t been contacted by the SEC and that the timing of Mr. Fishman’s departure was coincidental to any regulatory interest.

The company said his trades were “properly made” at a time when they were allowed by the company. Mr. Fishman didn’t return calls seeking comment.”

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ADTN, ATI, AIG, BYD, CLF, G, HON, INTC, IBM, KMP, ONXX, P, RAX, RSG, SN, TIBX, TUP, UTX, PAY, WM, WWAV,

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In Play ,

On the Wires 

“PHOENIX & HOUSTON & NEW ORLEANS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX), Plains Exploration & Production Company (PXP) and McMoRan Exploration Co. (MMR) announced today that they have signed definitive merger agreements under which FCX will acquire PXP for approximately $6.9 billion in cash and stock and FCX will acquire MMR for approximately $3.4 billion in cash, or $2.1 billion net of 36 percent of the MMR interests currently owned by FCX and PXP. Upon closing, MMR shareholders will also receive a distribution of units in a royalty trust which will hold a 5 percent overriding royalty interest on future production in MMR’s existing shallow water ultra-deep properties.

The combined company is expected to be a premier U.S.-based natural resource company with an industry leading global portfolio of mineral assets, significant oil and gas resources and a growing production profile.”

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“Goldman commodity analyst Damien Courvalin is out with a big call: The top in gold is in.

The firm says that the primary driver of gold prices are real interest rates (which have been super-low in the United States, in part thanks to aggressive Fed easing) and that with the economy coming back, this era is coming to an end.

We told you this weekend that Goldman economist Jan Hatzius made a big economic call… that the era of sub-par, post-Financial Crisis growth would come to an end sometime in the second half of 2013. And Courvalin, in lowering his gold outlook, is keying off of this call.

Here are the two key paragraphs from the report:

Improving US growth outlook offsets further Fed easing
Our economists forecast that the US economic recovery will slow early in 2013 before reaccelerating in the second half. They also expect additional expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet. Near term, the combination of more easing and weaker growth should prove supportive to gold prices. Medium term however, the gold outlook is caught between the opposing forces of more Fed easing and a gradual increase in US real rates on better US economic growth. Our expanded modeling suggests that the improving US growth outlook will outweigh further Fed balance sheet expansion and that the cycle in gold prices will likely turn in 2013. Risks to our growth outlook remain elevated however, especially given the uncertainty around the fiscal cliff, making calling the peak in gold prices a difficult exercise.

Gold cycle likely to turn in 2013; lowering gold price forecasts”

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“NEW YORK (AP) — Another Starbucks may soon pop up around the corner, with the world’s biggestcoffee company planning to add at least 1,500 cafes in the U.S. over the next five years.

The plan, which would boost the number of Starbucks cafes in the country by about 13 percent, is set to be announced at the company’s investor day in New York Wednesday.

In addition, the Seattle-based company says it will eventually serve a new brand of tea in its cafes. Rather than its Tazo tea, Starbucks is turning its attention to Teavana, which it announced it would acquire last month.”

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“Clerical workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the largest U.S. port complex, agreed to end an eight-day strike that affected about $1 billion of trade a day.

Workers and management reached a tentative agreement on a new contract, according to astatement late yesterday on the website of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union. The deal came after talks were held with federal mediators.

The strike cost the local economy “billions of dollars,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa said in a separate statement. The two ports, which together handle about a third of U.S. container imports, shuttered 10 of 14 cargo-box terminals, stranding shipments of toys, furniture and clothes in the run-up to the holiday period.

“We must waste no time in getting the nation’s busiest port complex’s operations back up to speed,” Villaraigosa said.”

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“Facebook Inc. (FB) will join the Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) next week after the exchange operator shortened its waiting period for inclusion in the gauge, potentially making the stock more attractive to fund managers.

The operator of the social network with more than 1 billion users will replace Infosys Ltd. (INFO)before the start of trading on Dec. 12, Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. said, about seven months after the company’s $16 billion IPO. The waiting period for entry into the index was a negotiating point with Facebook as it considered listing on Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange, a person with knowledge of the matter said in April.”

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Lower costs with productivity up is good for business and not so good for main st.

“U.K. services growth unexpectedly slowed in November as demand fell for the first time in two years, increasing the chance the economy will shrink again this quarter.

A gauge fell to 50.2, the lowest in 23 months, from 50.6 in October, Markit Economics and theChartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply said in London today. The reading is barely above the 50 line that divides contraction and expansion. A separate report showed services growth inChina slowed.”

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Rumor has it that vodka sales are skyrocketing on the news….

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“Alcatel-Lucent SA (ALU) is closer to obtaining financing of at least 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) from banks led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) amid a wide-ranging overhaul that will probably require deeper job cuts and major asset sales, people familiar with the talks said.

With discussions still under way, Alcatel-Lucent will need to come up with restructuring plans sufficient to end a six-year streak of mounting losses to reach a deal, the people said, asking not to be identified because the talks are private. Faced with more than 2 billion euros of debt repayments over three years, the company is weighing how to use as collateral its patent portfolio, in part inherited from the Nobel Prize-winning researchers of Bell Labs, the people said.”

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Americans do not like fresh and easy. Americans love frozen and complicatedly processed.

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“Billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who made more than $1 billion investing in Facebook Inc. (FB), is now avoiding the U.S. and focusing on China, where the company holds stakes in online-commerce companies.

The valuations of U.S. technology companies are too high to justify making new investments, Ivan Streshinskiy, chief executive officer of the company that manages Usmanov’s assets, USM Advisors LLC, said in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York.”

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“Nokia Oyj (NOK), the Finnish mobile-phone maker trying to win back customers of Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPhone and devices using Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android, unveiled a version of its flagship smartphone for China’s largest wireless carrier.

China Mobile Ltd. (941) agreed to carry the Lumia 920T, which is compatible with the country’s homegrown TD-SCDMA technology that powers the carrier’s network, the companies said in a statement today. The handset, the first Lumia based on Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s Windows Phone 8 software for the Chinese market, will cost 4,599 yuan ($739) without a contract and will go on sale before the end of this month.”

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manufacturing gets crushed by 16k due to Sandy

“Australia’s economy slowed last quarter on the weakest consumer demand in 2 1/2 years and tighter government spending, validating the central bank’s decision to cut interest rates.

Third-quarter gross domestic product advanced 3.1 percent from a year earlier after a revised 3.8 percent expansion in the April-June period, a Bureau of Statistics report released in Sydney today showed. That matched the median of 25 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Growth was 0.5 percent from the previous three months, when the quarterly gain was 0.6 percent.

The report covers a period when companies including BHP Billiton Ltd. scaled back mining projects in response to lower commodity prices. Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens lowered rates four times this year to help support consumption and housing as an elevated currency extended a slump in manufacturing and services, and the government sought spending cuts to eliminate a budget deficit.”

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“Moody’s Investors Service cut the outlook for South Africa’s banking system to negative from stable on concern that slowing economic growth will put pressure on the quality of lenders’ assets.

Moody’s estimates that the nation’s gross domestic product will expand 2.5 percent this year and 3 percent in 2013, less than what is needed to “tackle high unemployment and substantially improve living standards,” the company said in a statement today.

“As a result of the weakened domestic environment, the rating agency expects credit growth and new corporate business opportunities for banks to remain subdued over the 12- to 18- month outlook period,” Moody’s said. “Sizable holdings of government securities that will continue to link the banks’ credit profiles to South Africa’s creditworthiness” also contributed to the reduction, it said.”

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“U.S. regulators, in a move to sanction auditors for blocking investigations at China-based companies, have set a course that jeopardizes the listing of more than 100 stocks from the world’s most populous nation.

In a Dec. 3 enforcement action against the China-based affiliates of the Big Four accounting firms, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission escalated a three-year impasse between the two nations over whether auditors can share work documents with regulators investigating possible accounting fraud at companies selling securities in the U.S.”

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