$HLF @ $38.25…

“The hedge fund war over Herbalife keeps heating up.

Right now, shares of Herbalife are trading back below the pre-Bill Ackman short levels.

Ackman, who runs $12 billion Pershing Square Capital Management, believes the multi-level marketing firm that sells nutrition products is a “pyramid scheme” and he’s shorting more than 20 million shares with a price target of $0.

Last Thursday evening, legendary billionaire investor/long time Ackman rival Carl Icahn disclosed a 12.98% stake in Herbalife which includes shares underlying call options.  That news caused the stock to spike more than 18% – way above the pre-Ackman short level.

The SEC filing also said he intends to have discussions with management “regarding the business and strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value, such as a recapitalization or a going-private transaction.”

The next day, Icahn appeared on CNBC in a live telephone interview around 12:30 p.m. to talk about his stake.  He told CNBC that he thinks Herbalife is a “very undervalued situation” and that his stake is not a personal vendetta against Ackman, but rather it’s about making money. During his appearance, the stock started to slip, but was still up on the day….”

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“BP BP.LN +0.16% PLC already has agreed to pay more than $30 billion in fines, settlements and cleanup costs for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill. Now it is placing a big bet that by going to trial next week, it can hold down the cost of one of its last major potential liabilities for the disaster.

The London-based oil company says both the law and the facts of the case make facing a federal judge in a trial a safer bet than reaching a settlement with Gulf Coast states, businesses, individuals and the federal government for environmental-related claims….”

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“The fire on board the Carnival Corp cruise ship that drifted for days in the Gulf of Mexico awash in raw sewage started from fuel from a leaking diesel engine line that ignited, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday.

More than 4,200 passenger and crew were stranded for five days last week….”

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“BERLIN (AP) — The world’s biggest food and drinks maker Nestle SA has become the latest company to pull some of its products off European shelves after they were found to contain undeclared horse meat.

The company, based in Vevey, Switzerland, said in a statement late Monday that it withdrew some of its beef pasta ready meals from sale after tests conducted two days earlier detected horse DNA.Nestle said it increased its surveillance after reports emerged last month of mislabeled products being sold in Britain.

“Our tests have found traces of horse DNA in two products made from beef supplied by H.J. Schypke,” Nestle said in a statement. “The levels found are above the one percent threshold the U.K.’s Food Safety Agency uses to indicate likely adulteration or gross negligence.” …”

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“In its quarterly report on estimated e-commerce retail sales released today, the U.S. Census Bureau said that adjusted online sales jumped 15.6% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2012. On an unadjusted basis, sales rose 15.8%.

Adjusted e-commerce sales of $59.5 billion comprised 5.4% of total retail sales of $1.1 trillion. That is the highest percentage since the Census Bureau started keeping track of online sales in the fourth quarter of 1999, when e-commerce retail sales were just 0.6% of total retail sales. The fourth-quarter total is also the highest since 1999.

For the full year, e-commerce sales totaled $225.5 billion, up 15.8% from 2011. Total retail sales rose 5% year-over-year….”

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“DETROIT (AP) — BMW is recalling more than 30,000 SUVs to fix an oil leak that can knock out the power-assisted braking.

The German automaker says the recall covers X5 SUVs in the U.S. from the 2007 through 2010 model years. The vehicles were made between Sept. 12, 2006, and March 18, 2010. They have eight-cylinder engines….”

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” $CSCO  has $46 billion in cash, but CEO John Chambers says he is no longer willing to use it to acquire U.S. companies.

That’s because 80 percent of that cash is stored in overseas accounts and if Cisco spends it in the U.S., the company will have to fork over 35 percent in taxes.

For years, he has been trying to get the U.S. to change that tax rule. He’s said before that this prevents him from hiring more U.S. workers.

But now he’s said he’s also stopped shopping for acquisition targets in the U.S., too.

That’s a blow, as Cisco has historically been a company that acquires like crazy.

Cisco is not the only company hording cash overseas to avoid taxes. U.S. companies have about $1.7 trillion offshore. For instance, Microsoft‘s keeps about 87 percent of its $66.6 billion stored outside the U.S.; Oracle, 80 percent of its $31.6 billion; and Apple about 68 percent of its $121.3 billion, reports CNBC’s Jon Fortt.….”

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“Bloomberg is reporting on emails circulating among Wal-Mart executives calling February sales a “total disaster.”

The emails say February sales are off to the worst monthly start in seven years.

The executives attribute the dismal performance to the expiration of payroll tax cuts.

Bloomberg’s Renee Dudley reports:

“In case you haven’t seen a sales report these days, February MTD sales are a total disaster,” Jerry Murray, Wal-Mart’s vice president of finance and logistics, said in a Feb. 12 e-mail to other executives, referring to month-to-date sales. “The worst start to a month I have seen in my ~7 years with the company.”

…

“Have you ever had one of those weeks where your best-prepared plans weren’t good enough to accomplish everything you set out to do?” Geiger asked in a Feb. 1 e-mail to executives. “Well, we just had one of those weeks here at Walmart U.S. Where are all the customers? And where’s their money?”

The stock just tanked on the news and is now down more than 3 percent in intraday trading. Click on the chart below to enlarge the image.

Thinkorswim

Brian Sozzi, chief equities analyst at NBG Productions and a specialist in retail stocks, told Business Insider: …”

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“Netflix succeeded in getting a shareholder lawsuit dismissed that had accused the company of inflating its share price by concealing rising costs, even as insiders like CEO Reed Hastings were selling millions of dollars in stock, reports Reuters.

The lawsuit was filed in January 2012 by shareholders led by the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System and State-Boston Retirement System, which claimed Netflix deceived them about its prospects. They also said Netflix misled shareholders by launching a stock buyback program, a sign that shares might be undervalued, even as Hastings and other insiders were selling off close to $85 million of their own shares. Hastings was also deemed not to have materially misled investors on a conference call on Dec. 8, 2012, when he said Netflix would benefit from a “virtuous cycle where it could add subscribers and streaming content while lessening the costs of its DVD-by-mail rental service….”

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“PARIS (Reuters) – Airbus has dropped lithium-ion batteries of the type that forced the grounding ofBoeing’s 787 Dreamliner and will use traditional nickel-cadmium batteries in its crucially important next passenger jet, the A350.

The European planemaker said on Friday it had taken the decision to adopt the batteries used on existing models such as the A380 superjumbo in order to prevent delays in the A350’s entry to service next year.

Reuters had reported that Airbus was considering such a move to limit the risks surrounding the development of its $15 billion airliner.

“We want to mature the lithium-ion technology but we are making this decision today to protect the A350’s entry-into-service schedule,” an Airbus spokeswoman said.

Industry executives, insurance companies and safety officials had told Reuters the technology’s predictability was being questioned at senior levels as investigators struggle to find the cause of incidents that led to the grounding of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner.

These included a fire on board a parked 787 in Boston and an in-flight problem on another plane in Japan.

The A350 is due to enter service in the second half of 2014 compared with an initial target of 2012 when it was launched as Europe’s answer to the lightweight 787 Dreamliner.

The industry’s fear is that the failure to identify the “root cause” of the burning battery incidents leaves too much uncertainty over whether regulators will certify planes as safe when relying on the powerful but temperamental power packs….”

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“Wells Fargo & Co., the lender that’s expanding its securities unit to challenge Wall Street competitors, is broadening U.K. commercial property lending as European banks are forced to retreat.

“Coming in now, when there is scarcity of capital, we can start to bank U.K. companies and have a very good chance of developing a long-term relationship,” Chip Fedalen, head of institutional and metro-markets at the bank’s commercial real- estate division, said in a telephone interview. “We want to be there forever.”

Wells Fargo Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf is looking beyond the U.S. after becoming the nation’s leading home-lender, biggest commercial-property servicer and owner of the largest retail-branch network. The bank is searching forrevenue to extend three years of record profits amid weak loan demand and shrinking lending margins, and has purchased debt portfolios from European lenders exiting U.S. markets.

The San Francisco-based bank plans to increase its U.K. business as the amount of real-estate debt maturing in the country this year exceeds available funding by $25 billion, real-estate broker DTZ said in a November report. That funding gap is widening profit margins, attracting debt funds, insurers and other U.S. banks, including Bank of America Corp., who can charge borrowers higher interest rates. It may also help revive the region’s commercial mortgage-backed securities market that’s been largely frozen since 2008.

Luxury Hotels…”

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“Tiffany & Co. accused Costco Wholesale Corp. in a lawsuit of selling counterfeit Tiffany diamond engagement rings at discount big-box prices not befitting the mystique of its iconic blue-box.

While Costco sells high-end jewelry from Cartier, Breitling, Chanel and Movado, it isn’t authorized to sell Tiffany items, the New York-based jewelry retailer said in a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Manhattan.

Tiffany said it was alerted by a customer in November who saw signs offering “Tiffany” rings in a Huntington Beach, California, Costco store.

“Costco had apparently been selling different styles of rings for many years that it has falsely identified on in-store signage as ‘Tiffany,’” according to the complaint.

The Issaquah, Washington-based company, which runs more than 600 warehouse stores, has led customers to believe they were buying authentic Tiffany items at discount prices, Tiffany said. The sales “unlawfully trade off Tiffany’s goodwill and brand awareness,” it said.

‘Tiffany, which has sold trademarked luxury items for 175 years, is seeking to prevent further sales of counterfeit diamond engagement rings as well as unspecified damages associated with prior sales, the company said in the complaint…”

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“(Reuters) – A federal judge on Thursday accepted Transocean Ltd’s guilty plea for violating the U.S. Clean Water Act and the rig contractor’s payment of $400 million to settle U.S. criminal charges over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill at BP Plc’s Macondo well.
U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo, of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, accepted the plea, citing the resulting large fine as a good example of the “deterrent effect of the plea process.”
The overall settlement, unveiled last month by the U.S. Department of Justice, included $1 billion in civil penalties in addition to the $400 million in criminal penalties.
The Deepwater Horizon rig, which was owned by Transocean and contracted by BP, was drilling a mile-deep well on April 20, 2010, when a surge of methane gas caused a blowout that killed 11 workers. The well spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 straight days, unleashing a torrent of oil that fouled the shorelines of four Gulf Coast states and eclipsed the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in severity.
The accident led to a months-long U.S. deepwater ban and intense scrutiny of the offshore drilling industry, which is now booming worldwide despite lingering public concerns.
Transocean, employer of nine of the 11 workers killed, had set aside $1.5 billion for the DOJ out of a $1.95 billion loss provision for the disaster.
Transocean must still seek a settlement with the plaintiffs committee representing more than 100,000 individuals and business owners claiming economic and medical damages, so the ultimate cost of Macondo to Transocean could end up being higher. A trial is scheduled to start this month that will sort out many remaining civil claims related to the spill….”

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“(Reuters) – Merck & Co has agreed to pay $688 million to settle two U.S. class-action lawsuits by shareholders who said they lost money because the company concealed the poor results of a clinical trial of the anti-cholesterol drug Vytorin.

The federal lawsuits, led by several pension funds, alleged that Merck and Schering-Plough Corpknew more than a year in advance that the trial, known as Enhance, was a failure, but withheld that information from investors.

Shares of Merck fell nearly 15 percent and Schering fell nearly 21 percent on March 31, 2008, the first trading day after full trial results were released at the American Conference of Cardiology in Chicago. The companies merged in November 2009.

Law firms representing some of the plaintiffs said the combined settlements are among the 10 largest in a securities class-action that did not involve a restatement of financial results.

Christopher McDonald, a partner at Labaton Sucharow representing Schering investors, in a telephone interview said the settlements allow a “significant recovery” for shareholders.

He said that while the federal government has been successful in pursuing large fraud cases against some pharmaceutical companies, “it hasn’t translated into any significant uptick in settlements of securities cases.”

Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, said it has recorded a $493 million after-tax charge for the settlements, reducing the company’s previously reported profit per share for the 2012 fourth quarter to 30 cents from 46 cents….”

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NYSE  $HNZ is the star of the morning @ $72.59 up $12 bones or 20%

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“Apple Inc. said it will fight Greenlight Capital Inc.’s bid to bar the company from adopting a measure restricting its ability to issue preferred stock.

The maker of iPhones and MacBooks filed a response yesterday in U.S. District Court in New York to the request made by Greenlight in its lawsuit.

“The proposed injunction would harm the public interest,” and should be denied, Apple said in the filing. The measure “gives common shareholders greater power — the right to approve issuance of preferred shares,” Apple said.

Greenlight founder David Einhorn has said the tech company should issue high-yielding preferred stock to provide more value to shareholders from a $137 billion stockpile of cash. The measure up for vote would eliminate “Apple’s power to issue preferred stock,” Greenlight said in the company’s complaint.

The hedge fund claimed Cupertino, California-based Apple unfairly grouped the preferred share measure with other matters to be voted on at a meeting Feb. 27, violating the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission “unbundling rules.”

Apple said in its filing that it’s not violating SEC rules and that the move only eliminates so-called “blank check” preferred stock provisions. Without the provisions, preferred shares could still be offered as long as investors approve the change, according to Apple.

‘No Injury’…”

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“On Wednesday, a judge in the Southern District of New York dismissed a key group of plaintiffs in litigation against Facebook for allegedly mishandling its 2012 initial public offering.

The case dismissed the so-called “derivatives” group of investor lawsuits, which claimed Facebook’s management and directors — including CEO Mark Zuckerberg — should have been held liable for their alleged mishandling of the deal….”

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