Those on Wall street managing money should thank their lucky stars given the tough environment out there. Henry & Co. used to manage well over $2.6 billion and are now sending back what is left, ( less than $100 million,) to investors.

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“Reuters) – Advanced Micro Devices has hired JPMorgan Chase & Co to explore options, which could include a potential sale, as the chipmaker struggles to find a role in an industry increasingly focused on mobile and away from traditional PCs, according to three sources familiar with the situation.

Sources said an outright sale of the company is not a priority, and other options for AMD could include a sale of its portfolio of patents.”

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“(Reuters) – Weak foreign exchange revenue persists at State Street Corp , hurting the custody bank’s chances of lowering its high ratio of compensation expenses, top executives said on Tuesday.

Some shareholders, including activist investor Nelson Peltz, have criticized State Street’s compensation-to-revenue ratio, saying it is too high.

State Street’s goal is to keep the ratio at about 39 percent, compared with 40 percent in 2011. But that goal could be hard to meet as foreign currency trading revenue withers from slack volume and volatility while key customers shift away from transactions with higher profit margins.

State Street Chief Financial Officer Ed Resch said on Tuesday he expects the compensation-to-revenue ratio to be pressured, primarily because of weak trading revenue. He made his remarks during a presentation with State Street Chairman and Chief Executive Jay Hooley at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Banking and Financial Services Conference in New York.

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Another lock up comes due tomorrow for fuckbook….

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“A Bank of New York Mellon Corp. BK -0.02% unit will pay $210 million to resolve a series of lawsuits by clients who claimed they suffered losses in Bernard Madoff’s massive fraud, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said on Tuesday.

The settlement with Ivy Asset Management LLC resolves litigation by the attorney general’s office, the U.S. Department of Labor and investors. An additional $9 million will be contributed by other individual defendants in the cases.

Combined with future amounts investors anticipate receiving in the Madoff bankruptcy proceeding, the settlement is expected to return all or nearly all the original investment to those Ivy investors defrauded by Mr. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

“Ivy Asset Management violated its fundamental responsibility as an investment adviser by putting its own pecuniary interests ahead of the interests of its clients,” Mr. Schneiderman said.

“An investment adviser should apprise its clients of risks, but Ivy deliberately concealed negative facts it uncovered in its due diligence of Madoff in order to keep earning millions of dollars in fees. As a result, its clients suffered massive and avoidable losses.”

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“General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) and Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ: CLNE) have announced a collaboration to expand the infrastructure for natural gas transportation. As it turns out, the agreement was signed on November 7 as part of a credit agreement for Clean Energy to borrow up to $200 million to finance the development, construction and operation of two liquefied natural gas production facilities with an expected production capacity of approximately 250,000 LNG gallons per day at each facility.”

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Gapping up

OXGN +19.4%, CSOD +10.1%, DMND +6.4%, DOW +1%,  GILD +0.8%, FFIV +1.6%,

DDD +2%, ROC +3.2%, MNST +1.9%,  CLNE +2.2%, GNOM +4%,  NSPH +19.8%,

GBX +9.7%, TKMR +37.7%,  NVO +0.9%, AZN +0.8%, NVS +0.5%, CSOD +10.1%,

GALE +10%, NTI +9.5%, MHR +5%, DKS +4%, HD +2.5%, CEL +2.5%, TSPT +2.4%,

Gapping down

NBG -15.1%, WFT -9.5%, VOD -4.1%, MWE -3.4%, RIO -2.1%, BHP -1.9%, MSFT -1.8%,

STO -1.6%, HOLX -1.5%, WX -1.3%, BP -1.1%, LL -4.7%, MCP -2.4%, CJES-0.4%,

“Last night, we got shocking news out of Microsoft.

The man who saved Office, saved Vista, and launched Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky, is out of the company.

Sinofsky was often described as Microsoft’s CEO-in-waiting, so this was especially surprising news.”

Read more

$JCP, $AAPL, $CVS, $SVU< $XRX, $CLWR, $ZNGA, $ATVI, $TXN, $INTC, $MSFT, $DELL, $CSCO, $FB

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Gapping up

SQNM +8.3%, DNDN +5.2%, ACI +2.6%,  DIS +1%,  AIG +0.4%, ABT +0.25%, GILD + 10%,

CEL +3.9%,  VVUS +3.3%, IDIX +4.3%, TSRO +7.8%, CELG +8.7%, DVAX +10.3%,  STV +17.1%,

CXS +12.6%,  TIE +42.60%,  DHI +2.9%, MDVN +2.4%, CLSN +2.2%,

Gapping down

SD -0.5%, JCP -2.9%, GRMN -2.7%, CAT-0.6%,  SDRL -0.6%,  CYNO -2.5%, OSG -6.3%, NKTR -3.1%,

CLVS -44.2%, STSI -18.4%, HUSA -17.5%, XIDE -6%, TSL -1.1%, GWW -1%

Did you really think anyone would be charged this far down the road? “Do the crime then pay a fine” is a great motto for our children…..

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“LONDON (Reuters) – UK lawmakers will quiz executives of Starbucks , Google and Amazon on Monday about how they have managed to pay only small amounts of tax in Britain while racking up billions of dollars worth of sales here.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is charged with monitoring government financial affairs, has invited the companies to give evidence amid mounting public and political concern about tax avoidance by big international companies.

“It is hard for the ordinary person to believe it’s fair,” said Margaret Hodge, a member of parliament for the opposition Labour party and chairman of PAC.

“It makes people incredibly angry in the current fiscal climate,” she added, in reference to the austerity measures which large budget deficits have forced on the UK, and other countries.

Britain and Germany last week announced plans to push the Group of 20 economic powers to make multinational companies pay their “fair share” of taxes following reports of large firms exploiting loopholes to avoid taxes.”

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“Best Buy Co. (BBY) is hiring Sharon McCollam, the former chief financial officer of Williams-Sonoma Inc. (WSM), as its CFO, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

The appointment of McCollam will be disclosed publicly today, the person, who asked not to be named as the announcement isn’t public, said yesterday. McCollam retired from home-goods retailer Williams-Sonoma in March. The Wall Street Journal reported the appointment yesterday.

The electronics chain is revamping operations under new Chief Executive Officer Hubert Joly, who is accelerating the introduction of smaller stores and closing big-box locations. Joly plans to discuss his strategy with analysts at a meeting in New York on Nov. 13.”

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“European companies most dependent on revenue from Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal are rising in the stock market at the fastest pace in five years, providing chances for short sellers after two earlier rallies fizzled.

Firms with sales from those countries surged 21 percent in the 15 weeks to Nov. 2 as European Central Bank President Mario Draghi pledged to preserve the euro, compared with an average 5.3 percent gain for exporters to the U.S., China and Europe’s strongest economies, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. indexes show. Similar rallies for companies serving so-called peripheral countries heralded losses of as much as 44 percent through November 2010 and July 2012, data compiled by Bloomberg show.”

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“British Broadcasting Corp.’s two most senior news executives stepped aside, expanding the fallout from errors in child sex abuse investigations that forced Director General George Entwistle to quit over the weekend.

News director Helen Boaden and her deputy, Stephen Mitchell, have given up their responsibilities during a probe into why a BBC “Newsnight” program investigating sex abuse claims against former entertainer Jimmy Savile was canceled last year. Entwistle quit this weekend after a separate “Newsnight” investigation erroneously implied that a senior politician had molested a young boy.”

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Is it me or is corruption at the core of every business these days ? Seems like the new motto is crime pays when you settle for a fraction of what you stole….

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Wait to see what $AAPL does with $ITC chips and you could have your answer.

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NORWALK, Conn. (AP) — Priceline.com Inc. plans to buy online travel-research company Kayak Software Corp. for $1.8 billion to expand its travel business.

Priceline will pay about $500 million in cash and $1.3 billion in stock and assumed options. The deal values Kayak at $40 a share, a 29 percent premium over its closing price Thursday.

Shares of Kayak — which also reported a 78 percent jump in third-quarter earnings — soared in after-hours trading while Priceline shares fell.

Kayak allows users to compare hundreds of travel sites when looking for flights, hotels and rental cars. It then sends the consumer to other websites to complete their purchase and earns fees on the referrals, although some bookings can be made directly on Kayak’s website and mobile applications. It also sells advertising.

Kayak was created by the same executives who helped launch other travel sites including Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz. The company went public in July after delaying its offering more than a year while it waited for the market to strengthen.

The strategy of waiting seemed to work — the shares jumped 28 percent on the first day of trading, and Priceline will pay 57 percent more than Kayak’s IPO price.

Read here:

“….Double it might but in the near-term it’s setting up for another 25% decline below what might be consider the neckline of an emerging head-and-shoulder top all the way down to 390 (nearly 30% from current levels)….”

Full article & chart porn