Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | Percent | |
| S&P Futures | 1396.3 | -2.2 | -0.16% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2596.8 | -11.5 | -0.44% |
| Oil (WTI) | 107.29 | 0.2 | 0.21% |
| LIBOR | 0.4737 | 0.000 | 0.00% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 79.795 | 0.009 | 0.01% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.26% | -0.03% |
Markets are quiet this morning after triple-witching last Friday. S&P futures are down a couple of points while bonds are up half a point. MBS are a up a tick.
Greek credit default swaps fixed at 21.75, which means sellers of protection owe 78.25%. So it appears that when all is said and done, that credit default swaps did in fact work as advertised. Portugal, you’re up.
Merger Monday is back with a big deal in the logistics space – UPS is buying TNT for 6.8 billion, in a bid to create a Euro logistics company to rival DHL. UPS is paying a 54% premium to the undisturbed stock price, leaving some to question whether UPS is overpaying. But when companies are cash-rich and financing is cheap, you will see deal flow.
Speaking of cash-rich, supposedly Apple will disclose what they intend to do with their 100 billion in cash. Will Apple leave the trio of most-admired companies who don’t pay a dividend (Google, Berkshire Hathaway, and Apple)? The stock is currently halted.
The WSJ has an A1 article on the REO-to-Rental program. Ranieri is interested, as is Paulson.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
And Brent is prescient as usual:
“Apple said Monday that it will pay a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share, starting in its fiscal fourth quarter, which begins July 1.
[snip]
A $10 billion share buyback program will begin next fiscal year, which starts Sept. 30, and run for three years.”
Apple will pay dividend.
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Brent, could you summarize WSJ articles a bit more fully so I don’t have to email Scott and ask him to help me get “in”?
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Mark,
I emailed you the article. If the direct link doesn’t work, copy and paste the address from the bottom again.
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thanx, scott.
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Worth a read:
“Obama’s evolution: Behind the failed ‘grand bargain’ on the debt
By Peter Wallsten, Lori Montgomery and Scott Wilson,
Published: March 17”
Pretty much lines up with the reporting at the time, but with some more detail.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-evolution-behind-the-failed-grand-bargain-on-the-debt/2012/03/15/gIQAHyyfJS_story.html
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Just had a lunch with Orrin Hatch. Interesting guy. He kept saying “Mitt has got to start being Mitt.”
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Just had a lunch with Orrin Hatch. Interesting guy. He kept saying “Mitt has got to start being Mitt.”
In many cases, this is probably good advice for a politician. If you take our normal partisan creep where we adjudge behaviors in politicians we dislike differently than those we do, this is a common refrain with a ring of truth. It was a common comment about George W. Bush, and from what I’ve heard, he would have been much more beloved of the far right and the middle both had been more authentic and less political in his public persona.
Other politicians apparently are themselves, such as Newt, I think, and it doesn’t help them much. Mitt is a politician who has been too many things and taken too many positions, and for whom being Mitt may as likely mean being a politically tone-deaf elitist as it might mean being a straight talker whose common sense words resonate with the people.
But even if Mitt starts being Mitt at this late date, it’s not likely to come off as authentic. And whoever Mitt is underneath, that Mitt is a tone deaf as the Mitt he pretends to be. Otherwise, you might talk about things that make the base ill (“compassionate conservatism”), but you don’t say stuff like “I don’t care about poor people, they’re taken care of” . . . (not caring about rich people would, as a practical matter, be just as foolish a position to take for policy purposes, IMHO) or suggest that you like firing people (something he’s entirely right about, but you don’t say it that way on the campaign trail . . . yet that felt like authentic Mitt to me).
I don’t think Mitt has ever been Mitt, and I don’t suspect he’s like to be Mitt in the run-up to November.
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Which Mitt does Orrin think Mitt should be? Pro-choice Governor Mitt of Romneycare or the 2012 Romney Panderer?
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Pretty much lines up with the reporting at the time, but with some more detail.
This is still a Rorschach Test issue. Either Boehner couldn’t sell it to the Tea Partiers and backed out or Obama got undercut by the Gang of Six who negotiated a better deal than Obama got.
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“yellojkt, on March 19, 2012 at 1:06 pm said: Edit Comment
Pretty much lines up with the reporting at the time, but with some more detail.
This is still a Rorschach Test issue. Either Boehner couldn’t sell it to the Tea Partiers and backed out or Obama got undercut by the Gang of Six who negotiated a better deal than Obama got.”
Not surprisingly, I’m going with the “Obama changed the deal” narrative when he increased the amount of new revenue required from $800 billion to $1.2 trillion.
I don’t think Boehner ever got the opportunity to be shot down by the Tea Party on the $800 billion because there was no way he was taking a $1.2 trillion new revenue deal to them.
My own sense is that if they could do the $800 billion without raising marginal rates, they could have gotten a deal.
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Worth a read:
“The meltdown explanation that melts away
By Bethany McLean
March 19, 2012”
http://blogs.reuters.com/bethany-mclean/2012/03/19/the-meltdown-explanation-that-melts-away/
I’d be interested in our resident traders opinions.
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@Kevin,
Oriin did make a good point about Newt – 80% of what he says is great and 20% is nuts. He would lock Newt in an office, not let him talk to anybody, have him write a memo a day and he would keep the 80% that is worthwhile.
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I’d say the good Senator exaggerates, but is not wrong. 80-20 is a pretty generous score.
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The problem with politicians is that you have to take the chaff with the wheat. Rand Paul is a guy with perhaps three good ideas and a dozen nutty ones. I would settle for 80/20, but Newt bats no better than .500.
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bsimon: I’d say 60/40. If Newt was all 60%, he’d be a great candidate.
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