Friday (12/09/11) Morning Pre-Market News: Hedge Funds’ Worst Year Since 08

Every morning the Street of Walls team puts out an update on market levels, today’s top stories, and active M&A deals.

Today’s Top Stories:

• EU Leaders Summit Takeaways: The deal looks a bit better than investors were thinking at 4pmET Thurs.  23 of the 27 EU Leaders have agreed to adopt a new “fiscal pact” that “significantly coordinates” economic policies (the UK is a big holdout although it wasn’t expected that all 27 would get on board w/this type of a deal)
• CS on EU Summit: “We still believe that the ECB will intervene more forcefully – we hope this will happen because improvement on the “fiscal compact” materialize more clearly through the implementation of yesterday’s accord” (Credit Suisse)
• GOP Trying to Limit U.S. Funds to IMF: some GOP lawmakers are trying to rescind a $100B line of credit the US approved for a special IMF fund authorized back in ’09 (Reuters)
• French Banks Downgraded: Moody’s downgrades BNP, SocGen, and Agricole
• U.S. Housing: US housing prices may start to creep higher in ’12 but most economists don’t think the rate of increase will outpace inflation until ’16 (WSJ)
• Number of Hedge Funds: 265 new launches in Q3 2011 vs 280 in Q2; 213 funds went out of business in Q3 2011 (Reuters)
• Hedge Fund Losses: HF’s are setup for the worst year since 2008, the average fund has lost 4.37% through November (FT)http://on.ft.com/uoyP8i
• EU Banks: “The European Banking Authority (EBA) has published its final figures relating to European banks’ recapitalisation needs– Overall, the system wide shortfall has increased slightly (+8%) to EUR114bn.  The note/spreadsheet shows bank by bank thoughts” (Barcalys Research)
• Sun Capital Raising 6^th Fund: Private equity firm Sun Capital Partners has been said to have initiated talks with potential investors about plans for its 6th fund http://bit.ly/t9F29W

Economic Calendar:

• Friday: Trade Balance, U. of Mich Confidence

M&A Watch:

• Strong week in M&A: Announced M&A volumes declined by 38% to $26.2 billion. 4Q11 volumes are averaging 13% below the 3Q11 average weekly volume http://bit.ly/s8Khcn

• BCSI getting taken out by private equity co (Thoma Bravo) for ~$1.3B cash deal

Disclosure: I do not have a position in any stocks mentioned in this article, do not have a plan to initiate a position within the next 72 hours.

Disclaimer:  The information, opinions, material, and any other content provided in this article is for informational purposes only and is not to be used or considered an offer or solicitation to buy or sell securities, investment products, financial instruments, or to participate in any particular investment strategy. The information, opinions, material, and any other content provided in this article does not constitute as a recommendation or as advice to buy or sell securities, investment products,  financial instruments, or to participate in any particular investment strategy.