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:
- Buffett’s Gold View: “this type of investment requires an expanding pool of buyers who are enticed because they believe the buying pool will expand still further”
- Greece Update: A meeting between Greece’s major political principals broke up Wed w/o a deal on troika demands being reached although negotiations are still continuing and there aren’t many areas of disagreement left
- Obama Reassures Wall Street: Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager, was recently in NYC assuring a group of financial services reps that the industry wasn’t going to be demonized during this upcoming election season http://bloom.bg/ze7sDw
- Fed Lacker Says No More QE: Fed’s Lacker says the economy is picking up steam and he doesn’t see a rationale for more QE (DJ)
- HSBC Insurance Up for Bid: both AXA and ACE are bidding for HSBC’s $1B general insurance business http://bit.ly/zW97mM
- Franklin Resources (BEN) Reported: reported preliminary month-end assets under management by the company’s subsidiaries of $704.3 billion at January 31, 2012, compared to $670.3 billion at December 31, 2011, and $681.0 billion at January 31, 2011
- Foreclosure Probe: Article in today’s WSJ titled “$25 Billion Pact on Foreclosure Probe” saying government officials are on the verge of an agreement worth as much as $25bn with 5 major banks, capping a yearlong push to settle federal and state probes of alleged foreclosure abuses by lenders (WSJ)
- Nuclear Reators: Southern Co. gets regulator vote on bid for first permission in 30 years to build nuclear reactors in Georgia
- ECB Rate Update: Bank of England, ECB issue rate decisions; both estimated to keep rates unchanged
- DMND Collapses: Diamond Foods ouster of CEO, CFO, restatement of financial data, imperil Pringles deal with P&G
- CS 4Q Results: Credit Suisse, the Swiss Investment Bank, posts unexpected 4Q loss, hurt by “adverse” markets and reorganization costs
Economic Calendar:
- 6:30am: OPEC monthly crude output report
- 7:45am: ECB announces rate decision, est. 1%, unchanged
- 8:30am: Initial jobless claims, week of Feb. 4, est. 370k (prior 367k)
- 8:30am: WASDE
- 9:45am: Bloomberg Consumer Comfort, week of Feb. 5 (prior -44.8)
- 10am: Freddie Mac 30-yr mortgage
- 10am: Wholesale Inventories, Dec., est. 0.4% (prior 0.1%)
- 10:30am: EIA natural gas storage
- 1pm: U.S. to sell $16b 30-yr bonds
M&A Watch:
- Weekly M&A Trends: This week saw some big jumps in Debt underwriting and M&A activity. Announcedinvestment banking M&A increased +22% from the prior week to $34bn, M&A volumes are still very low for the start of the year http://bit.ly/vZUMkZ
- Westfield is expected to gain approval from the Port Authority for a 50% stake in the World Trade Center’s retail space valued at $1.225bn
