Petrobras Hires 80% of Deepwater Rigs, Inflates Rents (Update1)

May 15 (Bloomberg) — Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, [...]

Read Full Post »

California Supreme Court Legalizes Gay Marriage (Update1)
May 15 (Bloomberg) — The California Supreme Court narrowly ruled that homosexual couples have a constitutional right to marry, striking down laws barring same-sex nuptials and making the most populous state in the union the second after [...]

Read Full Post »

U.S. Stocks Rise; S&P 500 Climbs to 4-Month High as Intel Gains
May 15 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks climbed, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to a four-month high, as analysts said chipmakers will benefit from rising global demand and energy shares are cheap [...]

Read Full Post »

The market sets high oil prices to tell us what to do
By Martin Wolf

function floatContent(){var paraNum = “3″ paraNum = paraNum – 1;var tb = document.getElementById(‘floating-con’);var nl = document.getElementById(‘floating-target’);if(tb.getElementsByTagName(“div”).length> 0){if (nl.getElementsByTagName(“p”).length>= paraNum){nl.insertBefore(tb,nl.getElementsByTagName(“p”)[paraNum]);}else {if (nl.getElementsByTagName(“p”).length == 3){nl.insertBefore(tb,nl.getElementsByTagName(“p”)[2]);}else {nl.insertBefore(tb,nl.getElementsByTagName(“p”)[0]);}}}}

Oil at $200 a barrel: that was the warning from Goldman Sachs, published last week. The real price [...]

Read Full Post »

US stocks gain despite mixed data
By Jeremy Lemer in New York

function floatContent(){var paraNum = “3″ paraNum = paraNum – 1;var tb = document.getElementById(‘floating-con’);var nl = document.getElementById(‘floating-target’);if(tb.getElementsByTagName(“div”).length> 0){if (nl.getElementsByTagName(“p”).length>= paraNum){nl.insertBefore(tb,nl.getElementsByTagName(“p”)[paraNum]);}else {if (nl.getElementsByTagName(“p”).length == 3){nl.insertBefore(tb,nl.getElementsByTagName(“p”)[2]);}else {nl.insertBefore(tb,nl.getElementsByTagName(“p”)[0]);}}}}

Wall Street extended recent gains in midday trading on Thursday as investors shrugged off new data giving mixed signals about [...]

Read Full Post »

DAILY ECONOMIC DATA

Industrial Production declined 0.7% in April

Industrial production declined 0.7% in April versus a consensus expected drop of 0.3%. Production is up 0.2% versus a year ago but down at a 4.9% annual rate in the past three months.

Manufacturing output declined 0.8% in April, mostly due to an 8.2% drop [...]

Read Full Post »

Finance in Asia
Pots and kettles
The credit crisis has cooled Asia’s ardour towards Western banks

WHEN China’s three leading state-run banks finally felt confident enough to list their shares in 2006 and 2007, after years of losses from bad lending, the initial public offerings contained two common elements: big Western banks acting as underwriters and as [...]

Read Full Post »

Fed Adds Liquidity and Economy Avoids Recession: John M. Berry
Commentary by John M. Berry
May 15 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve is supplying the financial system with more than $150 billion in cash, a liquidity cushion that [...]

Read Full Post »

Paulson Should Act to Stop Dollar Slump, Americans Say in Poll

May 15 (Bloomberg) — Americans want Treasury Secretary Henry [...]

Read Full Post »

Recovery From Worst Housing Slump Since 1930s Comes With Angel

May 15 (Bloomberg) — The way out of the worst [...]

Read Full Post »