Friday, September 21, 2012

Friday Watch

Evening Headlines
Bloomb
erg:

  • China Slowdown May Be Longer Than '09 Financial Crisis. China’s economic slowdown may last longer than during the global financial crisis because of worsening external demand and limited lending to smaller companies, a state researcher said. Growth may slow for a ninth straight period to below 7 percent in the first quarter, Yuan Gangming, an economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview Sept. 19 in Beijing.
  • U.S. Says Disputed Islands Covered by Defense Treaty With Japan. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said islands at the heart of a dispute between Japan and China fall under an American defense pact with Japan, while urging the sides to resolve the standoff via diplomacy. “We want to focus more on issues associated with the maintenance of peace and stability and less on the particular details of this very complex and challenging matter,” Campbell told a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s East Asian and Pacific Affairs subcommittee yesterday. He said the islands fall under a treaty which obligates the U.S. to defend Japan if it’s attacked. The U.S. doesn’t take a position on the sovereignty of the islands, known as Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese, Campbell said. His comments echoed those of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said in 2010 that the islands fall under “mutual treaty obligations” with the Tokyo government.   
  • Greek Leaders Struggle With Spending Reductions. Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras struggled to clinch agreement with his coalition partners on an 11.5 billion euro ($14.9 billion) budget-cut package that’s key to receiving international aid funds. Samaras was handed the third refusal in less than two weeks yesterday from Democratic Left leader Fotis Kouvelis and Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos, the junior partners in the coalition who met to discuss proposed cuts to wages, pensions and benefits. Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras and the “troika” of inspectors from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund have been locked in talks for two weeks on carving out savings.
  • Oracle Sales Miss Estimates as Hardware Sales Decline. Oracle Corp. reported fiscal first- quarter revenue that missed analysts’ estimates as sales of computer hardware fell for a sixth straight period, curbing growth as it navigates a shift to cloud-computing services. Sales for the quarter that ended Aug. 31 declined 2.3 percent to $8.18 billion, and profit excluding some items was 53 cents a share, the Redwood City, California-based software maker said today in a statement. Analysts on average had estimated revenue of $8.42 billion and earnings of 53 cents, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.  
  • U.S. Bancorp(USB) Could Face Moody’s Cut as Competitors Recover. U.S. Bancorp, the nation’s fifth- largest commercial lender by deposits, may be downgraded one level by Moody’s Investors Service as rivals recover and pose stronger competition. “The rating review will consider U.S. Bancorp’s long-term ability to sustain its consistent, superior performance in light of increasing competition now that its peers have largely returned to health and are actively seeking growth,” Moody’s said today in a statement.
Wall Street Journal: 
  • Miscues Before Libya Assault. Limited Security in Benghazi, Secrecy Over Safe House, Contributed to Tragedy. The deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya on Sept. 11 was preceded by a succession of security lapses and misjudgments, compounded by fog-of-battle decisions, that raise questions about whether the scope of the tragedy could have been contained. U.S. officials issued alerts and ordered security precautions in neighboring Egypt ahead of protests and violence on Sept. 11, but largely overlooked the possibility of trouble at other diplomatic postings in the region. 
  • After Spill, Gulf Oil Drilling Rebounds. Production Dipped After Deepwater Horizon Disaster; New Finds Will Lift Output 28% in a Decade
  • Protesters in Pakistan Clash With Police. Protesters tried to break into a guarded enclave that houses the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan's capital, in the largest show of anger against an anti-Islam video during a day that saw smaller demonstrations in Indonesia, Iran and Afghanistan. More than a thousand people, including students affiliated with the Islamist hard-line Jamaat-e-Islami party, clashed with riot police outside the enclave in Islamabad, which was cordoned off with hundreds of shipping containers. The State Department issued an alert Thursday, warning Americans to avoid nonessential travel to Pakistan as protests are likely to continue and turn violent. 
  • Syrian Activists Say Airstrikes Kill 30. Syrian opposition activists said a regime airstrike hit a gas station in the north of the country Thursday, setting off an explosion that killed at least 30 people and wounding dozens more
  • Fouad Ajami: Muslim Rage and the Obama Retreat. We can't declare a unilateral end to our troubles, or avert our gaze from the disorder that afflicts the societies of the Greater Middle East.
CNBC:  
Zero Hedge:
Business Insider:
NY Times:
LA Times:
  • James Murdoch to control News Corp. TV divisions. James Murdoch, the 39-year-old son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, is expected to take charge of the Fox broadcast network, FX cable channel, regional sports networks, Fox International channels and National Geographic channels — some of the most profitable assets in the $34 billion-a-year media conglomerate.

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/08/fiscal-analyst-hundreds-of-millions-at-risk-from-facebook-slide.html#storylink=cpy
Washington Times:
Gallup:
Telegraph: 
Kyodo News:
  • Cyberattacks hit Japan websites amid Chinese protests over Senkakus. The websites of at least 19 Japanese public and other institutions, including banks and universities, have come under cyberattack since Japan nationalized the Senkaku Islands, also claimed by China, on Sept. 11, the National Police Agency said Wednesday. The cyber-attacks made it impossible for computer users to access the websites at least temporarily, while some of the attackers tampered with their contents, the NPA said. An NPA official said the attacks appear to have originated in China, judging from the fact that more than half of the 19 sites had been named as the objects of cyberattacks on the message boards of Chinese hacking groups or on major Chinese chat sites. The Tokyo Institute of Technology said the website of the university's Center for the Study of World Civilization have come under attack, causing personal data on 1,068 people who had taken part in the center's events to be leaked. The data included the participants' names and telephone numbers.
Sankei:
  • Customs departments in China's Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Qingdao and Guangzhou have tightened inspections of materials and products imported by Japanese cos.
China Securities Journal:
  • China May Lower Listed Banks' Dividend Payout Ratio. China may lower the dividend payout ratio of listed banks to help them retail more profits for use as capital, citing people familiar with the matter.
  • China Shouldn't Further Loosen Monetary Policy. Consumer prices are currently more sensitive to demand expansion and loosening of monetary policy may have lesser impact on growth while at the same time, fueling inflation, China Securities Journal publishes in its front-page commentary written by Ren Xiao, a reporter at the newspaper. China is unlikely to cut interest rates in the short-term.
Netease:
  • China to Expand Property Tax Trials. Details to deepen property taxes may be announced by the end of this year or the beginning of next year, citing Cong Ming, an official from the State Administration of Taxation.
  • China May Trial Taxing Public on Oil Product Use. China may trial the collection of oil product consumption tax at petrol stations to help shift the burden from collecting the tax from corporations to collecting from the public, citing Cong Ming, an official at the State Administration of Taxation.
Economic Information Daily:
  • Some Chinese Cities Are Unveiling Large-Scale Land Sales. Some Chinese cities, including Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan and Wenzhou are introducing large-scale land sales, citing information from local authorities. More land sales may break the public's expectations for rising home prices and exacerbate pressure on the property market rebound.
Evening Recommendations 
Jefferies:
  • Rated (EMC) Buy, target $33.
Raymond James:
  • Rated (MCO) Outperform, target $52..
Night Trading
  • Asian equity indices are unch. to +.75% on average.
  • Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 134.0 +3.0 basis points.
  • Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 110.0 -2.5 basis points.
  • FTSE-100 futures +.39%.
  • S&P 500 futures +.30%.
  • NASDAQ 100 futures +.29%.
Morning Preview Links

Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate
  • (KBH)/-.16
  • (DRI)/.84
Economic Releases
  • None of note
Upcoming Splits
  • (MDVN) 2-for-1
Other Potential Market Movers
  • The Fed's Lockhart speaking, Spanish bank audit results and the (PFG) investor day could also impact trading today.
BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly higher, boosted by industrial and consumer staple shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open modestly higher and to weaken into the afternoon, finishing mixed. The Portfolio is 50% net long heading into the day.

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