Tuesday's Under The Radar News

• Monster Worldwide (MNST) is up 6.1% on renewed takeover rumors.
• Baltimore sues Wells Fargo (WFC). Mayor Sheila Dixon and the City Council contend WFC's lending practices discriminated against black borrowers, leading to a wave of foreclosures that has reduced municipal tax revenues.
• Junk bond defaults to quintuple. Defaults on high-yield, high-risk bonds will jump more than fivefold by the end of 2008, Moody's says, as a weakening economy and ratings cuts will see more issuers missing interest payments. High-yield defaults will increase to 4.8% percent this year and hit 5% in 2009.
• Apple's (AAPL) pre-MacWorld surprise. Apple surprised investors Tuesday by unveiling an updated Mac Pro ("Tower of 8-core power") and an updated version of Xserve, taking two rumors off the table. With MacWorld next week, it seems the company may have bigger and better things to talk about.
• Apple's (AAPL) retail coup. Apple averaged nearly $4,500 in sales per square foot in 2007, outdoing Best Buy (BBY) by nearly 5-to-1. Its closest retail rival? Tiffany & Co. (TIF) at $2,750.
• Banks battle shrinking margins. Net interest margins, the bread-and-butter of banking, are shrinking, creating pressure on bank earnings and stock prices. Hardest hit are small and midsize banks, which derive a healthy share of their profits from interest income. Bank of America Corp. estimates industry Q4 net interest margins will drop by 0.05 to 0.15 percentage points. "Margin compression is going to be a major factor in banking," one analyst said.
• Yahoo (YHOO) Music's big new product? Based on a recent presentation, it’s unlikely Yahoo wants to get into low-margin music sales. Rather Yahoo Music may be looking to create open standards around music buying, playing, managing and sharing, in which it could make money by promoting third-party sites.
• Google's (GOOG) internet TV? Matsushita Electric (MC) is teaming up with Google and YouTube to allow flat-panel TV set users to easily access and view online videos.
• Countrywide (CFC) draws judges rebuke. Court records show the firm fabricated documents supposedly sent to a homeowner in a bankruptcy case. Countrywide's lawyer called the letters "recreated." The bankruptcy judge overseeing the case disagreed: "These letters are a smoking gun that something is not right in Denmark."
• Paramount (VIA.B) jumps ship on HD DVD. Paramount will cease supporting the HD DVD format, after Warner Bros. (TWX) said Friday it would only support Blu-ray.
• Activist investor takes on Zale Corp. (ZLC). Breeden Capital Management will use its 15.9% holding to take on Zale. Its initial move will be a push to remake the board.
• Domino's (DPZ) sales explode. Domino's Pizza says UK sales jumped 102% over the past six weeks, through internet and text message marketing.
• Intel's (INTC) China president to resign. Chen Weiding will leave the company at the end of March.
• Nintendo's (NTDOY.PK) Wii wins in Japan. Wii outsold Sony's (SNE) PS3 by more than three-to-one in December.
• Expensive oil slows production. Royal Dutch Shell's (RDS.A) CEO says higher oil prices are causing production delays because government, looking for a bigger revenue cut, negotiates longer and harder.
• Dell (DELL) director halves position. Longtime Director Michael Miles sold 284,000 Dell shares for $6.9M -- 48.3% of his stake.
• Merrill (MER) may hire Montag. Merrill Lynch is in talks to hire Thomas Montag, who resigned as Goldman's (GS) global co-head of securities last month, to head its global markets division, overseeing equity trading and the fixed-income unit that contributed to MER's $2.2B Q3 loss.
• JPMorgan (JPM) hedge funds lose ground. Renaissance Technologies JPMorgan Chase, the world's biggest hedge-fund managers, trailed smaller rivals in 2007, as the nimbler firms found it easier to sidestep subprime mortgage losses. Quant firms also fared poorly.
• Interpublic (IPG) wins with Hyundia. Interpublic Group Initiative won a $735M media account for Hyundai and Kia, beating Carat and Hava Media (HAVSF.PK).