Under The Radar News - Thursday

Bill could wound credit card issuers. A proposed bill that would see credit-card interchange fees established by the government, instead of by vendors, would deal a $570M blow to Visa's annual revenue, and reduce MasterCard's (MA) revenue by $250M and earnings by 25%. Bank issuers, including JPMorgan & Chase (JPM), Citigroup (C) and Capital One (COF) stand to lose nearly $17B in annual revenue. The bill was prompted by intense lobbying from mega-retailers including Wal-Mart Stores (WMT); the bill's "consumer friendliness" increases its chance of passing. Visa (V) IPOs next week.

GE to seize opportunity in Japanese real estate. GE (GE) may buy as much as $10B in Japanese real estate during 2008, as tight credit conditions force fund managers to sell their holdings at bargain prices. GE will also increase its lending to leveraged commercial property investors amid strong demand after other lenders abandoned the market. "Fundamentals for the real estate industry are still good, the vacancy rate is still under 2% and supply in central Tokyo is limited," GE's Tomoyuki Yoshida says.

Opposition to NYSE bid for Amex. A deep-pocketed Amex seat-owner is set to go public with a battle to derail NYSE Euronext's (NYX) $260M takeover bid. Hedge fund manager Ralph DellaCamera Jr. sent a letter yesterday to Amex members asking them to vote against a "lowball" offer, noting the bid does not take into account Amex's 20% stake in Options Clearing, which settles nearly all options trades in the U.S.

Ross says munis aren't risky. Distressed-assets investor Wilbur Ross says that while ratings agencies are being rightly criticized for underestimating the risk on exotic corporate bonds, they are unfairly lumping municipalities together with corporations in assessing credit-worthiness. Ross has already plunked down $1B on a bet municipalities will beat the current crisis, and committed another $750M to bond-insurer Assured Guaranty (AGO).

Semantic web: Google killer. Web founder Tim Berners-Lee says Google's (GOOG) internet dominance may one day be upended by whoever harnesses the power of "semantics." Today's web is essentially pages with links that search engines like Google help navigate. Tomorrow's "semantic web" will involve direct connectivity between low-level pieces of information. "Imagine if two completely separate things — your bank statements and your calendar — spoke the same language and could share information with one another. You could drag one on top of the other and a whole bunch of dots would appear showing you when you spent your money," he says. "It's about creating a seamless web of all the data in your life."

Mobile broadband users to quadruple over next 4 years. Mobile broadband subscribers will more than quadruple over the next four years -- from 230M worldwide to 970M million by the end of 2012. Good news for carriers like AT&T (T), Verizon Wireless (VZ), and Sprint Nextel (S), as well as for content providers and mobile-ad firms.

NCAA webcast ads a slam-dunk. CBS's (CBS) NCAA webcast will take in as much as $25M in ad sales, more than double last year's ad revenue. TV ad sales for the tourney are expected to be $450M. Last year the webcasts drew 1.38M viewers and made $10M; in 2005 CBS attempted a pay model, which generated fees of less than $250,000.

Ads to subtract. S&P analyst Scott Kessler says a digital ad slump will see internet ad sales growth fall from 21% to 19% to 17% over the next two years. Some see this as a plus for the pay-per use model, while others say the slump will hit brand advertisers, but not direct-response marketers.

Play the jobs number. CME Group (CME) is launching futures and options contracts on U.S. nonfarm payroll data, which will begin trading Apr. 27. "Listed futures and options on futures on the nonfarm payroll are a transparent, straightforward and accessible way for our customers to offset unexpected financial market moves that often occur when this number comes out," CME says. Only one contract will list at a time, beginning the Monday after the previous month's (Friday) release.

iPhone down under? Telstra is reportedly in the process of hiring an iPhone developer to put an Australia-only search engine on Apple's (AAPL) iPhone.

Unclean biotechs. A review of 10-K filings suggests certain biotech firms may be exposed to liquidity issues in the auction-rate securities market. Morgan Stanley notes that Amag Pharma (AMAG), Lexicon Pharma (LXRX), and ImClone (IMCL) have enough exposure compared to 12-month cash needs to warrant attention, but says none have near-term liquidity issues. "Small-cap biotech is likely to continue to struggle as long as liquidity in the market remains a question," favoring large-caps like Celgene (CELG), Gilead (GILD) and Genentech (DNA).