Under The Radar News - Thursday

• Buffet bond business concerns lawmakers. Warren Buffett is under investigation by Connecticut's AG for a possible conflict-of-interest between Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A) 20% stake in Moody's (MCO) and its brand-new muni-bond insurance business. Moody's gave Berkshire Hathaway Assurance Corp. a AAA rating last week (now all it needs to do is downgrade competitors MBIA (MBI) and Ambac (ABK)). "It's only natural that you comport yourself in a way that pleases your owners," a spokesman for California Treasurer Bill Lockyer says.
• Do I hear $34? Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer has recently signalled a willingness to boost his Yahoo (YHOO) bid to $33/share. That's about $4 more than Microsoft's original offer, which was worth $29.06 as of yesterday's close. Confidants say Ballmer is largely unpredictable, and prone to changing his mind on a dime, so it's anyone's guess where this ends up. Microsoft's board has given Ballmer "broad discretion" to go hostile, walk away, or whatever other concoction he can cook up.
• Online hiring continues uptrend. Monster's (MNST) Employment Index climbed 7 points to 174, its third straight up month. It remains down 7% from a year ago. Despite highly-publicized financial-sector layoffs, Monster is seeing stabilization within the sector. Accommodation and food services were among the strongest areas.
• The Monster Employment Index for March was 167.
• Hedgies bounce back. Hedge funds rebounded in April, returning an average 1.5%. They were previously down 3% on the year, 2.46% of that coming in a brutal March. The VIX, a measure of volatility, fell 23% in April to its lowest since December.
• What goes around, comes around. Sam Zell says institutional investors are already re-entering commercial mortgage-backed securities, albeit with baby steps. The flight from safety is at least partially responsible for the recent rout in bond prices. Zell says top office buildings will weather a soft economy, but flashy suburban projects may suffer.
• Developing countries will drive auto growth. Nissan (NSANY) CEO Carlos Ghosn says the U.S. car market could stabilize by 2009-2010, but real growth will come from emerging market countries.
• Screen play. Adobe (ADBE) launched the Open Screen Project, which it hopes will establish Flash as the cross-platform industry-wide viewing environment for anything from cell phones to digital picture frames. To help things along, Adobe is opening up Flash specs, removing licensing fees on mobile flash ($52M in revenue last year), and freeing up APIs and protocols.
• Dollar pegs may be dropped. Gulf nations are seriously looking at dropping their dollar pegs, Kuwait's finance minister says. Inflation is rampant in the region as central banks whose currencies are tied in with the dollar are forced to lower interest rates in tandem with the Fed.
• 1% may be in the cards. Templeton's Mark Mobius says the Fed may drop interest rates to as low as 1% as housing foreclosures increase. "I don't think the fear is over. You're going to continue to get more pressure on them [the Fed] to lower and lower." He says it's too late to short the dollar.
• Commercial paper demand still falling. The market for commercial debt contracted for a fifth straight week. The drop "may have been exacerbated by some concerns on the asset-backed sector again, probably in auto loans and credit card loans," Miller Tabak bond strategist Tony Crescenzi says.
• Kickstart. Research In Motion (RIMM) is developing a flip phone BlackBerry, codenamed Kickstart. It uses a SureType keyboard, and has a camera.
• Proof's in the pudding. Despite broad criticism of Apple's (AAPL) move to unilaterally deliver an updated Safari 3.1 to iTunes users, the ploy seems to have worked. Research firm Net Applications says Safari use tripled over the past six weeks. "Normally, Apple's Software Update service is not used for delivery of new products. Clearly, this is a calculated risk by Apple that has annoyed and/or alienated some users," the firm said. "However, the question is, did it work? Did Apple gain browser market share on Windows based on this move? The answer is yes." At 0.21% market share, up from 3.0's 0.07%, Safari still has a long way to go.
• All you wanted to know about Apple... Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has all the answers (16 to be exact) about where the Apple's (AAPL) at, and where it's headed.
• All phones are not created equal. AT&T (T) iPhone (AAPL) users can use WiFi networks at Starbucks (SBUX), Barnes and Nobles (BKS), etc. for free. For now, the iPhone-challenged can hack their way on too - provided they surf with Mobile Safari.

Comments

[brewer:]

WIth so much "broad discretion" perhaps Ballmer will just jump around like a 'monkeyboy', as he is so prone to do.

www.youtube.com/watch?...

2008 May 02 08:57 AM