Market Currents

• Thursday, December 10, 2009

• 09:00 AM Premarket gainers: ONTY +10%. ING +4%. APC +4%. NLST +3%. FACT +3%. BCS +3%. IOC +3%. GFI +3%.
  Losers: SIGA -13%. IT -8%. CIEN -3%. LLY -3%. Comment!
• 08:38 AM Barclays (BCS) fights back against claims by Lehman Brothers that it picked up the firm's U.S. brokerage on the cheap, saying creditors were  "fully aware" of how the deal was structured, and that there were no secret negotiations to transfer money to Lehman executives who aided the deal. Barclays also said it never intended for the deal to be "flat." Comment!

• Tuesday, December 8, 2009

• 09:00 AM Premarket gainers: YONG +7%. GERN +5%. ARIA +4%.
  Losers: EBS -15%. KR -12%. RSO -9%. NBG -9%. AIB -9%. RBS -7%. IRE -7%. CELG -5%. BCS -4%. HBC -4%. SNV -4%. FTR -4%. Comment!

• Thursday, December 3, 2009

• 12:17 PM CME Group (CME +0.7%) announces all top OTC dealers sign on to its credit default swap clearing initiative, including: Barclays (BCS), Citi (C), Goldman (GS), JPMorgan (JPM), Deutsche Bank (DB), Morgan Stanley (MS), UBS (UBS) and Credit Suisse (CS). A pre-launch program will begin clearing CDS by Dec. 15. Comment!
• 10:50 AM Sources say CME Group (CME +0.8%) is near a breakthrough deal with some of the world's biggest banks to clear credit default swaps. The CME has held talks with the world's main OTC dealers - Barclays (BCS), Citi (C), Goldman (GS), JPMorgan (JPM), Deutsche Bank (DB), Morgan Stanley (MS), UBS (UBS) and Credit Suisse (CS) - though it remains unclear how many of them are ready to ink the proposed deal. Comment!

• Tuesday, December 1, 2009

• 15:40 PM BlackRock (BLK) completes its $15.2B acquisition of Barclays Global Investors (BCS), becoming the world's biggest asset manager, with $3.2T in AUM. The company will keep the iShares ETFs. CEO Laurence Fink answered some questions last week and recently became the top financial exec on Forbes' powerful-people list. 2 Comments

• Monday, November 30, 2009

• 07:14 AM Thirty giant financial institutions were selected by the FSB for cross-border systemic-risk oversight, and will be asked to write "living wills" that outline wind-down plans in the aftermath of a crisis. They include: AEG AXA AZ BAC BCS BFR CS DB GS HBC ING JPM MFG MTU NMR RBS RY STD UBS. 1 Comment

• Friday, November 27, 2009

• 09:00 AM Premarket gainers: Short ETFs (EDZ, DTO, SCO, TZA, FXP, EEV, FAZ, SPXU BGZ, VXX, TWM, SMN...)
  Losers: ING -18%. LYG -11%. CBAK -8%. MGM -8%. NG -8%. SQNM -8%. MBI -7%. AIB -7%. HBC -7%. BCS -7%. RBS -7%. TS -7%. HL -7%. APWR -7%. RTK -7%. SNV -7%. MPEL -7%. CHLN -6%. PMI -6%. AEG -6%. DB -6%. KGC -6%. IAG -6%. NBG -6%. EGO -6%. ESLR -6%. AU -6%. NLST -6%. EGLE -6%. JASO -6%. EXM -6%. SOLF -6%. AUG -6%. 1 Comment

• Thursday, November 26, 2009

• 12:19 PM Banks with greatest exposure to the UAE: HSBC (HBC), $17B. Standard Chartered, $7.8B. Barclays (BCS), $3.6B. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), $2.2B. Citigroup (C), $1.9B. BNP Paribas, $1.7B. Lloyds (LYG), $1.6B. 3 Comments

• Friday, November 20, 2009

• 10:49 AM Morgan Stanley (MS) wraps up a disaster, surrendering Crescent Real Estate Equities - which it bought at the top of the market for $6.5B - to Barclays Capital (BCS). Morgan got the 17M square feet of office towers, resorts and hotels in 2007 with a $2B loan from Barclays that comes due today. MS has already taken $951M in writedowns and other losses from Crescent. Comment!
• 09:15 AM Premarket gainers: NLST +11%. INO +11%. STEM +5%. DDS +5%. SYAX +4%. SJM +4%.
  Losers: ADCT -17%. TYH -16%. EDC -15%. ERX -12%. NVAX -10%. WTSLA -9%. BCRX -7.5%. CHOP -9%. DELL -7%. DHI -7%. LOGM -7%. DRYS -6%. NGD -5%. XOMA -5%. AMSI -5%. ING -4%. PHM -4%. AAI -4%. BCS -4%. EGLE -4%. 1 Comment

• Tuesday, November 17, 2009

• 12:43 PM Chapter 11 works, says law professor Stephen Lubben, but you wouldn't know it listening to the finance crowd - who, he says, will argue that Lehman Brothers' (LEHMQ.PK) lawsuit trying to claw back billions in "windfall profit" from Barclays (BCS) is proof we need a resolution authority. 1 Comment

• Friday, November 13, 2009

• 09:49 AM Forbes' powerful-people list has the usual government suspects at the top (Obama, Hu Jintao, Vladimir Putin), but the top financial exec may be a bit of a surprise: No. 16 Laurence Fink of BlackRock (BLK) - which after completing a merger with Barclays Global Investors (BCS) will control nearly $3T in assets. 1 Comment

• Tuesday, November 10, 2009

• 09:26 AM In a recent court filing, Lehman's creditors claim Barclays (BCS -5.4%) received Lehman securities valued at $50B for just $45B in cash, accusing the U.K. bank of the "largest theft in banking history." At the time, the deal was presented in bankruptcy court by Lehman's lawyers as a wash. Comment!
• 09:00 AM Premarket gainers: PCLN +11%. AVNR +10%. JASO +8%. AIG +8%. RAX +8%. BZH +7%. ALV +4%. QGEN +4%. RTK +4%.
  Losers: MBI -13%. ABK -7%. CPST -7%. FLR -6%. BCS -5%. NS -5%. AIB -5%. ALU -4%. VOD -4%. S -4%. Comment!
• 07:42 AM Barclays (BCS): Q3 net profit of £1.08B (-54%). Pretax profit of £1.56B. Impairment charges and other credit provisions rose to £1.4B from £862M. Investment banking income of £3.7B vs. estimates of at least £4B. Shares -5% premarket. (WSJ, PR) Comment!