• Yield 4.679% vs. Exp. 4.702%, Allotted at high 82.8%
• Bid To Cover a massive 2.89 vs. Avg. 2.56 (Prev. 2.68)
• Indirects at miserable 23.9% vs. Avg. 42.32% (Prev. 40.77%)
• Direct take down an absolutely stunning 29.7%
• Direct hit ratio 44.4%
  

Full results:

Breakdown of direct take down showing unprecedented surge in direct participation over past two auctions:

Indirect take down drops to levels last seen in November 2008:

by Tyler Durden via zero hedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/13-billion-30-year-reopening-closes-4679-directs-take-down-whopping-297-new-record-indirects

Earlier today political corpse Chris Dodd said that he would proceed with unveiling a financial reform bill on Monday without Republican participation, in a humiliating blow to Bob Corker, who was most recently seen doing all he could to help his Wall Street colleagues make sure the Volcker plan would never see the light of day. Yet with recent rumors out of Washington that not only is the Volcker plan alive and well, the double whammy for Corker may be coming any day. So what does the Tennessee Senator do? He joins the Fed bashing brigade. Among his remarks from his conference given today after his was “fired” by Dodd, was the observation that the “Fed will, no dobut, will have its wings clipped in reform” and that the Fed “likes their marble buildings” as the Fed is actively lobbying on regulatory reform, with a material amount of turf protection in play. No doubt Senator: it is people like you who make Fed (and broader Wall Street) lobbying efforts quite easy. We hope that you and all your other bought and paid for colleagues in the Senate can learn from Senator Kaufman, whose speech on financial reform we already posted earlier, but which needs to be read and understood by all who are serious about regulatory reform, instead of puppets like Chris Dodd who huff and puff, yet only want to secure a friendly donation paycheck from his core Wall Street constituency, well into his retirement days.

Here are the key Kaufman speech highlights as selected by Shahien Nasiripour of the HuffPo:

Kaufman on the need for fundamental reform:

I start by asking a simple question: Given that
deregulation caused the crisis, why don’t we go back to the statutory
and regulatory frameworks of the past that were proven successes in
ensuring financial stability?…

Mind you, this is a financial crisis that necessitated a $2.5
trillion bailout. And that amount includes neither the many trillions
of dollars more that were committed as guarantees for toxic debt nor
the de facto bailout that banks received through the Federal Reserve’s
easing of monetary policy…

Given the high costs of our policy and regulatory failures, as well
as the reckless behavior on Wall Street, why should those of us who
propose going back to the proven statutory and regulatory ideas of the
past bear the burden of proof? The burden of proof should be upon those
who would only tinker at the edges of our current system of financial
regulation…

Congress needs to draw hard lines that provide fundamental systemic
reforms, the very kind of protections we had under Glass-Steagall. We
need to rebuild the wall between the government-guaranteed part of the
financial system and those financial entities that remain free to take
on greater risk…

The notion that the most recent crisis was a “once in a century”
event is a fiction. Former Treasury Secretary Paulson, National
Economic Council Chairman Larry Summers, and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon
all concede that financial crises occur every five years or so.

Kaufman on the growth of megabanks:

Most of the largest banks are products of serial mergers.
For example, J.P. Morgan Chase is a product of J.P. Morgan, Chase Bank,
Chemical Bank, Manufacturers Hanover, Banc One, Bear Stearns, and
Washington Mutual. Meanwhile, Bank of America is an amalgam of that
predecessor bank, Nation’s Bank, Barnett Banks, Continental Illinois,
MBNA, Fleet Bank, and finally Merrill Lynch.

Kaufman on the failure of regulators:

Regulatory neglect, however, permitted a good model to mutate and grow into a sad farce…

In fact, one of the primary purposes behind the securitization
market was to arbitrage bank capital standards. Banks that could show
regulators that they could offload risks through asset securitizations
or through guarantees on their assets in the form of derivatives called
credit default swaps (CDS) received more favorable regulatory capital
treatment, allowing them to build their balance sheets to more and more
stratospheric levels.

While this was a recipe for disaster, it reflected in part the
extent to which the and complexity of this new era of quantitative
finance exceeded the regulators’ own comprehension…

In the brief history I outlined earlier, the regulators sat idly by
as our financial institutions bulked up on short-term debt to finance
large inventories of collateralized debt obligations backed by subprime
loans and leveraged loans that financed speculative buyouts in the
corporate sector.

They could have sounded the alarm bells and restricted this
behavior, but they did not. They could have raised capital
requirements, but instead farmed out this function to credit rating
agencies and the banks themselves. They could have imposed
consumer-related protections sooner and to a greater degree, but they
did not. The sad reality is that regulators had substantial powers, but
chose to abdicate their responsibilities.

Kaufman on Too Big To Fail and the government’s response during the crisis:

This provided them with permanent borrowing privileges at
the Federal Reserve’s discount window - without having to dispose of
risky assets. In a sense, it was an official confirmation that they
were covered by the government safety net because they were literally
“too big to fail”…

We haven’t seen such concentration of financial power since the days of Morgan, Rockefeller and Carnegie…

By expanding the safety net — as we did in response to the last
crisis — to cover ever larger and more complex institutions heavily
engaged in speculative activities, I fear that we may be sowing the
seeds for an even bigger crisis in only a few years or a decade…

Because of their implicit guarantee, “too big to fail” banks enjoy a
major funding advantage - and leverage caps by themselves do not
address that. Our biggest banks and financial institutions have to
become significantly smaller if we are to make any progress at all.

Kaufman on current financial reform proposals:

Unfortunately, the current reform proposals focus more on
reorganizing and consolidating our regulatory infrastructure, which
does nothing to address the most basic issue in the banking industry:
that we still have gigantic banks capable of causing the very financial
shocks that they themselves cannot withstand…

While no doubt necessary, [resolution authority] is no panacea. No
matter how well Congress crafts a resolution mechanism, there can never
be an orderly wind-down, particularly during periods of serious stress,
of a $2-trillion institution like Citigroup that had hundreds of
billions of off-balance-sheet assets, relies heavily on wholesale
funding, and has more than a toehold in over 100 countries.

There is no cross-border resolution authority now, nor will there be for the foreseeable future…

Yet experts in the private sector and governments agree - national
interests make any viable international agreement on how financial
failures are resolved difficult to achieve. A resolution authority
based on U.S. law will do precisely nothing to address this issue…

While I support having a systemic risk council and a consolidated
bank regulator, these are necessary but not sufficient reforms - the
President’s Working Group on Financial Markets has actually played a
role in the past similar to that of the proposed council, but to no
discernible effect. I do not see how these proposals alone will address
the key issue of “too big to fail.”

Kaufman on separating Main Street banking from Wall Street trading:

Massive institutions that combine traditional commercial
banking and investment banking are rife with conflicts and are too
large and complex to be effectively managed…

To those who say “repealing Glass-Steagall did not cause the
crisis, that it began at Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and AIG,” I say
that the large commercial banks were engaged in exactly the same
behavior as Bear Stearns, Lehman and AIG - and would have collapsed had
the federal government not stepped in and taken extraordinary
measures…

By statutorily splitting apart massive financial institutions that
house both banking and securities operations, we will both cut these
firms down to more reasonable and manageable s and rightfully limit the
safety net only to traditional banks. President of the Federal Reserve
Bank of Dallas Richard Fisher recently stated: “I think the
disagreeable but sound thing to do regarding institutions that are
['too big to fail'] is to dismantle them over time into institutions
that can be prudently managed and regulated across borders. And this
should be done before the next financial crisis, because it surely
cannot be done in the middle of a crisis.”

A growing number of people are calling for this change. They include
former FDIC Chairman Bill Isaac, former Citigroup Chairman John Reed,
famed investor George Soros, Nobel-Prize-winning-economist Joseph
Stiglitz, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Thomas
Hoenig, and Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, among others. A
chastened Alan Greenspan also adds to that chorus, noting: “If they’re
too big to fail, they’re too big. In 1911 we broke up Standard Oil –
so what happened? The individual parts became more valuable than the
whole. Maybe that’s what we need to do.”

by Tyler Durden via zero hedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/bob-corker-humiliated-chris-dodd-joins-fed-bashing-brigade-meantime-ted-kaufman-shows-everyo

Here comes the first municipal Hail Mary: Detroit is attempting to sell $250 million in debt, while disclosing in the associated prospectus of the possibility of filing for Chapter 9
bankruptcy protection. The kicker - no recent financial statements are available. In fact, Detroit is providing investors with a a financial statement from June 30, 2008, with a fiscal 2009 report
“expected” to be complete by May 31. To say that a lot has changed in the past two years for the city whose unemployment some say is in the double digits with a 3 handle, would be an understatment. Yet we are confident that having no access to actual financials will not stop investors who in their feverish quest of Return On Capital are completely forgetting about the Return Of Capital concept.

“This issue is not for the faint of heart,” said Richard
Ciccarone, chief research officer of Oak Brook, Illinois-based
McDonnell Investment Management, which oversees $6.8 billion of
municipal debt. “It certainly raises eyebrows.”

Detroit will provide backing by payments of state aid from
sales taxes to the general obligation issue, which enabled the
issue to maintain investment grade. Michigan’s state treasurer
can pay the aid directly to the trustee for the bonds, bypassing
the city to ensure the debt is serviced, according to offering
documents. The treasurer also agreed not to withhold payments
when the city is late filing financial statements, as it has in
the past.

And just who is the bank that is confident it can pull the wool in front of its clients’ eyes? Why Goldman Sachs of course.

Detroit is selling $250 million of bonds through investment
banks led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to help cover budget
deficits expected to total $280 million this year. The deal will
probably appeal to investors seeking high-yield municipal debt,
predicted Ciccarone, precluding the city from a market with tax-
exempt yields near three-month lows.

Not too surprisingly, Detroit will end up paying a spread evern greater than Greece

Detroit general obligations maturing in 2024 traded
yesterday at a yield of 7.56 percent, according to Municipal
Securities Rulemaking Board data. That compares with yields of
3.36 percent to 3.5 percent for top-rated 14-year municipal debt yesterday, according to Municipal Market Advisors Inc.

This is the lunacy of CDOs all over again, when every Tom, Dick and Harry would park their capital into whatever was being pitched to them by Goldman persistent , having no idea about the actual investment, with Goldman most certainly buying up CDS on Detroit just after the closing of the auction, for “hedging purposes” (and no, that in itself will not push Detroit into bankruptcy: at best it will make the imminent solvency crisis come faster and be more painless).

Detroit is not alone as munis slowly but surely become the next subprime. On deck as offerings by Florida, California, Massachussettes, and variety of other municipal issues.

by Tyler Durden via zero hedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/detroit-attempts-sell-250-million-bonds-without-financial-disclosure-goldman

More postcards from a post-austerity Greece where 10,000 protesters take to the streets. Pick the CDS speculators out.

by Tyler Durden via zero hedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/cds-speculators-may-or-may-not-be-cause-riots-greece-turn-violent

Submitted by Sal Arnuk at Themis Trading

Captain Fantastic was Elton John’s 9^th album released in
1975. Many consider it to be his best. If you like Elton John, you know
that 98% of his songs are collaborations between him and Bernie Taupin.
This album is a theme album that tells about their uphill battle to
make it in the music industry, against numerous odds. Elton is “Captain
Fantastic” and Bernie is the “Brown Dirt Cowboy”. When I listen to the
song I see my struggles to overcome obstacles in my career and life.  I
think this is such a great album because anyone who listens can find
their own common-man challenges that they are trying to overcome, or
have tried to overcome.

The older I get the harder it is to stop myself from getting too
jaded, and too cynical. It is an even harder task these past few years,
as I am not only working against the natural cynicism of age, but also
the fact that we have all had a front row seat to the greatest
financial meltdown of our generation. Too many books have chronicled
all the insiders who have benefitted from this meltdown, and there are
no shortage of government officials whose hands are dirty (gander at
Fannie and Freddie’s lobbying recipients, and payroll lists).
Occasionally, though, we get a glimpse of something good. Genuine. Void
of self-interest. Today Senator Kaufman will speak on the floor about
financial reform in general. We were lucky to have met the man and his
staff, and to see raw energy and concern for the public good at work is
rare and inspiring. The Senator is not running for re-election. All
that he has done, and is doing, is because he feels it is right, and he
cares about America, and its proper priorities. Agree or Disagree? Not
even the point. Watching him and his staff in action makes me see how
harmful lobbying is as an activity, and how bad multi-term government
officials are. If we want change, maybe we should limit Senators to
serving one 6 year term, or two 4 year terms MAYBE. No exceptions.

Give ‘em Hell Ted.

Please read Ted Kaufman’s full speech: “Wall Street Reform That Will Prevent The Next Financial Crisis.”

by Tyler Durden via zero hedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-captain-fantastic-and-dirt-cowboy

After just 5 days of relative quiet, a rumor of a Greek 3 Year bond issue is pushing GGB spreads higher over in Greece. 2 Year yields have jumped by 22 basis points to 4.91%, with concerns about the short-end of the curve are pushing the long-end wider as well, with the 10 year drifting wider. Selling in bonds has caused CDS spread to also widen, meaning that the latest round of CDS scapegoating is expected to commence in a few short minutes.

by Tyler Durden via zero hedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/greek-2-year-yields-spike-talk-new-3-year-offering-speculators-not-blamed-yet

America’s labor unions are finally waking up from their deep slumber and noticing the vast schism in American society between the haves and the have nots. The catalyst: Wall Street’s $16.2 billion bonus pay day. As a result Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest union organization, and a firm supporter of the transaction tax which was proposed in late 2009 and then promptly buried after some serious lobbying by Wall Street, will announce today “two
weeks of protests aimed at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the most
profitable securities firm in U.S. history, and the country’s
five other largest banks. The AFL-CIO says it plans 200 events
covering all 50 states, starting March 15.” Summarizing the mood of increasing populist aggression across the nation against Wall Street’s uber-wealthy is labor professor at UC Berkley Harley Shaiken: “Wall Street has become a symbol of greed run amok, and
what labor is doing here is seeking to demonstrate that it is
speaking for working families generally, union member or non-
union member.” Strikes in Greece have already paralyzed the country. Will America soon follow?

More from Bloomberg:

At the “Make Wall Street Pay” rallies, which the AFL-CIO
plans to announce today, union members will push for a
transaction tax on securities trading to help pay for the $900
billion they want the government to spend on creating new jobs.
That’s 60 times the $15 billion approved by the Senate last
month. The House of Representatives last week passed an $18
billion measure.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has said he opposes
the transaction tax, though Trumka says it has support in the
White House. He declined to say who the backers are.

Lucas van Praag, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs in New York,
declined to comment.

San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. “recognizes
Americans are demanding more from their financial institutions
during these difficult economic times” and is “committed to
serving the financial needs of businesses and individuals,
keeping credit flowing, and working to help those in financial
distress find solutions,” spokeswoman Julia Tunis Bernard said.

Labor unions have been furious that their traditional political allies, the Democrats, have essentially morphed into Republicans when it comes to treatment of social classes, with Wall Street getting top priority in all dealings, and everyone else a distant second. So far the only major concession that the presidency has presented to labor unions has been the preferential treatment in the automotive bankruptcies. Ironically, the Congressional Oversight Panel has come out with a scathing report noting that the Treasury’s decision to bail out GMAC has been in fact counterproductive:

The U.S. Treasury’s
decision against a bankruptcy restructuring for GMAC may have increased
taxpayer bailout costs for the auto finance company and made it less
viable. “The panel remains unconvinced that bankruptcy
was not a viable option in 2008,” it said in the report. “In connection
with the Chrysler and General Motors bankruptcies, Treasury might have
been able to orchestrate a strategic bankruptcy for GMAC.”

As a result, this will only make the pain more acute for labor when zombie organizations populated predominantly by labor, inevitably end up in liquidation due to their “reduced viability.” And labor is fully aware of the increasing loss of its political clout.

By targeting banks, unions are trying to bring energy to a
labor movement that has seen its ranks dwindle. Union membership
in the private sector declined in 2009 to a record low of 7.2
percent of all workers, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics. Unions represented about 35 percent of the private-
sector workers in the mid-1950s, and 17 percent as recently as
1983.

“Unions don’t have the clout they used to, so they need to
get the general public involved, maybe even people who are not
normally union supporters, and remind them they are getting the
short end of the stick,” said Charles Craver, a labor professor
at George Washington University in Washington.

The rallies are similar to efforts by the Service Employees
International Union, which has been targeting big banks for
years. In November, SEIU president Andy Stern staged a rally
outside Goldman Sachs’s Washington office, calling for the bank
to cancel its bonuses. The SEIU, with 2.2 million members, is
the nation’s largest union.

“SEIU believes that big banks played a central role in
crashing the economy,” said Stephen Lerner, who directs the
union’s financial reform project. “We are calling on them to be
part of the solution instead of increasing their own pay while
making problems worse for the rest of the country.”

So far Wall Street has laughed in the general direction of labor, knowing too well where the balance of power rests. However, should labor succeed in generating a grass roots movement on the coattails of the populist, and well deserved, anger at Wall Street, and throws in a few strikes for good measure, and things may change rapidly. After all just look at Greece, where the entire economy is now shut down as people say no to the draconian measures imposed on society by a government which for over a decade was drunk with providing entitlements courtesy of fraudulent economic representation. With austerity sooner or later sure to come to the US, the question of strikes is now not a question of if but simply when. And the primary target of all social activity is and continues to be the symbol of all that is wrong with the current system - Goldman Sachs.

by Tyler Durden via zero hedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/labor-unions-preparing-take-goldman-sachs-task-push-transaction-tax-upcoming-widespread-rall

Originally authored by Hugh Hendry and appearing in the Daily Telegraph

You don’t know me; we’ve never met. But I fear you are being
encouraged to dislike me. Let me explain: I’m a speculator. I manage a
hedge fund. Apparently I profit from your misery. Accordingly, our
political leaders are keen to see the back of me.

Only yesterday,
Germany and France were calling for the “fastest possible” adoption of
new rules to put an end to financial speculation. But before you write
me off I ask that you listen to my side of the story.

First, and much like the bogeyman of folklore, the size and
significance of the hedge-fund industry is vastly over-stated. The best
estimate is that people like me control just 2.5 per cent of total
global financial assets under management. The ability to move prices
and markets resides more with the managers of pension funds, unit
trusts and our banking contemporaries; fortunately, for them, they are
on much better terms with our political masters.

Second, and much
to my regret, I have to correct another misconception. I am not
guaranteed success; far from it. I have no certainty or monopoly on
making money; that’s the nature of risk taking, there is no free lunch.
And believe me, I am subject to the harshest possible critic: the
market.

Unlike my political adversaries I can’t spin this out. If
I am wrong in my deliberations, I have to record a loss immediately. So
it should come as no surprise that I give great consideration to what I
do.

But what about this short-selling business and the allegation
that hedge funds seek to profit from the misery of others; are we
simply a scourge on society?

I believe not. Let me explain. In
short selling, investors borrow shares and sell them, hoping that the
price will fall and they can buy the shares later at a lower price,
replace them and thereby turn a profit.

Hedge funds are not
seeking to dictate economic affairs. Rather we are preoccupied by
price. A market-based economy like ours requires a pricing mechanism to
allocate resources and ensure that we all prosper. Get it wrong and we
endure the calamity of the technology bubble and the sleazy debacle of
the American mortgage crisis.

It’s not that hedge fund managers
are bitter and seek to wreak havoc. It’s just that we believe that
recurring and periodic recessions reveal the economy’s winners and
losers. And through our endeavours, hedge funds attempt to discover the
identity and inadequacies of the poor businesses. During hard times,
such businesses typically go bust, allowing us to make an investment
profit by betting on that eventuality, and ensuring that successful and
prudently managed businesses prosper.

Or rather that was how it
was supposed to work. But our political leaders have gone to
considerable cost to avert this normal business cycle.

Fearing
that the huge scale of reckless bets within the banking system
threatened another depression, our politicians have used public funds
to bail out the economy’s losers. And in doing so they run the danger
of creating a plutocracy: a society ruled by the wealthy. Consider that
fact that in Latvia school teachers have had to take a 35 per cent pay
cut so that the Swedish banks who funded the real-estate bubble are
repaid their imprudent mortgages.

We need to stop this
socialisation of risk taking: heads I win, tails you lose. Consider the
American government’s enormous bail out of the failed insurer, AIG.
According to the world’s largest bond fund manager, Bill Gross, it is
perfectly acceptable for the taxpayer to subsidise his returns. As he
explained it to the investment magazine Barons: “All I’m saying
is the government would lose almost $50 billion if it decides AIG no
longer is worth supporting. It is a game of chicken. You either call
the government’s bluff or you don’t.“

I would recommend a
different course of action. It is the same one recommended in 1930 by
then US Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. I would call the bankers’
bluff and seek to purge the rottenness out of the system. All of us
will work harder, prices will adjust, and enterprising people will
flourish. Of course, this is a minority view. Instead, those in power
would rather use the subterfuge of inflation to hide the enormous
public subsidy.

The politicians’ problem is that free and
independent capital markets tend to be anti-inflationary. As we have
seen, attempts at quantitative easing immediately depress the value of
existing government bonds in addition to the value of sterling. And
then you have the problem presented by my little industry. But we are
intelligent, well-funded and willing to vociferously challenge public
decisions. Most importantly, we are on your side.

by Tyler Durden via zero hedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/hugh-hendry-we-hedge-fund-managers-are-your-side

• Bring back the capitalist model (Washington Times)
• Initial claims at 462,000, higher than consensus, continuing claims higher by 37,000; snow not implicated (Bloomberg, Reuters)
• Naked swap crackdown in Europe rings hollow without Washington (Bloomberg)
• Volcker rule gets lift in Senate amid reform talks (Reuters)
• Greeks strike over budget cuts, stocks decline (NYT, Bloomberg, Reuters)
• China inflation surges (Bloomberg, Reuters)
• NY lieutenant governor proposes deficit plan (Reuters)
• Roubini: beware a double dip recession (Forbes)
• With $13 billion 30 Years on deck, 2s30s spread at record wides (Bloomberg)
• Unemployment benefits have now become yet another entitlement program (CSM)
• Bernanke’s dilemma: hyperinflation and the US dollar (Seeking Alpha)
• Greek debt crisis could raise problems for US and other countries (WaPo)

by Tyler Durden via zero hedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/frontrunning-march-11-0

• Asian bourses turn lower after release of higher-than-expected Chinese inflation data.
• Bank of Korea keeps key interest rate at record low as economic growth slows.
• China inflation, production accelerate, adding pressure for stimulus exit.
• Chinese property prices were 10.7% higher than a year earlier in February: Govt agency.
• Federal Reserve gets a new look as regulator of largest, riskiest firms.
• Japan’s Q4 GDP grew at an annual 3.8% pace - lower than the prelim reports of 4.6%.
• Oil falls below $82 in Asia as traders look for US crude demand to match growing economy.
• US Senate passes $150B bill for jobless aid, tax breaks.
• World airlines rebound on Asian and Latin Amer. demand, halve 2010 losses forecast to $2.8B.
• Yen rises versus Euro, Dollar as Chinese reports show inflation quickened.
• American Eagle Outfitters’ Q4 net rises 81% as both sales grew 7%, margins improved.
• BP will pay Devon Energy Corp. $7B in cash for assets in Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico and Azerbaijan.
• CA to buy IT performance monitoring vendor Nimsoft for US$350M.
• Brown-Forman’s Q3 net falls 13% to $107.9M on write-downs. Revs up 9.9% at $861.7M.
• BMW’s FYE profit fell 36% to $210M.
• Daihatsu reportedly recalls about 275,000 vehicles due to missing or loose parts.
• Everest Re puts Chile quake, windstorm losses at $250M.
• Gymboree’s Q4 net grew 13% to $33.2M as revenues gained 4% to $295.7M.
• Hot Topic’s Q4 net falls 44% on lower sales; sees Q1 loss of $0.02-0.05/sh.
• HSBC Holdings Plc’s Swiss private bank says it suffered “serious data theft”.
• Lufthansa expects 2010 revenue, profits to rise despite risks.
• Medtronic brain stimulator missed study goal: FDA.
• Old Mutual FY2009 operating profit up 3%, may list US asset management operations.
• Paramount Energy Trust to buy oil, natural gas assets in Edson area for C$126M.
• Psychiatric Solns in talks to be acquired by Bain Capital, terms undisclosed.
• US Treasury Dept has no clear exit strategy for its investment in GMAC Fincl Srvcs.

Economic Calendar: Data on Continuing & Initial Claims, Trade Balance to be released today.

Earnings Calendar: AIRM, APP, ARO, BKE, DIET, FSCI, JTX, MDZ, MLR, NAVI, PLL, PNY, RAD, SFD, SHFL, STEI, UTSI, ZQK.

RECENT RATING ACTIONS

ZIONS BANCORPORATION (ZION)
HUNTINGTON BANCSHARES (HBAN)
COLLECTIVE BRANDS INC (PSS)
NAVISTAR INTERNATIONAL CORP (NAV)
ANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV NV (ABI BB)
PARKER DRILLING CO (PKD)
CHEVRON CORP (CVX)
COMMERCIAL METALS CO (CMC)
ALASKA AIR GROUP INC (ALK)
JETBLUE AIRWAYS CORP (JBLU)
MARSH & MCLENNAN COS INC (MMC)
COMERICA INC (CMA)

Data provided by Egan-Jones Ratings and Analytics

by Tyler Durden via zero hedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/daily-highlights-31110