Daily Highlights: 3.1.10

• Buffett sees US housing recovery by 2011, prices below 'bubble' levels.
• Car makers on Tuesday are expected to report disappointing U.S. sales for February, mainly due to snowstorms.
• China's manufacturing growth slows in Feb, PMI falls from 55.6 in Jan to 52.0.
• Copper rises most in 11 months as Chile earthquake cuts power, halts mines.
• Crude near $80 a barrel after 9.3% monthly rise.
• Europe demands Greece cut budget deficit as Bloc crafts $34B rescue.
• Greece loses Kokusai as investors demand 7% on bonds.
• Greece now, U.K. next as Scots investors ready for 20-30% plunge in pound.
• Japan stocks advance on US economic growth, commodity prices.
• Berkshire's Q4 net rises to $3.06B \on the recovery of derivative bets.
• China $125B health spending spurs GE, Philips boon in imaging sales.
• Ecolab hikes its share repurchase authorization of up to 10M shares.
• Fannie Mae to seek $15.3B in aid from US Treasury after posting losses for 10 consecutive quarters.
• Google claims Microsoft is involved in disparate antitrust actions against it.
• HSBC posts smaller-than-estimated gain in 2009 profit to $5.83B.
• HSBC France sells Paris headquarters for 400M euros.
• Merck KGaA to buy biotech-equipment maker Millipore for $7.2B, incl debt.
• Montpelier re purchases 6.9M of its common shares in a private transaction .
• Pearson lifts dividend as profit rises 46% to $645M.
• Prudential Plc said in talks to buy AIG Asian Life unit for $30B.
• QBE Insurance plans to acquire commercial insurance ops of ING Groep.
• SanDisk increased its Q1 sales forecast to between $925M-$1B.
• Tata Motors swings to Q3 profit of $141M on Jaguar/Land Rover rebound.
• Vivendi quarterly adjusted profit falls 28% to $643.3M.

Economic Calendar: Data on Personal Income & Spending, Construction Spending , ISM Index to be released today.

Earnings Calendar: ABM, ANN, AZO, BIG, BWS, CFI, CIEN, CNO, CRMT, CWST, GB, HBC, ISLE, MBI, PAY, SATS.

RECENT RATING ACTIONS

TRW AUTOMOTIVE HOLDINGS (TRW)
GAP INC/THE (GPS)
BEMIS CO INC (BMS)
MOHAWK INDUSTRIES INC (MHK)
CHIQUITA BRANDS INTERNATIONAL (CQB)
IRON MOUNTAIN INC (IRM)
SEARS HOLDINGS CORP (SHLD)
SHAW GROUP INC/THE (SHAW)
EQUIFAX INC (EFX)
DRESSER-RAND GROUP INC (DRC)
CKE RESTAURANTS INC (CKR)
GENERAL ELECTRIC CAPITAL (GELK)
SILGAN HOLDINGS INC (SLGN)

Data provided by Egan-Jones Ratings and Analytics

Comments

[Edna R. Rider]

Sometimes I read the news I my back hurts from laughing so hard.  Oil is up.  You know why?  M&A in the pharma/biotech industry and the dollar is up.  I know my team looks to those 2 clues as evidence to buy buy buy more oil.  From MarketWatch:

Commodity prices took a cue from a handful of deals in global mergers and acquisitions, including AIG's agreement to sell off its Asia operations in a transaction valued at $35.5 billion.

Separately, German conglomerate Merck KGaA said it's going to buy biotech firm Millipore for $7.2 billion.

Against this backdrop, crude futures rose 13 cents to $79.79 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Also getting factored into the trading in energy, the dollar gained broadly against other major currencies.

[Anonymous]

Maybe Buffett would like to buy my house? Word from my realtor this morning is that Atlanta house prices have gone from avg 175k -> to 105k in a year. C'mon - buy low and sell high, Warren.

[Hephasteus]

Well it's nice to see Buffet make 3 billion on those wicked evil weapons of economic destruction.

Springs a good wedding time. I wonder what happens when drug addicted companies marry porn addicted companies with bad credit ratings and "should be" felony records.

[Anonymous]

I'm all Buffetted out.

Challenge to the global financial media: See if you can go three whole days without doing a Buffett story. Just three, that's it, then you can go back to your daily fawning, and pondering the massively deep question you all apply to everything..."Gee, what would Warren Buffet do here?"

[deadhead]

• Car makers on Tuesday are expected to report disappointing U.S. sales for February, mainly due to snowstorms.
• China's manufacturing growth slows in Feb, PMI falls from 55.6 in Jan to 52.0, all due to snowstorms.
• Copper rises most in 11 months as Chile earthquake cuts power, halts mines, as well as unreported major snowstorms..
• Crude near $80 a barrel after 9.3% monthly rise due only to snowstorms.
• Europe demands Greece cut budget deficit as Bloc crafts $34B rescue: snow removal budget cuts excepted due to heavy worldwide snowstorms.
• Greece loses Kokusai as investors demand 7% on bonds due primarily to heavy snowfall.
• Greece now, U.K. next as Scots investors ready for 20-30% plunge in pound, primarily due to weather related conditions.
• Fannie Mae to seek $15.3B in aid from US Treasury after posting losses for 10 consecutive quarters due to heavy snowfalls impacting housing market.
• Google claims Microsoft is involved in disparate antitrust actions against it; "it's the snow, stupid!"
• HSBC posts smaller-than-estimated gain in 2009 profit to $5.83B due to increased expenses of snow removal worldwide at bank branches.
• HSBC France sells Paris headquarters for 400M euros, cannot deal with snow in France anymore....

[Hephasteus]

Best snow job eva!!! LOL

[tenaciousj]

First we were all gonna die from the heat of global warming.  Now the economy is failing because of snow...

[Tom123456]

ucvhost is a leading web site hosting service provider that is known to provide reliable and affordable hosting packages to customers. The company believes in providing absolute and superior control to the customer as well as complete security and flexibility through its many packages. windows vps Moreover, the company provides technical support as well as customer service 24x7, in order to enable its customers to easily upgrade their software, install it or even solve their problems. ucvhost offers the following different packages to its customers.