Wells Fargo Earnings Rise On Mortgage Originations (MarketWatch)
The bank earned $3.3 billion, or 60 cents a share for the third quarter. Like other banks nationwide, improving credit boosted its earnings; the San Francisco lender released $650 million it had previously set aside to cover potential loan losses, up from $500 million in the second quarter.

Dimon Best By Bad WaMu Loans (Bloomberg)
Dimon, like his counterparts at other banks, is waiting impatiently for the housing crisis to ease so the bank can rid itself of its huge portfolio of bad loans. In addition to the WaMu writedowns, the bank faces an avalanche of litigation over allegedly predatory and fraudulent WaMu mortgages and has set aside a total of $3.5 billion in reserves to cover the cost of mounting lawsuits.

Financial Leaders Expect Shift Of Power After Elections (NYT)
Analysts and lobbyists say a Republican-controlled Congress may be less likely to investigate industry practices or hold oversight hearings that may embarrass the industry. While that won’t affect hearings like ones set for later this month in the Senate that will examine the foreclosure mess, it makes them much less likely in the next Congress. “It changes the tone in Washington,” one industry lobbyist said. “If a regulator knows they’re going to get yelled at on Capitol Hill, that influences their decisions.”

GM’s New Sticker Price: $50 Billion (WSJ)
The new projections by GM say the company could have a stock-market value at the start of trading of $50 billion—about the same as the solidly profitable Ford Motor Co.—and that it could be as high as $60 billion, said people familiar with the plan. But for the U.S. to break even through sales of the rest of its stake, the share price may need to rise more than 60% from its initial level, to about $50. The initial public offering plan envisions the shares would be priced at $26 to $29 each, these people said. The actual price of the stock to be sold in the IPO would be set about Nov. 17, and the sale would take place the following day.

A Hedge Fund Manager’s New Groove (WSJ)
After years of “long-short” investing, Mr. von Mueffling and his analysts and traders no longer short stocks at all. Instead, like a typical stock mutual fund, they stick to buying company shares they expect will rise. Mr. von Mueffling said the strategy is “the right long-term decision.” “I’m not saying there aren’t overvalued stocks out there,” he said in an interview. “There are, but trying to short them when the government is printing money is a very, very challenging game,” he said, referring to, among other things, Federal Reserve programs to buy government bonds, which the Fed is widely expected to announce this week. The remade Cantillon pulls in much lower fees than a hedge fund with similar returns would…the majority of Cantillon investors pay just a management fee of 1.25% or less, according to fund documents.

Brooklyn Rabbi Blackmailed SAC Capital Because Founder Was “Rich” And “Jewish” (NYP)
A Brooklyn rabbi ran an unholy scam on a $16 billion hedge fund — because he knew that its founder was “Jewish and . . . rich,” a prosecutor told jurors yesterday. Rabbi Milton Balkany demanded $4 million from SAC Capital Advisors founder Steven Cohen by threatening that a prison inmate he was counseling would go to the feds with insider-trading allegations against the firm, Manhattan federal prosecutor Jesse Furman said. Balkany — whose “statements were lies, pure and simple,” according to Furman — was videotaped pocketing checks from an SAC lawyer and saying “that Mr. Cohen and SAC were in the clear,” Furman said in the extortion trial’s opening statement.

Roubini Says Advanced Economies Show Anemic Growth (Bloomberg)
“Economic recovery will be U-shaped,” Roubini said. “The next year is going to see a painful process of deleveraging, both in the private and public sector, lower consumption, lower spending, lower budget deficits, more savings, reduction of debt. That implies an anemic economic recovery.”

Fed Will Probably Start $500 Billion Of Bond Buys, Survey Shows (Bloomberg)
“There’s no silver bullet right now” and central bankers have “very few options left in terms of lowering interest rates,” said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina. He predicted $500 billion of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities purchases in the next six months.

Despite Oil Spill Charge, BP Returns To Profitability (NPR)
The cost to BP PLC of dealing with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was more than offset in the third quarter by revenues driven in part by higher oil prices, with the British giant posting a $1.79 billion profit, the company reported Tuesday.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Pop quiz: you’re a 62 year-old financial services executive and you’ve been convicted of fraud, money laundering and conspiracy for your role in a $2.9 billion fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison, not to mention ordered to pay $2.38 billion. Do you a) sit around moping in your home in the deceptively named town of Carefree, Arizona, waiting to be hauled off to the big house or b) say fuck it, flee to Mexico, and have yourself declared a fugitive? If you’re Rebecca Parrett, pictured, you’re gonna go with the answer b.

Moving along in the scenario, what do you do when you get there? Lay low, for a while? Not draw attention to yourself? Or live it up while you still can? Again, being Parrett, who’s been married 6 times, you go with door number two, which involves facelifts (as you have a 7th husband to bag) and dancing your ass off.

“She was living in the lap of luxury,” Deputy U.S. Marshal Brian Babtist said in a telephone interview from Columbus. “She was having fun, telling people that she was an American who had testified against several people in a large white-collar crime case. She was trying to stay anonymous and using an alias. I’ve heard that she liked to go out dancing,” Babtist said. “She was getting treatments from a Mexican anti-aging doctor regularly. For somebody who’s on the run, it was pretty good.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

JPMorgan’s Profit Jumps 23% (MarketWatch)
JPM posted a profit of $4.42 billion, or $1.01 a share, in the quarter, compared with $3.55 billion, or 82 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Revenue dropped to $23.8 billion from $26.6 billion. On a managed basis, revenue totaled $24.3 billion in the latest quarter. The bank was expected to earn 90 cents a share on revenue of $24.3 billion, according to a survey of analysts by FactSet Research.

D.E. Shaw Land Bet Proves a Quant’s Quagmire (WSJ)
For more than 300 years, a huge swath of land in what is now New Mexico endured the rise and fall of empires, the arrival of settlers and development of the surrounding area into the city of Albuquerque. But the Atrisco Land Grant, handed down by Spain’s king and queen in 1703, has never seen anything like the real-estate disaster now gripping hedge-fund firm D.E. Shaw. The firm surprised many real-estate deal makers in late 2006 by teaming up with developer SunCal Cos. to buy the 55,000-acre property—twice the size of Boston—for $250 million. The two companies planned to create a new town with residential, commercial and industrial areas. But the nationwide real-estate slump left the project stuck on the drawing board. Last month, lenders led by U.K. bank Barclays PLC foreclosed on the property. D.E. Shaw and SunCal have only a few weeks to come up with the money needed to pay off the lenders, or else the hedge-fund firm could see its roughly $100 million investment wiped out.

Hedge Fund Gains In September Highest In 16 Months (Reuters)
Eurekahedge said its hedge fund index was up 3.45 percent month-on-month at end-September, raising returns since the start of the year to 5.15 percent. “All regions and strategies posted positive returns in September, as Greater China hedge funds gained 7.02 percent during the month,” the Singapore-based firm said in a statement.

Geithner Signals China Causing Global Currency Interventions (Bloomberg)
“What’s happening is, as China holds its currency down, their currencies are moving up and they’re having to work very hard to make sure they’re not at an unfair disadvantage with China,” Geithner said in an interview with “Charlie Rose” scheduled to air on PBS yesterday and Bloomberg Television today.

Krugman, Niall Ferguson Renew Debate Over U.S. Stimulus (Bloomberg)
Krugman, 57, is urging the Obama administration to undertake a second round of fiscal stimulus, while Harvard University historian Ferguson, 46, warns such a course may trigger a “debt spiral” in the world’s biggest economy.

Standard Chartered Plans $5.2 Billion Rights Offering (WSJ)
The U.K.-based but Asia-focused bank plans to offer one share for every eight shares held at £12.80 each, or 156.82 Hong Kong dollars (US$20.21) a share for Hong Kong shareholders, Standard Chartered said in a statement Wednesday.

Pigeons Have The Urge To Gamble (Telegraph)
Birds given the chance to play a pigeon ”fruit machine” could not resist the lure of the jackpot – even when the odds were stacked against them. They appeared to be psychologically hooked in much the same way as humans who buy lottery tickets and visit casinos…Further tests indicated that seeing a winning colour signal helped to keep the pigeon gamblers ”hooked”.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Credit Suisse, Barclays May Be Start Of Bank Hiring Freeze (Bloomberg)
“Now that trading revenues are dropping there’s a hiring freeze on,” said John Purcell, managing director at executive search firm Purcell & Co. in London. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see people shedding traders again.”

Papandreou’s Summer Pay Cuts Keep Cash-Strapped Greeks at Home (Bloomberg)
Eleni Alexiou says she can’t afford to take her two children to a Greek island on vacation this year after the government axed her summer bonus and reduced her pay. “We’re not going anywhere, just any place that friends and family can put us up,” said Alexiou, 38, a state employee at a citizens’ advice bureau in Athens. “The crisis is the reason. The summer bonus has been cut. Everything’s gone up in price.”

Wall Street Bonuses To Rise This Year: Report (Reuters)
Incentives at financial firms should rise from 2009 levels but remain below the record payouts of 2007, according to compensation consultant Johnson Associates. Average compensation at investment and commercial banks is set to rise for the second straight year, while payouts at asset managers should rebound from a 2009 trough, the report said. While some corners of Wall Street are likely to see bonuses rise by up to 15 percent this year, others could see a 15 percent drop, the report said. Businesses that will likely see the biggest increases include prime brokerage; equities-based asset management; and high net worth units. Areas set for the steepest bonus drops are fixed-income units at both investment and commercial banks and equities.

New GM Chief Known As Pragmatic Leader (NYT)
FYI: “The world is divided into defenders and attackers, and G.M. has been a defender,” Mr. Anderson said. “Akerson has run attackers. He is going to essentially turn General Motors into a next-generation attacker.”

Maxine Waters to Face Reporters Friday to Address Ethics Charges (ABC)
Waters will be joined by her chief of staff Mikael Moore, who is also her grandson. Waters is expected to read a prepared statement in front of cameras, followed by a presentation conducted by Moore refuting the statement of alleged violations issued by the Ethics Committee earlier this month. After the presentation concludes, television cameras will be asked to leave for an on-the-record, but off-camera Q & A session with Waters and Moore.

Economists Want Policy Makers To Back Off (WSJ)
53 surveyed economists offered a bleak picture of tepid growth and high unemployment. On average, they still don’t see the unemployment rate dropping below 9% through at least June 2011. They expect the economy to add just 136,000 jobs a month over the next 12 months, down from a forecast of 157,000 in the July survey. At that rate, job creation will barely keep up with new entrants to the labor force. Despite the continued challenging conditions, 30 out of 48 economists who answered the question said the economy didn’t need any more fiscal or monetary stimulus. Six economists said more fiscal stimulus was necessary, while five want more monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve and seven said that the economy could use both. The survey was conducted before the central bank’s announcement Tuesday that it would reinvest proceeds from its mortgage-backed securities and agency debt portfolio into Treasurys, essentially boosting monetary stimulus. “The economy needs government to get out of the way,” said Stephen Stanley of Pierpont Securities.

Steven Slater Ready To Come Home To JetBlue (NYP)
“It’s a wonderful airline, he loves working for them and wishes to continue to work for them,” Slater’s attorney, Howard Turman, said outside his client’s apartment in Belle Harbor, Queens. “He did his job effectively, efficiently and appropriately.”

DOJ asks HP for records in bribery probe (MarketWatch)
German prosecutors, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal in April, are looking into the possibility that H-P executives paid about €8 million ($10.9 million) in bribes to win a €35 million contract under which the U.S. company sold computer gear, through a German subsidiary, to the office of the prosecutor general of the Russian Federation. The German probe has been joined by U.S. and Russian authorities, according to people familiar with the matter.

Irish Banks Rattling Nerves Again (WSJ)
Ireland’s problems have moved to center stage. On Thursday, the government sold €1 billion in six- and eight-month treasury bills, paying 2.458% on the six-month note, a big jump from the 1.367% yield it paid at the last auction three weeks ago. The yield on the 10-year bond rose to 5.367%, 2.94 percentage points higher than the relative German bund and up almost half a percentage point from one week ago. Philip Lane, a professor of international and macro-economics at Trinity College in Dublin, said Anglo Irish’s call for more capital is troublesome and there are worries that the deeper the government digs into its loan book, the more problems it could find.

Hedge Fund Inflows Jumped In July (WSJ)
Hedge-fund assets rose 1.37% in July to $2.249 trillion, after falling for two consecutive months. New money from investors boosted assets by $9.3 billion, the second highest monthly net inflow this year. Performance gains added another $21.09 billion to assets, HedgeFund.net said.

BP To Pay Record Fine Over Texas City (FT)
BP agreed to pay a record $50.6m fine for continued safety violations at its Texas City refinery five years after an explosion there killed 15 and injured 170. The fine came as federal officials on Thursday said that the UK oil group might not need to finish drilling the relief well touted as the permanent solution to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

$$$ How Morgan Stanley Bucked A Trend In Trading [Dealbook]

$$$ Bernanke Sees No Quick End to High Rate of Joblessness [NYT]

$$$ Wall Street’s Wrist Slap [NYO]

$$$ Matthew Simmons: “We’ve now killed the Gulf of Mexico” [Bloomberg]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Everybody wants to know just where the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will spread. Intel’s Encanto supercomputer in New Mexico has calculated just where the oil will go, using a complex ocean current simulation.

As the company described in a blog post, the computer model predicts that the oil on the surface will by carried by the gulf’s Loop Current over hundreds of miles to Florida. Then it will curl around the state and head into the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean. The spill could thus cause damages thousands of miles up the East Coast of the U.S.

The model was created by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. The Parallel Ocean Program had already been created as part of a theoretical experiment to model the weather in the ocean, and scientists adapted it for the spill. The simulation ran on Intel’s Encanto supercomputer in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. The supercomputer, No. 32 on the list of fastest supercomputers, is a water-cooled machine with 28 tall cabinets and more than 3,500 Intel quad-core Xeon processors.

The first runs at the simulation took more than 250,000 hours of computer time, with 1,000 cores working in parallel. The simulation showed that the big mass of oil that was deep underwater was moving slow. But the oil at 65 feet and higher was moving quickly to Louisiana and Florida. In the Gulf Stream, the oil can move 100 miles per day. The simulation isn’t perfect, as it doesn’t take into account things such as oil density and bouyancy. Here’s a video that shows the predicted path of the oil.

Companies: Intel

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » Deals & More

Banks Financing Mexico Drug Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal (Bloomberg Markets Magazine)
Just before sunset on April 10, 2006, a DC-9 jet landed at the international airport in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, 500 miles east of Mexico City. As soldiers on the ground approached the plane, the crew tried to shoo them away, saying there was a dangerous oil leak. So the troops grew suspicious and searched the jet. They found 128 black suitcases, packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million. The stash was supposed to have been delivered from Caracas to drug traffickers in Toluca, near Mexico City, Mexican prosecutors later found. Law enforcement officials also discovered something else. The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.: Wachovia and BofA. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers. Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers — including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine.

Fannie-Freddie Bailout Could Cost Taxpayers $1 Trillion (CNBC)
That’s gonna leave a mark.

Banks Assess Financial Hit (WSJ)
“This is wrong, and we have one last chance to do something about it,” the American Bankers Association wrote in an email to its members, urging them to write opposition letters to members of Congress. Financial-industry lobbyists are aiming at Republicans who voted in favor of the Senate version, hoping to change their position when the final bill comes up for a vote. “You keep playing until the whistle blows,” says ABA spokesman Peter Garuccio.

New York Fed probes Wall Street exposure to BP (Reuters)
After poring over documents and asking banks about their exposure to BP over the past two weeks, the Fed found no systemic risk, and hasn’t asked firms to alter their credit relationships with BP, the sources told Reuters. “The Fed gave banks’ exposure to BP a passing grade,” said one of the sources on condition of anonymity.

Volcker Rule May Give Goldman, Citigroup Until 2022 to Comply (Bloomberg)
Rules curbing banks’ investments in their own funds would take effect 15 months to two years after a law is passed, according to the bill. Banks would have two years to comply, with the potential for three one-year extensions after that. They could seek another five years for “illiquid” funds such as private equity or real estate, said Lawrence Kaplan, an attorney at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP in Washington.

The SEC’s Russian Roulette (WSJ)
On Jan. 6, 2009, Ukragro Corp. of Zhitomir, Ukraine, made an initial filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell stock to the public. Its sole employee and owner was a 79-year-old massage therapist. The company had no revenue, $100 in assets and planned to open a string of health spas. Public records on file at the SEC show that the agency asked no questions and the application cleared through the commission eight days later. Over the past two years, eight other start-ups reviewed by the SEC have been similarly headed by people in Ukraine or Russia, with no revenue or operations and minimal assets.

Clinton: Blow Up The Well (CNN)

Niall Ferguson: Europe Banks Make Me Nervous (CNBC)
“I’ve been nervous about European banks for quite a long time,” Ferguson said in an interview. He added that he was “amazed” about how long it took markets to realize that there was a problem with European banks, which were more leveraged than US banks, and that the assumption had always been that European governments would never do something like the US did in the case of Lehman. “But that assumed that European governments had very deep pockets… the Greek crisis revealed the limit of this largesse,” Ferguson said.

New York State May Tax Out – Of – State Hedge Fund Execs (Reuters)
A spokesman for Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said by telephone on Monday that it means hedge fund managers would be treated the same way as other commuters.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

• Sorry boys, Megan Fox is officially off the market [TMZ]
• FIFA rep apologizes to England and Mexico for poor World Cup reffing [HuffPost]
• Abby Sunderland goes home for press circuit after failed voyage at sea [KTLA]
• Despite iPhone 4 consumer complaints, Steve Jobs claims “there are no reception issues” [HuffPost]
• Jeremy Piven makes restaurant staff fish his phone out of their toilet [NYPost]

Article courtesy of Los Angeles | Guest of a Guest – Los Angeles People, Places, Parties & Nightlife

Orszag To Step Down In July (WSJ)
The president had wanted a decision from Mr. Orszag before the fall, when the administration will begin the arduous process of putting together the fiscal 2011 budget amid some of the greatest budget pressures in modern U.S. history. Mr. Orszag will also be marrying Bianna Golodryga, an ABC News business reporter, in September, and “restarting his life,” a person close to the budget director said.

JP Morgan Names Doug Braunstein CFO in Shake-Up (CNBC)
The bank announced a shake up to its management team giving new responsibilities for three senior members. Heidi Miller, head of Treasury & Securities Services, has been named President of International. Michael Cavanagh, Chief Financial Officer, will succeed Miller as Chief Executive Officer of TSS. Doug Braunstein, head of Investment Banking, Americas, will succeed Cavanagh as Chief Financial Officer.

Kerviel Could Have Forced Societe Generale Into Bankruptcy, Trader Says (Bloomberg)
The bank lost 4.9 billion euros ($6 billion) in the process of liquidating Kerviel’s accounts over three days in January 2008 as markets worldwide fell. The timing was “bad luck,” said Maxime Kahn, who liquidated the positions. “It was impossible to wait,” said Kahn, now head of European trading at Societe Generale. “There was a potential for the bank to go bankrupt.”

Moody’s: Spanish Banks Healthier Than Markets Think (Reuters)
“As long as the ECB provides the funding to keep the cost down … the Spanish banking system is not as bad as the current market seems to believe,” Johannes Wassenberg, managing director of Moody’s financial institutions group told reporters. Moody’s estimated Spanish banks have 108 billion euros ($133 billion) in bad debt of which 75 percent have been provided for by the banks.

Barclays chief says Lehman was a risk (FT)
BREAKING: “Our financial people had no idea there would be a gain on this transaction,” Mr Diamond said in a federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan. “We were taking an incredible risk at an incredibly risky time of the market.”

World Cup French “Revolution” Sparks Anger, Fear (Reuters)
Les Bleus’ troubled World Cup campaign descended into chaos on Sunday, when the players walked out of a routine training session to protest against a decision to expel star striker Nicolas Anelka for his foul-mouthed abuse at the coach. The French media rounded on the team, branding the players a bunch of overpaid brats who had brought shame on France. Many politicians saw something more profound in the revolt. “As far as I am concerned, the shipwreck of the French team tells us something about the weaknesses of France, of a model of society that is based above all on money, which is adulated,” centrist leader Francois Bayrou told RTL radio.

Feinberg Ramps Up Compensation Fund (WSJ)
In seven weeks, BP has written 31,000 checks worth $104 million to Gulf Coast fishermen, shrimpers and others whose work has been cut short by the spill. A team of nearly 1,000 clerks and adjusters are processing claims in 33 field offices from Louisiana to Florida. “BP deserves a fair amount of credit here,” Mr. Feinberg says. “This is the first time I know of where a company has implemented a whole process like this in the midst of an ongoing crisis.”

Showdown Over Strippers (WSJ)
With a three-story atrium at the entrance and state-of-the-art lighting and sound, Bazooka’s does about 60% of its business after midnight, Mr. Snow said. His dancers earn most of their money not on stage but from socializing and providing customers with “booth dances” that would be illegal under the new law because they usually involve touching. During these tough economic times, Mr. Snow said, crimping a legal business that backers claim employs about 3,000 people and brings in some $4.5 million of state sales taxes “makes no sense.”

Tropical Storm May Cause Threat To BP Spill Cleanup (Bloomberg)
Thunderstorms in the Caribbean may strengthen into a tropical storm this week before heading into the Gulf between Mexico and Cuba, said Jim Rouiller, a senior energy meteorologist at Planalytics Inc. in Berwyn, Pennsylvania.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

BP Chief Draws Outrage for Attending Yacht Race (NYT)
BP officials on Saturday scrambled yet again to respond to another public relations challenge when their embattled chief executive, Tony Hayward, spent the day off the coast of England watching his yacht compete in one of the world’s largest races. “He is having some rare private time with his son,” a BP spokeswoman, Sheila Williams, said in a telephone interview on Saturday. On Saturday, Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, called Mr. Hayward’s yacht outing the “height of arrogance,” in an interview with Fox News. “I can tell you that yacht ought to be here skimming and cleaning up a lot of the oil,” Mr. Shelby said. “He ought to be down here seeing what is really going on. Not in a cocoon somewhere.”

London’s City Buys BP While Wall Street Flees Risk in U.S. (Bloomberg)
“There’s a feeling in the U.K. that BP has been singled out unfairly and that there’s long-term value in the stock,” said Iain Armstrong, an analyst at Brewin Dolphin Ltd., which oversees more than $31 billion in London and increased its BP holdings in May. “In the U.S., it’s a very emotive issue, and politicians are making it much more personal and vindictive. If you’re a U.S. fund manager and BP doesn’t manage to stop the leak, you’ve got a lot to answer for.”

BP Says Gulf Oil Spill Response Costs Up To $2 Billion (WSJ)
“It is too early to quantify other potential costs and liabilities associated with the incident,” the company said in a statement.

Germany And France Examine ‘Two-Tier’ Euro (Telegraph)
The creation of a “super-euro” zone would initially include France, Germany, Holland, Austria, Denmark and Finland. The likes of Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and even Ireland would be left in a larger rump mostly Mediterranean grouping. The official said French and German officials had first spent months examining how to exclude poor-performing states from the euro but decided it was not feasible.

To Help Prevent Crises, Delay Some Executive Pay (NYT)
Robert Shiller: “If our holdback measure had been in place before the last crisis, executives might have had serious second thoughts about giving a green light to mortgage-backed securities that would later go bust.”

Gold at new record high after Saudi reserves double (FT)
The changes in Riyadh’s reserves were revealed by the World Gold Council, the industry-backed body which regularly tracks official bullion holdings. According to the WGC, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, the central bank, has gold reserves of 322.9 tonnes, more than double the 143 tonnes it had previously reported.

New Mexico v. Val Kilmer: Payback Time (WSJ)
When actor Val Kilmer recently applied for permits to turn his 6,000-acre ranch outside Santa Fe into an upscale bed-and-breakfast, several of his neighbors protested. They weren’t worried about traffic or noise or the prospect of intruding tourists. They were incensed about comments attributed to Mr. Kilmer in magazine articles dating to 2003 and 2005. And they didn’t want him to get his way on the ranch unless he apologized. “That’s all he has to do, come and apologize,” said Jose Garcia, who runs horses on a 50-acre ranch next to Mr. Kilmer’s. “We’re not intimidated by him.” Mr. Kilmer was quoted—misquoted, he says—describing his rugged corner of New Mexico as “the homicide capital of the Southwest.” He went on to avow that “80% of the people in my county are drunk,” requiring him to carry a gun for protection. That was in a 2003 interview with Rolling Stone.

Pershing Square backs Landry’s Restaurants buyout (FT)
According to people close to the matter, Pershing has agreed to vote in favour of a deal at or above $24.50 a share, after a seven-month battle with Tilman Fertitta, Landry’s founder. The agreement could be made public as soon as today, those people added.

The Tremors From A Coding Error (NYT)
AXA Rosenberg told its clients — which include mutual funds, pension funds and holders of separately managed accounts — that it had made a “coding error” that affected returns in its various portfolios in ways that had yet to be determined. The letter didn’t explain the specific nature of the error or when it was made. It said the problem “was first discovered in late June 2009” but that the company did not correct it until somewhere “between September and mid-November.” AXA Rosenberg did not notify clients until the mid-April letter.

Worries Emerge on Boeing Cockpit-Oxygen Systems (WSJ)
Nothing to freak out about, just know the pilots may not be able to put out a fire in time to save the plane.

Barclays Bosses To Take Stand In Legal Row (NYT)
Barclays top executives will tell a New York court the British bank did not get an unfair windfall from a deal for parts of Lehman Brothers in a case that shows the need for banks to draw up “living wills.” Barclays President Bob Diamond is due to appear on Monday, followed a day later by Chief Executive John Varley. Lehman Brothers creditors charge them with taking advantage of the investment bank’s collapse to get an $11 billion windfall from its takeover of the U.S. operations.

A Hedge-Fund King Philosophizes on Truth and Weasels (WSJ)
The euro was plummeting. The stock market was gyrating. And Ray Dalio, president of one of the world’s largest hedge funds, took a moment to talk about mosquitoes. “Man will never be able to build a flying device like a mosquito,” mused Mr. Dalio, the 60-year-old founder of Bridgewater Associates. “I look at nature’s complexity and think, man has the intelligence of mold growing on an apple.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker