Sayeth the ratings agency:

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said today that it affirmed its ‘AAA’ long-term and ‘A-1+’ short-term sovereign credit ratings on the U.S. Standard & Poor’s also said that it revised its outlook on the long-term rating of the U.S. sovereign to negative from stable. Our ratings on the U.S. rest on its high-income, highly diversified, and flexible economy. It is backed by a strong track record of prudent and credible monetary policy, evidenced to us by its ability to support growth while containing inflationary pressures. The ratings also reflect our view of the unique advantages stemming from the dollar’s preeminent place among world currencies.

“Although we believe these strengths currently outweigh what we consider to be the U.S.’s meaningful economic and fiscal risks and large external debtor position, we now believe that they might not fully offset the credit risks over the next two years at the ‘AAA’ level,” said Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Nikola G. Swann. “More than two years after the beginning of the recent crisis, U.S. policymakers have still not agreed on how to reverse recent fiscal deterioration or address longer-term fiscal pressures,” Mr. Swann added.

In 2003-2008, the U.S.’s general (total) government deficit fluctuated between 2% and 5% of GDP. Already noticeably larger than that of most ‘AAA’ rated sovereigns, it ballooned to more than 11% in 2009 and has yet to recover.

On April 13, President Barack Obama laid out his Administration’s medium-term fiscal consolidation plan, aimed at reducing the cumulative unified federal deficit by US$4 trillion in 12 years or less. A key component of the Administration’s strategy is to work with Congressional leaders over the next two months to develop a commonly agreed upon program to reach this target. The President’s proposals envision reducing the deficit via both spending cuts and revenue increases.

Key members in the U.S. House of Representatives have also advocated fiscal tightening of a similar magnitude, US$4.4 trillion, during the coming 10 years, but via different methods. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s plan seeks to balance the federal budget by 2040, in part by cutting non-defense spending. The plan also includes significantly reducing the scope of Medicare and Medicaid, while bringing top individual and corporate tax rates lower than those under the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

We view President Obama’s and Congressman Ryan’s proposals as the starting point of a process aimed at broader engagement, which could result in substantial and lasting U.S. government fiscal consolidation. That said, we see the path to agreement as challenging because the gap between the parties remains wide. We believe there is a significant risk that Congressional negotiations could result in no agreement on a medium-term fiscal strategy until after the fall 2012 Congressional and Presidential elections. If so, the first budget proposal that could include related measures would be Budget 2014 (for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2013), and we believe a delay beyond that time is possible.

Standard & Poor’s takes no position on the mix of spending and revenue measures the Congress and the Administration might conclude are appropriate.

But for any plan to be credible, we believe that it would need to secure support from a cross-section of leaders in both political parties. If U.S. policymakers do agree on a fiscal consolidation strategy, we believe the experience of other countries highlights that implementation could take time. It could also generate significant political controversy, not just within Congress or between Congress and the Administration, but throughout the country. We therefore think that, assuming an agreement between Congress and the President, there is a reasonable chance that it would still take a number of years before the government reaches a fiscal position that stabilizes its debt burden. In addition, even if such measures are eventually put in place, the initiating policymakers or subsequently elected ones could decide to at least partially reverse fiscal consolidation.

In our baseline macroeconomic scenario of near 3% annual real growth, we expect the general government deficit to decline gradually but remain slightly higher than 6% of GDP in 2013. As a result, net general government debt would reach 84% of GDP by 2013. In our macroeconomic forecast’s optimistic scenario (assuming near 4% annual real growth), the fiscal deficit would fall to 4.6% of GDP by 2013, but the U.S.’s net general government debt would still rise to almost 80% of GDP by 2013. In our pessimistic scenario (a mild, one-year double-dip recession in 2012), the deficit would be 9.1%, while net debt would surpass 90% by 2013. Even in our optimistic scenario, we believe the U.S.’s fiscal profile would be less robust than those of other ‘AAA’ rated sovereigns by 2013. (For all of the assumptions underpinning our three forecast scenarios, see “U.S. Risks To The Forecast: Oil We Have to Fear Is…,” March 15, 2011, RatingsDirect.

“Our negative outlook on our rating on the U.S. sovereign signals that we believe there is at least a one-in-three likelihood that we could lower our long-term rating on the U.S. within two years,” Mr. Swann said. “The outlook reflects our view of the increased risk that the political negotiations over when and how to address both the medium- and long-term fiscal challenges will persist until at least after national elections in 2012.”

Some compromise that achieves agreement on a comprehensive budgetary consolidation program–containing deficit-reduction measures in amounts near those recently proposed, and combined with meaningful steps toward implementation by 2013–is our baseline assumption and could lead us to revise the outlook back to stable. Alternatively, the lack of such an agreement or a significant further fiscal deterioration for any reason could lead us to lower the rating.

[via MarketWatch]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Senator Levin: Goldman Sachs Misled Congress After Duping Clients (Bloomberg)
Goldman Sachs misled clients and Congress about the firm’s bets on securities tied to the housing market, the chairman of the U.S. Senate panel that investigated the causes of the financial crisis said. Senator Carl Levin, releasing the findings of a two-year inquiry yesterday, said he wants the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission to examine whether Goldman Sachs violated the law by misleading clients who bought the complex securities known as collateralized debt obligations without knowing the firm would benefit if they fell in value….Much of the blame for the 2008 market collapse belongs to banks that earned billions of dollars in profits creating and selling financial products that imploded along with the housing market, according to the report. The Levin-Coburn panel levied its harshest criticism at investment banks, in particular accusing Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank AG of peddling collateralized debt obligations backed by risky loans that the banks’ own traders believed were likely to lose value.

Senate Report Lays Bare Mortgage Mess (WSJ)
“I think I found white elephant, flying pig and unicorn all at once.” –Goldman Sachs email describing an Australian client that invested in a souring mortgage structure 4/26/2007

Moody’s, S&P Caved to Goldman, UBS Mortgage Pressure, Levin Says (Bloomberg)
“Investment bankers who complained about rating methodologies, criteria, or decisions were often able to obtain exceptions or other favorable treatment,” according to the Levin report. The decisions appeared to be “concessions made to prevent the loss of business.”

US Probes Libor Dealings (WSJ)
For the past year, law-enforcement officials have been investigating whether the U.S. and European banks understated their own borrowing costs, which are used to calculate the London interbank offered rate, or Libor. The investigators are now looking into whether the banks effectively formed a global cartel and coordinated how to report borrowing costs between 2006 and 2008.

Geithner: We Must Raise Taxes (PBS)
Appearing on the PBS NewsHour Wednesday evening, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said there is “no plausible way” to cut the deficit without raising taxes. “Unless you’re going to cut deeply into commitments we have made to seniors and to the disabled and to the poor, or ask the country to go borrow the money, you can’t solve this,” he said.

Raj Keeps Chin Up (NYP)
One reason Rajaratnam has to smile might be the ebullient praise he received yesterday from prominent educator and social activist Geoffrey Canada. Canada, who was called as a character witness, called Rajaratnam a “dear friend” with “a genuine concern for children.”
“Raj and I hit it off right away,” said Canada, the CEO of charitable group the Harlem Children’s Zone. Canada said he approached Rajaratnam earlier this decade to donate to the group and found him eager to help “level the playing field for kids.” “I never had to convince Raj” to be a donor, Canada said when asked to respond to the prosecution’s allegations that Rajaratnam committed his alleged crimes out of greed. “He’s a very generous person,” he added.

Deutsche Bank Sold Mortgage-Linked ‘Pigs’ as Market Buckled, Lawmakers Say (Bloomberg)
“Keep your fingers crossed but I think we will price this just before the market falls off a cliff,” Michael Lamont, the group’s co-head, said in a Feb. 8, 2007, e-mail about Deutsche Bank’s Gemstone CDO VII Ltd., according to a report released yesterday by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The Frankfurt-based firm sold $700 million of the instruments, which lost most of their value within 17 months.

IMF: Banks Face $3.6 Trillion ‘Wall’ of Maturing Debt (Reuters)
Many European banks need bigger capital cushions to restore market confidence and assure they can borrow, and some weak players will need to be closed, the International Monetary Fund said in its Global Financial Stability Report.

Obama Challenges Republicans With Deadline For Deficit Deal (Bloomberg)
The timeline Obama proposed for coming up with an agreement — beginning talks in early May and completing them by late June — sets up a negotiation over the nation’s long-term fiscal challenges in parallel with a congressional debate over raising the $14.29 trillion legal debt limit.

Glenore Aims For $8.8 Billion In IPO (WSJ)
The company said it plans to list a 15% to 20% stake, through an offer to raise around $6.8 billion to $8.8 billion in new capital and up to $2.2 billion in existing shares. At the upper level, that would make it London’s largest-ever initial public offering, topping Rosneft’s $10.6 billion offer in July 2006.

London Retains Lure For Hedge Funds As Banks Demure (Reuters)
Throgmorton’s Rubio points to the “Harvey Nicks effect” — referring to upmarket London department store Harvey Nichols, a magnet for big spenders — and said he had seen one manager relocate to Barcelona, only to move back to London.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

JPMorgan Profit Up 67% on Lower Credit Costs, Tops Estimate (Bloomberg)
First-quarter net income climbed to $5.56 billion, or $1.28 a share, from $3.33 billion, or 74 cents, in the same period a year earlier and from $4.83 billion, or $1.12, in the fourth quarter, the New York-based company said today in a statement. The results beat the average per-share estimate for adjusted earnings of $1.15 by 26 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Impatience Over Recovery At Morgan Stanley (Dealbook)
“You can only take so much pain,” said David P. Foley, an investment manager at Estabrook Capital Management, which as of Dec. 31 owned roughly 661,000 shares in Morgan Stanley, valued at almost $18 million. “We have to go to our clients and defend the stock, and invariably someone says, ‘Why do you still own this thing?’ Eventually, I am sure Morgan Stanley will turn around, but the firm has become harder and harder to defend because it still hasn’t turned the corner.”

Bernanke Urges Republicans To ‘Deal With Debt’ (Bloomberg)
“He said we have to deal with the debt,” Representative Steve Pearce, a Republican from New Mexico, said in an interview after leaving the session with the central bank chief on Capitol Hill. “So far the market seems to be forgiving of the fact that we haven’t,” Pearce said, adding that Bernanke told lawmakers that “we need to deal with it.”

Obama to Lay Out Deficit Plan, Focus on Tax, Spending (Reuters)
Obama will explain his vision for tackling the long-term U.S. deficit and debt in a speech in Washington at 1:35 p.m. He will try to regain control of the spending debate by drawing a sharp contrast with a Republican proposal unveiled last week to lower the deficit by $4.4 trillion over the next 10 years.

IMF Warns US on Debts, Wants Austerity (FT)
The US lacks a “credible strategy” to stabilize its mounting public debt posing a small but significant risk of a new global economic crisis, says the International Monetary Fund.

The Battle Of The Office Candy Jar (WSJ)
“The proximity and visibility of a food can consistently increase an adult’s consumption,” says the study, led by Brian Wansink, a professor of marketing and human behavior at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and author of “Mindless Eating.” He adds, “Even for a person with the greatest resolve, every time they look at a candy dish they say, ‘Do I want that Hershey’s Kiss, or don’t I?’ At the 24th time, maybe I’m kind of hungry, and I just got this terrible email, and my boss is complaining—and gradually my resolve is worn down.”

Tyco Gets Takeover Offer Of $30 Billion (WSJ)
France’s Schneider Electric SA has made a preliminary bid for approximately $30 billion for Tyco International Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter, hoping to draw the Swiss-based conglomerate to the negotiating table. “The board is studying the proposal,” said one person familiar with the matter. The tentative bid “was a surprise,” this person added. As a result, Tyco officials believe “it’s going to take awhile to sort it out,” this person said. It seems highly unlikely that Tyco will accept a $30 billion offer, and directors “would undoubtedly want it to go higher,” this person said.

China Banks Said to Need $131 Billion of Equity Over Six Years (Bloomberg)
“Capital erosion is a long-term issue facing Chinese banks because they don’t really have the motivation to reduce reliance on loan expansion,” said Wen Chunling, a Beijing-based analyst at Fitch. “The focus of China’s rules is to ensure that banks arm themselves with abundant capital to be well-prepared for a crisis, so that the cost of any government bailout would be minimized.”

GOP Spooked On Debt Limit? (PMM)
House Speaker John Boehner has been reaching out to top Wall Street players asking how close Congress can get to the May 16th deadline (or July 8th drop-dead date) for raising the debt limit without seriously unnerving financial markets. The questioning is not going over well. “They don’t seem to understand that you can’t put everything back in the box. Once that fear of default is in the markets, it doesn’t just go away. We’ll be paying the price for years in higher rates,” said one executive.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Obama Demands Budget Deal To Avert Government Shutdown (Bloomberg)
fter meeting with House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Obama said issues remained unresolved and he hoped for a breakthrough that would prevent a shutdown, set to begin at midnight tonight. “I’m not yet prepared to express wild optimism but I think we are further along,” he told reporters. “My hope is, is that I’ll be able to announce to the American people sometime relatively early in the day that a shutdown has been averted.”

SEC May Relax Limits On Shares In Private Firms (WSJ)
According to the letter and people familiar with the matter, the likely changes would include raising from 499 the number of shareholders private companies can have without being required to open their books, and also making it easier for such companies to publicize share offerings.

Portugal To Face Strict EU Aid Terms Amid Political Storm (Bloomberg)
In an unprecedented intervention in national politics, euro-area finance ministers said Portugal can win relief by mid- May as long as it makes cuts that go beyond measures that failed to pass parliament in March and led to the government’s downfall.

EU Stress Tests To Examine 90 Banks, 5% Capital Pass Rate (Bloomberg)
“Make no mistake, 5 percent of Core Tier 1 is harder in comparison with last year,” James Babicz, head of risk at SAS, a business analytics company, said in telephone interview in London today. “But I think you have to look at how risky a bank is rather than look at a static capital threshold.”

Marc Faber: Gold Is Still Cheap Despite Record Surge (CNBC)
Faber rejected the notion that gold is in a bubble even as it begins to approach $1,500 an ounce. “If it were a bubble a lot of people would have gold. The whole world would be trading gold 24 hours a day,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s really a bubble. I think gold is maybe cheaper today than it was in 1999, when it was $252.

Why London Can Live Without Its Big Banks (Reuters)
“One or two of them might change their corporate headquarters for tax purposes but if they do go we probably won’t even notice. There won’t be a great outflow of workers and Canary Wharf won’t turn into a ghost town.”

Corporate Jets Often First Thing To Go After Leveraged Buyouts (Bloomberg)
Companies bought by private-equity firms are 32 percent less likely to have a jet in the three years after the deal closes than in the year before, according to a paper written by the Federal Reserve Board’s Jesse Edgerton. The study, published Jan. 21, found that jet fleets at LBO-backed companies are at least 40 percent smaller than at similar publicly traded firms.

Jefferies Expands (Breakingviews)
Jefferies’ lineup now includes municipal bonds and an enlarged investment bank. Staffing has increased by more than a third since the financial crisis struck. Now it’s adding commodities and futures, by buying Prudential Bache for $430 million. Jefferies is still far from joining the big boys. Net profit last year was just $280 million, far less than what Goldman harvested. There’s still scope to grow, however. New hires arguably have not yet settled in enough to crank out their full earnings potential. Shareholders appear to have baked in a better relative performance at Jefferies: the stock trades at about 1.7 times book value, double Morgan Stanley’s multiple and a third better than Goldman’s.

An Aggressive Fed? More Of Street Betting On It (Reuters)
The survey found that about a third of the economists, fund managers and strategists who responded to the survey see the Fed hiking interest rates this year, double the percentage from the March survey. About 27 percent believe the Fed will begin selling assets in the second half of 2011, to reduce the size of its portfolio, up from around 16 percent in the prior survey.

How To Pay No Taxes (BusinessWeek)
Some tips.

Asian Central Banks Intervene As Currencies Rise (WSJ)
Asian currencies rose against the dollar Friday, prompting a number of regional central banks to intervene, as the U.S. currency fell over that nation’s budget woes and a rise in the euro spurred the region’s currencies higher. The move follows Thursday’s rate increase by the European Central Bank, its first tightening since 2008. While the move was widely expected, it suggests world economic growth will continue to improve.

Speed Trading May Be Heading Out To Sea, Literally (CNBC)
In many cases, the best places to maximize chances of buying low in one place and selling high in another (for example between New York and London) were located in the world’s oceans. So could this be the end of traditional fixed stock exchanges in the world’s biggest cities and the rise of floating exchanges in the mid-Atlantic ocean? Wissner-Gross believes that floating trade centers could be a reality of the future.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

• President Obama makes his run for 2012 reelection official with an email sent this morning to his supporters [HuffPo]
• Southwest was delinquent in inspecting the safety of its fleet of decades-old, rattling, hooptie-esque aircrafts? What??! [KTLA]
• Fukushima releases 11,500 tons of radioactive water into sea as emergency measure to make room for water with 100,000 times more radiation [LAT]
• After bombing the debut of his one-man show in Detroit, here’s a list of the high notes Charlie Sheen hit to find redemption in Chicago [TMZ]
• For reasons that escape all logic and common sense, Hugh Hefner won’t make his 24 year-old fiancé (a cool 60 years his junior) Crystal Harris sign a prenup [PE]

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Wachovia Faces Civil Charges (WSJ)
The agency has focused on the amounts Wachovia charged investors for collateralized debt obligations, according to people familiar with the matter. SEC officials believe the Charlotte, N.C., bank applied excessive markups that didn’t reflect the diminishing value of the underlying loans, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mixed Signals Marked Sokol Meeting (WSJ)
It came as a “shock” to the Citigroup bankers when they learned Mr. Sokol bought roughly $240,000 of shares of Lubrizol Corp. a day after their meeting, sold them, and then purchased $10 million shares about two months before Berkshire’s $9 billion deal unveiled March 14 to acquire Lubrizol, according to people familiar with the matter. At that meeting, Mr. Sokol didn’t say he was personally interested in buying Lubrizol shares, the people said.

Blankfein Reaps $19 Million As Cash Bonuses Return To Wall Street (Bloomberg)
Blankfein’s pay included $5.4 million in cash, $12.6 million in restricted stock, a $600,000 salary and about $464,000 in other benefits, a proxy statement from the firm showed.

GE’s Immelt Defends Nuclear Industry (WSJ)
Immelt insisted Monday that the nuclear industry has had a “safe track record” without directly answering a question from reporters in Tokyo about GE’s potential liability as a manufacturer of three of the six reactors at Japan’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

Wall Street Trading Revenue Seen Falling 4th Straight Quarter (Bloomberg)
A surge in market volatility following Japan’s worst earthquake on record and a jump in oil prices may not be enough to keep investment-banking and trading revenue from falling for a fourth consecutive quarter. Analysts have lowered first-quarter earnings estimates at the biggest U.S. banks, saying trading revenue won’t rebound as much as they had expected from a weak fourth quarter.

Nasdaq’s Greifeld May Inherit NYSE Floor He Sought to Bury (Bloomberg)
While Greifeld promised 74 percent more expense reductions than Deutsche Boerse, he said last week he wouldn’t close NYSE Euronext’s open-outcry auction venue, which has been the image of American capitalism for more than a century. The floor’s value in attracting new stock listings outweighs the cost and Nasdaq OMX would allow it to coexist with its electronic systems that have become a model for markets globally, brokerage executives and investors said. “The floor is an American icon, a global icon,” said Joseph Gawronski, chief operating officer at Rosenblatt Securities Inc., which employs about a dozen traders at the NYSE executing orders for institutions. “It’s a symbol of such importance that Greifeld might not be doing what would come naturally to him, cutting costs by shutting down the floor.

Tepco To Dump Radioactive Water In Sea To Keep Reactors Stable (Bloomberg)
“We didn’t have any other alternatives,” Edano told reporters in Tokyo today. “This is a measure we had to take to secure safety.”

Sheen Ticket Prices ‘Torpedoed’ After Motor City Show (CNBC)
After Sheen’s disastrous Detroit show, tickets have resold for as low as $9 on the website. Prior to his appearance in the Motor City, tickets were changing hands in the $90 range.

Paris attempts to prise HSBC from London (Telegraph)
Meetings instigated by the French are understood to have taken place in recent weeks with HSBC representatives, as the bank looks at its domicile arrangements as part of a triennial review process. Details of what the French authorities could offer HSBC to entice it to Paris are not known.

Rich Are Targeted In IRS Audit Offensive (WSJ)
According to the agency’s latest statistical report for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, the percentage of taxpayers who were audited increased in every category of adjusted gross income above $500,000, compared with a year earlier. The biggest jumps came at the top of the income ladder. About 18% of Americans earning at least $10 million were audited in fiscal 2010, up from 11% in fiscal 2009, according to the IRS. For those earning $500,000 to $1 million, the audit rate rose to 3.4% from 2.8%.

Decks clear for April launch of Glencore mega-float (Reuters)
Glencore has cleared the decks to launch its much-anticipated $10-billion listing around the middle of the month, receiving the nod from the Hong Kong stock exchange and positive signals from debt markets.

Financial groups seek to avoid ‘important’ list (FT)
After financial groups built up risk that threatened to bring down the entire financial system, the Obama administration decided to identify future AIGs and Lehman Brothers and subject them to tougher capital and liquidity standards and closer supervision. Bank of America is top of the list. Like all bank holding companies with more than $50bn in assets, it is automatically designated, but the top 10 also includes four insurance companies: MetLife, which is structured as a bank holding company and is therefore expected to be designated; AIG, which is also expected to be designated even though its supporters say it has shed its risky businesses; Prudential; and Hartford Financial Services.

GOP Budget Aim: Cut $4 Trillion (WSJ)
The plan would essentially end Medicare, which now pays most of the health-care bills for 48 million elderly and disabled Americans, as a program that directly pays those bills. Mr. Ryan and other conservatives say this is necessary because of the program’s soaring costs. Medicare cost $396.5 billion in 2010 and is projected to rise to $502.8 billion in 2016. At that pace, spending on the program would have doubled between 2002 and 2016.

Crunching Japan’s Numbers: Final Bill Will Be Huge (Reuters)
Japan’s government expects last month’s earthquake and tsunami to cost up to $300 billion in material damage, but the ultimate cost will be far higher…Under a scenario in which Japan’s economy shrinks in both the first and second quarters, close to $160 billion in economic activity would be wiped out.

The Coolest Ferrari Ever (WSJ)
“You want my snap verdict on the new FF? Fine. This is absolutely the coolest Ferrari of all time, “cool” insofar as it delivers brain-solvent performance without looking like it gives a damn what you think, cool insofar as its radical Pininfarina styling (a “shooting brake,” or three-door hatch GT) waves a contemptuous finger at conventional wisdom. This is a car that despises prettiness and mocks your bourgeois notions of sleek and rakish, which are stylistic sideshows of aerodynamics, anyway. Yes, I agree, the car looks like a toilet brush on wheels, but how monumentally gutsy it is for Ferrari to even think such a thing, much less commit hundreds of millions of euros to its execution. My God. Ferrari? The most self-satisfied car company on earth dares to put its weight on such a limb? It’s downright epic.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Jefferies & Co. solar analyst Jesse Pichel this morning picks through some of the data from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) report from earlier this month on U.S. demand for solar.

Pichel notes that photovoltaic installations in the U.S. last year doubled from 2009, to 878 megawatts, with installations in the States set to rise double the market rate of 16% to 24% this year, according to SEIA.

Out of a total expected 18 gigawatt market, by Pichel’s estimate, that would give the U.S. 10% of global demand, up from about 5% in 2010.

More important, Pichel sees “steady demand” in the U.S. thanks to a broadening of the market to include not just utilities but also residential and commercial. Residential and utility should be “strong” this year, with “some weakness” in commercial installations, he writes.

Pichel notes that such growth depends on the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Loan Guarantee program” getting financed. He adds, “The Treasury Cash Grant program is also expiring at the end of 2011, furthering concerns that 2012 may be weak,” though his belief is, “efforts are underway to extend the Cash Grant program, or to even make it permanent as a cash refund.”

Pichel notes President Obama’s prominent support for solar and renewables in a talk just yesterday at Georgetown University.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

$$$ JPMorgan’s decision to be the sole lender on a $20 billion loan to AT&T Inc. is a “credit negative” for the bank and may encourage other lenders to take on more risk, Moody’s Investors Service said. [Bloomberg]

$$$ Obama’s new gadget: an iPad [MarketWatch]

$$$ D.E. Shaw, Indian Billionaire Plan Financial Services Venture [FINalternatives]

$$$ GE Defends Tax Record, Attacks New York Times In Twitter Campaign [HP]

$$$ Blockbuster To Close 186 More Stores [DJ]

$$$ Banks Push to Weaken Dodd-Frank Risk Rules [CNBC]

$$$ Bronx Zoo Cobra Still on the Loose, Now Tweeting [Daily Intel]

$$$ Just putting it out there, do what you will with it: “Hope this note finds you well. I would like to invite you to come down to Hanover Square on Tuesday, April 5th at 12PM to celebrate the grand opening of The Original SoupMan’s financial district restaurant. On hand to cut the ribbon and help celebrate is none other than New York Yankee legend Reggie Jackson. Come down to meet the legend and of course get some soup for you! Please RSVP to me and I will send you a VIP pass for your free bowl of soup. The first 100 customers will also receive a free t-shirt. We hope to see you there!” [Gems of My Inbox]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Tsunami Slams Japan After Record Earthquake, Killing Hundreds (Bloomberg)
Japan was struck by its strongest earthquake on record, an 8.9-magnitude temblor that shook buildings across Tokyo and unleashed a seven-meter-high tsunami that killed hundreds as it engulfed towns on the northern coast. As many as 300 people were killed, a Japanese police official said. Many are missing after the quake and waves as high as 23 feet swept ashore, according to state broadcaster NHK, which showed footage of flood waters sweeping away buildings and vehicles. Airports were closed and bullet train services suspended, and an emergency evacuation order was issued for a nuclear power plant north of Tokyo.

BOJ Pledges Liquidity on Japan Quake as Toyota Shuts Plants (Bloomberg)
Japan’s central bank pledged to ensure financial stability after the strongest earthquake in at least a century forced Toyota Motor Corp. to shut some plants, knocked out oil refineries and sparked a plunge in stocks. “It’s early days,” Stephen Gallo, head of market analysis at Schneider Foreign Exchange in London, said in an e-mailed note. “But the horrific events in Japan bear very close watching from a financial perspective, given the bloated problems in Japan’s public sector.”

Japan Among Worst Record Ever Reported (Tribune)
The quake that hit Japan was a magnitude 8.9, the biggest earthquake to hit the country since officials began keeping records in the late 1800s, and one of the biggest ever recorded in the world, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake struck at a depth of six miles, about 80 miles off the eastern coast, the agency said. The area is 240 miles northeast of Tokyo.

Rajaratnam Jurors Told of Inside Tips by Ex-McKinsey Director (Bloomberg)
“I told him there were advanced discussions,” Anil Kumar told jurors on the first day of testimony in the case. “Mr. Rajaratnam kept asking me for that information and I felt that I owed him something given how much money he was paying me.”

Fed’s Dudley Plays Down Inflation Risk From Oil (Reuters)
“While rising commodity prices may be giving some of you a bad headache, they are not likely to lead to a sustained rise in inflation to levels inconsistent with our dual mandate,” Dudley told the Queens, New York chamber of commerce.

Fired Goldman Banker Seeking Deals Aided Massachusetts Campaign (Bloomberg)
Neil Morrison, a Goldman Sachs banker fired in December, began advising former Massachusetts Treasurer Tim Cahill’s gubernatorial campaign in 2009 even as he was seeking to underwrite state bonds, according to e-mails obtained through a public records request.

Asset Managers Take Up The Pen (WSJ)
The wave of regulation following the financial crisis is prompting some of the biggest players in the $25.6 trillion asset-management industry, normally silent on policy matters, to get more vocal. Since August 2009, senior executives of the New York asset-management company have sent nearly 60 letters to U.S. financial regulators and wrote 16 policy papers on topics ranging from derivatives oversight to mutual-fund fee disclosures.

Euro Zone Debt Crisis Intensifies Ahead of Summit (CNBC)
Leaders of the 17-nation currency area are expected to back a watered-down version of a German-French plan to boost economic competitiveness at Friday’s Brussels summit but seem unlikely to resolve sharp differences over the size and scope of the euro zone’s rescue fund. A German official said the question of raising the fund’s lending capacity would not be decided on Friday but in a package at the end of March, and Berlin opposed giving it any direct or indirect role in buying troubled states’ bonds.

Trading Dispute Splits BNY Mellon, Fund (WSJ)
A large Los Angeles County pension fund has stopped funneling some currency trades to Bank of New York Mellon Corp., protesting the way the bank profits from the transactions. The decision by the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association is a rare example of a pension fund ceasing business with a custody bank. The dispute comes amid scrutiny by funds and investigators over currency-trade costs.

United Technologies CEO Says Obama Makes Business-Friendly Shift (Bloomberg)
Obama’s administration is showing a willingness to consider tax policies such as permanent credits for research and development, and “to look at deficit reduction,” Louis Chenevert said yesterday in an interview in New York. “I’m encouraged, actually, to see the renewed focus to support large businesses like ours,” he told reporters, noting that Hartford, Connecticut-based United Technologies has more than 75,000 employees in the U.S.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

“I think he’s rolled over to Wall Street completely. The economy has huge problems. We still have all these banks that are too big to fail. They’re bigger and making more money than ever. Unemployment at 10 per cent? It’s terrible.” [Independent via BI]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker