| Microsoft Offers USD 44,6 B for Yahoo
Software giant Microsoft announced Friday it offered to buy Internet search engine operator Yahoo with a cash and stock bid worth USD 44.6 billion. The offer gives Yahoo shareholders the option to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, CNN reported. Microsoft said the offer represents a 62% premium on the USD 19.18 closing price of Yahoo on Thursday. The announcement comes with Microsoft and Yahoo seeking to compete with Google as the king of the Internet and the site of choice for Web advertising. The most popular search engine is currently worth $40 billion and expected to grow to $80 billion within three years, while Yahoo shares have lost around 30 percent of their value in the past year. Microsoft said it expects the acquisition deal to get regulatory approval and to be completed in the second half of 2008.
Traders left to search for signs of capitulation
World markets are running out of superlatives. Tuesday saw the biggest cut by the Federal Reserve to its target Fed Funds rate in 26 years, and the biggest emergency cut it had ever made between scheduled meetings. That followed the biggest falls in European and Asian markets since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which occurred amid the highest levels of equity market volatility since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. .
New Exchange Traded Fund Tracks Domini 400 Social Index
Barclays Global Investors launches the iShares KLD 400 Social Index ETF. SocialFunds.com -- Last week, Barclays Global Investors (BGI) launched the iShares KLD 400 Social Index Fund (ticker: DSI), the first exchange traded fund (ETF) to track the Domini 400 Social Index. The index has long been considered the premier socially responsible investing (SRI) benchmark. However, for over a decade-and-a-half an exclusive licensing agreement allowed Domini Social Investments to be the only SRI firm to offer mutual funds that tracked the index. The recent vote by Domini Social Equity Fund (ticker: DSEFX) shareowners to shift from passive to active management has opened to door for others to manage funds based on the Domini 400 Social Index.
In related news, Green Century Equity Fund (GCEQX) shareowners voted to keep tracking the Domini 400 Social Index, making it now the only mutual fund to do so.
Govt to promote coal as alternate energy source
Trading at the cotton market remained dull while the spot rates stayed unchanged on back of smooth influx of lint of all qualities during the previous trading week, traders said on Saturday.
The leading players remained eager for quality lint offered by the ginners of Sindh on slightly...
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Earnings roundup: Campbell, Hormel
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) _ The Campbell Soup Co. said Friday its second-quarter profit slipped 3.9 percent as increases in the cost of commodities and energy and higher promotional spending offset a strong sales increase. MINNEAPOLIS (AP) _ Hormel Foods Corp. said strong sales of Spam and a recovery in its turkey business boosted first-quarter earnings by 17 percent. Other stories: DULUTH, Minn. (AP) _ Allete Inc.'s profit slipped 2 percent in the fourth quarter as flagging property values in Florida dragged the value of the power company's real estate, the company said Friday. NEW YORK (AP) _ Greek drybulk shipper Diana Shipping Inc. said Friday its fourth-quarter earnings surged 87 percent on higher charter rates and an expanded fleet, but the results still narrowly missed Wall Street's expectations.
BP America Announces Resolution of Texas City, Alaska, Propane Trading ...
HOUSTON, Oct. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BP America today announced two plea agreements and a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and a consent order with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission which end governmental investigation of company wrongdoing on matters related to the March 2005 explosion and fire at the Texas City refinery, the March and August 2006 oil transit line spills in Alaska and improper propane trading in April 2003 and February 2004. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000724/NYM120LOGO ) "These agreements are an admission that, in these instances, our operations failed to meet our own standards and the requirements of the law. For that, we apologize," said BP America Chairman and President Bob Malone.
Oil price hits new record
WORLD oil prices hit a new record of $US101.32 ($110.48) a barrel in Asian trading today on renewed concerns over global crude supplies, dealers said. New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, closed overnight up 73 cents at an all-time high of $US100.74. The latest price spike burst Tuesday's record price of $US100.10 and record close at $US100.01. In London, Brent North Sea crude for April delivery settled 14 cents lower at $US98.42, after striking a record $US98.70 Tuesday. Prices have soared amid growing speculation OPEC, which supplies about 40 per cent of the world's oil, may cut output at its March 5 meeting in Vienna, anticipating a fall in demand at the end of the northern hemisphere winter and a US economic slowdown, analysts said. "Supply worries and comments by some OPEC members that the group might not raise output at their March meeting provided the catalyst for the sharp rally," said Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish.
Citigroup, GM Slide; Xerox Rises
As Citigroup and General Motors helped push the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its lowest close since mid-August, investors turned to EchoStar Communications amid the prospect of the satellite-TV provider's being purchased. "Goldman predicting additional steep subprime write-downs for big U.S. brokerages, including Citigroup, and Chinese officials telling their domestic banks to freeze lending through year end raised deep concerns about the sustainability of global growth," said Robbert van Batenburg, head of trading research at Louis Capital Markets. "As a result, there was broad selling, with financials bearing much of the brunt. But commodities and industrials that had been holding ... .
Jindal era begins with high hopes
Yet even as he praised Jindal for a lack of timidity, he cautioned the administration to embrace the virtues of pragmatism, a word that Mann, Cross and Alario used in some form when discussing Jindal, as well. Cross said he expects Jindal to follow such a path, if for no other reason than to build his own resume. "I expect him to speak ideologically but act practically," Cross said, noting the widely held presumption that the young governor-elect has ambitions for national office. "He needs a record of accomplishment in Louisiana. I think he will be more likely to take any accomplishments that he can later frame as more significant than perhaps they really are, rather than be a purist and face the potential for failure." Alario, who is sometimes fingered by Republicans as a potential foe of the administration, said such a strategy would suit the new governor well.
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