Oct

20

Exelon is not taking hostile bid for NRG of the table

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Exelon Corp, might make a hostile bid for NRG Energy Inc if the company rejects its $6 billion takeover offer.

Exelong is the United States’ largest Nuclear power operator and it announced its bid for NRG on Sunday. The company offered a flat exchange ratio of 0.485 Exelon share for each NRG share, equivalent to about $25.27 a share at current prices.

Exelon’s Cheif executive, John Rowe, said while addressing investors in a conference call “We hope this turns out to be friendly rather than hostile, but we are committed to pursuing this offer and we shall do so,”.

“We did not do this lightly and we were very well advised about what it might take to get this done,”

The news of the takeover plan gave a 25% NRG Energy Inc’s shares, they were one of the big gainers on Wall Street when trading opened but still are values below what Exelon is offering. If the takeover is sucessful Exelon would effectively become the United States No. 1 power company.

Exelon has suspended a $1.5 billion share buy back plan due to worsening market conditions.

Oct

20

Ben Bernanke, It’s time for stimulus plan

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The United States’ Federal Reserve Chief says lawmakers ought conceive another stimulus plan to bolster the economy

Ben Bernanke says congress should consider creating another stimulus plan to give the economy a boost. The man was addressing the House Budget Committee, asserting that congress must act and provide further help to the economy. Bernanke went on to say “With the economy likely to be weak for several quarters, and with some risk of a protracted slowdown, consideration of a fiscal package by the Congress at this juncture seems appropriate,”.

Analysts believe that Bernanke testification increases the probability for another stimulus plan for the United States. If so, such a plan would come into existence after the November 4th election but before the new president is in office along with a fresh congress.

Congress passed a $170 billion plan - nearly $100 billion in payments to tax filers earlier this year in order to restore consumer confidence and boost business spending. Brian Bethune, who is the chief US financial economist research firm Global Insight, said “Effectively, the Fed chairman is giving Congress a green light to go ahead with an additional fiscal stimulus package,”.

Nancy Pelosi welcomed Bernanke’s comments and issued a statement which read “Chairman Bernanke added his voice to the chorus of economists, experts and policymakers who insist that America needs a job-creating recovery package to get our economy back on track and to restore consumer and investor confidence,”.

Ben Bernanke has met both critiscism and praise for his assessment of the United States economy, his comments coming at a time when the United States is just under 2 weeks away from presidential elections may be a cause of concern.

Oct

20

Dutch Government to Inject EUR10 billion in ING

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After government intervention from the United States to South Korea to Germany, and now the Dutch government is set to take action to protect the nations economy from the global financial crisis. It would be injecting about10 billion Euros into ING Groep NV (ING) in an accord signed with the Dutch Central bank.

ING, banking and insurance group, attempted to pad its capital position in order to brace itself from the effects of the global crisis. ING in an official statement said it would issue EUR10 billion worth of non-voting Tier-1 securities to the Dutch State Bank.

ING Chief Executive Michel Tilmant said “Our capital position was in line with previously targeted levels and regulatory requirements. However, market conditions have changed dramatically in recent weeks and have led to an internationally recognized belief that going forward, in this market environment, capital requirements for financial institutions should be higher,”

The Dutch government would get 2 seats on ING’s supervisory board and 8% annual interest on the securities. Giving the Dutch government veto rights on acquisitions and investments involving more than 25% of the invested funds.

The Dutch financial minister said that ING was a healthy company and the move was made to maintain the company’s strength during the global financial turmoil.

Oct

20

General Motors and Chrysler Pushing for an Urgent Deal

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America’s biggest and the World’s Second largest automaker GM is feeling the heat from the Global financial crisis. The firm is seeking a merger deal with competitor Chrysler just days before the Presidential election. The US auto market has been hit hard and sales continue to decline. General Motors lost its position as the World’s Largest Automaker hardly a month ago.

According to a local Detroit Newspaper, executives from Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity group that bought an 80.1% stake in Chrysler from Daimler AG in August last year, and GM are eager to polish off the deal before their positions exacerbate by declining sales.

Both Companies losing money rapidly, according to estimates made by various analysts General Motors is burning at least 1 billion dollars per month to be specific. The credit crunch has left Banks and major financial organizations unwilling to lend money to the industry.

Both the Companies are hotfooting to conceal the deal before Americans head to the polls on Nov. 4th. They also are seeking help from the US government along the lines of the $700 Billion bailout plan. The US auto market accounts for a large number of jobs in Michigan and Ohio which both are significant game makers in US presidential race.

Oct

20

IMF Investigating Manging Director affair.

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An “outside firm” has been hired to investigate claims that the IMF’s Managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was engaged in an affair with a female staffer who was latter told to leave the organisation with financial compensation coming from above.

The International Monetary Fund specified that it has employed law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius to carry out the probe. Strauss-Kahn is France’s former minister of finance. He took charge in September last year. Kahn allegedly had a sexual relationship with Piroska Nagy, who is the former division chief at the IMF. She left the Fund’s Africa department when rumors about her relationship with the director started to rise. She now is an economist at European Bank for Reconstruction and Development located in London. Nagy did not accept nor deny the affair in a brief interview held recently after her departure from the Multi lender organisation. She mentioned that she left “as part of the normal downsizing at the IMF.”

The results of the investigation are due by the end of this month according to an IMF spokesman. The investigation was reported by the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

Oct

20

Global Financial summit Due after American Elections

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George W. Bush along with the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the president of the European Commission, Jose Barroso, will be requesting world leaders to attend a summit on the global financial crisis which is set to be held in the United States, after the Nov. 4th election.

“The first task is to stabilize the financial markets in our own countries,” claimed Bush while welcoming both the leaders to the Presidential retreat at camp David , “Given that the world has never been more interconnected, it is essential that we work together because we’re in this crisis together.”

The 3 leaders issued a joint statement yesterday, “the challenges facing the global economy.” They claimed that the first summit will attempt“agreement on principles of reform needed to avoid a repetition and assure global prosperity in the future,”.Future Meetings `would be designed to implement agreement on specific steps to be taken to meet those principles,”

This measure comes after European Leaders seeked an emergency meeting of the world’s richest nations better-known as the Group of 8, along with emerging economies like China and India, in order to inspect and repair global financial regulatory systems.

The November summit will include leaders from both developed and developing countries.

Aug

26

Qik attracts investment

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Qik, has pulled in investment from Netscape founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and the also joined the company’s board. Qik is a mobile interactive live video streaming Services Company.

Andreessen is the co-founder and chairman of social networking platform Ning. He is also a member of Facebook Inc.’s board and also on the boad of open media network. He is well known as the co-author of the first widely-used Web browser, Mosiac, and later went on to co-found Netscape communications. He is also the chairman and co-founder of Web infrastructure company Loudcloud (now named Opsware and owned by HP). Andreesen has worked as the CTO of America Online.

Andreessen presently is at Hewlett-Packard’s Business Technology Organization Unit, where he is the vice-president and general Manager.

Andreesen said “Qik lets people share experiences live, on a global basis, through its truly innovative mobile technology, I’m looking forward to guiding Qik, as an advisor, as the company progresses its acceleration as the world’s premiere mobile communication service.”

An optimistic approach by somebody as experienced as Andreesen indicates that Qik might have a bright future ahead of it. Andreesen without doubt is a big asset for Qik, and the company should utilize him to the utmost degree.

Aug

26

Weaker Internet Gaints, stronger Dollar!

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A weak dollar resulted in a big boost for internet gaints Google, Yahoo, and Ebay. Now as the dollar attains strength trouble maybe just around the corner. It is evident that any American company that has international operations is affected by the exchange rates.

“Currency rates have had a significant positive impact on reported revenues for U.S. Internet companies over the last few quarters,” Said Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeff Lindsay.

Other multinational companies also took advantage of the weak dollar, Hewlett-Packard for example reported a 10.5 percent rise (compared to last year) in its fiscal third-quarter revenue to $28 billion.

Most of the costs of internet companies are in dollars, whereas most of their revenue is in foreign currency.

If the dollar’s might remains on the rise, internet companies could suffer dearly.

According to a caluclation made by an analyst, if the dollar rose another 10% through the next year ratings could slip by 8% at EBay and 13% at Yahoo.

Aug

26

House Price decline eases in the US.

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The down slope of house prices in United States finally appears to be slowing down. It is the biggest fall in 25 years.

House prices are down 15.9% compared with last year, which is less than what economic forecasts showed.

David Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor said “While there is no national turnaround in residential real estate prices, it is possible that we are seeing some regions struggling to come back, which has resulted in some moderation in price declines at the national level”.

Chief economist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, Guy Lebas, “We’re seeing a slowing in the pace of home-price depreciation,”. Hey indicated that it would not be until next year that we see a significant improvement, “The middle of next year is when we would expect to see some improvement.”

Homes for sale are on the constant increase fueled by the difficulty of obtaining mortgage loans.

Prices in Las Vegas have fallen the most, which plunged 28.6% year after year. Next in line was Miami at 28.3%.

Although Boston and Denver showed some signs of hope, prices rose 1.2% and 1.5 % respectively. Prices in Dallas and Charlotte, climbing 1%, have been rising for four consecutive months.