European Central Bank President Mario Draghi won wide support from his board for a plan to buy the sovereign debt of euro zone countries. Rates on Spanish 10-year bonds promptly fell to levels last seen in May, and the corresponding Italian bond fell to its lowest since April.
LightSquared, the wireless broadband company backed by Harbinger Capital founder Phil Falcone, is battling with creditors over control of the firm’s bankruptcy, according to Bloomberg. LightSquared has asked a judge to extend a deadline to file a Chapter 11 plan; the creditors say, “Having nothing to lose, Mr. Falcone wants to pursue a high-risk, high-return strategy.”
Facebook (META) shares may get a bump when the stock is added to the Nasdaq 100, an index of the exchange’s non-financial firms. It may not be enough to make up for Nasdaq’s botched handling of the Facebook IPO, but every little bit helps…
Commodities giant Glencore upped its offer for Xstrata, the mining company, in hopes of completing a long-anticipated merger. It remains to be seen whether Qatar Holding, the sovereign wealth fund of the Middle Eastern nation, which holds a 12 percent stake in Xstrata, sign off on the new deal. Qatar’s hesitance lead Business Insider to wonder if we are seeing the rise of a new kind of activist investor.
The head of the JPMorgan’s chief investment office hopes his new gig is a “boring job.
After Dewey & Laboeuf folded, the law firm’s softball team lived on.
A predecessor to SunTrust Banks invested in Coca-Cola in 1919, according to Bloomberg. What was worth $100,000 then is worth more than $2 billion now, and the firm is cashing most of the shares to cover bad loans and other costs associated with the financial crisis.
On Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS) and Wall Street’s courtship of fixed-income investors (now with conference calls!).
Sub-par returns from brand-name private equity firms are dragging on public-employee pension funds.
French President Francoise Hollande is said to be backing down on a proposed 75 percent tax on million-euro wage earners. A revised plan would reportedly lower the top tax rate to 67 percent, and raise the threshold for couples to 2 million euros.
