- SEC narrowing its investigation into Lehman on its questionable accounting practices makes sense. “Lehman has long looked to be the poster child of likely accounting fraud,” Yves Smith writes at naked capitalism. But she notes that while Lehman looks like a “textbook case of excessively creative accounting…I would not hold my breath about obtaining criminal indictments.”
- Reflecting push for ever-shorter trading horizons, CBOE has asked regulators permission to list options expiring daily. Contracts’ lifetimes would be between one and four days. Move follows growing interest trading options that expire weekly. “I guess the question isn’t why, but why not?” asks Adam Warner at Daily Options Report.
- “Growth is slowing when it should be surging,” at this point, former labor secretary Robert Reich complains on his blog. “We may or may not fall into another hole, but a so-called ‘double dip’ isn’t really the worry,” he says. “The worry is we’re not getting out of the giant hole we fell into.”
- Adobe (ADBE) wastes little time celebrating Apple’s (AAPL) move to loosen the reins over its software developer rules.
- Nokia (NOK) replacing its CEO is a long time coming, but Digital Daily blogger John Paczkowski questions timing of the move. It comes ahead of Nokia World and the company’s major product launch. That means new CEO Stephen Elop isn’t starting off with a clean slate, “but a full one overflowing with a new software platform and a new smartphone portfolio.”
- Reuters blogger Felix Salmon is concerned that the average American remains pretty pessimistic about the US economy, and these viewpoints could manifest as self-fulfilling prophecies. “It would be nice to see the bulls out there come up with some good explanation of how their forecasts are consistent with these survey results,” Salmon says. “Because on the strength of these answers, the double dip is coming.”
- But contrary to Salmon’s belief, Business Insider’s Vincent Fernando says when everyone’s sour on the economy, it’s actually in better shape than many think. “When most people are reported as being extremely negative, your contrarian alarms should be going off as an investor.”
- Our colleague Kristina Peterson hits a home run in today’s C1 story on the Briargate traders who trade at the market’s open and close and chill out for the rest of the day. What a life.
- St. Louis Fed President James Bullard says the central bank has moved closer to providing additional support to the economy, although he added he doesn’t expect that action to become necessary.
- With tomorrow marking the ninth anniversary of 9-11, take a few minutes to read Todd Harrison’s reflection of the horrific day. A well-written and extremely moving piece.
