Market Talk

Or, at least, Google was weighing on the market. Stocks certainly have taken off since our report at 10:30 in the a.m. Guess the markets put those disappointing earnings reports behind them, and are buying the Fed’s argument that there isn’t any inflation, at least any that’s going to last.

Good luck with that one.

Big show today. We covered Bank of America’s earnings, the SEC’s likely settlement with the banks over the issue of mortgage-backed securities, and the potential Groupon IPO.

What caused May’s flash-crash? Is another one possible? The SEC is set to release its highly detailed look at the crash, the causes of it (some going back a decade) and what it could possibly do to prevent another one.

For the record, I think the flash-crash was extreme, but not an aberration. This is the way markets work now, and another one is certainly possible.

Ignominious day for the state of New Jersey, as it officially becomes the first in the union to be charged by the SEC for violations of federal securities laws. As any respectable defendant does in such cases, Jersey settled without admitting or denying. Ah, fugetaboutit.

Not to cast any aspersions, but it is interesting to note that the owner of Jersey’s tallest building, Goldman Sachs, also didn’t admit or deny and then settled SEC fraud charges not long ago. Coincidentally, former Goldman CEO Jon Corzine’s public service as a Jersey US senator and then NJ governor overlap the period (August 2001 to April 2007) when the SEC says NJ committed the violations. SEC says the problems were in the state treasurer’s office.

NJ sold more than $26 billion in muni bonds in 79 offerings, SEC said, in which it failed to disclose the underfunding of both a teachers’ and a public employees’ pension fund. Oops.

Continue reading…

- The main difference between Citigroup’s (C) $75M settlement with SEC Goldman Sachs’ (GS) $550M settlement is GS was guilty of misleading clients while Citi was guilty of negligently misleading shareholders. But the public is much angrier over GS case, which the “Kid Dynamite” blogger finds hard to fathom. “People should be furious about this Citi case and settlement, but you’ve probably hardly heard a whisper about it.”

- Prospects aren’t looking bright for the restaurant industry. Same-store sales and customer traffic both declined for a third-straight month in June, Calculated Risk reports. “Restaurants are a discretionary expense, and this contraction could be because of the sluggish recovery or might suggest further weakness in consumer spending in the months ahead.”

- Roughly 25% of Americans sit in FICO’s least-creditworthy category, a significant jump from only 15% before the recession. “Some people will lament this, but it has a silver lining,” FusionIQ CEO Barry Ritholtz says. “Deleveraging is certainly a good thing, and forcing consumers off of the credit treadmill may actually help these folks over the long haul.”

- The commercial real estate market is getting ugly, slowly but surely. Delinquent unpaid balance for CMBS increased $3.1B in June to $60.45, and has more than doubled from a year ago, according to Realpoint. “This isn’t quite the disaster in the making that subprime was,” Yves Smith notes. But “I’m not sure why people say there isn’t a CRE crash. It’s just happening in slow motion, so far.”

- ISM manufacturing index fell for a third-straight month in July, but at 55.5, it exceeded economists’ expectations. “Bottom line, while the ISM remains firmly above 50, just ten of the 18 industries surveyed reported growth, with four reporting outright contraction and the drop in new orders is worth watching,” writes Miller Tabak’s Peter Boockvar. “With this said, the market is breathing a sigh of relief that while down for a third month, the ISM is still hanging in as inventory builds, albeit at a slower pace, and export growth continuing.”

- Newspaper advertising sales were less bad in 2Q vs a quarter ago. “But less bad is not the same as good — and the outlook for the remainder of the year is decidedly murky,” writes Newsosaur blogger Alan Mutter.

- A new website — JailbreakMe.com — has sprung up offering an easy way to hack, or “jailbreak,” an iPhone to run applications not authorized by Apple (AAPL).

- “This market is one that moves largely on the basis of economywide hopes and fears,” NYT’s Floyd Norris says. “Company specifics take a back seat.”

- “Remember when we weren’t allowed to say the word ‘recession?’ Like it was anathema?” Todd Harrison says at Minyanville. “Or when we weren’t ‘patriotic’ if we weren’t ‘bullish’ after 9/11?,” he recalls. “Is ‘deflation’ the modern day equivalent of ‘recession?’”

- Battle over the proposed Ground Zero mosque is picking up steam.

US stock futures modestly lower premarket following yesterday’s big SEC settlement with Goldman Sachs, Google 2Q results, as well as results from GE and BofA this morning.

Stock markets currently higher in Europe, mixed in Asia overnight. Looks as if investors in Japan are more worried about the US economy than US investors — the Nikkei slumped nearly 3% to its lowest level in more than a month as the yen soared vs the dollar on fears over US growth prospects.

GS up 4.5% premarket; GOOG down 4% as results missed expectations. GE off 1.1% as revenue declined overall, falling in three of five business segments. But there was improvement at GE Capital.

June CPI due at 8:30am; Reuters/Univ of Michigan consumer sentiment out at 9:55am. S&P futures off 0.90; 10-yr slightly lower, yield at 2.98%.

- SEC reaches a $550 million settlement with Goldman Sachs. “The regulators get to claim victory while the Eloi get to continue their frolic atop the fluffy clouds of privilege and untouchability,” Josh Brown writes at The Reformed Broker. “Nobody admits wrongdoing, rightdoing or frankly, admits anything at all for that matter.”

- “This is surely a massive win for Goldman, whose entire business was at stake if it was found guilty of serious wrongdoing,” Reuters blogger Felix Salmon says. “The risk, of course, is that Goldman’s victory here will only serve to exacerbate its arrogance. Could the Squids of West Street become even more insufferable, now?”

- Business Insider has a list of winners and losers in the Goldman fraud settlement case.

- Lots of data to digest this morning, and most of it isn’t promising. Producer prices fall for third straight month and manufacturing data was weak. Headline jobless claims number looks good, but seasonal adjustments played a large role in the better-than-expected figure. “Due to the seasonal issues around the adjustments with GM doing the opposite of what they’ve historically done has made initial claims more difficult to analyze for a few weeks,” says Miller Tabak’s Peter Boockvar. “One thing though is for sure, up to 3 million workers will be falling off the extended claims rolls as benefits run out.”

- Naked Capitalism blogger Yves Smith relays an interesting nugget from HousingWire: for every one home currently on the market, two are waiting to be sold. “The scary part here is this estimate of market overhang refers only to foreclosed and distressed property,” she says. “There is another category of hidden inventory, people who would like to sell but aren’t even listing their houses.”

- Oil has finally stopped gushing into the Gulf. For now, as BP tests a new containment cap.

- Apple’s (AAPL) acquisition of mapping company Poly9 marks the second maps-focused company AAPL has bought in the last year. “In the short term, and with Poly9 specifically, Apple is buying its Google Earth,” Business Insider’s Dan Frommer says. “But more broadly, Apple is preparing for life after Google.”

- H-P’s (HPQ) Android tablet, which was supposed to hit the market in 4Q, has been delayed and won’t ship before the end of the year, Digital Daily blogger John Paczkowski reports, citing anonymous sources. Reason for the delay aren’t clear. “Perhaps, H-P has decided to focus its resources on the future webOS slate PC that its new Palm unit is developing,” he says. “Or perhaps the company is reconsidering its multi-OS tablet strategy in light of the Palm acquisition. After all, H-P has said repeatedly it is ‘doubling down’ on webOS.”

- “Even as lenders struggle to pull themselves out of the credit crisis, signs of a new and potentially dangerous infatuation with risky borrowers are emerging,” WSJ reports.

- Pretty pumped to see Carlos Beltran patrolling center field once again for the Mets.

Dow Jones’ Brendan Conway reports:

Traders had a field day with Goldman Sachs’ (GS) call options, including those that expire tomorrow, late in the session after SEC says a “significant announcement” is coming.

Traders rightly predicted it’s the long-awaited settlement.

Nearly two-thirds of the day’s 153,000 Goldman call contracts conveying the right to buy shares changed hands in the final half hour, notes OptionMonster’s Jon Najarian, who says activity “exploded” on the news.

July options expire tomorrow, meaning traders who picked up near-term contracts are anticipating an immediate burst for the shares. $150 calls expiring tomorrow make money if GS can rise 4% or higher Friday to breach $151.10.

Trading after the close is nearly there: GS is up 5.2% to $152.71 after hours.

Sit back and take a deep breath, there’s a ton of news to digest today.

US stocks stage a furious late-day rally and close mixed as Senate passes financial overhaul bill, but more importantly, speculation swirled late in the day that a settlement had been reached between the SEC and Goldman Sachs (GS) over the fraud lawsuit.

Headlines crossed after the closing bell confirming the rumor, saying Goldman agreed to pay $550 million to settle the charges. SEC’s planning to hold a news conference any minute.

Dow snaps its seven-day winning streak, closes down 7 at 10359, but was down as much as 126 earlier in the session before recovering. S&P 500 rises 1 to 1096 and Nasdaq Comp slightly drops 0.8 to 2249.

JPMorgan kicked off the day by generating strong 2Q profits, although revenue fell in four of its six lines of business. Additionally, there was a plethora of economic data this morning which can be described as suspect, at best. Producer prices fall for third straight month and manufacturing data was weak. Jobless claims dip to two-year low, but seasonal factors skewed the data.

But all the fireworks came after hours. In addition to Goldman, Google shares are sliding 4% in late trading after the Internet giant reported 2Q earnings that missed analysts expectations.

WSJ also reports latest developments surrounding the scandalous iPhone 4, saying Apple (AAPL) overruled internal concerns about antenna reception and denied carriers the proper time to test the device before selling it.

Hectic week ends with a busy day tomorrow as GE, BofA and Citi all report quarterly results. As Art Cashin always says, stay nimble, folks.

- Several big name hedge-fund managers are placing bullish bets on Citi (C) and Bank of America (BAC). “Paulson, Soros, Falcone, Tepper, Ackman, Ainslie, Loeb — you name it, they own one or the other…or both,” Joshua Brown writes at The Reformed Broker. “And they own them in size.” But why the sudden interest?

- Goldman Sachs (GS) may be on the verge of resolving SEC’s fraud charge by agreeing to a settlement worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to FT. But FusionIQ CEO Barry Ritholtz is still perplexed why GS chose to fight this charge in the first place. “Even if GS were to prevail in court, they have already lost. The reputational damage is already measured in billions of dollars, and will last years if not decades.”

- Furious decline in newspaper ad sales eased in 1Q, but struggling industry still isn’t showing signs of rebounding. “The less-awful sales in the first months of this year gave publishers the gift of a bit more time to fundamentally reposition their businesses,” Newsosaur blogger Alan Mutter says. “But there is nothing in the first-quarter numbers to suggest that the storm for newspapers has blown over.”

- S&P 500 has averaged a 0.12% gain on the Friday before Memorial Day since 1971, with positive returns coming 59% of the time, Bespoke Investment Group reports. But the performance hasn’t been so hot recently, with the index averaging a 0.28% decline throughout the last 10 years, firm notes. And the measure has dropped more than 1% on three instances in last decade.

- Warren Buffett’s testimony next week before FCIC is subpoena-driven, writes Fortune senior editor-at-large Carol Loomis, a pal of the Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA BRKB) chairman.

- FASB publishes proposal that would overhaul how companies value many assets and liabilities they hold. “Tremble US financial institutions, for FASB is about to fair value your assets,” FT’s Alphaville says.

- There are still calls for more (yes, more) government spending. “The long-term deficit needs attention, but right now it’s critical for government to spend,” says former labor secretary Robert Reich. “Otherwise we have no hope of getting free of the gravitational pull of this recession.”

- If enough tech giants go after a market, will it eventually catch on? Just a week after Google unveiled details of Google TV, Engadget reports Apple (AAPL) will take another crack at its three-year-old Apple TV product. But as MarketWatch’s John Dvorak pointed out in a column last week, it may be a hard slog, even for the biggest of behemoths.

- “The Great Recession is over, and the Great Transition is here,” James Picerno writes. In theory, distinguishing between the two is a piece of cake. In practice, reading the tea leaves is going to get complicated at times.”

- The Apple faithful struggle figuring out the best way to carry around the iPad. Aw, poor fanboys, such a conundrum – what are they gonna do??

- “When you hear about corporate insiders emailing undercover FBI agents with insider information in this day and age, you can only shake your head and ponder the utterly pathetic intellects of the people involved,” Josh Brown writes at The Reformed Broker. “As we hear more details about the investigation, I suspect there will be even more head-scratching over how it could be possible that these people haven’t learned better by now.”

- While pursuing financial regulatory reform, the Obama administration chose new regulations over structural change, an easier outcome but not necessarily the best choice. Mark Thoma has the details.

- Number of workers who voluntarily quit in February actually surpassed amount of folks who were fired for first time since October 2008, a positive for weak labor market, especially since turnover essentially froze during the height of the recession, Barry Ritholtz notes at The Big Picture. “The backlog of ‘workers waiting for better times to make a move to better jobs’ is now acting like pent-up consumer demand — only for employees.”

- April durable goods surged 2.9%, well ahead of analysts expectations, which is “just the thing to blow away the deflation blues that have been poisoning the party over the past few weeks,” James Picerno writes at The Capital Spectator.

- Why is Steve Ballmer still Microsoft’s (MSFT) CEO? “Microsoft still has a dominant market share in PC operating systems and office applications, but it’s managed to take that massive competitive advantage and waste it everywhere else over the past decade,” James Kwak says.

- Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz’s potty mouth generates ton of attention in blogosphere, but Reuters blogger Rob Cox says investors should be wary of executives who spout expletives at critics. Bartz used some questionable language in an interview yesterday with TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington, which “smacks of desperation,” Cox says. “Shooting the messenger is never a sign of strength.”

- Yahoo’s chase to the bottom. “The bottom line is that turning around a decline at an Internet company is tougher than elsewhere. That is at least partly because of the ease with which consumers can switch to a different website. Once a site’s image is impaired, it is very hard to repair,” Martin Peers writes at WSJ’s Heard on the Street column.

- Google says it generated $54B of economic activity in 2009. Digital Daily John Paczkowski believes the purpose of Google’s report is to show regulators it’s not anticompetitive. “What better way to counter perceptions that Google merits antitrust scrutiny than to highlight its positive effect on the national economy?”

- Google’s (GOOG) investment case getting muddled? “Most of [Google's] time nowadays seems dedicated to releasing products that don’t make a dime,” writes Chad Brand of Peridot Capital, who discloses his firm has a small position in Google. Downside looks limited based on declining P/E ratio, but “I have mixed feelings as to whether it warrants the commitment of new capital,” he says.

- Facebook attempts to appease privacy advocates by redesigning its privacy controls.

- “Whatever little trust Wall Street might have regained in the recovery since 2009 was surely dashed back to square one on May 6,” Ray Pelleccia writes on the Exchanges blog. The “flash crash” continues to defy easy explanation, and that only adds to the public’s widespread bafflement and distrust of what happens in our financial markets.”