The Good News Economist submits: What a difference a few days have made in the mainstream headlines.Overblown concerns about Dubai defaults are quickly shifting to the shadows. On Tuesday, clarity on the extent of the loan restructuring indicated that Dubai World likely would restructure debt worth $26 billion against earlier talk of a possible $59 billion default.Complete Story »

  Equitymaster submits: After the strong show put up yesterday, the Indian markets had a tough time replicating that performance in today's trading session. The benchmark indices closed below the dotted line and were hampered by alternate bouts of buying and selling throughout the trading session causing them to oscillate to either side of yesterday's close. While the BSE Sensex closed lower by around 28 points (down 0.2%), NSE Nifty closed flat. The BSE Midcap and BSE Smallcap indices, however, bucked the trend as they closed with gains of 1% each. Auto stocks emerged amongst the top favorites today, while FMCG and capital goods stocks weighed heavy on the indices. While most Asian indices closed strong today, Europe is witnessing a mixed trend currently. Rupee was poised at Rs 46.28 to the dollar at the time of writing. Complete Story »

  David Hunkar submits: Emerging market banks were not affected much, if at all, in last year's global meltdown. While most banks in the developed world or the "core" played with exotic derivatives and offered reckless loans to almost anyone with a heartbeat, emerging market banks stayed prudent and followed stable growth strategies. Hence almost all of the banks in developing countries such as Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Chile, Colombia, etc. remained stable during last year and revived their growth this year.Some of the other reasons for the strength of banks in the developing world include:Complete Story »

  Fred Wilson submits: One of the things that always amazes me about investors is the way we move in herds. Developing markets are in, everyone invests in developing markets. Dubai blows up, everyone moves out of developing markets. Real-time is hot. Everyone invests in real-time.I can understand the hot money game in highly liquid markets if you can get out before the party ends. But in illiquid markets, this kind of momentum investing hardly ever works.Complete Story »

  Facebook announced last week before the Thanksgiving holiday that it has created a dual-class share structure. If you are an existing shareholder, your shares now have 10 times the voting power of any subsequently issued shares. It's widely viewed as a precursor move to holding an IPO in the next year or two.Complete Story »

  The dollar is undergoing somewhat of a reprieve midweek ahead of key labor market data this morning and later in the week in what could be further signs of thawing job market pressures. Intuitively these could signal further gains in risk appetite and more dollar losses. But today’s dollar strength is largely at the expense of the Japanese yen, where once again media speculation amongst reporters overly-obsessed by opinion about the yen continues to heighten speculation surrounding possible currency market intervention. Complete Story »

  Jim Delaney submits: Among the many sins Uncle Sam is despised for around the world, one we hear so little of these days is “genetic modification”. I’m not talking about the Hulk here, but more what the U.S. agriculture industry has done with those little things we put in the ground hoping that big things come out of the ground. In a sign that America and China might actually share the same thinking on a topic or two, the Middle Kingdom has given its approval to produce and consume two strains of genetically modified rice. More formally stated in a written response to questions posed by the WSJ, “China’s Ministry of Agriculture said Monday that it had issued safety certificates to domestically developed strains of genetically modified rice and corn”. The Ministry went on to say, “This is an important achievement in independent intellectual property from our country’s research into genetic modification technology, and creates a good basis for commercial production”.Complete Story »

  The LFB submits:Equity Futures: Dow +1.00. S&P -0.40. NASDAQ +0.25. Japanese Nikkei +50.00. German Dax +2.00. European Trade: After posting small gains around the opening bell, the European markets moved lower, down to the breakeven line. Since then, the market has been moving side-ways, lacking a clear direction or trend ahead of the U.S ADP report, scheduled at 08:15 EST. Complete Story »

  The LFB submits:Overall, the pound and the yen were the only two major pairs that moved throughout the overnight session, while all of the other currencies traded flat. This could have been caused by the flat cash and futures equity markets, and by the fact that the major pairs are currently swinging near important price point levels. Adding to this is the fact that during the early U.S. session the market is expecting the ADP report, which usually sparks some volatility in the market. Complete Story »

  2009 has turned out to be a great year for equities especially after the financial meltdown we experienced. The federal reserve continues to liquify the system and low yields are forcing investors into higher yielding equities.The S&P 500 is up 21.3% YTD as of November 30. The index leadership driven by consumer discretionary stocks is up 33%, materials up 43.21% and technology up 51.46%. December is off to a strong start and analysts are now upgrading companies that led the ‘09 recovery.Complete Story »

  Ron Rowland submits:There were 23 new ETFs and five new ETNs launched in November. No products were delisted. The net increase of 28 pushed the quantity of listed products to 908, the first time the count has been above 900. In theory, each hundred new products should come quicker than the previous since it represents a smaller percentage increase. However, it took 18 months for the list to grow from 800 to 900 while the climb from 700 to 800 took just four months.Complete Story »

  Macro Man submits: Macro Man recently had an unfortunate experience with one of his brokers. Dialing a 24-hour line, he left an order at about 8 pm London time with the New York desk to execute a couple of trades in the Asian time zone. Waking up the next day, Macro Man searched his Bloomberg messages for the confos....but alas, none were forthcoming. When he got to the office, he rang the broker, and found to his horror that the orders (buying some Asian equities on a day when they rallied strongly) were never executed. After a flurry of discussion, it was agreed that the broker would execute the orders at current pricing (or, in one case, when the market re-opened), calculate Macro Man's opportunity cost, and compensate him for the loss. Fortunately, the trades weren't very big at all, so the opportunity cost was not particularly large for him. However, in a "fill 'em and bill 'em" industry, that money can only be replaced by volume... something like 140,000 lots. Given that the broker was prepared to make him good on the whole amount, Macro Man decided to split the difference on the "opportunity cost"....the cost to him was negligible, and the broker sounded very relieved indeed.Complete Story »

  The weekly chart for the S&P 500 is testing “Snake Eyes.” If the S&P makes a clear move above 1111 it would be above the down trend that connects the highs going back to October 2007. Complete Story »

  Ohad Hammer submits:For part I click here At ASH 2009, Immunogen (IMGN) and its partners will present clinical data on three compounds: Sanofi-Aventis’ (SNY) SAR3419, Immunogen’s IMGN901 and Biotest’s BT-062.Complete Story »