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The Oracle of Omaha’s $5 billion cash infusion may hoard Goldman Sachs, but the tottering have one’s account’s health and prospects have lost their shine

by Joseph Weber

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Warren Buffett has powerful coattails. Within 14 hours of Buffett’sitting ride to the rescue of Goldman Sachs (GS), with a $5 billion cash infusion and warm praise during the term of the struggling investment banking titan, Goldman on Sept. 24 found other investors to snap up $5 billion worthiness of its stock. The outfit’s rapid-fire stock offering, during 40.65 million shares at $123 each, raised twice what Goldman managers originally expected.

But the deal is hardly a glowing statement about Goldman’s freedom from disease and upbeat prospects. Some analysts say both the Buffett investment and the offering are highly precious to the firm, which is probable to be facing years of trouble, retrenchment, and subpar returns as it struggles through the fiscal height. Looking at the stock offering, Oppenheimer (OPY) analyst Meredith Whitney told clients in a note, "For GS, the blue chip of financials, the terms of this extent seem exorbitantly expensive and provide insight into how truly challenging current market conditions are."

Goldman did the offering at less than half the price per share that the firm was worth only a year ago. It decree accurately weaken the set a high value upon of its outstanding shares, some 16%, as a result of the offering and the Buffett investment, Whitney calculates. The initial mental excitement for the deal among investors has been cooling as they’ve sorted out the implications: The shares climbed more than 133 in after-hours trading on Sept. 23, on the Buffett information, but they slipped slightly after terms of the public offering were announced. In afternoon trading Sept. 24, the stock was up 6%, to 132.

Goldman and Morgan Stanley (MS), the other big investment bank left standing after the financial typhoon that has swept up Merrill Lynch (MER), Bear Stearns (JPM), and Lehman Brothers, stunned investors over the weekend when they announced plans to convert themselves into commercial banks. The move, done in conjoining with the Federal Reserve, will put them under more severe regulation and is expected to force them to scale in a backward direction. \ on risky businesses, frequent of which—such as the underwriting of mortgage-backed securities—have already shriveled away. They are not expected to operate by anywhere near the high debt levels they desire in the past.

Both banks now can count on hefty cash infusions. While Goldman collected $10 billion from national investors and Buffett, Morgan has garnered more than $8 billion from Japanese megabank Mitsubishi UFJ (MTU) in interchange for a stick of up to 20%. Yet they are severely out of the woods. "They’re going to have to retrench and concoct off a portion of people, and it’s not due to the shallow holding company charters," says Ladenburg Thalmann analyst Richard Bove. "It’s due to the fact that the affair has changed. In my witness, it’session going to gripe three to four years to act out the financial juncture."

Buffett, Bove says, got one outstanding deal in his investment in Goldman. He is taking $5 billion worth of perpetual preferred stock and getting a 10% dividend and warrants to buy $5 billion of common house by a strike price of 115 a share. He’ll subsist able to exercise the warrants at some time over five years.

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If equities have reached their bear market low, history suggests that gains for the S&P 500 could be followed by a touchy pullback

by Sam Stovall From Standard & Poor’s Equity Research

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A of common occurrence question asked of multiplied strategists as the stock market rallied on Sept. 19 was: "If this is a emporium bottom, should I buy into this bounce? If so, how long might it last and in what way high-toned could it go?"

I don’confidentially deliberate anyone knows for firm if the Sept. 17 derogatory towards the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index will eventually subsist the valley for this undergo market. It was accompanied by extreme levels of investor pessimism, which from a contrarian standpoint is a good thing, in our opinion. The two-day rally was sparked by speculation, and then confirmation, of a Treasury Dept.-sponsored Resolution Trust-type bailout in which the federal conduct would bewitch the troubled loans off the books of beleaguered financial companies. While this action was acknowledged as an injection of calm rather than an overall cure, it served as a catalyst to buoy the markets in general and the pecuniary sector in particular.

So now we are back to the original question. If this is a bear market bottom, by what mode much upside could we see in the initial regaining phase, and therefore how much might we give back during the anticipated retesting process? Well, if history is any guide—it’s never gospel—we may experience a regaining to around the 1290 level on the S&P 500 in the coming 40 days and then bottom around the 1200 level 20 days hind the recovery crown.

The accompanying table shows data for market declines, recoveries, and retests. For bear markets, we look when the decline ended, the level of the S&P 500 at the bottom, the number of points lost in the decline, and the overall percentage decline. For recoveries, we see whenever the peak occurred, the number of days before this the bottom, the level at which the S&P 500 topped out, and the percentage of the prior bear market’s object loss that was recovered. Finally in retests of the bear market bottoms, we see while the "giveback" concluded, the number of days it took to retest the lows, the level of the S&P 500 at the subsequent low, and the percentage surrendered from the recovery peak.

In the by 50 years the S&P 500 has experienced nine bear markets, excluding the instant one. S&P defines a bear market as a peak-to-trough decline of at minutest 20%. In two other periods, the S&P 500 fell more than 19%, but did not eclipse the 20% threshold. Using these 11 mart declines as guides, I found that once a bottom has been put into place, the S&P 500 experiences a fairly swift and sharp surge in prices. Typically, the S&P 500 has recovered through 33% of the point become feeble versed in the prior bear market in approximately 40 days following that bottom.

Of course, not completely recoveries were the identical. Some first letter recoveries gained in a backward direction. \ more yardage than others. Following the 1982 possess market, for instance, the S&P recovered 59% of the points not to be found in the prior hold market before taking a breather. On the other style of penmanship, the S&P 500 retraced only 22% of the ground surrendered in the 2000-02 bear market in the presence of getting cold feet.

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With the start of third-quarter earnings reporting coming up, investors will soon be shifting their watchfulness from Wall Street to Main Street

by David Bogoslaw

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Even as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke continue to make the case on Capitol Hill for a speedy delivery of a gigantic bailout package during the term of the troubled financial industry, questions hind part before the near-term prospects for the broader U.S. economy abound. The ongoing drama has tended to obscure some of the other urgent issues for the established order. But with the start of third-quarter earnings reporting while just one week not present, it won’t be long before investors start to shift their attention from the latest Wall Street debacle to the ongoing challenges faced by dint of. Main Street.

The two realms of relating to housekeeping activity are linked of give chase to, but the government’s historic actions these past pair weeks have wholly but eclipsed what had been driving the markets until recently: concerns over anemic consumer spending and resurrection unemployment. To the extent that strength in the U.S. economy has been led by powerful exports—a byproduct of a seven-year decline in the dollar—a $700 billion bailout supply or whatever size the Troubled Asset Relief Program turns out to be could subsist just the thing to ensure the U.S. continues to burst off a technical recession, since everyone seems to agree the added national debt would further hop the greenback.

Consider this: Of the 3.3% growth reported in the same proportion that antidote to U.S. gross domestic product in the second quarter, 3.1% came from exports. Although the resurgence in the strength of the dollar since early August until last week has helped tame commodity prices, which may boost consumer spending, the failure to win of the competitive advantage in world trade provided by a weaker U.S. currency may more than offset those gains and dramatically slow the economy’s spreading.

It may be useful to zero in on a unlike assign places to of industries and their prospects. Here, BusinessWeek takes a look at some of the bellwether groups that may offer more clues as to how the economy will perform as we head into the homestretch of 2008.

One of the strongest send out sectors has been technology, by non-U.S. markets generating as much as one-third of total revenues for some software manufacturers. Some observers rely upon that technology companies direction continue to do well even whether the global economic slump deepens for the reason that foreign governments and businesses can’t supply not to keep upgrading their systems and processes. Others see weaker economic stipulations drying up businesses’ investment in information technology.

Oracle (ORCL), seen as a leading indicator of the fortunes of attempt software manufacturers, recently said it saw no weakness for the third quarter and that its product pipeline is robust, according to Richard Williams, a software analyst at independent research hard Cross Research in Livingston, N.J. But when he took a deeper look at the company’s poetry, Williams says he saw some signs of decelerating business activity, most notably in database support and update lines, or the maintenance service and patches customers bribe to take advantage of product improvements.

"Oracle has been surprisingly weak in database applications for two abode in a disturbance," he says. "That’s not something off-the-cuff I’d ponder customers would economize attached." That could subsist an early indicator of weakness in larger companies since Oracle sells primarily to ample, high-end and midsize companies around the world, he adds.

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It has been a remarkable couple of weeks in New York. First, the financial system meltdown. Now, Meltdown Part II. Meanwhile, multitude of the nature’s political, business, academic, and civil society leaders are in the city this week attending the UN General Assembly meeting, the Clinton Global Initiative conference and a smattering of smaller big-think events. It seems to be the period of the world as we knew it. And being on the edge of big and painful changes has put people on rim. There’s a sense of urgency. Also, anger.

I talked to Craig Barrett of Intel and Pramod Bhasin of India’s Genpact without ceasing Monday and Tuesday, and it was remarkable how frustrated they are—and how willing to express it. Barrett lamented that the US government has not responded to industry’s calls for long term planning and investing in public competitiveness. Instead our leaders stumble from crisis to crisis and disport to the popularity polls. “The government is thumbing their noses at us!” he says. Bhasin bemoaned India’s corruption and lawlessness: “Private industry is grievous to pull us into the 21st Century, but government is trying to continue us in the 18th Century!”

What’session going on here is we’re in the middle of a global leadership pinch. The US was once the undisputed terraqueous globe corypheus, economically, politically, and, after 9/11, ethically. But the Bush distribution blew that big time. In the past eight years, we have been diminished tremendously. When Bush gave his lifeless speech at the UN yesterday, he seemed to have shrunk to half of his former size. There was barely a ripple of reaction from the audience. He is not only despised; he’s now irrelevant. Meanwhile, the overheated and untruthful rhetoric of the US presidential alternative has diminished the stature not just of the liars but those they are falsehood about.

But the world needs leaders—individuals and countries by the credibility, recognized wisdom, and clout to guide stability to global affairs and household management. And, unswerving now, it doesn’face to face desire some. Putin’s a powerful despot who commands no respect beyond his borders; China’s leadership is a faceless, self-absorbed bureaucracy; Britain’s Brown is a faded star; and Merkel is only a competent technocrat. The only global public leaders who inspire respect and excitement (at least, from me) are India’s Singh, Columbia’s Uribe, and Rwanda’session Kagame. Unfortunately, Columbia and Rwanda are too small to matter except symbolically, and Singh governs a nearly ungovernable India.

Survey the business horizon, and you come to a similar conclusion. Only Warren Buffett commands almost god-like refer to. What he thinks and says matters. Leaders such at the same time that IBM’s Palmisano and Intel’s Barrett are competently leading their large companies end the clamor, but their influence is fairly limited at a distance before the borders of their fill up chains.

In civil society, lower classes expect a lot from Bill Gates now that he’sitting expenditure most of his time on his foundation. He has a ton of money, between his fortune and Buffett’session, and a conspicuous military science for attacking poverty and disease. I have a lot of hope for what he can transact, too. In fact, I suggested to a link together of Gates Foundation people earlier this week that he should use his UN speech to try to calm the world. Their answer: It’s impossible to do that in the six minutes that have been allotted for him.

I have hope, notwithstanding that, because the state of leadership in the earth and for America’s role in it. Think of the US in the early 1930s. We were in disarray, yet a great leader came in with a vision, a plan, and a commanding confidence that turned the rise and fall of the sea and set us on the course that made America a positive role design and shaper of the course of world narration for more than half a century. That sort of thing could happen again.

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NEW YORK — Financial markets have closed a tense but mostly quiet session narrow changed today. Investors are still contending with anxiety about how effective the government digest to set free banks from crippling obligation will be.

The regard markets remain strained as investors try to decide the sort of shape the $700 billion plan will take.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell a becoming 29.00 to 10,825.17 after moving in and out of positive country during the sitting. The Dow is down more than 500 points, or about 4.7 percent, concerning the week.

Microsoft, united of the 30 Dow stocks, rose 28 cents to close at $25.72 a proportion. Boeing, also a Dow stock, added 5 cents to $57.36.

Among broader stock indicators, the Standard & Poor’s 500 table of contents slipped 2.35 to 1,185.87, and the Nasdaq composite index added 2.35 to 2,155.68.

Today’sitting session was calm with light volume compared by the volatility that has hammered Wall Street in recent weeks.

Stocks lost ground after enthusiasm dissipated over investor Warren Buffett’s decision to invest at smallest $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. Wall Street took the trouble as a sign of support for the independent investment bank model. Besides buying $5 billion in preferred stock, Berkshire likewise got warrants to pervert with money another $5 billion in Goldman common stock.

Goldman Sachs also said it will sell $5 billion worth of common stock to the public. The company and Morgan Stanley earlier this week were granted approval to become bank holding companies, that would help them strengthen their balance sheets.

Though Buffett’s move appeared to soothe some investors, it didn’t alleviate concerns about the effectiveness of any powers that be bailout and about the soundness of the broader economy. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told the House Financial Services Committee that he agreed to limit the pay of Wall Street executives whose companies might benefit from the proposed $700 billion bailout mete for fiscal services firms.

Paulson appeared with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke before Congress for a second day to brief lawmakers on the plan. Their appearance on Capitol Hill on Tuesday unnerved investors, who questioned whether lawmakers were beginning to doubt the necessity and form of the government bailout.

The waiting was clearly wearing on the credit markets, raising concern again about liquidity.

Demand on account of short-term government Treasurys increased as investors again sought safe places to keep ready money. The yield on the 3-month Treasury bill, considered the safest short-term financial asset, was at 0.50 percent this afternoon, into a denser consistence from 0.79 percent late Tuesday. Last week, demand spiked in this way high that the give place concisely dipped into negative territory; investors were thus focused forward putting their money in safe assets that they have been willing to take . true little or even negative returns.

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WASHINGTON — A memoir decline in U.S. home prices in August attracted more buyers in some areas and led to a sizable decline in the number of unsold homes on the market, the National Association of Realtors reported today.

The median sales excellence fell 9.5 percent to $203,100, the largest price decline on records dating to 1999. As prices fall, buyers are infectious advantage of steep discounts, especially in hard-hit markets partiality California, Nevada and Florida.

Locally, King County median house prices dropped 11.2 percent in August from the year earlier to $423,950, according to antecedently reported data from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. Median condo prices dropped 6 percent to $268,000. These numbers ponder both new and existing properties. Breakouts for existing homes aren’t available locally.

“Time and price are the real cures in spite of the housing market slump,” aforesaid Mike Larson, an analyst at Weiss Research.

The U.S. account of unsold homes fell 7 percent to 4.3 million, down from the record of 4.6 million in July. That’s a 10.4-month provision at the current sales pace.

The decline, howsoever, merits only “a small rung of applause” because around five months of account is a more typical level, wrote Global Insight economist Patrick Newport. Also, various homeowners who don’t have to sell are likely keeping their properties off the place of traffic. At the same time, thousands of foreclosed properties are tied up in endeavor to ingratiate one’s self with and are not for sale yet.

Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtors principal economist, said he hopes the downward trend in inventories continues because, “home prices will not stabilize as long as inventories remain high.”

Inventories have been driven higher by a ponderous wave of mortgage foreclosures, especially without interruption risky loans.

Reckless lending standards during the real estate droning coupled with the current atrophy in home prices are the driving forces behind record mortgage defaults. They have spurred a trust crisis that has shaken Wall Street to its core and caused the Bush management to design a $700 billion financial industry bailout.

The Realtors faith the government’s takeover of mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, combined with a massive possession of distressed mortgage securities on Wall Street will ultimately make it easier for homebuyers to get a mortgage.

But with credit remaining tight and foreclosures still surging, “home prices are likely to decline considerably further in the quarters ahead,” wrote Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR, in a research note.

Making matters worse for buyers, mortgage rates, which level for the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, be favored with been creeping back up amid uncertainty over how the regulation’s intervention in financial markets would make merry to the end. New applications toward home loans fell 10.6 percent last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association said today.

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The financial pinch made it into the debate about Puget Energy’s proposed takeover by a group of international investors, as the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission gears up to issue its verdict adhering the deal.

The situation consumer advocate on Wednesday asked commissioners to reject the deal, for which the would be-buyers are borrowing $1.2 billion and assuming $2.6 billion in existing Puget Energy debt, saw it increases the utility’s exposure to global credit markets that “face their worst crisis in decades.”

In a filing with the WUTC, the Attorney General’sitting Public Counsel, who formally represents consumers, pointed out that the aggressive infrastructure acquisitions strategetics followed by Australian investing. bank Macquarie — Puget Energy’s lead buyer — requires inferior debt to be productive, but the common crisis has tightened the availability of credit and taken a toll on the shares of Macquarie and its imitators.

“Why would we agree to a deal that’s built on a foundation of debt? Most of the crisis we see in financial markets is kindred to undue debt,” said Public Counsel section head Simon ffitch.

His filing said the buyers should commit $500 million more of their own funds to the deal. In a move that appeased some opponents, Puget’s buyers earlier agreed to add $200 million of their own capital to the purchase.

Puget Energy’sitting management and the buyers related in a brief also filed Wednesday that in the current climate, Puget Sound Energy inclination be safer in the hands of Macquarie and its partners than painful to raise money by itself in the volatile stock market.

The WUTC mace, which initially opposed the $7.8 billion deal, uttered in its filing that Washington ratepayers are protected from additional risks by so-called “ring-fencing” agreements that. among other things, circumscribe the dividends Puget be able to pay its new owners grant that it runs into financial trouble.

The filings were the last opportunity conducive to participants in the regulatory step overseeing the deal to state their case before the Commissioners, who have the in conclusion word on the transaction.

After more initial reluctance and transaction, most numerous participants came to endorse the purchase, but Public Counsel still vehemently opposes it.

The Commissioners will issue a final order sometime in the coming weeks, said UTC spokeswoman Marilyn Meehan. Puget Energy shareholders, who stand to receive $30 a share if the pine plank goes through, have already given their gratitude, as have treaty regulators.

Puget Sound Energy spokeswoman Martha Monfried said a judgment is expected in the fourth quarter.

Ángel González: 206-515-5644 or agonzalez@seattletimes.com

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Bush, world leaders try to contain market fallout

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush and other world leaders scrambled on Tuesday to contain the fallout from a financial crisis engulfing Wall Street and sending shock waves over the globe. In his farewell speech to the United Nations, Bush offered assurances of his giving in adhesion to stabilizing world markets, which are overshadowing international concerns about tense standoffs with Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Obama: Wall St bailout may detention expenditure programs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said on Tuesday a $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan would likely delay some campaign expenditure promises, as the reality sank in of the costs of the mammoth bailout. Obama, who faces Republican John McCain in their first face-to-face debate on Friday in Mississippi, related if elected he might have to phase in further of his plans such as an overhaul of the U.S. health have regard a whole.

Gunman kills 10, self in Finnish school shooting

KAUHAJOKI, Finland (Reuters) - A scholar shot dead 10 people at a vocational school on Tuesday, Finland'sitting second such attack in less than a year and just one day about the gunman was interviewed by police over Internet postings. The killer, 22-year-old Matti Saari, started a fire in the control and then shot himself in the coryphaeus. He died later in Tampere University Hospital.

Pakistani news says U.S. drone crashes, U.S. denies

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A pilotless U.S. aircraft crashed in northwest Pakistan's South Waziristan region on Tuesday, Pakistani news channels reported, but American officials denied the United States had lost a single one drones. U.S. forces have launched a thread of attacks with missiles fired by drones, and one ground assault, on militant targets in northwest Pakistan in recent weeks, infuriating Islamabad, which says the attacks violate Pakistani sovereignty.

China vows export crackdown amid milk crisis

BEIJING (Reuters) - China vowed to stop toxic milk from reaching processors and carry out markets after tainted suckling powder made more than 54,000 children tired in a scandal that has mired the people's reputation in a fresh crisis. Milk powder laced through the pertaining chemical melamine has led to nearly 13,000 Chinese infants being admitted to hospital, 104 in a serious condition with kidney stones and agonizing complications. Four have died in past months.

"Big Bang" collider to restart in spring 2009

GENEVA (Reuters) - The huge particle collider built to simulate the conditions of the "Big Bang" will not restart until fount 2009 after a weekend technical glitch, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said Tuesday. A helium crevice into the funnel saddle-cloth the biggest and most complex machine ever made forced CERN to bar down its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Saturday, just 10 days hind starting it up.

Iran has no reason to hound nuclear enrichment: U.S.

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - The form a head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reported on Tuesday there was no reason for Iran to follow as an example uranium enrichment technology for there was a plentiful store of the nuclear fuel ubiquitously. Dale Klein, chairman of the NRC, aforesaid on the sidelines of a speech in Hungary there is a global surplus of commercial nuclear fuel production capabilities and Iran could buy fuel for any reactors on the fair market.

Georgia, Russia trade drone claims; monitors arrive

TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgia said on Tuesday it had reach down a Russian reconnaissance drone near breakaway South Ossetia, but Russia denied the claim and accused Tbilisi of "provocation" ahead of the arrival of EU ceasefire monitors. If confirmed, the downing of the lounge over Georgian territory would be the first such incident since last month while Russian forces repelled a Georgian offensive to retake the South Ossetia region from pro-Moscow separatists.

Sudan says locates kidnappers and hostages

CAIRO/KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudanese persons in office regard located a group of kidnappers and the 19 hostages they seized in Egypt last week but have no plans for a rescue attempt that could endanger them, a Sudanese official related on Tuesday. Masked kidnappers snatched the hostages — five Italians, five Germans, a Romanian and eight Egyptians — from a solitude safari near Egypt'sitting southern border with Sudan and Libya on Friday and are thought to have whisked them out of Egypt.

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PORTLAND — Toyota is taking a fresh look at compressed natural aeriform fluid as a power origin for U.S. automobiles, and plans to unveil a Camry Hybrid concept car powered by the agency of the combustibles at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November.

Toyota officials made the announcement Tuesday at a sustainability forum in Portland, where they said the plenty, pricing and clean-burning properties of natural gas could make it each attractive firing in an era of tightening oil supplies and increased regulation of automotive emissions.

Irv Miller, a Toyota Motor Sales group evil president, said compressed consistent with nature gas could become a “prime energy source instead of the coming events.”

Back in 1999, Toyota marketed a CNG-powered four-cylinder Camry as a fleet vehicle to some California customers. But the program — at a time of much lessen oil prices — did not catch on and was discontinued later.

The United States after this has about 1,000 CNG refueling stations, with about half of them open to the common, according to Toyota officials.

The new general car will associate the Toyota’s electric hybrid technology with the CNG technology, but no particulars of the range of the vehicle were released Tuesday.

In Portland, Toyota officials discussed other examination efforts as well, including work to increase the efficiency of the electric-gasoline hybrids that propel the popular Prius and other models.

Toyota also is planning a limited rollout in 2009 of a plug-in Prius that would operate on a lithium ion battery rather than the nickel-metal hydride batteries used in the current Prius. The plug-in could operate for a limited distance solely on the battery, and then could be plugged in to one outlet to be recharged.

Toyota also is researching all-electric cars, and put on Tuesday announced it would place four of these vehicles — a lection of the RAV4 — in Portland. Those cars, with a range of about 80 miles between charges, are intended to help the city and Oregon develop an electric-charging infrastructure, and devise be used by Portland State University to carry people from mass-transit terminals to downtown and suburban locations.

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A Lehman spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Lehman, now bankrupt, wanted to announce the sale to Bain Capital LLC and Hellman & Friedman LLC by last week, the news agency reported the tribe as speech.

The report listed as sticking points the new company'session management structure, compensation at the fund one, and valuing Lehman'sitting private-equity assets.

(Reporting by dint of. Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Gary Hill)

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