Talk about a busy morning: today we have Mr. Bernanke testifying at 1pm, Treasury Secretary Geithner speaking at 11am, the Senate voting on the stimulus bill at 12 noon, and a huge Treasury auction at 1 PM.
Futures have risen throughout the morning, while the dollar has been weakening, but as the dollar strengthened after 9 PM ET, futures moved down. Commodities like Oil, gasoline, silver, and gold are higher.
Elsewhere:
1) Details are still sketchy on the details of Geithner's plan, but we are reporting there are four components:
a) Funding new lending. The Federal Reserve will increase the size of the TALF to $500 billion to $1 trillion from $200 billion.
b) Funding purchase of old assets, either by insuring some downside risk for private investors or financing the purchase of those assets.
c) $50 billion for foreclosure mitigation.
d) New capital infusion into banks (perhaps $100 billion) after a "stress test" to determine if they are healthy.
2) U.S. and European banks are trading up, even though UBS reported a huge loss of $6.9 billion, larger than expected but (believe it or not) less than the loss from a year ago. The bank said investment banking trading was off to an "encouraging" start, but they are still laying off 2,000 people
3) Speaking of stimulus: engineering giant Aecom reported solid earnings, in line with expectations, and reaffirmed 2009 guidance. They saw "continued demand for our services globally throughout the infrastructure market" and noted they have a backlog of projects in the pipeline.
3) Cisco raised $4 billion yesterday in a corporate bond offering...they also have $25 billion in investment on their balance sheet. Hmm.
4) The Kuwaiti investment authority may support Dow Chemical's takeover of Rohm & Haas if the terms were adjusted to reflect the new economic reality.
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