Goldman on Way to Top Nomura as No. 1 Japan Takeover Adviser

The New York-based firm was hired for $54.1 billion of acquisitions announced this year involving Japanese companies, surpassing Nomura’s $47.1 billion,

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) is on its way to taking the top spot among advisers on Japanese takeovers for the first time in five years, supplanting Nomura Holdings Inc. (8604), as companies striving to compete globally turn increasingly to foreign investment banks.

The New York-based firm was hired for $54.1 billion of acquisitions announced this year involving Japanese companies, surpassing Nomura’s $47.2 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In 2010, Nomura held the top spot with $47.6 billion in deals, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) was second with $27 billion and Goldman Sachs at No. 7 with about $10 billion.

State Revenue Under Forecasts to Produce Cuts From New York to California

New York, California and Florida are among states reporting revenue collections trailing forecasts in the fiscal first quarter, prompting preparations for a fresh round of budget reductions.

California’s receipts fell more than 3 percent short of estimates for the three months through September, raising concern that school aid may be cut. In fiscal 2013, New York state may face a $2.4 billion deficit because of smaller Wall Street bonuses and job cuts, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Oct. 11.

States are projecting combined budget gaps of $31.9 billion in fiscal 2013, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver. A 14 percent third-quarter drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, the worst performance since the end of 2008, and concern that Europe’s debt crisis may spread have dented consumer and business confidence, curbing tax receipts.

“It’s going to be quite a while before happy days are here again for many state legislatures,” John J. Pitney Jr., a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, said by telephone. “There is such weak job growth and income growth. Everything that should be up is down.”

Russia Stocks Rise 3rd Day This Week on EU Bailout; Kalina Jumps

Russian stocks climbed for the third day this week as prospects improved for containing Europe’s debt crisis. OAO Concern Kalina, a Russian cosmetics maker, jumped to its highest on record.

OAO Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender, gained 1.5 percent, while OAO Novolipetsk Steel added 1.2 percent. Kalina surged 40 percent to the strongest price since its shares started trading in 2004 after the Wall Street Journal said Unilever NV is close to acquiring the company in a deal worth $850 million. The 30- stock Micex Index added 0.7 percent to 1,398.25 as of 10:39 a.m. in Moscow.

Cain’s Sales Tax Would Hurt Consumer Spending ’For Some Years’

Rachelle Bernstein, vice president of the National Retail Federation, speaks during a Bloomberg Television Interview in Washington, D.C.

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s plan to create a national sales tax would hurt retailers, threaten economic growth and shift the tax burden onto the middle class and poor, tax experts and business groups said.

Cain’s so-called 9-9-9 plan, which would replace the current tax code with a system of three separate taxes of 9 percent each, has boosted his popularity among voters. The former chief executive officer of Godfather’s Pizza has surged in polls in recent weeks, and a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released this week put him in the lead.

Rajaratnam, Goldman Sachs, Brocade, Amaranth in Court News

Raj Rajaratnam, the Galleon Group LLC co-founder whom prosecutors called “the modern face of illegal insider trading,” was sentenced to 11 years in prison, one of the longest terms ever for insider trading, though less than half of the maximum sought by the government.

Rajaratnam, 54, is the central figure in what U.S. investigators called the largest hedge fund insider trading case in U.S. history. The probe, which leveraged the widespread use of FBI wiretaps for the first time in such an inquiry, led to convictions of more than two dozen people.

Wall Street Protests Planned in Asia-Pacific

The Occupy Wall Street rallies started last month in New York’s financial district.

Protests against widening income disparity are planned across the Asia-Pacific region tomorrow as demonstrators organizing via social media from Tokyo to Sydney join London in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Wall Street Demonstrators Vow to Defend ‘Occupation’ as Cleaners Sweep In

Wall Street protesters vowed to “defend the occupation” of Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan after police said they’ll have to clear out sleeping bags and other belongings under rules set by the private park’s owner.

Brookfield Office Properties Inc., a New York-based real- estate developer that owns the property, said crews will close sections of the park for cleaning beginning at 7 a.m. today to relieve “unsanitary conditions.”

Yuan Retreats From 17-Year High on Importers’ Demand for Dollar

China’s yuan retreated from a 17- year high on speculation importers boosted dollar buying to take advantage of the local currency’s recent gains.

Companies due to make overseas payments probably stepped up purchases of the greenback after the yuan gained 1.2 percent last quarter, the best performance among Asia’s 10 most-traded currencies. A stronger local currency reduces the cost of imports. China’s financial markets were shut during the first week of this month for the National Day holidays. The yuan also dropped today as the nation’s shares pared an advance.

High Frequency Trades, Volcker Draft, French Audits: Compliance

Mary Schapiro, the chairwoman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and regulators from the U.S., Europe and Asia will meet in London to discuss high- frequency trading, said two people with knowledge of the discussions.

The summit at the U.K. Financial Services Authority on Oct. 14 will also include Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission, and Steven Maijoor, chairman of the European Securities and Markets Authority, according to the people, who declined to comment because the meetings are private. Officials from Japan, Brazil, Italy, Spain and Canada will also attend the meetings, which will look at regulatory issues other than high-frequency trading.

Perry, Cain, Romney to Vie for Lead in Debate

Herman Cain’s newly energized candidacy is reshaping the Republican presidential primary race and creating a new hurdle for Texas Governor Rick Perry as he tries to catch frontrunner Mitt Romney.

Those dynamics will be on display tonight in a debate focused exclusively on the economy and jobs and to be held in New Hampshire, the first presidential primary election state.

A pre-debate poll of Republicans and Republican-leaning independent by Bloomberg News and the Washington Post, the debate sponsors, found that Cain, the former Godfather’s Pizza chief executive, has pulled almost even with former Massachusetts Governor Romney in appeal as an economic leader.

Retail Sales Likely Rose in September

U.S. retail sales increased in September at the fastest pace in six months, providing a sign of optimism for some merchants heading into the holiday shopping season, economists said before a report this week.

The projected 0.7 percent gain would follow no change in the previous month, according to the median of 69 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey ahead of Commerce Department​ figures on Oct. 14. The trade gap widened in August, other data may show.

Romney Calls for Civility, Unity Among Religions at Republican Conference

U.S. Republican presidential hopeful former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney addresses the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit in Washington on October 8, 2011.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who was labeled a cult member last week, said religious differences shouldn’t divide Republicans and urged civility in party’s 2012 presidential nomination process.

Wall Street Protesters Are Angry About Jobs, Pelosi Says

“Occupy Wall Street” protesters are angry over the lack of employment prospects and government actions that are “not relevant to their lives,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said.

“I think they are angry that they don’t have jobs,” Pelosi told ABC News’ “This Week” program. “There’s nothing that makes you angrier than not being able to provide for your family or understand what your prospects are for the future.”

Cohan: Occupy Wall Street Needs Goals, Or Funnel Cake

William D Cohan.

Late last week, I went to the southern tip of Manhattan to see what all the fuss is about, but discovered that the only people occupying Wall Street these days are a bunch of tourists and the few remaining bankers who actually work there.

There wasn’t a protester in sight, in large part because three weeks into the Occupy Wall Street movement, the New York City police no longer allow anyone remotely interested in complaining about banker greed, income inequality or other perceived systemic injustices anywhere near the symbolic center of capitalism. The police have connected the steel barricades that line much of Wall and Broad streets near the New York Stock Exchange, and strategically placed late-model SUVs at intimidating angles in the roadways. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, cars have been banned from most of Wall and Broad. Now dissenters have been, too.

If you want to take the pulse of Occupy Wall Street, you have to head a couple of blocks north to Zuccotti Park, a 33,000-square-foot, rather unlovely, pink-granite-covered zone named for John Zuccotti, a former chairman of the city’s planning commission and the co-chairman of Brookfield Office Properties Inc., one of nation’s largest real-estate developers. Brookfield owns the World Financial Center complex across from ground zero and was runner-up to Larry Silverstein for the right to own the 99-year lease on the World Trade Center.

Republican Candidates Dismiss Criticism of Romney as Mormon ‘Cult’ Member

Republican presidential candidates, from left, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Governor Rick Perry, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and Rep. Michele Bachmann participate in the Fox News/Google GOP Debate in Orlando, Florida, on Sept. 22, 2011.

Republican presidential candidates dismissed a Baptist minister’s criticism of their party frontrunner Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, saying his religion shouldn’t be a campaign issue.

“This is so inconsequential as far as this campaign is concerned,” Representative Michele Bachmann, of Minnesota, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “To make a big issue out of this is ridiculous.”

Cain’s Campaign Soars as Republicans Search for Someone to Love

Herman Cain, a one-time pizza magnate and sunny-skies orator, is entering a new phase of scrutiny after a wave of Republican Party dissatisfaction with its presidential choices has thrust him into the upper tier of candidates.

Cain, 65, whose come-from-way-behind campaign has been conducted largely via television, presents himself as destined for victory: His new memoir is called “This is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House.” Now, in the run-up to tomorrow’s Republican debate in New Hampshire, Cain is being pressed on his so-called 9-9-9 tax plan -- a flat 9 percent rate on corporate and personal income and a national sales tax -- his criticism of the Occupy Wall Street protesters and his lack of experience in public office.

“Get ready for an aberration of historic proportion,” Cain said in an interview yesterday during “State of the Union” on CNN. “People who are criticizing me because I have not held public office, they are out of touch with the voters out there.”

Taxing Millionaires Casts Obama’s Democrats as Class ‘Warriors’

Democrats have turned to an agenda that Republicans are calling class warfare, as President Barack Obama presses a “Buffett Rule” to tax the rich, Senate Democrats offer a millionaires’ tax instead and party leaders fulminate against Bank of America’s $5 debit-card service fee.

Campaigning for re-election, Obama welcomes the charge.

“Then guess what? I’m a warrior for the middle class,” he declared Sept. 22, standing at a Cincinnati bridge linking the home states of the Republican leaders of the House and Senate and setting a new course for his own party.

Steve Jobs, Who Built World’s Most Valuable Technology Company, Dies at 56

Steve Jobs, who built the world’s most valuable technology company by creating devices that changed how people use electronics and revolutionized the computer, music and mobile-phone industries, died. He was 56.

Jobs, who resigned as Apple Inc. chief executive officer on Aug. 24, 2011, passed away yesterday, the Cupertino, California- based company said. He was diagnosed in 2003 with a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare form of pancreatic cancer, and had a liver transplant in 2009.

Anti-Wall Street Protests Ignore Legitimate Gripe: Caroline Baum

From the looks of the youthful, costumed characters swaying to the music and flying colorful balloons, it was hard to tell if Occupy Wall Street was a street fair, a ‘60s-style love-in or a protest rally.

Arrested Wall Street Protesters Seek Talks With City Over Police Tactics

A lawyer for anti-Wall Street protesters arrested in a march across New York’s Brooklyn Bridge said her clients hope to talk with city representatives to resolve what she called a “pattern and practice of police misconduct.”

Five protesters sued the city, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly Oct. 4 for allegedly violating their civil rights in the Oct. 1 arrests. The protesters, who seek to sue on behalf of about 700 people arrested in the march, claimed police lured them onto the bridge’s roadway to trap and arrest them.

In a hearing before U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan today, attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard said the protesters may ask for a court order to force the New York City Police Department to change its tactics if they can’t reach agreement with the city.

The protesters, whose demonstration continued today in Lower Manhattan, are seeking a declaration nullifying the arrests and saying that the police violated the U.S. Constitution. They want Rakoff to bar the city from using similar tactics in the future. The group is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

Rakoff said he expects the case to be tried by June. He set Dec. 7 for arguments on an anticipated request by the city to have the case dismissed.

Kate O’Brien Ahlers, a spokeswoman for the city’s Law Department, had no immediate comment on the suit.

The mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, parent of Bloomberg News.

Police have said protesters were warned not to block the roadway and that those at the rear were allowed to leave. 

SOURCE

Anti-Wall Street Protests Grow in New York as Other Cities Join

Demonstrators from New York City to San Francisco took to the streets to protest what they call a growing wealth disparity between large U.S. corporations and average citizens in the wake of the financial crisis.

Picketers marched yesterday as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement that began three weeks ago in Lower Manhattan and has spread across the U.S. The New York crowd was estimated at 10,000, according to Patrick Bruner, a spokesman for the effort.

“There’s power in numbers, and we outnumber the people we’re trying to hold accountable,” said Henry Liedtka, a 27- year-old pharmacy worker from New Jersey who said he’s protested since Oct. 2. “We should be bailing out the American public -- not corporations -- by raising the minimum wage, bringing jobs back from overseas and improving labor conditions.”

Paterno’s Way Turned Penn State Champs Into Wall Street Bankers

The path from football to Wall Street is well-worn. Now the championship-winning 1986 team at Penn State University is retracing its steps.

Playing for Joe Paterno, the 84-year-old Brooklynite who’s in his 46th season as head football coach, is tougher than Wall Street, said John Shaffer, head of junk-bond sales at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), who will join Paterno and other former teammates-turned-bankers this weekend to mark the 25th anniversary of the school’s most recent national football title.

“That pressure, that competition I tried to replicate on Wall Street, but I just couldn’t,” said Shaffer, 47, the team’s starting quarterback.

Others planning to attend a ceremony at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 8 at halftime of the University of Iowa game are Matthew Johnson, 46, head of global equity syndicate at Barclays Plc (BARC) and a former nose tackle at Penn State, and Lance Lonergan, 44, co-chief executive officer at Weeden & Co., a backup quarterback in 1986.

Paterno, whose 405 wins are the most among major-college football coaches, taught more than the game, the former players said. They have applied the traits and principles they learned at Penn State, such as teamwork, coping with failure and leaving the game on the field, they said.

BofA, Oracle, Blavatnik, Morgan Stanley, AT&T, Wells Fargo in Court News

Bank of America Corp. (BAC)’s Countrywide unit was sued by Sealink Funding Ltd. in New York over $1.6 billion of residential mortgage-backed securities the fund purchased between 2005 and 2007.

Sealink filed the suit against Countrywide in New York State Supreme Court Sept. 29, seeking unspecified compensatory, rescissory and punitive damages. Sealink is a fund created to manage Landesbank Sachsen AG’s riskiest assets after the German lender almost collapsed.

“Countrywide was an entity driven by only one purpose --to originate and securitize as many mortgage loans as possible into” mortgage-backed securities “to generate profits for the Countrywide defendants, without regard to the investors that relied on the critical, false information provided to them with respect to the related certificates,” lawyers for Sealink said in the lawsuit.

Sealink filed a similar suit Sept. 29 in the same court against JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) over $2.4 billion worth of residential mortgage-backed securities purchased between 2005 and 2007.

Dan Frahm, a spokesman for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, didn’t immediately return a voice-mail message seeking comment on the lawsuit. Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokeswoman for New York-based JPMorgan, declined to comment.

Falling Wages Threatening U.S. as Consumers May Reduce Spending

Ninety-one percent of people in the U.S. labor force have a job. That may be the extent of the good news for these Americans, whose incomes tell a darker story.

Take-home pay, adjusted for prices, fell 0.3 percent in August, the third decrease in five months, and personal income dropped for the first time in two years, the Commerce Department reported last week. The declines followed news from the Census Bureau that median household income in 2010 fell to $49,445, the lowest in more than a decade, and the poverty rate jumped to 15.1 percent, a 17-year high.

Salary and benefit growth “has been going nowhere,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “One of the key reasons the recovery has stalled is that real incomes have fallen.”

Christie Would ‘Cannonball’ Republican Field, Face Challenges

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie -- on the brink of deciding whether to run for president as Republicans shower him with entreaties to do so -- could catapult to the front of an unsettled party field, strategists say, even as he would face a difficult road to nomination.

For Republicans yearning for a truth-telling figure and fresh face, Christie, 49 -- brash and plainspoken, with a reputation for slashing government spending and taking on labor unions -- would appear to be an ideal candidate.

Gold Climbs as European Crisis Spurs Demand

Gold advanced for a third day on concern that Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis may not be contained, spurring investors to buy the metal to guard their wealth against a potential slowdown in the global economy.

Immediate-delivery gold climbed as much as 1.4 percent to $1,647.35 an ounce, and traded at $1,646.98 at 2:50 p.m. in Singapore. The precious metal, which reached an all-time high of $1,921.15 on Sept. 6, climbed 8.2 percent in the three months to Sept. 30 for a 12th quarterly advance. December-delivery bullion gained as much as 1.7 percent to $1,650 an ounce in New York.

European finance chiefs meet in Luxembourg today to discuss how to protect banks from the fallout of a potential Greek default even as the country approved further austerity measures needed to secure an aid payment and second rescue package.

Sony Tumbles to 24-Year Low on Outlook, Yen

Sony Corp. (6758), Japan’s biggest exporter of consumer electronics, fell to its lowest level in 24 years in Tokyo trading on speculation the yen's strength and slumping demand for television will hurt earnings.

The stock dropped as much as 6.2 percent to 1,413 yen, the lowest intraday level since June 10, 1987, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. They changed hands at 1,418 yen at 1:17 p.m. The shares have dropped 52 percent this year.

Ex-Morgan Stanley MUFG Strategist Kinmont to Start Hedge Fund

Alexander Kinmont, the equity strategist who wrote “The Irrelevance of Japan” report in 2002, is planning to start a hedge fund focused on the country after leaving Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities Co. in July.

Kinmont, formerly a managing director of Japan equity strategy at Morgan Stanley MUFG in Tokyo, is heading Tokyo-based Milestone Asset Management Co., he said. The company currently offers a long-only fund and is planning to start a long-short hedge fund later this month to profit from rising and falling stock prices, he said, declining to elaborate further because it is still being planned.