Citigroup Inc. (C) could be compelled to sell its profitable and highly rated Mexican subsidiary Banamex due to a probe expected this week by Mexico’s Supreme Court. A group of senators has objected that Citigroup’s Mexican subsidiary is in breach of national law since the US government bail-out of the company. National law of Mexico bans foreign governments from owning a stake in domestic banks. Banamex, or Banco Nacional de Mexico, is one of Citigroup's brightest jewels, and accounts for over $20 billion, or 15% of its global profits. A number of other foreign-dominated banks operating in Mexico also remain exposed to the same risk, as many foreign governments own stake in them following the global financial crisis. These banks include American International Group, Inc. (AIG), Bank of America Corporation (BAC) and Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BK), as well as ...

Reuters reports that the Russian government may sell part of its 75% stake in the country's largest oil producer, Rosneft.  Andrei Sharonov, a former deputy economy minister, has said that the government could sell up to 25% without any significant consequences.  RusHydro's plans to build a $20 billion Evenkia dam on the Lower Tunguska River have been shaken by public protests, says the Moscow Times.  Lukoil hopes to start production in the Caspian Sea oilfields in March 2010.  Enel Spa will complete the sale of a stake in SeverEnergia, a natural gas explorer in Siberia, to Gazprom 'in the next few weeks'.  A Royal Bank of Scotland report picked up by Reuters says that uranium demand will exceed supply in 2014 as China and Russia develop nuclear power stations.  Total has suggested that Russian companies may ...

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) plans to sell bonds worth $2 billion backed by auto loans that are eligible for the Federal Reserve’s Term Asset Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) program to boost lending and maintain credit flow to the broader economy.

Investors can procure cheap loans for buying newly created consumer loan-backed, new and existing commercial mortgage-backed bonds. The deadline for investors to request loans for buying asset- backed debt for the seventh round of the TALF is Sept. 3.

The deal, called BAAT 2009-2, will be jointly led by Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital (BARC), Citigroup Inc. (C), Credit Suisse Group (CS) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). Last month, Bank of America sold the first deal eligible under TALF of $4 billion auto-loan backed deal at 135 basis points over a benchmark.

TALF was set up in March to reinvigorate

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This post provides links to a number of thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find of interest. Please also add the links to any other thought-provoking articles you would like to share to the comments section.

• Financial Times: The US economy is still struggling, August 14, 2009. Is the worst over for the US economy? Some recent figures point that way, and much US economic commentary is growing cautiously optimistic. For the moment, though, the emphasis needs to stay on caution not optimism.

• John Authers (Financial Times): Lessons from history, August 14, 2009. The financial upheaval has been good news for financial historians. Their discipline has not traditionally attracted much interest. Instead, investors went along with attempts to treat finance as a precise science. But many metrics that seemed to work well

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A 4-day rally gets stopped at the border…  Home Prices fall at a -18.12% pace…  Alice Rivlin gives her 2-cents… * Kiwi bond maturities galore next month… And Now… Today’s Pfennig! Good day… And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! As tradition with the Pfennig would have it, here’s my introduction to July… There I was… On a July morning… Looking for love… With the strength of a new day dawning, and… The beautiful sun…

Yes, for those “old rockers” from the 70’s like me… That’s Uriah Heep, at their best!

OK… So, welcome to July! The last day of June was quite the volatile one to say the least! There we were waiting for the S&P/CaseShiller Home Price Index to print, and show that home prices were still down by quite a bit, when it did, it did, it printed at -18.12%… But! The media was all over that like a cheap suit, clamoring that

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There was a wonderful story in today's WSJ about how some big banks managed to lose some of their hard-earned TARP money.

Let me begin with a little background. A credit default swap is sometimes described as an insurance contract written against the possibility of default of a particular underlying asset. If I buy a CDS and the specified asset defaults, I get to collect money from whoever sold me the contract. If I also have a long position in the asset in question, I might consider buying a CDS written against that asset as an insurance or hedge against the possibility that the asset loses its value.

But I don't actually have to own the asset in question in order to buy a CDS from somebody else. I might want to buy a CDS as a partial hedge against some other asset I hold with which

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As the economy begins its comeback, the utilities companies that will benefit the most are the ones whose stock prices have suffered for being located in poor housing markets and those with significant counter-party risk. These companies lack the stability an investor looks for in utilities companies during a time of economic hardship. However, as the economy begins its turn around, these investments will once again become attractive. A company that fits the aforementioned profile is Sempra Energy [SRE: 44.25, -0.57 (-1.27%)], a diversified gas utility company based in Southern California. Sempra has two core utility subsidiaries in Southern California Gas (SoCalGas), the largest gas utility in the United States and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), which serves 3.4 million customers in the San Diego area. Combined, these two entities comprise 60% of Sempra’s revenue stream. The remaining 40% comes from its natural gas infrastructure businesses, which includes ...

by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /span style="font-family:arial;font-size:78%;"/spana href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SgiAR06lzrI/AAAAAAAAN1E/-NbHseEOV1Q/s1600-h/ecb+one.png"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334654802370875058" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 399px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 264px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SgiAR06lzrI/AAAAAAAAN1E/-NbHseEOV1Q/s400/ecb+one.png" border="0" //abr /br /blockquote“The 60 billion euros they announced is peanuts for an economy the size of the euro zone,” economics professor and former Bank of England policy maker Willem Buiter said at a conference in Dublin yesterday. “I expect they will announce more or that the recession in the euro zone will be longer and deeper than would otherwise be necessary. They have a record of being somewhat behind the curve.” /blockquoteblockquoteEuropean car sales dropped 12 percent in April.... Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s registrations dropped by almost one-third to 55,633 even as the German market expanded 19 percent, helped by the government’s 2,500 euro ($3,400) sales bonus .........Spain extended its auto-sales slump with a 46 percent plunge in registrations, the largest among the continent’s ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - May 12, 2009 - Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Curtiss-Wright Corp. (CW), Microchip Technology Inc. (MCHP), The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (RBS), Verisign Inc. (VRSN) and Celera Corp. (CRA).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=4579.

Here are highlights from Monday's Analyst Blog:

Curtiss-Wright Feels the Squeeze

Curtiss-Wright Corp. (CW) was caught in a classic economic squeeze during Q1-09: Sales were off a bit, while expenses generally went the other way; consequently, EPS were down a lot.

Net Sales were

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Today, The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (RBS) posted a first quarter pretax loss of £44 million, compared to £479 million gain in the prior-year quarter, driven by a £2.2 billion increase in impairment losses to £2.9 billion on deteriorating asset quality trends. (All data presented herein is on a pro forma basis, rather than on a statutory basis, as we believe this better represents RBS's operating trends.)Excluding all nonrecurring items, RBS reported pretax profits of £1.97 billion, down 11% from the £2.2 billion earned a year ago. Net revenues rose 41% year over year to £8.9 billion from £6.3 billion, largely due to the very strong trading performance (up 174%) in rates, currencies, and commodities at Global Banking and Markets (GBM).Net interest income declined 3% to £3.4 billion as a 37 basis-point drop in the net interest margin to 1.73% ...