12/09/08 The Raw Greenwich Business News Feed

Office Vacancy Rates Rise in Manhattan’s Shadow

New York Times

Before the market softened, some rents in Greenwich were more than $100 a square foot and more than $60 in Stamford. “Landlords are trying to hold on to ...

Treasury Bills Trade at Negative Rates as Demand for Investor Haven Surges
Bloomberg
Treasuries rose, pushing rates on the three-month bill negative for the first time, as investors gravitate toward the safety of U.S. government debt amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The Treasury sold $27 billion of three-month bills yesterday at a discount rate of 0.005 percent, the lowest since it starting auctioning the securities in 1929. The U.S. also sold $30 billion of four-week bills today at zero percent for the first time since it began selling the debt in 2001.

“It’s the year-end factor,” said Chris Ahrens, an interest-rate strategist in Greenwich, Connecticut, at UBS Securities LLC, one of the 17 primary dealers that trade directly with the Federal Reserve. “Everyone wants to be in bills going into year-end. Buy now while the opportunity is still there.”

The benchmark 10-year note’s yield tumbled 11 basis points, or 0.11 percentage point, to 2.63 percent at 4:48 p.m. in New York, according to BGCantor Market Data. The 3.75 percent security due in November 2018 gained 31/32, or $9.69 per $1,000 face amount, to 109 23/32. The yield touched 2.505 percent on Dec. 5, the lowest level since at least 1962, when the Fed’s daily records began.

The two-year note’s yield fell 10 basis points to 0.84 percent. It dropped to a record low of 0.77 percent on Dec. 5.

If you invested $1 million in three-month bills at today’s negative discount rate of 0.01 percent, for a price of 100.002556, at maturity you would receive the par value for a loss of $25.56.

‘Horrible Year’

Indirect bidders, a group that includes foreign central banks, bought 47.2 percent of the four-week bills, compared with 31.7 percent in the prior auction. Primary dealers bought 52.1 percent, while direct bidders such as individual investors purchased 0.7 percent.

“It’s been such a horrible year people want to show they have the good stuff on their balance sheets, not the bad stuff, but with yields already so low it pushes these even lower,” said Theodore Ake, the head of Treasury trading in New York at Mizuho Securities USA Inc., another primary dealer.

The rate on four-week bills peaked at 5.175 percent on Jan. 29, 2007. The government began issuing the four-week bills in July 2001, according to Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the Bureau of Public Debt in Washington. The bills are intended to reduce the government’s reliance on irregularly issued cash management bills.

Meyerhardt wasn’t aware of the three-month bill ever trading at a negative rate before.

Housing Slump

Treasuries of all maturities have returned 11.4 percent this year, according to Merrill Lynch & Co.’s U.S. Treasury Master Index. That compares with a 39 percent loss in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, including reinvested dividends.

Bonds have surged as the U.S. housing slump pushed up the cost of credit globally, causing equity markets to tumble. The world’s biggest financial companies incurred almost $1 trillion in writedowns and credit losses since the start of last year, helping push the major economies into recession ...

MORE NEWSLINKS FROM THE RAW GREENWICH BUSINESS NEWS FEED......

GMS Group Expands Managed Account Services Via Technology, Products, and Services from FundQuest
PRESS RELEASE: Business Wire
... with branches located in New Jersey, Texas and Florida, Institutional Sales/Trading located in Livingston, NJ and Greenwich, CT and Investment Banking located in Springfield, PA. Long recognized as a leading specialist in tax-exempt municipal bonds, ...

Morgan Stanley Revamps Bonuses With Claw-Back Provision
Bank Systems & Technology
... and what other firms are doing in tough times check out the New York Times article . Third Wave Global Investors (Greenwich, Conn.) Larry Smith Founder and Chief Investment Officer Growing up at JPMorgan, I learned what it meant to be a fiduciary at ...

Picking pet requires homework
Tacoma News Tribune
... they often are able to make successful matches. Sharon Haught, an adoption counselor with Adopt-a-Dog Inc. in Greenwich, Conn., says it can be tempting to want to adopt a pet after the first visit, but additional research and visits are often ...

Public relations, press release distribution, investor relations, SEC filing
Business Wire
GREENWICH, Conn.----Hedge funds as measured by the Greenwich Global Hedge Fund Index ("GGHFI") declined for the fifth straight ...

Editorial: The Season for Giving
Radio World

In lieu of our regular editorial, Radio World today shares this space with the Broadcasters Foundation of America, which has begun its annual fund drive.

The following letter to the industry was distributed by President Philip Lombardo and Vice Chairman Stu Olds.

Dear Colleague: Over the years you've been very generous to the Broadcasters Foundation of America and we're hopeful we can count on your support during these difficult and uncertain economic times. We need you now more than ever. Thanks to you, our national charitable Foundation has been a "Foul-Weather Friend" to hundreds of present and former broadcasters.

As you know, many support our Mission by attending our golf events, the Golden Mike dinner at the Waldorf each year and the "Angels" Campaign for corporate contributors....

... made possible by your generosity. One of our recipients recently sent this note to our national headquarters in Greenwich. It should have properly gone to you and our other benefactors: "When my family and I were really up against it after my stroke ...

Blyth Q3 Sales Fall 12 Percent
Gifts & Decorative Accessories
Greenwich, CT Gift and home vendor Blyth Inc. reported sales for the third quarter dropped about 12 percent to $250.8 million, compared to $285.9 million for the prior year period.

Weeden & Co. and Pragma Financial Systems Launch OnePipe Plusa
PRESS RELEASE: Business Wire
... systems. Founded in 2002, Pragma's clients include brokers, hedge funds, and traditional asset managers. Greenwich, Conn.-based Weeden & Co., LP, is a full-service institutional broker specializing in the execution of difficult-to-trade equities and ...

Incidence and Impact of Lyme Disease on the Rise

Press Release: PRWeb
In fact, health experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society just released a report listing 12 pathogens, including the agents behind avian flu, Ebola, cholera, and Lyme disease, which are likely to invade ...

Chromatin, Inc. Raises $12.4 Million in Series C Financing
PRESS RELEASE: BioSpace
... completed a Series C financing round of $12.4 million, led by Quantitative Financial Strategies, Inc. ("Quant") (Greenwich, CT), and joined by the Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund ("MLSCF") and Chromatin's existing investors Burrill & Company, ...


Maxum Petroleum Receives $300 Million Investment from Metalmark Capital and Waud Capital Partners
PRESS RELEASE: Business Wire
... increase our commitment to Maxum Petroleum and help it reach the next level." Maxum Petroleum, Inc., based in Old Greenwich, CT, is a leading independent energy logistics company that markets and distributes a comprehensive offering of refined ...

Number of part-time workers surged to 7.32M in November
The Honolulu Advertiser
... so bad, that people are giving up hope of even finding anything,' said Stephen Stanley, chief U.S. economist at Greenwich Capital Markets in Greenwich, Conn. While the U.S. unemployment rate reported by the Labor Department for last month was the ...

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