Investment News: Money Morning

Cablevision Buys Newsday for $650 Million; Brazil to Start SWF, Cut Taxes by $12.8 Billion; Oil Surges Over $126; Chinese Inflation Nears a 12-Year High; XM Hit by 1Q Loss Despite Revenue Jump; BlackBerry Bold Revealed; EDS Buy-Out?; Clear Channel Looks to Settle

• Cablevision Systems Corp. (CVC) announced Monday that it bought Long Island daily newspaper Newsday for $650 million, a deal Cablevision hopes will profit through cross marketing and advertising in cable and newspaper operations, Reuters reported. Cablevision – which also owns TV networks AMC and IFC, venues such as Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden and sports teams New York Knicks and New York Rangers – recently announced it would buy the Sundance Channel for $496 million.

• Brazil’s government announced it will launch a sovereign wealth fund and offer more than $12.8 billion in tax cuts to boost the economy, Bloomberg reported. Called the Productive Development Policy Package, the plan hopes to increase exports and bolster infrastructure.  "We need to invest more and better," Trade Minister Miguel Jorge said in a speech yesterday (Monday). "Investing better is nothing but taking a big leap in terms of the quality of our industrial matrix."

• Oil prices hit a record high for the sixth straight trading day yesterday (Monday), before receding slightly. Light, sweet crude for June delivery jumped to a new record of $126.40 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the Associated Press reported. Retail gas prices rose to a record $3.718 a gallon according to a survey of stations by AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

• Consumer prices in China for the month of April were 8.5% higher than last year, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics reported. April inflation was driven by a 22.1% jump in food prices, the Associated Press reported.

• Despite a jump in revenue and subscribers, XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc.(XMSR) reported a first-quarter net loss of $129.3 million, compared with loss of $122.4 million year ago. Revenue was $308.5 million, up 17% from a year ago. The company picked up 355,000 new customers through deals with auto manufacturers. It lost 51,000 retail customers. XM ended the quarter with 9.3 million subscribers.

• Shares of Research in Motion Ltd. (RIMM), maker of the popular BlackBerry device, climbed 7% yesterday (Monday) after the firm revealed its new 3G version. The stock gained $9.20 to close at $141.97. The BlackBerry Bold will be released later this summer, MarketWatch reported.

• Shares of Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS) soared 28% before having trading suspended late in the day yesterday (Monday). The tech stock gained $5.27 to close at $24.13 on news reports that Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) could be announcing plans to buy the business solutions tech firm.

• An announcement that Clear Channel Communications Inc. (CCU) was trying to come to a settlement with banks that backed out on its planned $19.4 billion privation sent the stock up almost 10% yesterday (Monday). Shares gained $2.87 to close at $32.87.

May 13th, 2008

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