Oil price hits six-week peak on OPEC prospects

Oil prices hit a six-week high in New York on Monday on expectations that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will decide to cut output further this week, analysts said.
New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, jumped to a six-week peak of 47.03 dollars a barrel in morning London trade.
The contract later stood at 45.82 dollars, up 30 cents from Friday's close, as profit-taking set in.
Brent North Sea crude for April fell 1.11 dollars to 43.74 dollars, pulled lower by concerns about falling demand for crude.

Analysts said prices also diverged because New York crude won support from recent falls in stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma, which is the delivery point for oil traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex).
The OPEC cartel, which pumps 40 percent of the world's oil, is due to meet on Sunday for a crucial production meeting.
"Crude oil climbed to the highest in almost six weeks on speculation the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will decide to reduce output in an effort to trim stockpiles and lift prices," said BetOnMarkets analyst Dave Evans.
"It seems like an attempt to break past the 50 dollar level is in the cards," he added.

OPEC slashed output late last year by 4.2 million barrels per day in a bid to reverse tumbling prices and protect its revenues.
"We all want to see the global economy back on its feet as quickly as possible," OPEC secretary general Abdalla Salem El-Badri had said last week.
But "oil prices need to be at levels to help sustain economic growth by supporting longer-term energy industry investments across the board," he added.
Prices are down from record highs above 147 dollars hit in July 2008. A sharp world economic slowdown, sparked by the global financial crisis, has since ravaged demand.
Sucden Financial analyst Nimit Khamar said Monday that ongoing concerns about the crisis -- and its impact of energy demand -- continued to plague the oil market ahead of the OPEC gathering.
"Crude oil prices may be dictated by noise of further production cuts from OPEC nations this week, ahead of the meeting at the weekend, which might push oil prices toward 50 dollars per barrel," he noted.
At the same time, "anxiety over the financial sector and concerns over the global economy ... (are) weighing on oil prices amid concerns over weakening demand," Khamar said.


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Europe Debates Asylum For Guantanamo Detainees

European leaders have welcomed President Barack Obama's decision to shut down the prison at Guantanamo Bay. But now they are being asked to offer asylum to some of the 245 detainees.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton likely will raise the issue again when she meets her European colleagues in Brussels on Thursday.
It's going to be a hard sell — even after years of discussions on the subject between the U.S. and Europe.

If returned to their homelands, the detainees could face prison or torture. Europe is considering how they would be screened and which countries would take them — and under what conditions.
Simon Koschut of the German Council for Foreign Relations says the limited number of internal borders means there would have to be a general agreement.
"Any inmate that would come to a European country could travel from one country to another without being controlled by visa regulations, so we have to find a common European position," he says.
That's the rub. Spain, Portugal, France and Italy are willing to take some detainees. Britain says it has done its part by taking in 14. But in Germany, it's an election year and politicians are divided. Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union is reluctant, while the Social Democrats are more flexible.
A high-level EU delegation will go to Washington soon for more detailed information from U.S. officials.
Koschut says the Europeans will want the U.S. to open up all detainee files.
"The Americans will have to explain what kind of risks these people pose, why they can't be allowed to enter [the] U.S., why they have to go to Europe, why they can't be sent back to their home countries — and the U.S. has to sort of give a, not a guarantee but almost a guarantee, that these people do not pose a threat anymore," he says.
Other questions nagging the Europeans include who would pay for resettlement and the detainees' medical care — and whether some of them would be prosecuted or imprisoned.
Italy's leading anti-terrorism magistrate, Armando Spataro, has already singled out some inmates.

"We know of at least three Guantanamo detainees who have arrest warrants pending here," he says. "I believe the United States could simply extradite them to Italy where they would be tried in our courts."
Resettlement of former inmates raises other questions — like whether their freedom of movement should be curtailed and whether they should be put under surveillance.
Tomas Valasek of the London-based Center for European Reform, says these are serious civil liberties issues.
"If a prisoner has been absolved of all crimes, what right do the governments have to keep monitoring him? Isn't this a softer form of what the U.S. did in Guantanamo — in other words, a perpetual banishment of sorts without due trial?" he says.
Human rights organizations say Europe has a moral duty to offer asylum to Guantanamo detainees because, they claim, some governments bear responsibility by having allegedly helped transport some suspects to the U.S. prison.
But Valasek says that, in the minds of the public, anyone detained at Guantanamo is seen as a potential terrorist.

"There is political reluctance to take prisoners, whether they are safe or not. It is not a particularly popular issue in terms of domestic politics. European publics will be reluctant to take anyone who has even cast of shadow of suspicion," he says.
For years, European governments harshly criticized the existence of Guantanamo. Its closure now poses new challenges for America's allies — in the realms of international law, security and domestic politics.


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Wall St Week Ahead: GM, banks' fate to keep investors on edge

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With stocks mired in multi-year lows and the fate of General Motors and banks hanging in the balance, investors are unlikely to curb their flight from risk this week, putting Wall Street on track for another brutal sell-off.
One focal point will be a meeting between the U.S. auto task force and GM (NYSE:GM - News), Chrysler and officials from the United Auto Workers in Detroit this week after auditors raised doubts about GM's ability to survive outside bankruptcy.

Uncertainty over the plan to salvage banks will also hang over the struggling sector until more concrete details from Washington are revealed, leaving investors to fret that companies that were once pillars of the financial system will have to be nationalized.
The weak economy will likely be confirmed by a handful of economic reports, including a government report on February retail sales and a survey of consumer sentiment.
"There are, unfortunately, no guideposts to a lot of the market to allow investors to get a better sense of direction of where the market is going, where corporate America is going," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago.
"Short of that, we're going to likely have to rely on Washington. Unfortunately, it just seems like Washington's relationship with the stock market is strained."

"PAINFUL" MARKET
With the Dow and S&P trading at 12-year lows, and the Nasdaq sliding to six-year lows, market watchers will be looking for signs of whether a bottom has been found, or if indexes still have another leg down to go.
Last week was the fourth week of declines for all three major U.S. stock indexes, as the Dow Jones industrial average (DJI:^DJI - News) dropped 6.2 percent and the Nasdaq composite index (Nasdaq:^IXIC - News) fell 6.1 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 (^SPX - News) slid 7 percent, its worst week since November.
"I've been in the business since 1963 and I've truthfully never seen a market that is so discouraging or painful," said Carl Birkelbach, chief executive officer of Birkelbach Investment Securities in Chicago.
"I've been through a lot, but this is the worst I've seen."

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that about $50 billion of more than $173 billion of U.S. government bailout money poured into American International Group Inc (NYSE:AIG - News) has been paid to at least 24 financial institutions around the world.
Already cheap bank stocks continued their tumble last week. The stock price of Dow component Citigroup (NYSE:C - News), once the world's most valuable bank by market capitalization, fell under $1 for the first time, reigniting anxiety over the bank's health and that of the entire banking sector.
Clarity on how toxic assets will be cleared off banks' balance sheets and how those assets will be valued is key to stabilizing the financial sector and seeing markets manage a sustainable recovery, analysts said.
"In order to move forward, we need (Treasury Secretary) Geithner to come out and tell us the answer to the question: 'How do you value the assets?'," said Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. in San Francisco.
"We may be happy about it, we may not be happy about it, but at least we'll know."
Members of the U.S. autos task force will visit Detroit this week to meet with GM, Chrysler and officials from the United Auto Workers labor union, an official for the Obama administration said on Friday.
GM's failure could trigger round of massive layoffs and hurt companies that supply and manufacture parts, said Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank in New York.
In all, GM's bankruptcy could lop off 4 percentage points from the U.S. gross domestic product, of which two-thirds is driven by consumer spending, LaVorgna said.

CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY 101

Ahead of the Fed's policy-making meeting the following week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is set to address the Council on Foreign Relations on Tuesday. Investors will be watching for any comments on the state of the economy and the outlook for banks.
Economic data on February retail sales on Thursday and a preliminary reading on March consumer sentiment on Friday, coupled with quarterly results from office supplies and electronics retailer Staples Inc (NasdaqGS:SPLS - News) on Wednesday, should give a gauge of consumer spending. January's international trade deficit report is due on Friday.
Economists polled by Reuters forecast that retail sales will slip 0.5 percent in February, after January's unexpected gain of 1 percent. They forecast a preliminary March reading on consumer sentiment of 55.0, down from 56.3 for February, from the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. The international trade deficit is forecast to drop to $38.1 billion in January from $39.93 billion in December.
Last week, U.S. retailers posted better-than-expected same-store sales for February, helped by a strong gain at Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT - News), the world's largest retailer and the leading U.S. discount chain. But analysts cautioned that stores will have to show consistent improvement for expectations of weakness to change.


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Barack Obama Merrill Bonuses

Reputations get shredded fast in a financial crisis, but the speed of John Thain’s descent from hero to zero is extraordinarily rapid.

In mid-October, he seemed like the smartest guy in the pack, delivering Merrill Lynch into the hands of Bank of America for $50bn during the weekend that Lehman collapsed and obtaining a premium for Merrill shareholders amid the chaos.
Contrasts were drawn between Mr Thain’s pragmatism and the obstinacy of Dick Fuld at Lehman Brothers, who held out for too high a price from investors willing to inject capital into his bank and suffered the ignominy of its collapse.

Since then, it has been all down hill for Mr Thain, culminating in him being ejected from Bank of America today, amid revelations about his expensive refurbishment of his office suite by a designer hired by Barack Obama for the White House.
Symbolism matters, and Mr Thain’s initial attempt to gain a $10m bonus for 2008, as well as details of his $87,000 office rug, have turned him into a symbol of Wall Street excess and the tone-deaf unwillingness of bankers to realise the world has changed.


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