Business

Morning Market Roundup: Silvio Berlusconi’s Storm and Greece’s New Angle

A second European Prime Minister is in the news today as unconfirmed reports have Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi possibly resigning.

The Italian media is fueling the rumors and according to Giuliano Ferrara, editor of Il Foglio daily newspaper, ”That Silvio Berlusconi is about to step down is now clear to everybody, it’s a matter of hours, some say minutes.”

Berlusconi has denied the rumors while European markets responded with a bounce in the Euro.

(Related: Is Europe Warming Up Gold for its Final Act?)

This, of course, follows on the heels of the weekend’s big news when Greece Prime Minister George Papandreou agreed to step down. Today he will meet with opposition leader Antonis Samaras to discuss the next prime minister and the new Cabinet for a transitional Greek government.

The coalition government’s top priority is to pass the European rescue plan and then oversee the country’s early 2012 elections.

U.K. cellphone retailer Carphone Warehouse PLC will sell a stake in its U.S. joint venture to partner Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE:BBY) for GBP$838 million ($1.34 billion) in cash. The company is also closing the Best Buy UK stores. Carphone will also return GBP $813 million to its shareholders from the proceeds.

Dish Network Corp.(NASDAQ:DISH) reported its third-quarter earnings jumped 30 percent with equipment, merchandise and rental revenues seeing double-dip increases to $362.1 million. The company saw a $319.1 million ($0.71 cents per share) profit, up from $245 million ($0.55 cents) from the previous year. Revenue increased 12 percent to $3.6 billion.

Analysts’ estimates were $0.73 cents per share on $3.65 billion in revenue. The company did lose a net 111,000 subscribers in the quarter and now sits with a 13.9 million customer base as of September 30..

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler has removed himself from the MF Global Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:MF) investigation. The chairman recused himself for a potential conflict of interest due to his previous working relationship with Jon Corzine, MF’s ex-CEO, at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS) during the 1990s.

[Editor's note: the above is a cross post that originally appeared on Wall St. Cheat Sheet]

Comments (10)

  • Redistributor
    Posted on November 7, 2011 at 8:48pm

    who? I don’t care

    Report Post »  
  • Mikev5
    Posted on November 7, 2011 at 7:49pm

    The EU will collapse its only when and how hard?

    Report Post » Mikev5  
  • A Doctors Labor Is Not My Right
    Posted on November 7, 2011 at 7:16pm

    Fiat money is always the bubble. Gold makes a good currency, and no matter how “responsible” you think a bank can be with paper, the very fact that it is easily expandable makes it a TERRIBLE currency.

    Further, on the issue of an expandable currency, it is true that if a commodity becomes scarce, relative to the amount of goods offered in trade, that such a commodity will only be useful for large purchases – but the solution is not a single currency that is readily expandable, but to have a LESS SCARCE alternative commodity currency that facilitates smaller transactions.

    This way, the market determines the value of the money, rather than some central planning entity that can steal wealth from the people through the hidden tax that is inflation.

    For more on this, below is a video explaining the Austrian school of economics’ position on money.

    See here.

    Smashing Myths and Restoring Sound Money | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAzExlEsIKk

    Report Post »  
  • scoter
    Posted on November 7, 2011 at 1:28pm

    http://www.helpfireobama.com Please give $20.12

    Report Post » scoter  
  • apu123
    Posted on November 7, 2011 at 12:00pm

    These cheer leading headlines are farcical. It makes no difference who is running Greece, they are bankrupt and can not pay back their loans even with the 50% “non-credit event” haircut. A haircut which by the way could destroy the CDS market and push sovereign debt yields higher. Italy is in the same boat along with Spain, Portugal and Ireland. Belgium and France are not looking to good either. The “trillion” Euro EFSF which is supposed to bail everybody out could not even raise a paltry couple of billion Euros at its last bond offering so I guess its not going to be saving the day. The ECB which said it would quit buying Italian bonds last week just had to buy several billion more today to keep the wheels on for another 48 hours. The whole thing is just surviving on rumors, the Chinese/Russians/Brazilians/Indians are going to buy in to the debt ridden EU. Sure they are. I love the analysts saying how getting rid of governments in Italy and Greece are bullish. Sure government collapses are always bullish, a lot gets done does it not? Italy is barley held together by the current government, like him or not Berlusconi has the connections and savvy to hold the place together. Even old Benito had hard time keeping a lid on things in Italy, so removing Berlusconi will just throw more chaos into the system. Now the G20 wants Germany to put up its gold and hard currency reserves to back this charade, good luck!. Not to say anything about the counter party risks he

    Report Post »  
    • Mikev5
      Posted on November 7, 2011 at 7:47pm

      I’m with you on this I think if anything they may buy into more US debt not the EU the USA has a ton of resources to open up if only Obama and his band of thugs would open it all up again that man Obama is choking all of our natural resources locking up the land and its goodies and he wonders why we are not recovering? Either he is doing it on purpose or he is an IDIOT

      Report Post » Mikev5  
  • SpankDaMonkey
    Posted on November 7, 2011 at 11:55am

    .
    Gloom, Despair & Agony on us……

    Deep Dark Depression, Excessive Misery……

    If it weren’t for Bad News, we’d have on news at all…..

    Gloom, Despair & Agony on us……

    Report Post » SpankDaMonkey  
  • AxelPhantom
    Posted on November 7, 2011 at 11:36am

    Europe is in flush mode, but we all swim in the same bowl.

    Report Post »  
  • YoungBloodNews
    Posted on November 7, 2011 at 10:01am

    Its the EEEEENNNND of the world as we know it!

    Maybe 2005Yu will strike the Pacific and all this will mean nill lol

    Report Post » YoungBloodNews  

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