WSF Headline Roundup - 12/26/08 - $GM: GMAC OK'd as bank holding co; $AIG lighter of $16B CDS; Cal bond yields rise; College course: How to run a hedge fund; Christmas sucked for most retailers;But $AMZN Christmas the 'best-ever'; $NYT going Soxless?

• GM Gets Boost as GMAC Bank Approval Helps Loan Access
• With Fed's Help, AIG Unloads $16 Billion in Credit Default Swaps
• California Bond Yields Rise to Four-Year High on Budget Impasse
• How Do You Run a Hedge Fund? Colleges Are Showing How
• Holiday Sales Tumble as U.S. Consumers Reduce Luxury Purchases
• Stores hope to salvage season on day after Christmas
• Amazon.com Rises After Reporting ‘Best-Ever’ Holiday Season
• New York Times wants to sell stake in New England Sports Ventures, owner of Boston Red Sox, Fenway

GM Gets Boost as GMAC Bank Approval Helps Loan Access - Bloomberg

General Motors Corp., days from receiving its first installment of at least $9.4 billion in U.S. aid, won another victory with the Federal Reserve’s approval of lender GMAC LLC’s bid to become a bank holding company. 

GMAC’s shift to a bank eases the threat of a default that threatened to dry up credit for GM dealers who used the company to finance about three-quarters of their inventory. GMAC also handled loans for about 35 percent of GM’s 2007 retail buyers.....

The Fed used emergency powers on Dec. 24 to grant GMAC’s bank conversion, citing turmoil in financial markets and the potential impact on Detroit-based GM as the biggest U.S. automaker taps emergency federal loans to stay in business.....

With Fed's Help, AIG Unloads $16 Billion in Credit Default Swaps - Bloomberg via Washington Post

American International Group retired $16 billion in credit default swaps, the contracts that almost caused the company's collapse, after buying the underlying securities with help from the Federal Reserve. 

The fund created by the Fed and AIG to protect the insurer's customers from losses has now purchased collateralized debt obligations with a face value of about $62.1 billion, the firm said in a statement. 

The purchases bring AIG closer to winding down the financial products unit that triggered the worst of AIG's losses. The business guaranteed more than $70 billion in securities created by pools of different kinds of debt, including subprime mortgages, that plunged in value. The federal government committed $150 billion to bail out AIG and prevent losses at investment banks that bought protection on fixed-income securities from the insurer....

California Bond Yields Rise to Four-Year High on Budget Impasse - Bloomberg

California’s fiscal crisis pushed yields on tax-backed debt to a four-year high as the state struggles with a $42 billion budget deficit. 

Bonds due in 10 years yield about 53 basis points, or 0.53 percentage point, more than general obligation bonds rated A+, the most since early 2004, according Bloomberg municipal bond yield indexes. California has approval to sell $53 billion of bonds for public works projects. 

The nation’s most-populous state will run out of money to pay bills as soon as February unless lawmakers end an impasse over how to close the funding gap. California has the second- lowest credit ratings in the country because of perennial fiscal shortfalls and legislative gridlock.....

How Do You Run a Hedge Fund? Colleges Are Showing How - NY Times

Jaison Ipe was about two minutes into his introduction of Silk L.L.C., a mock hedge fund, when the questions started flying.

Why was the fund focusing only on biotechnology and not specialty pharmaceuticals? What was behind its name? Who were the scientists the fund planned to work with?

Mr. Ipe, a second-year student at the Yale School of Management, gamely gave answers, but the panel of bona fide hedge fund insiders gathered to judge his team’s presentation kept peppering them with questions.....

Holiday Sales Tumble as U.S. Consumers Reduce Luxury Purchases - Bloomberg

Cutbacks on clothing, electronics and jewelry led U.S. retail sales to drop as much as 4 percent this holiday season as consumers limited purchases to necessities, according to SpendingPulse data. 

Spending was the lowest since MasterCard Advisors started tracking data in 2002 to provide the SpendingPulse service, said Michael McNamara, vice president of research and analysis, in an interview yesterday. He estimates sales, excluding autos and gasoline, fell 2 percent to 4 percent from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24. 

“Overall this has been one of the most challenging holiday seasons on record,” McNamara said....

Stores hope to salvage season on day after Christmas - Newsday

Christmas may be over, but stores are viewing the day after Christmas and the upcoming week as another retail holiday and, perhaps, as a chance to make the season a little less dismal than analysts have predicted.

Over the years, Dec. 26 has become more than a day for consumers to return well-intentioned but unwanted gifts. Many stores open early and offer doorbuster specials, catering to recipients of holiday gift cards as well as shoppers looking to treat themselves.

After a disastrous 12 months for the industry - a battered economy, higher unemployment and bankruptcy filings - experts say they expect retailers will beckon shoppers with bigger discounts, especially with indications that recession-stressed consumers continued to cut back in December and left retailers with a larger-than-expected inventory to clear......

Amazon.com Rises After Reporting ‘Best-Ever’ Holiday Season - Bloomberg

Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest Internet retailer, rose as much as 4.9 percent in early Nasdaq trading after saying it had its best holiday-shopping season ever. 

More than 6.3 million items were ordered worldwide on Dec. 15, its peak day, the Seattle-based company said today in a statement. The Internet retailer didn’t provide specific revenue or profit data, and a phone call to its media hotline wasn’t immediately returned. 

Online spending at U.S. retailers dipped 1 percent in the holiday season through Dec. 19, research firm ComScore Inc. said last week, less than the 19 percent gain seen during the 2007 holiday season. Inclement weather during the second half of December may have caused more people to buy over the Internet instead of driving to the mall, SpendingPulse said yesterday.....

New York Times wants to sell stake in New England Sports Ventures, owner of Boston Red Sox, Fenway - AP Via NY Daily News

The New York Times Co. said Wednesday that advertising revenue dropped 20.9 percent in November from a year ago, as the financial crisis prompted steep declines in classified and national ad spending.

The sharp economic deterioration, which followed the turmoil in the financial markets this September, has exacerbated an already-weak advertising market for newspapers as readers and advertisers have migrated to the Internet.

As part of its efforts to shore up its core newspaper assets amid the slump, the Times Co. is actively seeking buyers for its 17.5 percent stake in the holding company of the Boston Red Sox, according to reports Wednesday. The holding company, New England Sports Ventures, owns the baseball club, Fenway Park and a majority interest in the New England Sports Network.....