Don't need a rating agency to sell bonds

• US wants to retrofit coal fired plants for cleaner emissions. TRADE: which companies are doing this?
• JPMorgan has 40% of its profit from London; currently questions about future management makeup
• Google and Apple are no longer sharing board members - a sign of more contention (Apple does not want to sell a device that requires Google's network services to function)
• Companies prefer bonds to bank loans: in some cases, it's riskier to borrow from a bank than the bond markets. Banks used to fund working capital, but those markets froze up, so companies are looking to use longer term bonds to settle immediate cash needs (example: GE financing arm)
• If companies start hiring, central banks will need to raise interest rates to stem inflation, which will remove one of main drivers for a recovery
• Citi: first US institution to offer banking in Philippines (remittances)
• Other big banks looking to Asia for growth. HSBC head moved from London to HK
• EMEA: Europe, Middle East, and Africa
• Moody's Global speculative grade default rates: 12%, low of 2% in 2008. Predicted to come back down to 3%; US Junk is up 50% this year
• Russia looking to be the best preforming this year as oil has risen and global recovery seems apparent
• Vanilla ABS is back; Lloyds and Volkswagen. European privacy laws make it hard to publish data on the contents of these structures . Investors aren't asking for more loan level information than previous, but demanded a larger subordinated cushion