Arrow Energy (ASX:AOE): Rising Demand in Aussie LNG

Big news: Arrow Energy (ASX:AOE), a modest energy producer, received a $3 billion takeover bid yesterday. Why was this benchwarmer story the leadoff hitter in today’s 5 Min. Forecast? Ahh, the drama’s in the details…some big trends in the making here:

CBO Debt Projections: Make Room for “Crowding Out”

The latest deficit projection from the Congressional Budget Office was conveniently revealed just prior to the close of business on Friday.

“Why so?” You ask suspiciously.

“Because,” we respond in a hushed tone.

The CBO’s latest numbers reveal that President Obama’s proposed fiscal 2011 budget would add $9.7 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years. The White House projection is only slightly less staggering – $8.5 trillion.

Securing Iraqi Oil Fields…for US Competitors

Iraq will pump up oil production from 2.4 million barrels a day now to 12 million barrels by 2017. That’s the promise of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who’d like to hold onto his job after elections on Sunday.

It’s not 2004 anymore. And it’s no longer in Washington’s interest to play up purple fingers in Iraqi elections. So let’s bring you up to speed on what’s been happening there since the “surge” was deemed a success:

Not-So Honest Accounting of Government Finances

Happy inauguration day! Today we begin with this little known factoid: For the first 143 years of the American Republic, presidents were inaugurated on March 4, the only day of the year that is also a command.

The date was moved up to Jan. 20 in 1932 when the activist president Franklin Delano Roosevelt couldn’t wait to wring his hands around the neck of the US economy. Roosevelt set in motion 78 years of what the economist Friedrich von Hayek called the “fatal conceit” – the arrogant belief that anyone could know enough at any one time to plan an economy.

Shorting the Euro: A Good Bet if Not for the DOJ

Every crisis comes with political baggage. This morning, the US Justice Department is said to be “requesting” that certain hedge funds reveal their bets against the euro.

Under pressure from their EU counterparts, say rumors making their way around the Internet, the Department of Justice is tracking down fund managers who attended a particular dinner in February hosted by Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co., a NYC brokerage firm. The managers there supposedly discussed taking short positions in the euro and in US banks while going long the Canadian dollar…all fantastic trading ideas, if you ask us.

Canadian Economic Growth to Spur Early Rate Hike?

Here we go again. The Canadian dollar is rapidly approaching parity with the US variety.

In the last five trading days, Canadians have collectively grown almost 4% richer compared with their slovenly southern neighbors. Over the last 12 months, the loonie is up 22% versus the greenback. At this rate, we won’t be able to tell people when we head off for Vancouver: “Canada, it’s just like the US…only less.”

FICO is Shocked by Default Data

FICO, the outfit that computes your vaunted “credit score,” has just noticed that consumers with high scores are more likely to default on their mortgages than their credit cards.

Last year, the firm says, folks with FICO scores of 760 or higher defaulted on real estate loans at three times the pace they defaulted on plastic.

Is China More Capitalist than the US?

The markets were atwitter this morning over Greece. But chances are you already know that. It’s China we have on the brain.

And so does Joe Six-pack. ABC News and The Washington Post just polled 1,000 Americans and found…

• 41% say the 21st century will be the “Chinese Century”
• 40% say it will still be an “American Century”
• A slim majority says the US will play a smaller role in the world economy this century
• But a majority also says that will be either a good thing or, at worst, neutral.

FDIC’s Problem Banks List: Where Will It End?

The FDIC is even more broke than it was three months ago. The fund the FDIC uses to “insure” your bank account went $20.9 billion in the red during the fourth quarter of 2009. That’s more than twice the deficit reported when the fund first entered negative territory in the previous quarter.

Goldman Bets Against the Assets It Sold to AIG

“This is half-baked justice at best,” US District Judge Jed Rakoff wrote in an opinion yesterday afternoon. The SEC sued Bank of America for lying to their shareholders over the company having been forced to buy Merrill Lynch.

In a move that smacks of some backroom deal you and I will never be privy to, the SEC sued for only $150 million. That’s 2.4% of the $3.6 billion in 11th-hour bonuses Merrill execs awarded themselves days before they merged with BofA. It’s an even smaller fraction of the $4.4 billion bonus pool Bank of America henchmen enjoyed last year.

Discount Rate Increases 25 Points… So What?

All for show, not for go. The Federal Reserve has raised the discount rate – the rate it charges banks for short-term loans – by 25 points, to 0.75%.

“It used to be a sin,” our friend Chuck Butler commented this morning in The Daily Pfennig, “to have to go to the ‘discount window’ and borrow from the Fed. But these days, it’s like a walk in the park…nobody watches, and nobody cares!”

National Debt: $12.4 Trillion and Counting

We have deficits and debts on the brain today. The federal deficit for the first four months of fiscal 2010 just clocked in at $430.7 billion. That’s 8.8% higher than the year-ago figure.

We remember that when the annual deficit hit a record high $430 billion under the second Bush administration, we thought the world was going to end and we’d have to “buy guns, ammo, dry goods, go into hiding, cling to God and wait for the country and the rest of world to collapse.”