Breaking News: SEC Charges Goldman Sachs with Fraud on Subprime Mortgages, Says Goldman Misstated, Omitted Key Facts (story developing) GS down 10 % /Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (Public, NYSE:GS)

Breaking News: SEC Charges Goldman Sachs with Fraud on Subprime Mortgages, Says Goldman Misstated, Omitted Key Facts (story developing) SEC charges Goldman Sachs with civil fraud in structuring and marketing of CDOs tied to subprime mortgages.and one of its vice presidents for defrauding investors by misstating and omitting key facts about a financial product related to subprime mortgages. The SEC alleges that Goldman Sachs structured and marketed a collateralized debt obligation that hinged on the performance of subprime residential mortgage-backed securities. However, it failed to disclose the role that a major hedge fund, Paulson & Co., played in the portfolio selection process as well as the fact that the hedge fund had taken a short position against the CDO. "Goldman wrongly permitted a client that was betting against the mortgage market to heavily influence which mortgage securities to include in an investment portfolio, while telling other investors that the securities were selected by an independent, objective third party," said Robert Khuzami, director of the division of enforcement, in a statement.
Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
(Public, NYSE:GS)

Jim Cramer Buy List ...

Buy:

Carrizo Oil & Gas (CRZO)
Baltic Trading (BALT)
Intel (INTC)
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ)
SanDisk (SNDK)
Western Digital (WDC)
Apple (AAPL)
Scotts Miracle-Gro (SMG)
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
Anadarko Petroleum (APC)
Costco (COST)
Imax (IMAX)
ARM Holdings (ARMH)
Yahoo! (YHOO)
Exelon (EXC)
Murphy Oil (MUR)

Sell:
Merck (MRK)

Twitter will make money by advertisements ?

Twitter set to make money through advertisements


Best BUY Co., Inc.
BBY.N
$44.76
-0.33-0.73%
1:40pm GMT

Starbucks Corporation
SBUX.O
$24.36
-0.13-0.53%
1:40pm GMT

* Co. to unveil "Promoted Tweets"

Stocks | Media | Cyclical Consumer Goods | Technology

* New ad programme targets 2-10 pct of users

* Starbucks, Best Buy will run ads -- NY Times

(Adds analyst comments)

April 13 (Reuters) - Popular microblogging site Twitter is all set to unveil its advertisement model on Tuesday, which would mark its first step towards allaying concerns about its revenue generating potential.

The advertising programme known as "Promoted Tweets" will be rolled out to two to 10 percent of users via search on Twitter.com beginning Tuesday, company spokesperson Sean Garrett told Reuters.

Promoted Tweets are ordinary tweets that businesses and organizations want to highlight to a wider group of users, Garrett said.

"Users will start to see tweets promoted by our partner advertisers called out at the top of some Twitter.com search results pages," he added.

Several companies will run ads, including Best Buy (BBY.N), Virgin America and Starbucks (SBUX.O), the New York Times said on its website.

The 2-1/2-year-old Internet start-up's short text messages or "tweets" have become a global social phenomenon and the service is used by millions of people every day.

"Twitter has great potential as a marketing and advertising channel with opportunities to create viral buzz around a product or service," said Eden Zoller, analyst at technology research firm Ovum.

"The flip side of Twitter's immediacy is that if advertising messages are not very carefully positioned users can hit back at brands and in real time, and brands will have little control over this."

Twitter, a privately held company, does not report earnings, but its website says: "While our business model is in a research phase, we spend more money than we make." (Reporting by Shrutika Verma in Bangalore, Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco and Georgina Prodhan in London; editing by Simon Jessop)

10 Small-Cap Funds going higher in 2010

10 Small-Cap Funds Surging in 2010

Heartland is one of those fund companies that quietly chalks up good results without much fanfare. The Milwaukee-based company, led by managers like Bill Nasgovitz, searches for stocks that are out of favor, lightly covered by analysts and trade at deep discounts. It’s a strategy that has worked well for the firm over the long haul.

That is evidenced by the $1 billion (assets) Heartland Value Plus fund (HRVIX). The fund stayed in the top 2% of its Morningstar category during the trailing three- and five-year time periods, and, over the last decade, it has averaged an annual return of 11%. All the while, it has kept turnover relatively low and taxes to a minimum.

The Heartland fund made the cut this week on a list we compiled of top-performing small-cap funds. Morningstar tracks 2,092 small-cap funds and share classes. We narrowed that universe by looking for funds that had performance track records over the trailing three- and five-year time periods that put them in the top third of their peer group. In addition, we looked for funds that didn’t levy a sales load and charged decent annual fees, or less than 1.5%. We were eventually left with 10 funds.

Back in February, we first called attention to the early 2010 returns of this category by highlighting small-cap value funds. Since then, the group has continued to do well. According to Morningstar, the average small-cap fund is up 11% this year. Only consumer discretionary, real estate and financial-sector funds have performed better in 2010.

Still, it’s important to note the risks with small caps — stocks we define as having market caps below $2 billion. Trading in these stocks can be volatile, and, as investors go down the market-cap spectrum, the stocks also become vulnerable to manipulation as liquidity issues pop up. Small companies can also have trouble getting access to capital to help them grow. When that funding disappears so, too, does the support for the stock price.

Of course, every company starts out as a small firm. Investors follow these stocks because they think they may stumble across the next Google (GOOG: 572.73, +6.51, +1.14%) or Microsoft (MSFT: 30.32, -0.02, -0.06%). Small caps can be acquisition targets for larger competitors, allowing shareholders to realize sizable gains when the deal is done at a premium. In addition, traditional value investors will say research shows that small caps and stocks trading at a discount offer the best returns over the long term.

We would suggest using several criteria when picking a fund in this space. Ideally, you want a fund that has a proven, long-term track record of picking out good small-company stocks. Although there is no strong correlation between returns and manager tenure, we would also suggest looking for fund managers who have been investing in small caps for many years, as their extended time on the job may help you sleep easier at night.

The criteria: The funds on our list are part of Morningstar’s “small” equity box category. They are open to new money, require a minimum investment under $5,000 and charge an annual expense ratio less than 1.5%. In addition, they had track records over the trailing three- and five-year time periods that put them in the top 33% of their peer group. As usual, we did not include funds that charge a sales load.

Small-Cap Funds on a Run

Boots & Coots up on Halliburton bid , (WELL), will be bought by ( HAL ) Halliburton

Boots & Coots up on Halliburton bid

(WEL 2.97, +0.62, +26.38%) rose 22% in premarket trade after Halliburton /quotes/comstock/13*!hal/quotes/nls/hal (HAL 31.57, -0.09, -0.28%) said it will buy the firm for $3 a share, or $1.73 in cash and the rest in Halliburton stock.

/quotes/comstock/14*!wel/quotes/nls/wel Boots & Coots International.

Mining Stocks to buy and good Leverage

Dow 11,000 ??

U.S. stocks up at the start on jobs data

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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks opened slightly ahead on Monday after a jobs report that heightened expectations of an economic rebound. The Labor Department on Friday said employers hired 162,000 workers in March. The Dow Jones Industrial Average /quotes/comstock/10w!i:dji/delayed (INDU 10,964, +37.26, +0.34%) rose 3.93 points to 10,931. The S&P 500 Index /quotes/comstock/21z!i1:in\x (SPX 1,185, +6.55, +0.56%) climbed 1.26 points to 1,179.36. The Nasdaq Composite Index /quotes/comstock/10y!i:comp (COMP 2,422, +19.45, +0.81%) gained 2.32 points to 2,404.9.

Barack Obama Offers Health Plan Before Summit And Policies to Contain Cost and Ensure Fiscal Sustainability ?

American families would get increased tax credits to make their health care more affordable under a health-care plan released Monday by President Barack Obama. Obama's plan, released ahead of Thursday's bipartisan meeting at the White House, would also create a new agency to oversee insurance premiums; assess new taxes on unearned income; boost subsidies for working-class families; and reduce the deficit by $100 billion over 10 years.he President’s Proposal puts American families and small business owners in control of their own health care.

Over the past year the House and the Senate have been working on an effort to provide health insurance reform that lowers costs, guarantees choices, and enhances quality health care for all Americans. Building on that year-long effort, the President has now put forth a proposal that incorporates the work the House and the Senate have done and adds additional ideas from Republican members of Congress. The President has long said he is open to any good ideas for reforming our health care system, and he looks forward to discussing ideas for further improvements from Republicans and Democrats at an open, bipartisan meeting on Thursday.

The proposal will make health care more affordable, make health insurers more accountable, expand health coverage to all Americans, and make the health system sustainable, stabilizing family budgets, the Federal budget, and the economy:

* It makes insurance more affordable by providing the largest middle class tax cut for health care in history, reducing premium costs for tens of millions of families and small business owners who are priced out of coverage today. This helps over 31 million Americans afford health care who do not get it today – and makes coverage more affordable for many more.
* It sets up a new competitive health insurance market giving tens of millions of Americans the exact same insurance choices that members of Congress will have.
* It brings greater accountability to health care by laying out commonsense rules of the road to keep premiums down and prevent insurance industry abuses and denial of care.
* It will end discrimination against Americans with pre-existing conditions.
* It puts our budget and economy on a more stable path by reducing the deficit by $100 billion over the next ten years – and about $1 trillion over the second decade – by cutting government overspending and reining in waste, fraud and abuse.

It puts our budget and economy on a more stable path by reducing the deficit by $100 billion over the next ten years -- and more than $1 trillion over the second decade -- by cutting government overspending and reining in waste, fraud and abuse.
Key Provisions in the President’s Proposal:

The President’s Proposal builds off of the legislation that passed the Senate and improves on it by bridging key differences between the House and the Senate as well as by incorporating Republican provisions that strengthen the proposal.

One key improvement, for example, is eliminating the Nebraska FMAP provision and providing significant additional Federal financing to all States for the expansion of Medicaid. For America’s seniors, the proposal completely closes the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole” coverage gap. It strengthens the Senate bill’s provisions that make insurance affordable for individuals and families, while also strengthening the provisions to fight fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid to save taxpayer dollars. The threshold for the excise tax on the most expensive health plans will be raised from $23,000 for a family plan to $27,500 and will start in 2018 for all such plans. And another important idea included is improving insurance protections for consumers and creating a new Health Insurance Rate Authority to review and rein in unreasonable rate increases and other unfair practices of insurance plans. Improve Medicare Advantage Payments.

Medicare currently overpays private plans by 14 percent on average to provide the same benefits as the traditional program – and much more in some areas of the country. The Medicare Advantage program has also done little to reward quality. Moreover, plans have gamed the payment system in ways drive up the public cost of the program. All of this is why Medicare Advantage has become a very profitable line of business for some of the nation’s largest health insurers. The Senate bill creates a bidding model for payment rates and phases in changes to limit potential disruptions for beneficiaries. The House proposal phases payments down based on local fee-for-service costs.

The President’s Proposal represents a compromise between the House and Senate bills, blending elements of both bills, while providing greater certainty of cost savings by linking to current fee-for-service costs. Specifically, the President’s Proposal creates a set of benchmark payments at different percentages of the current average fee-for-service costs in an area. It phases these benchmarks in gradually in order to avoid disruption to beneficiaries, taking into account the relative payments to fee-for-service costs in an area. It provides bonuses for quality and enrollee satisfaction. It adjusts rebates of savings between the benchmark payment and actual plan bid to take into account the transition as well as a plan’s quality rating: plans with low quality scores receive lower rebates (i.e., can keep less of any savings they generate). Finally, the President’s Proposal requires a payment adjustment for unjustified coding patterns in Medicare Advantage plans that have raised payments more rapidly than the evidence of their enrollees’ health status and costs suggests is warranted, based on actuarial analysis. This is the primary source of additional savings compared to the Senate proposal.
Delay and Reform the High-Cost Plan Excise Tax.

Part of the reason for high and rising insurance costs is that insurers have little incentive to lower their premiums. The Senate bill includes a tax on high-cost health insurance plans. CBO has estimated that this policy will reduce premiums as well as contribute to long-run deficit reduction. The President’s Proposal changes the effective date of the Senate policy from 2013 to 2018 to provide additional transition time for high-cost plans to become more efficient. It also raises the amount of premiums that are exempt from the assessment from $8,500 for singles to $10,200 and from $23,000 for families to $27,500 and indexes these amounts for subsequent years at general inflation plus 1 percent. To the degree that health costs rise unexpectedly quickly between now and 2018, the initial threshold would be adjusted upwards automatically. To ensure that the tax affects firms equitably, the President’s Proposal reforms it by including an adjustment for firms whose health costs are higher due to the age or gender of their workers, and by no longer counting dental and vision benefits as potentially taxable benefits. The President’s Proposal maintains the Senate bill’s permanent adjustment in favor of high-risk occupations such as “first responders.”
Broaden the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) Tax Base for High-Income Taxpayers.

Under current law, people who earn a salary pay the Medicare HI tax on their earned income, but those who have substantial unearned income do not, raising issues of fairness. The House bill includes a 5.4% surcharge on high-income households to improve the fairness of the tax system and to support health reform. The Senate bill includes an increase in the HI tax for high-income households for similar reasons, an increase of 0.9% on earnings above a specific threshold for a total employee assessment of 2.35% on these amounts. The President’s Proposal adopts the Senate bill approach and adds a 2.9 percent assessment (equal to the combined employer and employee share of the existing HI tax) on income from interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents, other than such income which is derived in the ordinary course of a trade or business which is not a passive activity (e.g., income from active participation in S corporations) on taxpayers with respect to income above $200,000 for singles and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. The additional revenues from the tax on earned income would be credited to the HI trust fund and the revenues from the tax on unearned income would be credited to the Supplemental Medical Insurance (SMI) trust fund.
Increase in Fees on Brand Name Pharmaceuticals.

As more Americans gain health insurance, more will be able to pay for prescription drugs. Moreover, the President’s plan closes the Medicare “donut hole,” ensuring that seniors do not skip or cut back on needed prescriptions. Both policies will result in new revenue for the pharmaceutical industry. The President’s Proposal increases the revenue from the assessment on this industry which is $23 billion in the Senate bill by $10 billion over 10 years. It also delays the implementation of these fees by one year, until 2011, and makes changes to facilitate administration by the IRS.
Close Tax Loopholes.

Adopts two House proposals to close tax loopholes: (1) Current law provides a tax credit for the production of cellulosic biofuels. The credit was designed to promote the production and use of renewable fuels. Certain liquid byproducts derived from processing paper or pulp (known as “black liquor” when derived from the kraft process) were not intended to be covered by this credit. The President’s Proposal adopts the House bill’s policy to clarify that they are not eligible for the tax credit. (2) The President’s Proposal helps prevent unjustified tax shelters by clarifying the circumstances under which transactions have “economic substance” (as opposed to being undertaken solely to obtain tax benefits) and raises the penalties for transactions that lack economic substance. In so doing, it adopts the House’s policy, with minor technical changes.Increase Tax Credits for Health Insurance Premiums

Health insurance today often costs too much and covers too little. Lack of affordability leads people to delay care, skip care, rack up large medical bills, or become uninsured. The House and Senate health insurance bills lower premiums through increased competition, oversight, and new accountability standards set by insurance exchanges. The bills also provide tax credits and reduced cost sharing for families with modest income. The President’s Proposal improves the affordability of health care by increasing the tax credits for families. Relative to the Senate bill, the President’s Proposal lowers premiums for families with income below $44,000 and above $66,000. Relative to the House bill, the proposal makes premiums less expensive for families with income between roughly $55,000 and $88,000.
Proposal Tax Credits

The President’s Proposal also improves the cost sharing assistance for individuals and families relative to the Senate bill. Families with income below $55,000 will get extra assistance; the additional funding to insurers will cover between 73 and 94% of their health care costs. It provides the same cost-sharing assistance as the Senate bill for higher-income families and the same assistance as the House bill for families with income from $77,000 to $88,000.
Reduced Cost Sharing
Close the Medicare Prescription Drug “Donut Hole”.

The Medicare drug benefit provides vital help to seniors who take prescription drugs, but under current law, it leaves many beneficiaries without assistance when they need it most. Medicare stops paying for prescriptions after the plan and beneficiary have spent $2,830 on prescription drugs, and only starts paying again after out-of-pocket spending hits $4,550. This “donut hole” leaves seniors paying the full cost of expensive medicines, causing many to skip doses or not fill prescriptions at all – harming their health and raising other types of health costs. The Senate bill provides a 50% discount for certain drugs in the donut hole. The House bill fully phases out the donut hole over 10 years. Both bills raise the dollar amount before the donut hole begins by $500 in 2010.

Relative to the Senate bill, the President’s Proposal fills the “donut hole” entirely. It begins by replacing the $500 increase in the initial coverage limit with a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries who hit the donut hole in 2010. It also closes the donut hole completely by phasing down the coinsurance so it is the standard 25% by 2020 throughout the coverage gap.
Invest in Community Health Centers.

Community health centers play a critical role in providing quality care in underserved areas. About 1,250 centers provide care to 20 million people, with an emphasis on preventive and primary care. The Senate bill increases funding to these centers for services by $7 billion and for construction by $1.5 billion over 5 years. The House bill provides $12 billion over the same 5 years. Bridging the difference, the President’s Proposal invests $11 billion in these centers.
Strengthen Oversight of Insurance Premium Increases.

Both the House and Senate bills include significant reforms to make insurance fair, accessible, and affordable to all people, regardless of pre-existing conditions. One essential policy is “rate review” meaning that health insurers must submit their proposed premium increases to the State authority or Secretary for review. The President’s Proposal strengthens this policy by ensuring that, if a rate increase is unreasonable and unjustified, health insurers must lower premiums, provide rebates, or take other actions to make premiums affordable. A new Health Insurance Rate Authority will be created to provide needed oversight at the Federal level and help States determine how rate review will be enforced and monitor insurance market behavior.
Extend Consumer Protections against Health Insurer Practices.

The Senate bill includes a “grandfather” policy that allows people who like their current coverage, to keep it. The President’s Proposal adds certain important consumer protections to these “grandfathered” plans. Within months of legislation being enacted, it requires plans to cover adult dependents up to age 26, prohibits rescissions, mandates that plans have a stronger appeals process, and requires State insurance authorities to conduct annual rate review, backed up by the oversight of the HHS Secretary. When the exchanges begin in 2014, the President’s Proposal adds new protections that prohibit all annual and lifetime limits, ban pre-existing condition exclusions, and prohibit discrimination in favor of highly compensated individuals. Beginning in 2018, the President’s Proposal requires “grandfathered” plans to cover proven preventive services with no cost sharing.
Improve Individual Responsibility.

All Americans should have affordable health insurance coverage. This helps everyone, both insured and uninsured, by reducing cost shifting, where people with insurance end up covering the inevitable health care costs of the uninsured, and making possible robust health insurance reforms that will curb insurance company abuses and increase the security and stability of health insurance for all Americans. The House and Senate bills require individuals who have affordable options but who choose to remain uninsured to make a payment to offset the cost of care they will inevitably need. The House bill’s payment is a percentage of income. The Senate sets the payment as a flat dollar amount or percentage of income, whichever is higher (although not higher than the lowest premium in the area). Both the House and Senate bill provide a low-income exemption, for those individuals with incomes below the tax filing threshold (House) or below the poverty threshold (Senate).The Senate also includes a “hardship” exemption for people who cannot afford insurance, included in the President’s Proposal. It protects those who would face premiums of more than 8 percent of their income from having to pay any assessment and they can purchase a low-cost catastrophic plan in the exchange if they choose.

The President’s Proposal adopts the Senate approach but lowers the flat dollar assessments, and raises the percent of income assessment that individuals pay if they choose not to become insured. Specifically, it lowers the flat dollar amounts from $495 to $325 in 2015 and $750 to $695 in 2016. Subsequent years are indexed to $695 rather than $750, so the flat dollar amounts in later years are lower than the Senate bill as well. The President’s Proposal raises the percent of income that is an alternative payment amount from 0.5 to 1.0% in 2014, 1.0 to 2.0% in 2015, and 2.0 to 2.5% for 2016 and subsequent years – the same percent of income as in the House bill, which makes the assessment more progressive. For ease of administration, the President’s Proposal changes the payment exemption from the Senate policy (individuals with income below the poverty threshold) to individuals with income below the tax filing threshold (the House policy). In other words, a married couple with income below $18,700 will not have to pay the assessment. The President’s Proposal also adopts the Senate’s “hardship” exemption.
Strengthen Employer Responsibility.

Businesses are strained by the current health insurance system. Health costs eat into their ability to hire workers, invest in and expand their businesses, and compete locally and globally. Like individuals, larger employers should share in the responsibility for finding the solution. Under the Senate bill, there is no mandate for employers to provide health insurance. But as a matter of fairness, the Senate bill requires large employers (i.e., those with more than 50 workers) to make payments only if taxpayers are supporting the health insurance for their workers. The assessment on the employer is $3,000 per full-time worker obtaining tax credits in the exchange if that employer’s coverage is unaffordable, or $750 per full-time worker if the employer has a worker obtaining tax credits in the exchange but doesn’t offer coverage in the first place. The House bill requires a payroll tax for insurers that do not offer health insurance that meets minimum standards. The tax is 8% generally and phases in for employers with annual payrolls from $500,000 to $750,000; according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the assessment for a firm with average wages of $40,000 would be $3,200 per worker.

Under the President’s Proposal, small businesses will receive $40 billion in tax credits to support coverage for their workers beginning this year. Consistent with the Senate bill, small businesses with fewer than 50 workers would be exempt from any employer responsibility policies.

The President’s Proposal is consistent with the Senate bill in that it does not impose a mandate on employers to offer or provide health insurance, but does require them to help defray the cost if taxpayers are footing the bill for their workers. The President’s Proposal improves the transition to the employer responsibility policy for employers with 50 or more workers by subtracting out the first 30 workers from the payment calculation (e.g., a firm with 51 workers that does not offer coverage will pay an amount equal to 51 minus 30, or 21 times the applicable per employee payment amount). It changes the applicable payment amount for firms with more than 50 employees that do not offer coverage to $2,000 – an amount that is one-third less than the average House assessment for a typical firm and less than half of the average employer contribution to health insurance in 2009. It applies the same firm-size threshold across the board to all industries. It fully eliminates the assessment for workers in a waiting period, while maintaining the 90-day limit on the length of any waiting period beginning in 2014.