Shares of Apple (AAPL) are down $2.34, or 0.7%,a t $338.19 after Blooomberg’s Michael Wei in Beijing reported there has been an explosion at a plant in Chengdu owned by Foxconn, the Taiwanese firm that manufactures many of Apple’s products.

The story appears not to be posted to Bloomberg’s Web site yet; On the terminal, it is under Foxconn news, not Apple news.

The brief item on the Bloomberg terminal only says that seven people have been hospitalized.

Business Insider’s Joe Weisenthal writes that the Chengdu plant is a “major builder of Apple’s iPads,” and writes that the factory has been sealed off by police while the matter is investigated.

Update: Dow Jones’s James Areddy reports the explosion has killed “at least two people,” according to Chengdu authorities. 16 people are now reported to be injured, including three “seriously,” he writes, citing municipal government statements.

“Details of the explosion are sketchy but video posted to the Internet and broadcast by China Central Television shows black billowing smoke from the massive facility,” writes Areddy. Areddy’s report includes a reiteration of background on a series of suicides at Foxconn last year.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

“Jeff Bezos is an unstoppable force! An entrepreneurial mastermind! Unwavering in his confidence!”

Such is the preview video for tonight’s episode of Bloomberg Game Changers, one of my favorite overwrought, over-the-top businesses documentary series.

If past history is a guide, the show will examine in rapid-fire style how the Amazon.com (AMZN) CEO got where he is, what makes him tick, and what his big challenges were, and will punctuate it with dramatic quotes from people who’ve met Bezos, all wrapped up in a kind of hyperbolic tempo leading into every commercial break.

Really, it’s fun, check it out.

The show goes on at 9 pm, Eastern. Usually, Bloomberg posts the full program on their YouTube Channel after the show airs, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, if you can’t catch it tonight, or you don’t have a TV.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Shares of Research in Motion (RIMM) took a hit yesterday, following negative reviews of the company’s new Playbook tablet. Reviewers were critical of the Playbook’s lack of native support for e-mail, calendars and address books.

Naturally, the company’s co-chief Executive Officer Jim Balsillie disagrees. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Balsillie defended RIMM’s approach, which allows Blackberry users to gain e-mail, calendar, and address book access by tethering their existing handsets to the Playbook.”A lot of people that want this want a secure and free extension of their BlackBerry.”

RIMM hasn’t offered a sales forecast for the new Playbook, but Balsillie told Bloomberg that “I like our chances for a lot of share. We’re very excited about where we are.”

Shares of RIMM are up 24 cents, or 0.5%, to $54.16 today.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

For those of you living in the past, this should prove exciting!

The Federal Reserve must disclose details of emergency loans it made to banks in 2008, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an industry appeal that aimed to shield the records from public view. The justices today left intact a court order that gives the Fed five days to release the records, sought by Bloomberg News’s parent company, Bloomberg LP. The Clearing House Association LLC, a group of the nation’s largest commercial banks, had asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

The order marks the first time a court has forced the Fed to reveal the names of banks that borrowed from its oldest lending program, the 98-year-old discount window. The disclosures, together with details of six bailout programs released by the central bank in December under a congressional mandate, would give taxpayers insight into the Fed’s unprecedented $3.5 trillion effort to stem the 2008 financial panic.

Fed Must Release Loan Data [Bloomberg]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Shares of International Business Machines (IBM) have given up some gains, though they’re still in the green, following a charge the company bribed Chinese and Korean officials.

IBM gave cash to officials in the countries for over a decade through 2009, writes Tom Schoenberg of Bloomberg today, citing a Securities & Exchange Commission lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C.

I have a request in to IBM for comment and will update if I receive anything.

IBM shares are up $1.36, or 0.9%, at $155.54.

Update: Schoenberg is reporting that IBM has agreed to pay $10 million to settle the charges.

Article courtesy of Tech Trader Daily

Daily deals giant Groupon might be in talks with several banks to file for an initial public offering later this year that would value the company at $25 billion, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

Groupon works with local businesses to offer steep discounts — sometimes anywhere from 50 percent to 90 percent. The company, for example, offered a year’s subscription to car-sharing service Zipcar along with $30 in driving credit for $30 — down from the typical cost of around $115.

The business model proved to work well. Groupon’s success has inspired a number of “me-too” companies that focus on daily deals. Savings.com, for example, launched at the Launch Conference in San Francisco last month and aggregates a large number of deals from multiple sites. But none are more compelling than LivingSocial, which raised $175 million from online retailer Amazon.com in December.

It was clear that Groupon had its eyes set on going public after it spurned a $6 billion buyout offer from Google. The company said it expanded from 1 to 35 countries and grew from 2 million to more than 50 million subscribers in the past year when it announced its most recent funding round.

The daily deal site recently raised nearly $1 billion in a funding round closed in January. The site is backed by venture capital titans like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Andreessen-Horowitz and Greylock Partners. The most recent funding round valued Groupon at roughly $4.75 billion. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have spoken with Groupon about taking the company public at a valuation of $15 billion, according to the Bloomberg report.

Is Groupon worth $25 billion?customer surveys

Tags: Andrew Mason, daily deals, deals, initial public offering, IPO

Companies: Groupon, Livingsocial, Savings.com

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Deutsche Telekom is apparently in talks with Sprint to sell its T-Mobile USA division, sources in the know tell Bloomberg.

The companies are supposedly far from finalizing a deal after on and off talks. The biggest roadblock, according to the sources, is Sprint and Deutsche Telekom’s inability to agree on T-Mobile’s valuation after it saw a major drop in profit and subscribers last quarter. If a deal is reached, Deutsche Telekom will land a major stake in the combined company.

Deutsche Telekom vaguely confirmed the fact that it’s looking to sell off T-Mobile in an email statement to Bloomberg, saying that it may sell off all or part of the company. The company didn’t mention who it was looking to sell its T-Mobile business to. A Sprint representative declined to comment to Bloomberg, and we’re still awaiting an answer to our inquiries.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult for both Sprint and T-Mobile — the third- and fourth-largest carriers in the US, respectively — to compete with AT&T and Verizon. Those companies have much larger network footprints, and as of February they also both offer Apple’s iPhone. By joining forces, Sprint and T-Mobile might find it easier to fend off competition.

But while it sounds good on paper, in practice a union between the companies would likely result in disaster. Sprint and T-Mobile’s 3G networks are completely incompatible, and at the moment the companies are also pursuing completely different 4G strategies. T-Mobile is focusing on expanding its 3G network with HSPA+ technology, while Sprint is counting on its majority stake in Clearwire to deliver WiMAX 4G. Having the separate networks coexist under a single company sounds like a major headache, and it would be years before Sprint and T-Mobile subscribers could coexist on the same network.

Instead of a union between the companies, T-Mobile may consider buying wireless spectrum from Clearwire, two sources say. That would allow T-Mobile to either expand its network to regions where it doesn’t have full coverage, or strengthen it in metropolitan areas where it has to compete with other carriers.

Tags: 3G, 4G, carriers, networks

Companies: deutsche telekom, sprint, T Mobile

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

JPMorgan Number One Investment Bank Driven By Emerging Market Deals (Bloomberg)
The world’s best-paid investment bank in 2010 was JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), which ranks No. 1 in the Bloomberg 20 for the third year in a row, with total fees of $4.14 billion. The bank also led the field in fees from bond and equity issues. Morgan Stanley supplanted Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) for the No. 2 position in total fees for 2010, earning $3.67 billion. Goldman Sachs is No. 3 overall with $3.60 billion. It ranks No. 1 in earnings from mergers and acquisitions, as it has every year since the Bloomberg 20 started in 2004.

Raj Rajaratnam’s Biggest Bet Yet May Be To Take The Stand (WSJ)
The 53-year-old founder of Galleon Group has told people close to him that he intends to testify at his own trial, the biggest legal showdown over insider trading in a generation.

Barclays Awards Chief Executive $11 Million Bonus (Bloomberg)
Bob Diamond was awarded a 6.5 million-pound bonus for 2010 and a further 2.25 million pounds depending on the lender’s performance, London-based Barclays said in a statement today. His base salary will rise to 1.35 million pounds from 250,000 pounds after he became CEO on Jan. 1.

Brian Moynihan Said To Look Ahead To ‘Normal’ Performance (Bloomberg)
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan will tell investors tomorrow what profits to expect as the U.S. economy stabilizes and detail progress on his vow to increase shareholder equity, said two people with knowledge of his plans. The bank’s guidance to investors will include credit losses and estimates for return on tangible equity, a measure of shareholder returns that excludes goodwill, said the people. “The last two or three years have been anything but normal for Bank of America, and with indications we’re entering into a better environment, the company wants to give a sense of how its businesses ought to perform,” said David Havens, a managing director at Nomura Holdings Inc. “The disappointment that could occur is that the presentation will reflect the new reality” of lowered returns after U.S. bank regulations.

Most Economists Say Fed Easing Is Helping (CNBC)
The survey from the National Association for Business Economics found 62.4 percent of the economists polled think the central bank’s $600 billion stimulus plan is working. Another 21.8 percent see the policy, which has come under fire from some conservative politicians and a number of emerging market policy makers, having no impact. Another 15.8 percent said the program was actively harmful.

Mark Cuban, Charlie Sheen In Talks (ESPN)
Cuban confirmed Sunday evening that he’s had several conversations with Sheen recently about developing programming for HDNet, the cable network Cuban owns. “You’ve got somebody that everybody has a whole lot of interest in who’s doing some interesting things, to say the least, and we always look for interesting programming by featuring interesting people doing interesting things,” Cuban said before the Mavericks’ game against the Memphis Grizzlies. “I reached out and we’ve had some conversations, and we’re going to work on doing some things.”

UBS Names Joint Global Heads for Investment Banking Division (Bloomberg)
The bank named Matthew Grounds and Simon Warshaw joint global heads of its investment banking division after John Wall retired.

Another top exec is departing Goldman’s GSAM (IM)
Steve McGuinness, co-chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s investment management business and global head of distribution and a 19-year firm veteran, is leaving the Goldman next month.

Moody’s Downgrades Greece (WSJ)
Moody’s Investor Service Inc. on Monday slashed Greece’s credit rating by three notches and signaled it could cut it even further, dragging the European sovereign deeper into junk-grade territory. The ratings agency downgraded Greece to B1 from Ba1, and kept its negative outlook. Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings both rate the country slightly higher at double-B-plus, with a negative outlook.

Dog ate toes of diabetic Ore. owner as he slept (AP)
A dog ate three of his owner’s toes as the diabetic man slept, most likely out of instinct to help remove diseased flesh, animal experts say. James Little, 61, called 911 on Tuesday to say his dog had eaten the body parts while he was sleeping. He told The Associated Press on Friday that he is “doing fine.” Little suffers from diabetes, of which one symptom is numbness in the hands or feet. The dog, a Shiba Inu, was acting on its instinct to remove diseased flesh and does not appear to be dangerous, said Douglas County Animal Control Deputy Lee Bartholomew.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

“The core of the American financial system is in a much stronger position than it was before the crisis,” Geithner said today during a Bloomberg Breakfast with reporters in Washington. “We can say with much more confidence now that the U.S. banking system and the U.S. capital market are much more likely to be in a position to finance the capital needs that come with a recovery,” Geithner said. [Bloomberg]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Interesting piece today by Bloomberg’s Olga Kharif, who interviewed former Cisco System’s (CSCO) executive Mike Volpi (at one time seemingly in line to replace CEO John Chambers) about the rise of Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system.
Volpi, now a venture capitalist with Index Ventures, headquartered in Geneva, calls Android, “The next [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily