Good morning, New York...
FT ALPHAVILLE
The rise of rail oil: An interesting chart from the American Enterprise Institute shows to what degree oil shipments by rail have risen in the last two years. To some degree this is about a revival of the railroad age, but to a greater extent it's really all about the market's response to a fragmented and deficient internal oil transportation network, writes Izzy.
Italy has ditched a promise of ratable payment to bondholders. File under: Argentina's battle with its holdouts and the effects thereof on pari passu clauses in sovereign bond contracts elsewhere in the world — with a special crossover to the changing legal status of official lenders in the eurozone crisis. Click through to Joseph's post for the full story.
NEWS
Blackstone has abandoned its $25bn offer for Dell after weeks of due diligence, people familiar with the matter said. The withdrawal follows reservations expressed by Blackstone's private equity fund investors on the merits of the deal, and concerns that the stock market had already valued Dell fairly, these people said. (Financial Times)
IBM posted a rare miss on Wall Street forecasts on both revenues and profit on Thursday, but insisted it would take action this year to make up lost ground. After completing her first year as chief executive, Ginni Rometty admitted the IT bellwether "did not achieve all of our goals" in the three months ending on March 31. As a result, IBM plans to bring forward a workforce restructuring to the current quarter and may divest certain businesses. (Financial Times)
Votorantim Cimentos has announced its intention to raise $5.4bn through an initial public offering that will be the world's biggest this year if realised. In a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Brazil's largest cement company by sales said it planned to raise the money through a listing in Sao Paulo and an American Depositary Shares offering on the New York Stock Exchange. (Financial Times)
Microsoft has given the strongest signal to date of a change of heart over its new Windows 8 operating system, as it revealed that the weak response to the software had wiped out underlying growth in its core business in the third quarter ended March. The world's biggest software company vowed to "respond to customer feedback" when it releases a new version of Windows, codenamed Blue, later this year. (Financial Times)
Google reported mixed results for the first quarter on Thursday, beating analysts' forecasts on profits but missing on revenues as the company still seeks to stem the slip in advertising prices caused by the growth of mobile usage. The search company is counting on a new tool it released in February to help advertisers buy ads on mobile devices and desktop computers in one streamlined process. (Financial Times)
SAP blamed "execution issues" in Asia-Pacific for a shortfall in quarterly business software sales and operating profit as it joined a host of other software companies registering weakness in the first quarter. Sales of new software licences, a bellwether of future revenues, rose 3 per cent to €657m, missing a €726m estimate compiled from analysts by Bloomberg. (Financial Times)
Morgan Stanley suffered from a slowdown in trading activity in the first quarter, causing the investment bank to report lower revenues, but cost controls helped it record higher profits. Revenues fell to $8.5bn in the first three months of the year compared with $8.9bn in the same period last year, with advisory fees and fixed income and equity trading all lower, the bank said on Thursday. That excludes the distortion from changes to the value of the company's own debt. (Financial Times)
Markets: Riskier assets are striving to recover after a burst of global growth angst delivered a week of heavy losses amid volatile trading. Commodities and resource-based stocks, which have taken the brunt of the economic fretting, are looking to bounce off recent lows, while gold, whose plunge typified investors' funk, has broken back above the $1,400-an-ounce mark. US corporate earnings are in focus after a technology triptych delivered figures after the Wall Street close. (FT's Global Market Overview)
