Continued Bond Bid-Rigging Indictments

U.S. Predicts More Indictments in Municipal Bond Bid-Rigging Investigation
More indictments are expected in a federal antitrust investigation of the $2.8 trillion municipal bond market, a prosecutor told a federal judge in New York.
Rebecca Meiklejohn, a lawyer with the Justice Department’s antitrust division, made the disclosure at a hearing in Manhattan in the criminal case of CDR Financial Products Inc. and three of its employees, charged as part of an ongoing probe of bid- and auction-rigging in the municipal market. Three ex- bankers with a General Electric Co. unit were indicted in same probe this week.
Lawyers for the CDR defendants went to court today to ask U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero to direct the government to give them early access to the prosecution’s evidence and identify any material that might help to clear their clients. Meiklejohn objected, saying the defendants weren’t entitled to early access and the government’s investigation is still moving ahead.
“This is a very expansive case,” Meikeljohn told Marrero, addressing the broader probe. “Just this week the government indicted more individuals in connection with this investigation. This is a continuing investigation and we expect there to be more indictments.”

More About Bond Bidding, from Amazon:
Electronic Bidding for Municipal Bonds: Technology Innovations for Competitive Bond Sales.: An article from: Government Finance ReviewRepetitive bidding for municipal bonds: A chance-constrained programming approach (Faculty working paper)

Seeking Alpha: General Electric Company Q3 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator:
Welcome to the General Electric third quarter 2008 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn the program over to your host for today’s conference Trevor Schauenberg, VP of Investor Communications.

Trevor Schauenberg:
Joanna Morse and I are pleased to host today’s call. Hopefully you have the press release from earlier this morning and the slides we’ll be walking through are available on our website at www.GE.com. If you don’t see it please refresh, you can download or print to follow along. As always elements of this presentation are forward looking and are based on our best view of the world and our businesses as we see them today. Those elements can change as the world changes. Please interpret them in that light.
We will be reviewing the GE press release that went out earlier today and have time for Q&A at the end. For today’s webcast we have our Chairman and CEO, Jeff Immelt, and our Vice Chairman and CFO, Keith Sherin.
Now I’d like to turn it over to our Chairman and CEO, Jeff Immelt.

Jeff Immelt:
On the overview page clearly to everyone the environment remains very volatile. The global financial system is tough. We see consumer confidence falling, unemployment up again last week but we still see pockets...

Read Entire Transcript at Seeking Alpha

Recent News: GE Aviation, Bear Market Investors, Nigerian Power Project, and Google Energy News Conference

GE Aviation CEO Joyce adds senior position with parent firm
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GE Attracts Bearish Investors
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NIPP: We Didn’t Bribe Nigerian Officials – General Electric
General Electric (GE), the global infrastructure, technology, media and financial services company, yesterday absolved itself of any complicity in the scandal that rocked the National Integrated Power Project, NIPP, saying it carried out its obligations to the letter.Replying reporters' questions in Abuja on the role of the US-based company, President and CEO of GE International, Ferdinando Nani Beccalli, who was in Abuja for the first "GE Day" in Nigeria...

GE, Google plan news conference on energy plans
Energy conglomerate General Electric Co and Internet leader Google Inc plan to hold a news conference shortly on unspecified joint energy projects, the companies said on Wednesday....

Recent News: Iraq Power Plants, GE Lawsuit, CIT Aerospace Order, and Accounting Investigation

Talks with GE on power plants in Iraq
Talks are starting on Saturday between the Iraqi electricity ministry and the U.S. company General Electric (GE) on providing Iraq with power plants that could produce 4-6,000 megawatt of electric power in a first stage, a ministry spokesman said.
"A delegation under Electricity Minister Kareem Waheed left Iraq on Friday heading for Amman, Jordan, for a meeting today on the first round of talks with GE pertaining to a contract to install power plants in Iraq," Aziz Sultan said in statements to Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI)....

General Electric Faces Lawsuit From Investors
Friday evening, Scott & Scott LLP filed a lawsuit against General Electric (NYSE: GE) relating to inaccurate reports of financial earnings information in their first quarter of 2008. According to investors GE has violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The suit charges that GE reported 10% earnings per share in the first quarter of 2008 instead of the actual loss of 2%...

CIT Aerospace places $320M order with GE Aviation, CFM
Aircraft financing firm CIT Aerospace has tapped GE Aviation and CFM International for $320 million in engine orders the companies said Monday. CIT will purchase CFM’s CFM56-5B engine to power 15 Airbus A320 aircraft, and GE’s CF6-80E1 engine to power four Airbus A330 aircraft. The CFM engine order, worth about $200 million at list price...

Will GE Hedge Accounting Pass Muster?
General Electric said it faces possible civil action by the Securities and Exchange Commission stemming from an investigation into its use of hedge accounting for derivatives. The conglomerate said in a regulatory filing released on Friday that the SEC staff issued a "Wells notice" recommending that the commission considers bringing a civil injunctive action against GE for possible violations of securities laws....

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GE Energy to Provide Services for Beijing Power Plant That Will Supply Power for Beijing 2008 Olympic Games
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GE buys 32 pct of Spanish solar energy firm
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GE Capital Completes Acquisition of Most of CitiCapital
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Haier Eyes GE Appliance Unit as It Seeks Acquisitions
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Suit claims GE misled investors in first quarter
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GE Executive: Still In Talks With Possible Appliance Unit Buyers
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The success story of Jack Welch
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GE Aviation wins $730M deal from Air One
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GE investors see post-Olympics NBC sale unlikely
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GE pushes Beijing Olympics sponsorship
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BloggingStocks: GE and Johnson & Johnson -- just timing

GE and Johnson & Johnson -- just timing
Yesterday when I posted Why complain about GE and not JNJ -- a puzzle? I got my answer. Investors do have patience, but it's limited. They will wait three years for positive results, but maybe not five, and ten -- forget about it! As you can see from yesterdays' chart comparing three-year performance, there is no difference and in both cases the stocks are down. The difference is nobody is demanding that heads should roll at Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) while they are at General Electric Company (NYSE: GE)....

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BloggingStocks: Why complain about GE and not JNJ -- a puzzle?

Why complain about GE and not JNJ -- a puzzle?
I have been following General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) for many years. This is probably very common among investors since both are broadly held, very large-cap stocks. Both companies have illustrious histories, strong management, and have been very rewarding to investors over the years -- but not the past few years!
Both stocks seem undervalued to me and I have been thinking about buying some shares. I own some JNJ already and might want to own GE if I can get it at a deep discount. This got me thinking about another issue. Investors have been expressing their frustration with GE's lack of appreciation over the last few years and some have gone as far as to call for the split up of the company and/or the resignation of CEO Jeffrey Immelt. For some reason Johnson and Johnson has not suffered the same fate. However, when you look at the following chart that shows three year stock performance you will notice great similarity.

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