Berkshire Hathaway gets Lubrizol for $9.7 billion. Catch here all the latest news and updated reports on Berkshire Hathaway and Lubrizol deal.

Warren Buffett’s investment company, Berkshire Hathaway buys the chemical company Lubrizol for $9.7 billion. The deal includes $700 million in assumed debt. Berkshire briefed that “one of the largest acquisitions in Berkshire Hathaway history.”

The Lubrizol Corporation is a provider of specialty chemicals for the transportation, industrial and consumer markets. These products include additives for engine oils and other transportation-related fluids, additives for industrial lubricants and additives for gasoline and diesel fuel. In addition, Lubrizol makes ingredients and additives for personal care products and pharmaceuticals; specialty materials, including plastics technology; and coatings in the form of specialty resins and additives. In 2007, the company was listed as 512 on the Fortune 1000. It has since moved up to 453 on the 2010 list. On March 14th 2011, Berkshire Hathaway announced an aggreement to purchase Lubrizol.

Hindenburg Omen predicted market crash in September

Hindenburg Omen predicted in September in the US stock markets by it’s creator, Jim Miekka, who has has sold all his stocks aftre the third occurrence. The markets are predicted to crash by September.

What is Hindenburg Omen?

Hindenburg Omen is a technical analysis pattern in the stock markets. Hindenburg Omen is said to predict a stock market crash. Hindenburg Omen is based on High Low Logic Index (HLLI). The value of the HLLI is the lesser of the NYSE new highs or new lows divided by the number of NYSE issues traded, smoothed by an appropriate exponential moving average.

The idea behind the Hindenburg Omen is that under ‘normal conditions’ either a substantial number of stocks may set new annual highs or annual lows, but not both at the same time. As a healthy market possesses a degree of uniformity, whether up or down, the simultaneous presence of many new highs and lows may signal trouble.

The was created by Jim Miekka

What it is called Hindenburg Omen?

It is named after the Hindenburg disaster of May 6, 1937, during which the German zeppelin Hindenburg was destroyed.

Why Hindenburg Omen is significant now?

One August 12, 2010 the Hindenburg Omen’s creator, Jim Miekka, considered the Omen officially triggered on this date with 92 and 81 new 52-week highs and lows, respectively. The same has been confirmed again on August 20 and again today on August 24. It is reported that it’s creator, Jim Miekka, has sold all his stocks aftre the third occurance.

BP: Tony Hayward to be replaced by Robert Dudley as CEO On October 1.

BP CEO Tony Hayward will step down as chief executive of BP, the company announced Tuesday, amid ongoing outrage over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP said Hayward will be replaced by American Robert Dudley effective Oct. 1. Dudley is taking over Oct. 1 from Tony Hayward, who was forced to go by public and political anger in the United States over the spill. Dudley will be the first American to lead London-based BP. Robert Dudley to make sure checks and balances are in place to prevent a repeat of the disaster. It started with an April 20 explosion that destroyed the leased oil rig Deepwater Horizon, killing 11 workers. Tony Hayward London BP chief executive, who has been with the firm for 28 years, had been severely criticized for his handling of the disaster.

The company announced a second quarter loss of 17.1 billion dollars, mainly as a result of costs involved in cleaning up the oil spill. BP to welcome Hayward, 53, with the company’s first ever non-British CEO was made by mutual agreement.

Nokia CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo to be replaced by……. According to the latest news and updates Nokia cellphone maker, is looking for a new chief executive.

The move comes as due to current CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo is struggling to keep Nokia up with smartphone advances made by rivals such as Apple(AAPL), the Wall Street Journal notes. Kallasvuo has been CEO since 2006. Nokia’s board is expected to make a decision by the end of July, the person added. Mobile phone maker Nokia Corp. has launched a search for a new chief executive, people familiar with the situation said Monday. While Nokia continues to fail to keep up with advances by such rivals as Apple Inc. and makers of smartphones running Google Inc. operating software.

Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo is the current President and Chief Executive Officer of Nokia Corporation and Chairman of the board of directors for Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture between Nokia and Siemens AG.

Hewitt sold to Aon for $4.9 billion!  - Aon Corp. (AON) and Hewitt Associates (HEW) announced that both companies have approved a definitive agreement, Hewitt will play as a subsidiary of Aon.

According to the two companies, “The aggregate consideration is valued at $50 per Hewitt share. Now Hewit will not remain a stand-alone company. Aon plans to integrate Hewitt with its existing consulting and outsourcing operations called Aon Consulting. Aon said it expected the deal would save $355 million a year beginning in 2013. It said the deal would help earnings in 2011 and 2012. The deal is expected to close by mid-November. Aon was advised by Credit Suisse and the law firm Sidley Austin. Hewitt was advised by Citigroup and the law firms Debevoise & Plimpton and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

Aloca Negotiations website

A sign of a growing trend of using internet and technology for information dissemination during the wage negotiations by unions. In this case Aloca when negotiating with USW or United Steelworkers have used a website – www.alcoanegotiations.com. Aloca is a metal producing company in United States.

One of the major issue faced by employers and unions alike is that information during the wage negations is presented in a distorted manner to all stakeholders. Creating a central information repository using a public website is a great way for dissemination of information. In this way the right information is passed to all the workers and public and there is no reason to have two opinions about an agreement.

In the said case of USW about 5,400 employees covered by an agreement with the USW across 10 locations. Employees at these plants make aluminum and provide products for customers in aerospace, automotive, consumer packaging, industrial products and oil and gas exploration.

“HFT is not an inherently better way to trade the market. Indeed, given transaction costs, it is a relatively expensive way to trade. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of nano-second order transmission and smart order-execution routing.”

High frequency trading means you measure your holding period in seconds (sometimes even in hundreds of milliseconds).
There are two very different techniques, passive and aggressive trading. In passive trading you’re placing bids and offers and show volume waiting for someone to take you out. In aggressive trading you only take prices which are offered. Aggressive tradign is “easier” than passive trading which, to my limited knowlegde, very few teams have mastered.
There is interest in this area because it is perceived to be low-risk and the Sharpe Ratios you can achieve are double-digit.

In high frequency trading, you analyse trends in tick-by-tick data and make buy / sell decisions out of it.

It may sometimes lead to day-trading strategies…

How It works
It works like this: big trading banks invest in super-computers that can process information at every faster speeds, splitting nano-seconds into smaller and smaller units. These super-computers can process instructions faster than regular computers, and much faster than humans. Next, they place these super-computers in the exchanges themselves. This gives direct access to the exchange, cutting out the latency of connections from remote locations. By trading faster than smaller investors, profits can be constantly churned.

Narayana Kocherlakota named as Minneapolis Fed President

Narayana Kocherlakota named as Minneapolis Fed President. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has named economics professor Narayana Kocherlakota as president of the bank. Narayana Kocherlakota will be replacing Gary Stern, who retired a month ago after 24 years.

Narayana Kocherlakota is a professor at the University of Minnesota and has been on the research staff at the Minneapolis Fed. He’ll be a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee in 2011. Kocherlakota, 45, graduated from Princeton University with a degree in mathematics at 19 and earned his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago in 1987 at age of 23.

He taught in the areas of monetary economics, public finance, financial economics and macroeconomics. His research includes financial economics, public finance and monetary economics. He is also the Coordinating Editor of the Review of Economic Dynamics. He has a forthcoming book on tax policy.

Russell Mokhiber

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C. based Corporate Crime Reporter. He is also founder of singlepayeraction.org which is a Single Payer Action Group which has called for boycotts of John Mackey’s Whole Foods Inc.

According to the website of Single Payer Action Group singlepayeraction.org:

Last week, Single Payer Action called for a nationwide boycott of Whole Foods. Because with 60 Americans dying every day from lack of health insurance, the CEO of the company, John Mackey penned a diatribe against a single payer health insurance reform — the only health insurance reform that will both control costs and insure everyone.

Mackey took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal and insulted not only many of his customers, but many of his own employees.

The response to that call for a boycott was remarkable.

Thousands of people wrote to us and posted comments on blogs around the web saying that they had no clue that Mackey was a union busting, right winger.

And that they would join with us and boycott Whole Foods.

Today, we announce an escalation of the boycott campaign against Whole Foods.

On Friday, single payer activists will be picketing Whole Foods stores in three cities — Austin, Texas, Washington, D.C., and New York City.

What Single Payer Action Group are seeking is to implement a single payer health insurance system in the United States.

What is Single payer health care

Single-payer health care is a model proposed for operating the U.S. health care system by arranging the payment of services to doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers from a single source established and managed by government. As with public services like fire departments, a single payer public insurance would not operate to make a profit for investors. It is a way to deliver near-universal or universal health care. The administrator of the fund could be the government but it could also be a publicly owned agency regulated by law.

Australia’s Medicare, Canada’s Medicare, and healthcare in Taiwan are examples of single-payer universal health care systems.