Market Round-up (BRK.A, AMZN, BNI, AAPL, FRE, FNM, BA, TM, PFE)
Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) will sell $8 billion in debt to generate funds for the purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI). The offering, expected to be priced later today, would be more than double the size of Berkshire's largest investment-grade bond.
According to unidentified sources, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has acquired Touchco, a start-up that specializes in touchscreen technology. The deal, if true, indicates that AMZN wants to upgrade its Kindle to compete with iPad, recently launched by Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL).
The Fed has bought $1.099 billion of the $3.664 billion agency debt maturing in 2012-2014 that was submitted by dealers. The purchase brings cumulative buys to $165.86 billion. The Fed had planned to buy a $175 billion debt from Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM), Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) and the Federal Home Loan Bank system.
Toyota (NYSE: TM) may have to go through what Volkswagen AG’s Audi luxury brand faced for 15 years in the US. Audi’s sudden-acceleration incidents had wiped out the demand for the highly successful brand in the 1980s.
According to Boeing (NYSE: BA) and rival Airbus, the demand for new orders may remain depressed until 2012. They believe that companies are trimming their growth plans due to a record drop in air travel.
Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) said that its business in China may expand by at least 25% this year. PFE currently holds a 2.2% share in the highly-fragmented but rapidly-growing Chinese pharmaceuticals market. Meanwhile, the company is targeting 12%-14% growth from India, Russia, Turkey, Brazil and Mexico.
