Quote of the Day

"Without rest, a man cannot work; without work, the rest does not give you any benefit." --Abkhasian proverb

Morning news of note:

• GM: Should GMAC Go on the Block? Wall Street is betting that General Motors Corp. - facing the twin issues of having its bonds rated "junk" and Las Vegas billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's tender offer under way - soon will undertake a more ambitious restructuring than Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner has signaled to date. Attention is focused on GM's highly profitable finance arm, General Motors Acceptance Corp., which last year earned $2.9 billion, or about 80% of GM's total net income. (Full Story) WSJ
• FNM FRE: Fannie, Freddie House-Panel Bill Falls Short of White House Hopes New legislation designed to tighten regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, expected to be debated today in the House Financial Services Committee, falls far short of the Bush administration's demands for reining in the two providers of funds for home-mortgage lending. The legislation, drafted by Michael Oxley, the Ohio Republican who is chairman of the committee, would create a regulatory agency to replace the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight in supervising Fannie, Freddie and the 12 regional Federal Home Loan Banks. The new agency would have power to raise the companies' minimum capital levels and could put them into receivership in a crisis. (Full Story) WSJ
• INTC: Intel to Launch Platform Early Next Year Intel Corp.'s chief executive officer said the company expects its next major technology platform for consumers, aimed at the "digital home," will probably be ready early next year. Paul Otellini, speaking at a Wall Street Journal conference here, said the company has been working on sets of chips, software and other technology building blocks to help hardware partners develop new computers and other products that will let consumers control digital entertainment in the home. (Full Story) WSJ
• AAPL: Scotland Adds iPods to Menu I don't care what Bill Gates says. We're nothing more than little peas in Apple's pod. The Cupertino, Calif.-based computer maker has created a market so eager to buy its digital music player that everyone from public health do-gooders to nefarious online marketers is capitalizing on the knowledge that people will do just about anything to get their hands on one (Full Story) Washington Post
• Energy: Iranian OPEC Minister Bijan Zangeneh said OPEC should discuss the possibilty of cutting output at June meeting // Saudi Arabia and Kuwait anncd each country added 200k bbl/day of addtl production this month -- Reuters // Indonesian OPEC Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said there is no need to cut ouput; wants crude $35-$40/bbl // rising oil prices cutting into margins for gas retailers; Lundberg Survey 1Q avg self service margins 7.7c vs 9.1c in 2004; CVX, COP and XOM all sold stations in past yr; WMT and COST are increasing sales -- WSJ

Futures are pointing to a down open in the market. I won't comment on the overdue pause, since I am beginning to sound like a broken record.