Kass: 10 Rumors Making the Rounds

This blog post originally appeared on RealMoney Silver on April 11 at 7:31 a.m. EDT.

The following are 10 rumors currently flying around Wall Street trading desks. Bear in mind that they are only rumors, so they might mean something, and they might mean nothing.

1. Oracle (ORCL) had a poor March.

2. Don't believe the headlines that the housing market declines have leveled off. The spring selling season began, according to sources, with a dud.

3. A number of takeovers are being rumored -- including either IBM (IBM) or Cisco (CSCO) acquiring Citrix (CTXS), U.S. Steel (X) acquiring Allegheny Technologies (ATI), Macquarie acquiring Centro Properties, Qatar Investment Authority acquiring a majority stake in the London Stock Exchange, Google (GOOG) acquiring Expedia (EXPE), the Royal Bank of Canada (RY) is eyeing a U.S. asset manager, and a large Chinese bank is considering a Dresdner Kleinwort bid.

4. In related news, Frank Quattrone's Qatalyst Group assignment guarantees that Google will not go away quietly in the Yahoo! (YHOO)/Microsoft (MSFT) takeover struggle. According to sources, Quattrone (who represents Google) is devising a creative alternative to the proposed deal.

5. High level firings are on tap at Lehman Brothers (LEH). Same for Citigroup (C).

6. Speaking of Citigroup, I am hearing that Bob Rubin might be leaving and Hank Paulson might be coming.

7. A large fund of funds will announce its closure at month's end. Several sizeable managed commodity funds are liquidating positions now and will also close. Management changes are on hand at Cerberus as well as several other high-profile private equity firms. Following the failures at Falcon, many other of Citigroup's hedge funds have received unusually large redemptions.

8. Senator John McCain is close to offering the Republican Vice Presidential position to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

9. Fox Business Network is about to announce a major overhaul -- to management and to content.

10. Several large asset managers are in advanced stages of offering a short product.

Doug Kass is the author of The Edge, a blog on RealMoney Silver that features real-time shorting opportunities on the market.

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