The Department of Energy announced it was throwing some money at the electric car dream yesterday. They'll spend "up to $30 million in funding over three years" on three projects they hope will produce a viable electric car by 2014. Wow, that's a whole $10 million a year!

The DOE is funding three projects they hope will produce an electric car that can go 40 miles on a charge, enough for 70% of daily commuters. They made the announcement at a conference on Plug-in Electric Vehicles 2008: What Role for Washington? Apparently the Energy Department decided the role was to make a token amount of funding and let other countries take the lead. The plan is to split the cost 50-50 with industry. General Motors (NYSE:GM) is going to work on a Lithium-Ion battery. Ford (NYSE:F) will work on a way to speed up mass production of electric cars. And General Electric (NYSE:GE) will try to figure out a two-battery, 40-mile system.

I'm sure everyone's working on all sorts of other projects, but this one just seems tiny, especially in context of the current oil crisis and the $40.1 billion requested Department of Transportation budget for FY2009. As cNet's Elsa Wenzel helpfully points out, Toyota (NYSE:TM), working with Matsushita Electric Industrial (NYSE:MC), thinks it can mass market an electric car by 2010.

MasterCard (NYSE: MA) is recently up $25.91 to $312.80. MA raised its long term financial goals and expects double digit net revenue growth for 2008. MA May option implied volatility of 39 is below its 26-week average of 43 according to Track Data, indicating decreasing price risk.

Visa (NYSE: V) is recently up $3.21 to $85.20. V call option volume of 72,103 contracts compares to put volume of 10,196 contracts. V June option implied volatility of 48 is near its nine-week average of 45, suggesting non-directional price uncertainty.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

Into the gloom of the current markets comes a small sparkle of excitement: the Visa IPO. Marketwatch reports that the offering will be a blockbuster, and that its March 20 offering date is already oversubscribed.

Visa, Inc., based in San Francisco, plans to offer over 400 million shares for between $37-$42. Based on the midpoint of that range, the company would raise over $15 billion.

This would be more than the market value of Visa's largest rival, Mastercard(NYSE:MA), IPO two years ago, which was $10 billion. Mastercards' shares subsequently soared 408%, according to Dealbook.

Visa currently leads marketshare with 60% of the worldwide credit market compared to Mastercard's 26% share.

Hard economic times can be great for credit card companies, since they don't own the debt. They grab a transaction fee from every purchase, and those swipes tend to happen more frequently when people are feeling cash poor.

One of the years most touted and anticipated IPOs is sure to be that of Visa. The credit card company has filed for the IPO and investors were eagerly awaiting the debut. That was until yesterday. News from American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP) that customers are having trouble paying back loans, and paying off monthly payments on their credit card debt, sent the stock down over 10%. MasterCard Inc. (NYSE: MA) stock dropped more than 8% on the bad news as well.

With the stock market taking it on the chin, and now this bit of bad news in their industry, will we see the planned offering delayed? I think there is a fair chance that there will be a delay. The IPO market usually takes time to recover from a market beating of this sort. Investors are usually a bit gun-shy to pull the trigger on some new hi-tech issue. Visa on the other hand is not going to be your typical IPO. The company is obviously going to have a market cap in the tens of billions of dollars, and institutions will want a piece of the company. Still, that being said, they will want to have the same type of IPO that MasterCard had last year, and I would expect the underwriters to hold this offering until we see some continued market strength.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer has no positions in any stock mentioned as of 1/12/08

MAJOR PAPERS:

• The Financial Times (subscription required) reported that General Motors Corporation's (NYSE: GM) CEO Rick Wagoner expressed caution about the possibility of General Motors adding new brands or US manufacturing plants to its portfolio, remarks that are likely to quash expectations of an imminent GM bid for cross-town rival DaimlerChrysler AG (NYSE: DCX).
• According to the Financial Times, Nikko Cordial's largest investor has rejected Citigroup Inc's (NYSE: C) $11B takeover bid.
• Also in the Financial Times, 3M Corporation (NYSE: MMM) has filed infringement lawsuits against Sony Corporation (NYSE: SNE) and Lenovo (LNVGY), and others, including Hitachi Ltd ADR (NYSE: HIT), CDW Corporation (NASDAQ: CDWC) and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd (NYSE: MC).

OTHER PAPERS:

• India's Economic Times reported that Wipro Ltd ADS (NYSE: WIT) is said to be close to acquiring an unnamed U.S. aerospace services company for about $90M.
• According to the U.K. Times, Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE: PG) has said it is willing to team up with private equity firms to pursue deals.