03.12.10

MarketWatch First Take: Lehmans guilty and not guilty

Posted in business, economic, money, shortly, world of money tagged , , , , at 3:18 pm by carydalton

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Weighing in at 2,200 pages, the court-appointed examiner in the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. bankruptcy case performed the kind of due diligence that was sorely lacking at the failed firm.

No one, it seems, escaped the gaze of Anton Valukas, the chairman of the law firm Jenner & Block, who spent $30 million on the post mortem. Valukas states Lehman executives manipulated the balance sheet, withheld information from the board, and inflated the value of toxic real estate assets. See report on possible legal claims from the case.

The voluminous detail of the report vindicates some and castigates others. Here are the major verdicts:

Guilty: Dick Fuld, Erin Callan.

The CEO and chief financial officer of Lehman, respectively, are painted by the report as either dubious or overmatched by the complex nature of Lehman’s holdings. Callan, is alleged to have ignored warnings from the firm’s financial controller about the use of Repo 105s, the internal term used to move assets off the balance sheet and hide debt.

WSJ’s Deal Journal received this response from Fuld’s attorneys: “Mr inferred heaters. Fuld did not know what those transactions were — he didn’t structure or negotiate them, nor was he aware of the accounting treatment.”

As if that looks any better.

Not guilty: David Einhorn, short sellers, counterparties, Matthew Lee.

David Einhorn, the head of the hedge fund Greenlight Capital, argued that Lehman was hiding its balance sheet problems for months and took a lot of heat from Lehman as a result. Likewise, Fuld liked to blame the firm’s sagging fortunes in the summer of 2008 on short-sellers such as Einhorn.

The Valukas report shows they made the right bet. Counterparties including as J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. soon followed, and as the report suggests, rightfully so.

History also would look favorably on Matthew Lee, a senior vice president, who in June 2008 warned management and auditors. Only to be ignored.

— David Weidner

MarketWatch First Take: Lehman’s guilty and not guilty

03.08.10

Portugal adds austerity measures

Posted in business, economic, news, shortly, world of money tagged , , , , at 7:06 pm by carydalton

LISBON, Portugal – Portugal announced new austerity measures Monday to avoid a debt crisis like the one engulfing Greece, cutting welfare benefits and government hiring as well as selling assets and raising taxes on the well-off.

The announcement comes two days ahead of a bond issue in which Portugal will try to raise euro750 million ($1.02 billion). Greece was able to tap bond markets last week after also announcing more deep cutbacks to shore up its finances.

The two countries’ troubles have fueled a Europe-wide debt crisis that has undermined the euro and led the European Union to consider setting up a new European monetary fund to help support the euro.

Portugal aims to raise euro6 billion ($8.2 billion) from privatizations, trim welfare benefits and slash other state expenditure in an effort to reduce the country’s heavy debt load, Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos said.

The measures are part of a four-year austerity plan devised to convince financial markets and other eurozone countries that Portugal has its finances in order.

The plan “rests, essentially, on a reduction in public spending,” Teixeira dos Santos told a news conference.

Portugal’s budget deficit is projected to have hit a record 9.3 percent of gross domestic product last year, prompting fears it could face similar problems to Greece where a budget crisis has brought violent demonstrations, rattled the European Union and undermined the 16-country euro currency, of which Portugal is a member.

Portugal’s public debt is expected to climb to 85.4 percent of GDP this year, up from 76.6 per cent in 2009, and Teixeira dos Santos said he predicts it will peak at 90.1 percent of GDP in 2012 before falling back.

Teixeira dos Santos said he expected the privatizations over the next four years to bring revenue equivalent to 3.6 percent of Portugal’s gross domestic product.

The center-left Socialist government also wants to keep annual pay hikes for state employees below the rate of inflation up to 2013, cut welfare benefits and scrap some tax breaks personal business card.

Teixeira dos Santos said he would create a new tax rate of 45 percent for people earning more than euro150,000 ($205,000) a year and raise the ceiling on entitlements for tax breaks, but otherwise he ruled out tax increases.

“We are focussing on reducing spending and avoiding tax hikes,” Teixeira dos Santos said.

Planned spending on new military equipment projected for the next four years will be cut by 40 percent, and a plan to build a high-speed rail link to Spain will be postponed for at least two years.

The minority government was consulting Monday with opposition parties over the plan, though it has not said whether the measures will be put to a vote in Parliament.

The government has included some of the the planned austerity measures, including a contested pay freeze for civil servants, in its 2010 state budget, which parliament is expected to approve on Friday. The budget was delayed by a general election last year.

State spending cuts will be across the board, Teixeira dos Santos said. About 75 percent of current expenditure goes on salaries and welfare policies.

He said that increasing pay by less than the inflation rate would cut the state’s wage bill to 10 percent of GDP from just over 11 percent.

Staffing levels will be cut by allowing one new employee to be hired for every two that leave the civil service.

The government also wants to reduce outlays on welfare by 0.5 percent by 2013 by trimming benefits. Temporary measures introduced in recent years to ease the effects of the economic downturn, including financial help for companies hiring new workers, will be phased out.

The government is also expecting some relief from an improving economic growth rate which Teixeira dos Santos said is forecast to reach 1.7 percent in 2013.

The government estimates the economy contracted 2.7 percent last year. It predicts growth of 0.7 percent this year.

Portugal adds austerity measures

03.05.10

Retail sales post strongest gains since late 2007

Posted in .com, business, economic, news, online tagged , , , , at 7:12 am by carydalton

NEW YORK – Shoppers returned to the nation’s malls last month, buying a surprising amount of spring clothing and other items and helping stores post the strongest retail sales since November 2007, a month before the recession began.

The better-than-expected 3.7 percent gain reported Thursday showed that Americans are still thrifty, but they are letting go of some of the frugality brought on by the economic downturn. And many are willing to spend for certain higher-end goods.

Consumers “are now starting to go back to where they had typically shopped” before the recession, said Michael Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers, who expected a 2 percent gain. “I’m surprised by the broad strength.”

But, he added, there’s still uncertainty about whether such a robust pace can be sustained, particularly later this year when the sales figures are being compared with more stabilized spending patterns.

The February sales report was the third consecutive monthly increase, according to the ICSC. The monthly index excludes Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which stopped reporting monthly sales last year.

Shoppers shrugged off snowstorms and worries about the economy to visit a broad array of merchants, from luxury retailer Nordstrom to middlebrow Macy’s Inc. to discounter Target Corp., which all reported solid sales increases that beat Wall Street analysts’ estimates.

The figures are based on sales at stores open at least a year and are considered a key indicator of a retailer’s health.

Stores in malls, which had seen sales plunge as their customers traded down to cheaper options, are starting to bring shoppers back by offering lower-priced or exclusive items.

Saks Fifth Avenue, for example, is expanding its exclusive merchandise offerings, putting more emphasis on lower prices and expanding its discount Off Fifth chain.

Selia Black, 26, was at the Manhattan Mall in New York on Thursday to find a birthday gift for her sister. She splurged on a $178 jacket at full price at Bebe. A year ago, she would have been scouring for a present that was deeply discounted, she said.

“I’m easing up a little bit, but not totally,” said the Brooklyn woman. She does not work, but her husband is a security guard.

Black says the recession has made her switch from Macy’s to discounters such as Marshall’s, and she planned to keep shopping at discount stores even when the economy recovers.

“You always get the deals,” she said. “But this is something special.”

Dennis Jacobe, chief economist at Gallup, believes shoppers’ thriftiness may have thawed a bit, as shoppers who have jobs are buying a little more. But, he said, frugality has not gone away, based on Gallup’s polls.

“We are in a new normal of spending,” he said low fee payday advance. He cited Gallup surveys taken Feb. 1 to Feb. 3 in which 57 percent of consumers polled said they are spending less. One-third of those surveyed said curtailed spending will be their normal pattern.

Another factor that helped the monthly sales figures look so strong was that February 2009 figures were so awful. Jacobe says spending levels are still well below 2008.

February, sandwiched between post-holiday clearance and spring, is the second-least important month of the year for retailers after January. Analysts see combined data for March and April as a more accurate measure of consumer behavior.

Still, the fact that shoppers were buying full-priced spring clothing was a pleasant surprise in the face of a sharp drop in the monthly Consumer Confidence Index.

Economists pointed to factors that depressed shoppers’ mood last month but did not seem to affect spending: gridlock in Congress over the jobs bill and a dive in the stock market related to worries about Greece’s national debt — not to mention repeated winter storms that buried much of the country in heavy snow.

Most economists say companies need to start hiring significantly in order for spending to keep improving. Unemployment stood at 9.7 percent in January and was expected to increase to 9.8 percent in February. The Labor Department was to report new job figures Friday.

In other encouraging signs for the economy, the Labor Department reported Thursday that new claims for jobless benefits fell last week, reflecting that layoffs may be easing as the economy slowly recovers. Factory orders also rose in January, according to the Commerce Department.

Shoppers are buying food at Wal-Mart and picking up discounted designer clothing at TJ Maxx, but trading up to stores such as Macy’s and Kohl’s for exclusive merchandise, said Craig Johnson, president of retail consultancy Customer Growth Partners.

Target, the nation’s second-largest discounter behind Wal-Mart Stores Inc., said February sales in stores open at least a year rose 2.4 percent as it attracted more customers and more spending per customer. But food and household essentials remained the biggest sellers, with furniture and clothing sales about flat with last year.

Gap, where sales had been led by low-price Old Navy, is starting to see a recovery across all its brands, including upscale Banana Republic, where sales were hurt when the financial meltdown escalated. Sales at namesake Gap stores were flat, but Banana Republic posted a 6 percent gain and Old Navy’s business improved by 5 percent.

Retail sales post strongest gains since late 2007

03.02.10

Quicksilver reports profitable 4Q, shares climb

Posted in .com, All, Free blog Tips, business, top tagged , , , , at 6:00 am by carydalton

FORT WORTH, Texas – Natural gas and oil producer Quicksilver Resources Inc. posted a fourth-quarter profit of $32.5 million, or 19 cents per share, Monday as revenue grew, compared with a loss a year earlier, when it recorded several charges.

A year earlier, the company lost $467 million, or $2.79 per share.

The results, which beat Wall Street’s expectations, sent Quicksilver’s shares up 50 cents, or 3.4 percent, to $15.42. The stock has traded the past 52 weeks at $3.98 to $16.59.

Excluding one-time items, the company earned $47.3 million, or 27 cents per share, up from an adjusted profit of $39.3 million, or 23 cents per share, a year earlier home kerosene heaters.

Revenue rose 12 percent to $234.1 million from $208.9 million.

Analysts, on average, were expecting a profit of 25 cents per share on sales of $217.4 million, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters.

For the full year, Quicksilver posted a loss of $557.5 million, or $3.30 per share, compared with a loss of $378.3 million, or $2.33 per share, a year earlier.

Adjusted earnings were 86 cents per share for 2009.

Revenue rose to $832.7 million from $800.6 million.

Quicksilver reports profitable 4Q, shares climb

02.24.10

Despite a Price Gain in December, Signs of Worry on Housing

Posted in business, money, online, shortly, world of money tagged , , , , at 7:12 am by carydalton

The wobbly state of the housing market was made clear on Tuesday with the release of data showing that home prices managed a modest increase in December even as many more Americans owed more on their properties than they were worth.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 metropolitan areas rose 0.3 percent in December on a seasonally adjusted basis, with most of the cities improving from November.

It was the seventh consecutive month that the index showed rising prices, a welcome respite after several years of wrenching declines. But another 600,000 households slipped underwater during the fourth quarter, with their homes valued at less than their mortgages, according to the data firm First American CoreLogic, a real estate research company.

The total number of households with negative equity is now 11.3 million, or 24 percent of all residential properties with mortgages, up from 23 percent in the third quarter, First American said.

Negative equity is a major concern among policy makers because it can compel disillusioned borrowers to forsake their properties, contributing to the foreclosure problem. The breaking point for homeowners, research shows, is when negative equity reaches about 25 percent.

Five million people are now at or beyond that point, First American estimates, up from 4.5 million in the third quarter.

The research firm recalibrated its data in the third quarter, which means earlier negative equity numbers are not comparable. But it said that the number of severely underwater borrowers was growing even faster than it expected a few weeks ago.

“Home prices in the worst areas — Florida, Nevada and Arizona — fell more than we had expected, increasing the amount of negative equity,” a First American senior economist, Sam Khater, said.

First American’s home price index, released last week, fell for both December and the fourth quarter. That contrasted with the improving Case-Shiller numbers.

The two firms measure different groups of homeowners using different methodologies. The disparate results indicate how difficult it is at the moment to get a fix on the housing market.

There is a widespread feeling among analysts that the market is being kept afloat by the government’s emergency measures, especially the tax credit for buyers. The market’s true level will become apparent only after the tax credit ends in the spring — assuming it is not renewed as it was in the fall payday loans.

Prices in the West Coast cities tracked by Case-Shiller, including Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Diego, increased the most in December. Laggards were Chicago, New York and Tampa, Fla.

“The recovery has slowed since the summer months, but it has not completely fallen apart,” Maureen Maitland, S.& P.’s vice president for index services, said. “We’re in a bit of a flat period.”

Las Vegas, the worst hit of all the major housing markets, managed its second consecutive monthly gain. “Vegas was so battered there is now a tiny bit of hope,” Ms. Maitland said. “You can only fall so much.”

In the case of Las Vegas, that was apparently a drop of 57 percent from its peak. Seven of 10 homeowners with mortgages in Nevada owe more on their properties than they are worth, according to the First American data. In Arizona and Florida, about half the owners are underwater.

Further price declines could give many of these owners the impetus to walk away. If interest rates rise and the tax credit is not renewed, another slump is expected. Nationally, prices are already about where they were in summer 2003. Further declines could add up to a lost decade for housing prices.

Joshua Shapiro, chief United States economist for MFR Inc., said he expected the market to drop after the tax credit expired. At that point, he said, “more of the true fundamentals will come through on pricing.”

In the spring, the seasonal adjustment factors will tend to weigh on Case-Shiller prices, rather than bolster them as they do now. Without the adjustments, most of the cities in the index fell in December. The composite dropped 0.2 percent for the second consecutive month.

On an annual basis, the 20-city index was down 3.1 percent. That figure has improved consistently for a year. Only three cities — Detroit, Tampa and Las Vegas — are still showing double-digit annual declines.

The quarterly return for the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index of national home prices, which incorporates data from a broader slice of the country, was also released on Tuesday. That index fell 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the same period in 2008.

Despite a Price Gain in December, Signs of Worry on Housing

02.21.10

Pilots offer to talk with Lufthansa before strike

Posted in .com, business, money, shortly, top tagged , , , , at 4:06 pm by carydalton

BERLIN – The Cockpit pilots union offered Saturday to meet with the chief of Lufthansa AG to try to head off a four-day strike beginning Monday that could cause headaches for thousands of travelers.

The union offer to meet with Lufthansa Chief Executive Wolfgang Mayrhuber came after Germany’s transport minister urged the two sides to return to talks and avoid a strike that could damage the country’s economy.

Lufthansa has said it is willing to talk, but not without conditions. It was not immediately clear if the meeting would take place.

Lufthansa has already canceled some 600 flights ahead of the strike and is scrambling to rebook travelers on partner airlines or trains.

“Lufthansa is doing everything in its power to inform its customers as soon as possible and offer them alternative travel options,” the company said on its Web site.

Travelers who are unable to reschedule are being reimbursed for their tickets, it said guaranteed pay day loans.

The airline, Germany’s largest, estimates the strike could cost it as much as euro100 million ($135.19 million).

The union is urging some 4,500 pilots who fly for Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo and Germanwings to walk off their jobs from February 22-25 to press the airline for increased job security.

Cockpit accuses the airline of outsourcing more and more flights to pilots employed by other companies, who work for less pay and under worse conditions.

Also Saturday, German Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer warned the strike could seriously damage the German economy.

“It can not be that the largest German air fleet is grounded for four days,” Ramsauer told the Bild am Sonntag weekly.

___

On the Net:

http://www.lufthansa.com

Pilots offer to talk with Lufthansa before strike

01.24.10

3-Day Slide Sends Markets Down About 5 Percent

Posted in .com, All, business, economic, online tagged , , , , at 3:36 pm by carydalton

Wall Street tumbled for a third day on Friday as a three-day slide pushed the markets down almost 5 percent. For the Dow, Friday was the lowest close since early November.

For a second day, shares declined on concerns about President Obama’s proposal for tighter restrictions on the activity of banks as the markets finished the week with a three-day losing streak.

The president on Thursday proposed to ban banks with federally insured deposits from casting risky bets in the markets, and to resist further consolidation in the financial industry — moves the caught bankers and traders by surprise.

In response, the Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 200 points on Thursday. Declines in Asian and European markets followed and then carried over a second day Wall Street. Concerns of earnings sent shares lower on Wednesday.

At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 216.90 points, or 2.1 percent, at 10,172.98. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell 24.73 points or 2.2 percent, to 1,091.75, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite fell 60.41 points or 2.67 percent, at 2,205.29. For the week, the Dow was down about 4.1 percent.

Quincy M. Krosby, a markets strategist at Prudential Financial, said investors were also weighing news that Ben S. Bernanke’s confirmation for a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve faced growing opposition.

“What they’re sensing is this has taken on a political visceral momentum,” Ms. Krosby said. “They makes them hesitant about the future of the banking system.”

As they did on Thursday, financial shares led the decline. On Wall Street, shares of Morgan Stanley declined 6.3 percent; Goldman Sachs dropped 5.2 percent; Bank of America, 4.5 percent; and Citigroup, 1 percent. In Europe, Barclays lost 6 percent. UBS of Switzerland was off 5.1 percent, while Santander of Spain gave up 3 percent.

“There’s no doubt that there will be a significant amount of regulation in the banking industry in the next year,“ said Henk Potts, equity strategist at Barclays Wealth in London. “But there’s a long road to travel and lots of discussions and negotiations before we find out exactly what this will entail no fax payday loan.”

Questions about the banks, analysts said, could push the markets into another period of uncertainty.

Other analysts saw President Obama’s announcement of tighter banking rules was taken as a sign that government leaders are looking beyond the financial crisis.

“It’s clear that politicians are starting to have enough confidence that the global economy has been saved and are starting to try to find ways of paying the bills,” analysts at Deutsche Bank said Friday in a research note. “The risk is that they do this too early and the timing of this announcement is unfortunate given it coincides with the escalation of problems in peripheral Europe and in a week where China has effectively tightened policy.”

The comments about peripheral Europe were a reference to the budgetary problems in Greece that have rattled bond markets here.

Earnings from two companies helped to offset some of the declines. General Electric topped expectations despite a 19 percent drop in fourth-quarter income. For the quarter, G.E. posted net income of $2.94 billion, or 28 cents a share. That compared with $3.65 billion, or 35 cents, a year earlier.

And the fast-food restaurant chain, McDonald’s said fourth-quarter profit was $1.22 billion, or $1.11 a share, up from $985.3 million, or 87 cents a share, a year earlier. The company said sales overseas had helped to offset a weakness in American sales. G.E. shares were up 1 percent and McDonald’s rose 0.35 percent.

Markets in Europe were also lower. In London, the FTSE 100 was down 32.11 points or 0.6 percent, and the DAX shed 51.65 points, or 0.9 percent, in Frankfurt.

In Asia, the Nikkei 225 index, Japan’s leading market gauge, led the region’s declines with a drop of 2.56 percent. The Shanghai composite index in mainland China fell nearly 1 percent, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong dropped 0.6 percent, with the international banks Standard Chartered and HSBC both down.

Bettina Wassener reported from Hong Kong and Matthew Saltmarsh from Paris.

3-Day Slide Sends Markets Down About 5 Percent

Hot News: Report: Barclays to defer bonuses

01.20.10

Drug Companies Lead Markets Higher

Posted in All, Free blog Tips, business, news, online tagged , , , , at 10:24 am by carydalton

The possibility that the dynamics of the health care debate could changed helped spur the market on Tuesday, overshadowing fresh concerns about banks and the American consumer.

Investors were preparing for the prospect that a Republican might win the Senate seat once held by Edward M. Kennedy in Massachusetts and, with it, deny Democrats the 60th vote needed to surmount Republican filibusters and advance the health legislation.

As voters headed to the polls in Massachusetts, shares of pharmaceutical companies surged. The possibility of disarray over the bill eased concerns that profits would suffer at insurance and drug companies. Merck climbed nearly 3 percent, and Pfizer was up 2 percent. Rising health stocks pulled the broader market higher.

In midday trading, the Dow Jones industrial average climbed 0.73 percent or 76.94 points. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 0.8 percent, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq was up 0.94 percent.

Amid Tuesday’s zeal, however, there were indications that financial firms face high hurdles as they try to escape the worst recession in decades. The banking giant Citigroup reported a loss for a second consecutive year, held back by losses on mortgages and credit cards.

Citigroup’s figures followed similarly cautious results from JPMorgan Chase last week. Taken together, the reports suggest Americans are still struggling to pay the bills amid high unemployment and depleted savings accounts, leaving banks looking for fertile revenue streams.

“What’s going to be critical for banks is their ability to cut their loan losses — that’s going to be the principal source of earnings growth,” said David A payday loans with no fax. Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist for Gluskin Sheff. “Citigroup’s loss certainly raises a bit of a cautionary flag in terms of the entire financial sector.”

Still, investors said Citigroup’s results could have been much worse, and they were pleased its $1.6 billion loss in 2009 was a stark improvement from the $27.7 billion loss in 2008. Shares of Citigroup rose 0.58 percent, while JPMorgan Chase fell 0.23 percent and Bank of America dropped 0.92 percent.

In other markets, the dollar gained and the euro fell amid continuing concern about the ability of several European nations, including Greece, to pay off debt. Oil dropped.

Investors were also encouraged by heavy merger and acquisition activity over the holiday weekend, analysts said. Cadbury agreed to a takeover offer from Kraft on Tuesday, worth about $19 billion, that would create the world’s largest confectioner. Cadbury rose 5.34 percent.

In addition, Berkshire Hathaway said it would acquire part of the Swiss Reinsurance Company for nearly $1.3 billion, sending shares of Berkshire up 1.23 percent.

Overseas, European markets were poised to close higher. The FTSE 100 in London was up 0.52 percent, the CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.9 percent, and the DAX in Frankfurt climbed 0.96 percent.

Drug Companies Lead Markets Higher

01.17.10

Outlook better for some regional banks

Posted in .com, business, economic, online, shortly tagged , , , , at 10:48 pm by carydalton

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Some banking analysts are bullish on U.S. regional banks as they expect fourth-quarter results to bring improved earnings per share and capital-ratio visibility, Barron's reported on Sunday.

Credit Suisse analyst Craig Siegenthalter says that while some regional banks will probably miss earnings estimates when results are announced in coming weeks, he believes the rate of change in non-performing assets and earnings charge-offs will move close to zero, Barron's reported.

Loan-loss provisions should peak in the fourth quarter, Siegenthalter said.

"If problem loans don't grow as much as expected and the deceleration is bigger than expected, that will cause a lot of buying of these stocks," Barron's quoted Siegenthalter as saying quick cash advance.

Stocks he rates as "outperform" include Bank of Hawaii Corp (BOH.N), Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB.O), First Horizon National Corp (FHN.N) and SunTrust Banks Inc (STI.N), the newspaper said.

David Kovacs, a chief investment officer at Turner Investment Partners, told Barron's his favorites include Regions Financial (RF.N), Huntington Bancshares Inc (HBAN.O), Marshall & Ilsley Corp (MI.N) and Susquehanna Bancshares (SUSQ.O).

(Editing by Leslie Adler)

Outlook better for some regional banks

01.12.10

FTSE 100 closes lower

Posted in All, Free blog Tips, business, shortly, top tagged , , , , at 8:54 pm by carydalton

LONDON (AFP) – The leading stock exchange fell on Tuesday as investors reacted to weak earnings data from US aluminium producer Alcoa, which kicked off the latest results season in the world's biggest economy.

The FTSE 100 index slumped 0.71 percent to 5,498.71 points, dragged down by heavyweight mining groups whose share prices suffered after Alcoa's earnings missed analyst expectations.

Lloyds was the most traded stock, seeing 187 million units change hands, followed by telecom giant Vodafone, which saw 128 million shares switch owners.

Land Securities topped the leader board, gaining 10.50 pence — or 1.54 percent — to finish at 693.50.

The day's second-best performer was wholesale firm Wolseley, up 21 instant payday loan.00 pence — or 1.47 percent — to stand at 1,447.

The session's biggest loser was silver miner Fresnillo, which lost 44.00 pence — or 5.16 percent — to close at 808, as metal prices tumbled.

It was followed by peer Lonmin, which shed 88.00 pence — or 4.08 percent — to finish at 2,069.

Sterling gained ground against the euro and the dollar.

At 17:06, the pound was trading at $1.6181, up from $1.6115 at Monday's close. Against the euro, the pound stood at 0.8975 euros, up from 0.8962 over the same period.

FTSE 100 closes lower

01.11.10

Asia stocks hit 17-month high on China export surge

Posted in All, Free blog Tips, business, news, top tagged , , , , at 2:00 pm by carydalton

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian stocks hit a 17-month high on Monday as a strong rebound in China's exports raised investor optimism about Asia's economies while the dollar suffered its biggest loss in six weeks after poor U.S. jobs data.

European shares were expected to gain, financial spreadbetters said, as the dollar's weakness pushed the euro to a three-week high. U.S. stock futures were up 0.4 percent.

China's exports and imports last month blew past expectations, with exports surging 17.7 percent from a year earlier to break 13 months of declines. The trade data, released on Sunday, triggered a shift into Asian assets as investors shrugged off Friday's disappointing U.S. non-farm payrolls data.

Gold pushed up to a five-week high at $1,157.65 an ounce at one point as the data showed a sharp rise in China's commodities imports and sent the Australian dollar to a 26-month peak against the euro.

Chia-Liang Lian, a senior vice president at bond fund PIMCO, said Asia's fundamentals made it highly attractive.

"We have seen how Asia has navigated successfully through a tough year with a score card that is nothing short of spectacular," Lian told Reuters in an interview.

The MSCI index of Asia Pacific stocks traded outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) hit its highest level since July 2008, gaining 1.2 percent. The Thomson Reuters index of Asian shares (.TRXFLDAXPU) was 0.8 percent higher.

Japanese financial markets were closed for a public holiday.

Australia's leading share index (.AXJO) climbed 0.8 percent to a 15-month high as the China data lifted resource companies that benefit from Chinese demand.

"People are gradually getting more comfortable with the recovery story. You have seen some reasonably good data out of China, and there have been no disasters, no more Dubais," said Greg Goodsell, equity strategist at RBS Australia.

The Australian dollar soared to its highest in more than two years against the euro and to a five-week high against the dollar.

OIL TOPS $83

Resource-related shares gained in Hong Kong, including Aluminum Corp of China (Chalco) (2600.HK) (601600.SS), the country's top aluminum company, which surged 5 percent, and Jiangxi Copper (0358 allstate insurance company.HK)(600362.SS), China's top metals producer, which rose more than 3 percent.

Chinese brokerage shares gained in Shanghai after news late last week that Beijing had decided to allow stock index futures and margin trading.

The dollar, however, extended losses stemming from the jobs report, which dampened expectations of an early rise in U.S. interest rates.

A member of the U.S. Federal Reserve monetary policy committee, James Bullard, said on Monday that rates may remain low for quite some time, reiterating the central bank's long-standing position.

The dollar dropped 0.5 percent against a basket of currencies (.DXY) and was quoted at a three-week low at around $1.4533 against the euro.

The U.S. economy shed 85,000 jobs in December, confounding expectations that the job market was finally stabilizing. Still, analysts argued the outcome was consistent with economic recovery because the pace of job losses had dropped sharply since the height of recession.

Oil jumped more than 1 percent, topping $83 a barrel, on the back of the weak dollar, extremely cold weather in the northern hemisphere and a surge in China's crude oil imports last month.

China's export rebound fueled expectations China could soon let the yuan start rising again and helped push Asian currencies higher as a stronger yuan would benefit pricing for fellow Asian exporters.

The high-yielding Indonesian rupiah jumped 1 percent to 9,120 to the dollar, despite suspected intervention by the central bank. It has gained 3.3 percent so far this year as investors have sought out higher-yielding assets.

South Korean authorities were also seen intervening to curb the won which touched a 15-month high of 1,117.5 to the dollar.

PIMCO's Lian said Asian currencies were still undervalued on a trade-weighted basis and cited the yuan, the won and the Singapore dollar among his top currency picks. He also likes Indonesian debt which offers better yield than other Asian debt.

(Additional reporting by Saikat Chatterjee in HONG KONG and Victoria Thieberger in MELBOURNE; Editing by Jan Dahinten)

Asia stocks hit 17-month high on China export surge

Hot News: Fed unlikely to be swayed by jobs data: Bullard

01.08.10

U.S. Job Losses in December Dim Hopes for Quick Upswing

Posted in .com, business, hot news, money, shortly tagged , , , , at 5:06 pm by carydalton

The United States economy lost more jobs than expected in December, tempering hopes for a swift and sustained recovery from the Great Recession.

The Labor Department said on Friday that the economy shed another 85,000 jobs last month, but that the unemployment rate held steady at 10 percent.

In a surprise that highlighted the erratic nature of economic renewal, the government reported that 4,000 jobs were actually created in November — rather than a loss of 11,000 the government had originally projected — the first gain in nearly two years. Though jobs were lost in December, the unemployment rate did not rise, an indication that more jobless workers had given up their search for work.

“The report is certainly a disappointment and shows that there is going to be some difficulty in making the transition to move from the end of firing to actual hiring,” said Julia Coronado, senior United States economist at BNP Paribas. “Eventually we will see some job growth, but there are a lot of weak patches still in the economy.”

Those points of deficiency include construction and manufacturing, which showed the biggest losses in December amid a severe pullback in spending by consumers in the United States and abroad and a frail real estate market. The temporary employment sector — traditionally where businesses turn when they begin to ramp up hiring — showed increases for the fifth consecutive month.

Still, large swaths of the population — 15.3 million — remained unemployed. And the number of Americans out of work for six months or more, and in many cases longer than a year, hit 39.8 percent in December, the highest level since records were first kept in 1948.

For those workers, the search continues.

Kumar G. Navile, 33, of Charlotte, N.C., has applied to 500 jobs across the country since he lost his job as an engineer a year ago. Each month, he finds himself about $600 short in his monthly expenses after the $1,680 he earns in unemployment benefits. He pays the difference from a savings account, but expects that money to dry up in the next two months.

“You get up every day and say today will be different, but it is mentally challenging when you don’t find opportunities,” Mr. Navile said. “I performed well in school. I got a job the day I graduated. It’s been a struggle, and it continues to be.”

To reduce his expenses, Mr. Navile is trying to sell his house. He pays $1,200 each month on his mortgage.

The magnitude of the losses in December was worse than many economists had predicted, and some had even forecast a return to job creation. A broad measure of unemployment — one that includes those forced to work only part time and those too discouraged to look for work — climbed slightly to 17.3 percent.

Many economists, however, believe the labor market is still on track for job creation. Nigel Gault, chief United States economist for IHS Global Insight, noted that an average of 199,000 jobs were lost in the third quarter of last year, followed by 69,000 in the fourth quarter. He projects the tide will turn toward job creation in the first part of 2010.

“On the day, it’s an anticlimax and a bit of damp squib,” Mr. Gault said. “We shouldn’t let the disappointment obscure that the trend is in place for improvement in the labor market and we’re going to be creating jobs in 2010 on a sustained basis instant credit report.”

In its report, the government also revised its October data to record a loss of 16,000 more jobs, bringing that month’s total losses to 111,000.

The monthly jobs report from the Labor Department has emerged as the crucial indicator of economic health after the longest, deepest downturn since the Great Depression. While the economy is still depressed, job losses have eased since earlier last year. For years, ordinary people spent in excess of their incomes by borrowing against the value of homes, using abundant credit cards and tapping stock portfolios.

But home prices have plummeted in much of the country. Stock holdings have been diminished. Nervous banks have sliced credit even for healthy borrowers. That has left the paycheck as the primary source of spending power.

Economists are now divided over the nation’s prospects. Some place emphasis on recent expansion on the American factory floor, arguing that this presages broader improvements that will continue to gather steam.

But skeptics argue that the factory expansion merely reflects a rebuilding of inventories after many businesses slashed stocks during the panic that accompanied the fall of prominent financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers in the fall of 2008. Expansion has also been aided by $787 billion in federal spending aimed at stimulating growth, and by tax credits for home buyers.

Once these factors fade in coming months, the skeptics argue, that will leave the economy confronting the same challenges that have dogged it for more than two years — strapped households saturated in debt and worried about layoffs, curtailing spending; banks still anxious about losses to come on mortgage holdings, reluctant to lend; businesses unwilling to hire until they are certain that the recovery is solid.

Those with the gloomiest outlooks fear a so-called double-dip recession, in which the economy resumes contracting. Others fear many years of stagnant growth much like Japan’s Lost Decade in the 1990s.

The one place of near-universal agreement is that the economy cannot fully recover until millions of jobs are created.

As workers at growing businesses take fresh wages and spend them at other businesses, that creates jobs for other workers — a virtuous cycle, in the parlance of economists.

Recent months have produced tentative signs that such a cycle might indeed be unfolding, even as economists debate its sustainability.

New claims for unemployment insurance have fallen. The holiday shopping season showed measured improvement over one a year ago. Businesses have added temporary workers in what some experts construe as the beginning stages of wider hiring, as companies recognize fresh growth opportunities.

Not least, the pace of job deterioration has slowed markedly, with a net loss of 11,000 jobs initially reported for November — hardly a happy number, but a dramatic improvement from the roughly 700,000 jobs that were disappearing each month early last year.

But the unexpectedly large decline in December challenged the view of steady improvement, heightening the prospect of a longer, more tentative recovery, or perhaps even a return to the grim days of contraction.

U.S. Job Losses in December Dim Hopes for Quick Upswing

01.06.10

Crude prices rise for ninth straight day

Posted in business, hot news, shortly, top, world of money tagged , , , , at 8:48 am by carydalton

NEW YORK, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) — Crude prices rose for the ninth straight day on Tuesday as cold weather boosted demand for heating fuel.

Unusually cold weather has hit the United States, Europe and Asia since last week. Investors expected that the weather would boost heating demand above normal.

Investors are also awaiting weekly U.S. oil inventory data while analysts forecast the data will show a drop in distillate and crude stockpiles online payday loans.

Light, sweet crude for February delivery was up 26 cents to settled at 81.77 U.S. dollars a barrel. In London, Brent crude for February rose 47 cents to 80.59 dollars.

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