03.16.10
Posted in .com, hot news, money, top, world of money tagged financial, news, newsreports, people, writing at 7:18 am by carydalton
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and 22 affiliates filed a bankruptcy plan Monday to repay creditors of the failed brokerage firm.
“The proposed plan represents a fair economic resolution for all Lehman creditors and will accelerate recoveries to creditors,” said Bryan Marsal, chief executive and chief restructuring officer of Lehman Brothers Holdings, in a statement.
Has Wall Street dodged the bullet?
Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd unveils details of a bill aimed at overhauling financial regulation. The News Hub discusses the impact on Wall Street. Plus, WSJ’s Darren Everson joins the News Hub to discuss this year’s brackets for the NCAA tournament and potential upsets in the making.
The plan also tries to avoid “unnecessary, extended and expensive litigation that could adversely impact recoveries to creditors,” Lehman Brothers added in its filing fast cash without a hassle. Yet the firm will likely object to many claims and fight with creditors over what they’re owed, according to Dow Jones Newswires.
Lehman collapsed in September 2008 in the largest bankruptcy in history, triggering the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The firm faces about 65,000 claims from creditors totaling about $875 billion.
The plan, filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, comes on the 18-month anniversary of Lehman’s demise; Monday marked the deadline for filing the plan.
Lehman and affiliates file bankruptcy plan
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03.10.10
Posted in .com, Free blog Tips, hot news, online, world of money tagged All, markets, money, news, reviews at 2:30 pm by carydalton
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Citigroup Inc. shares rallied almost 7% Tuesday on speculation about mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. banking industry and after a bullish research note came out on the bank.
Barclays PLC is considering another major acquisition in the United States, and is hunting for a retail bank that would give it more deposits and extend the presence of its Barclays Capital unit in the country, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.
Bull-market birthday
As the bull market notches its first year anniversary, the News Hub panel weighs in on whether investors can still make money and how the market will react when the interest rates inevitably adjust.
The bank, in response to potential changes in banking regulation, has designated an internal team to assess possible targets, the newspaper added no teletrack payday loans.
Citigroup is “back from the brink and back in business,” research firm CreditSights wrote in a report released late Monday evening.
“Citi is still a work in progress,” the research firm said, but the bank’s debt and equity should benefit from its branch-light configuration, international consumer exposure, improving liquidity and the fact that the stock “is just plain cheap.”
Citi climbed 6.7% to $3.80 in afternoon action on Tuesday. More than 630 million shares were traded.
Citigroup shares rally on M&A speculation
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03.08.10
Posted in business, economic, news, shortly, world of money tagged finance, life, markets, news, reviews 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
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02.21.10
Posted in .com, business, money, shortly, top tagged campaign, economics, financial, news, writing 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
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01.30.10
Posted in All, hot news, news, shortly, top tagged All, money, news, people, world at 12:05 am by carydalton
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Chevron Corp (CVX.N), the second-largest U.S. oil company, posted a 37 percent drop in quarterly profit, missing analyst forecasts, as steep refinery losses offset gains from higher oil prices and production.
Global refining margins have suffered in recent months as rising crude oil prices have driven up costs even as the weak economy has shrunk demand for gasoline and diesel fuel.
That refinery weakness overshadowed a steep 9 percent rise in oil and gas output in the quarter from new and expanded projects, which lifted proved reserves by 1.1 billion barrels.
"It's like trying to run at 40 miles per hour in a boat while dragging an anchor," said James Halloran, energy advisor at Financial America Securities in Cleveland.
The company will be spending heavily off the coast of Western Australia this year, with $3.5 billion of its $21.6 billion capital spending budget going toward construction of its massive natural gas operations there.
Chevron signed off on the $37 billion Gorgon liquefied natural gas project in September, after hiring a contractor to design the Wheatstone project nearby only weeks earlier.
Chevron's fourth-quarter net profit fell to $3.07 billion, or $1.53 per share, from $4.9 billion, or $2.44 per share, in the same quarter a year before.
That fell far short of analysts' average forecast of $1.70 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, largely because of the steeper-than-expected $613 million loss from refining, marketing and transportation.
Chief Executive John Watson, on his first call with analysts since getting the job, said it was "quite premature" to talk of closing refineries, but he would seek cost cuts and aim for a 10 percent-plus downstream return through the cycle.
Chevron will merge its chemicals arm with the rest of the downstream business, and retain a spending bias that will shift its focus over time to exploration and production, he added quick pay day loan.
"We have favored upstream investment for more than the last decade. That has been a pattern I think you will see going forward," Watson said on the conference call.
After outperforming on oil and gas output in 2009, Chevron is looking for modest production growth of about 1 percent this year, to 2.73 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day.
Production at Chevron was 2.78 million boe per day in the fourth quarter, including 135,000 bpd associated with the ramp-up at Agbami in Nigeria, which commenced operations in the third quarter of 2008, and expansion at Tengiz in Kazakhstan.
Overall revenue rose nearly 12 percent to $48 billion.
Chevron said earlier in January that fourth-quarter profit would be hit by the slump in its refining business, which saw margins fall to the lowest levels of the year.
The company's business lost in the quarter versus a year-ago profit of $2.1 billion.
Earlier this week, ConocoPhillips (COP.N) posted better-than-expected earnings as the firmer oil prices offset its weak refinery performance.
Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) reports results on Monday.
At Thursday's close, Chevron shares had shed 4.5 percent since the start of 2010, against a 3.6 percent decline in the Chicago Board Options Exchange index of oil companies (.OIX).
The stock fell 0.6 percent to $72.82 on Friday, while the Standard & Poor's Energy index (.GSPE) was flat.
(Reporting by Matt Daily in New York and Braden Reddall in San Francisco, editing by Dave Zimmerman and Gunna Dickson)
Chevron Q4 profit tumbles, misses Wall St view
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01.13.10
Posted in .com, Free blog Tips, online, top, world of money tagged events, news, people, work, writing at 9:35 pm by carydalton
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks ended higher on Wednesday, pushing the Dow average to a fresh 15-month closing high, as investors bought financial and technology shares, and Merck & Co (MRK.N) benefited from a brokerage upgrade.
Based on the latest available data, the Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) rose 53.66 points, or 0.50 percent, to end at 10,680 payday loans.92. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) was up 9.47 points, or 0.83 percent, at 1,145.69. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) was up 25.59 points, or 1.12 percent, at 2,307.90.
(Editing by Kenneth Barry)
Market ends higher; tech, financials lead
Hot News: Ruble Jumps as Russia Returns From Holidays
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01.08.10
Posted in .com, business, hot news, money, shortly tagged economy, marketing, news, personal, work 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
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01.07.10
Posted in .com, All, Free blog Tips, economic, hot news tagged campaign, life, markets, news, political at 10:30 am by carydalton
TOKYO (MarketWatch) — Japan’s newly appointed Finance Minister Naoto Kan sent his nation’s currency significantly lower against its U.S. counterpart Thursday, as he used his inaugural press conference to talk down the yen.
Kan said many Japanese companies are in favor of the dollar trading around 95.00 yen, and that he will work with the Bank of Japan to get the currency to “appropriate” levels. The dollar spiked to 92.63 yen, from 92.15 yen before Kan spoke.
It is unusual for Japanese ministers to make comments on specific foreign-exchange levels.
The currency market trend “has been corrected a lot toward yen weakness since the Dubai shock … but I’m hoping the correction will make a bit more progress, making the yen weaker,” Kan was quoted as saying by Dow Jones Newswires.
Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Wednesday appointed the deputy prime minister — who will also keep that title — to replace Hirohisa Fujii, who stepped down for health-related reasons.
Kan “is a bit of a contrast to Fujii, who had, in our view, adopted a ‘benign neglect’ stance’” through December toward the Japanese yen, said strategists at Barclays Capital.
By contrast, Kan “has been expressing his preference” for a weaker yen, they said payday loan online.
“Thus, the government’s stance to prevent renewed [Japanese yen] strength has become clearer, and we think Kan’s appointment is likely to reduce the upside risk” for the yen, they wrote in a note to clients.
Ironically, Fujii once did the opposite of what Kan did Thursday.
In September, even before he was sworn in as finance minister, Fujii inadvertently sent the yen soaring when he was quoted as telling reporters that a strong yen had some economic benefits and that the recent foreign-exchanges moves weren’t rapid.
Not all analysts believe a weaker-yen stance is a given from now.
“We continue to expect the government to give priority to more pressure on the BOJ for additional easing and to reserve intervention as the last resort,” said Tomoko Fujii, a rates and currency strategist at Bank of America Securities-Merrill Lynch.
“We also think that the BOJ is likely to remain reactive. The BOJ probably intends to ease policy further only after sharp [Japanese yen] appreciation increases risks of deeper deflation,” she said in emailed comments.
Japan’s new finance minister call for weaker yen
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01.05.10
Posted in Free blog Tips, business, money, top, world of money tagged business, economics, news, opinion, reviews at 1:54 am by carydalton
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Japanese financial services firm Orix Corp. plans to invest some 300 billion yen ($3.2 billion) in Chinese firms providing financial and infrastructure services over the next three years, in a bid to tap into that country’s surging economy, according to a report Tuesday.
The Nikkei business daily reported that Orix will set up a holding company this month to oversee its investments in China, and will seek to profit from taking small local firms public.
Orix will take a roughly 15% stake in a tourism and real-estate firm as its first China deal, Nikkei reported.
Each investment is expected to total between 5 billion and 10 billion yen, the report said, adding that Orix will both procure funding from local financial institutions and set up funds to solicit capital from outside investors savings account payday advance.
The establishment of an investment fund marks Orix’s first direct entry into Chinese investment operations, Nikkei reported.
Shares of Orix rose 3% in the early minutes of Tuesday trading in Tokyo.
Orix reportedly to make major investments in China
Hot News: Novartis Buys Majority Stake in Alcon
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12.29.09
Posted in Free blog Tips, business, economic, money, shortly tagged blogs, finance, marketing, news, people at 11:31 pm by carydalton
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks ended marginally lower on Tuesday as investors found little reason to push stocks higher and volume slowed dramatically as the year-end approached.
* The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) dropped 1.67 points, or 0.02 percent, to end unofficially at 10,545.41. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) dipped 1.58 points, or 0.14 percent, to finish unofficially at 1,126 easy online payday loans.20. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) slipped 2.68 points, or 0.12 percent, to close unofficially at 2,288.40.
* The drop halted a six-day advance in all three indexes.
(Reporting by Ellis Mnyandu; Editing by Jan Paschal)
Wall Street halts 6-day advance
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12.28.09
Posted in .com, All, business, news, world of money tagged campaign, news, personal, politics, writing at 5:18 pm by carydalton
Shares on Wall Street crept higher Monday as investors returning from a long weekend were heartened by good news on retail sales. Wall Street exchanges are riding a five-day winning streak and are trading at highs for the year.
In early trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was 0.24 percent or 24.94 points higher, while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 3.32 points or 0.29 percent.
The dollar weakened against other currencies, giving commodities prices a boost. Bond prices fell.
Monday’s gains were underpinned by optimism over improved holiday spending data in the United States as well as a jump in Japan’s factory production, suggesting an economic recovery is gathering pace.
In the United States, figures from MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse, which track all forms of payment, showed that retail sales rose 3.6 percent from Nov. 1 through Dec. 24, compared with a 2.3 percent drop a year ago. Consumer spending is one of the biggest drivers of economic growth and is vital to a sustained recovery.
Investors will also be keeping a close eye on airline stocks after a failed attack on a Northwest flight on Christmas Day. Another incident on the same flight to Detroit from Amsterdam on Sunday raised further alarm.
European and Asian stock markets also moved higher Monday.
In Paris, the CAC 40 index rose 0.84 percent to 3,945.62, closing in on 4,000 points, a level it last saw in October 2008. The DAX in Frankfurt rose 0.72 percent to 6,000.17. London exchanges were closed for the Boxing Day holiday.
The French nuclear engineering giant Areva SA was among the big decliners in Paris after it was beat out for a $20 billion nuclear power contract in the United Arab Emirates by a South Korean consortium led by the Korea Electric Power Corporation.
Areva shares fell 2.7 percent. The loss was a blow to Areva, which is trying to export its nuclear technology around the world.
Earlier markets in Asia were the first to resume trading after the Christmas holiday and investors focused on regional developments in the absence of cues from the United States or Europe one hour payday loan.
Aiding sentiment in Asian stock markets was news that Japan’s factory output rose the most in six months in November as a recovery in export demand from Asia boosted production of cars, flat screen televisions and other products in the world’s second-biggest economy.
Japan’s recovery from the world economic crisis has been undermined by deflation and strong yen but an improvement in demand for exports has raised hopes it can avoid slipping back into recession next year. The figures also showed that China’s lavish stimulus spending is helping the region’s recovery.
“A recovery in exports, especially in Asia, supported growth in industrial output,” a senior economist at the Japan Research Institute, Hideki Matsumura, said.
Among the key sectors, November output for transportation machines, which include passenger cars, jumped 5.9 percent. Output for information technology equipment, which includes popular liquid crystal display televisions, gained 2.7 percent. Shipments in November edged up 0.9 percent month-on-month with inventories rising 0.2 percent.
While growth in Japan’s factory output was stronger than expected, the nation’s retail sales in November fell 1.0 percent from a year earlier, marking the 15th consecutive month of decline.
In Tokyo trade, the Nikkei 225 stock average closed up 139.52 points, or 1.3 percent, to 10,634.23 — the highest finish since late August. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng reversed course to end down 36.78, or 0.2 percent, at 21,480.22, while the Shanghai benchmark jumped 47.43 points, or 1.5 percent, to 3,188.78.
A Soft Start but Wall Street Moves Higher
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12.23.09
Posted in .com, All, news, online, world of money tagged economics, financial, news, newsreports, politics at 5:30 am by carydalton
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Sometimes, a little history gives you perspective. That’s why as 2010 comes to a close, it’s useful remembering what we were worrying about a year ago.
Gosh, we were more nervous than Lloyd Blankfein and Henry Paulson when the jury returned at the end of their trials.
Wall Street seemed like a place full of uncertainty at the end of 2009. Skeptics wondered whether the Dow Jones Industrial Average recovery to 10,000 was warranted, a concern that seems silly now, with most everyone abandoning the market for gold.
To be fair, there was no way investors of a year ago could have known the banks would collapse, this time for good, just three months into the year. It was a shock to the system, but one that helped people see value in precious metals and how foolhardy investing in innovation, industry and real estate truly are.
Also, working hard and saving money were overrated 12 months ago.
Consider the era, though. At the end of the decade, health-care reform was still being batted about in Congress. It looked as if any action would be watered down and expensive. Now, we have universal coverage from the state that pays for itself.
Had Ted Kennedy lived another 12 months, he might have made it another 12 years — if he could have stomached the 200% tax on fast food, cigarettes, alcoholic beverages and the elimination of health-industry lobbying.
A year ago, Afghanistan loomed as another Vietnam. That was until Wall Street’s best and brightest, lured by the nation’s lack of bonus restrictions and pay caps, began flocking to the country. This brought some social stability, but at a substantial price: The beach house shortage shows no signs of easing and takeout from the Four Seasons still costs well into five figures.
Revving up the earth
It seems equally as strange today, with the polar ice caps expanding at the fastest rate in centuries, that we worried about global warming. Or, maybe the fear was warranted. It’s hard to tell after China effectively traded our debt for the highly efficient and cheap solar panels produced by a company that finally got its stimulus money.
China’s reduction in carbon emissions combined with Chevy Volts, Ford Electric Explorers and the iCar started a reversal of the planet’s damage and, more importantly, shut up Al Gore and fueled a U.S. recovery.
Speaking of which, was it only a year ago that General Motors was limping along on a government bailout? Look at where it is today: scheduled to repay taxpayers early and at a substantial profit, giving hope that with the combined windfall from the bank asset liquidation, we will balance the federal budget in two years and eliminate all government debt in a decade instant personal loans guaranteed.
That prospect, too, has fueled a recovery in the dollar, which combined with nonexistent demand should have pushed oil prices into single digits. It didn’t happen, of course. Goldman Sachs analysts put a $300 price target on light sweet crude in August, a level prices broke through, even though inventories were so high Saudi Arabia sank under its own weight.
Overemployment
That global emergency would have cured the nation’s jobs ills if they already hadn’t been eliminated by the massive hiring by companies that make gold-laminated wind turbines, high-speed rail systems, transporters and hydrogen-powered leaf blowers. These new professions helped offset the losses among columnists, economists, financial advisers and credit officers and other unnecessary professions.
When unemployment hit 0.8% in October, President Obama bowed to pressure, mostly from Lou Dobbs, and opened the borders to immigrants.
It was a turnaround only rivaled by Lehman Brothers Chief Executive Dick Fuld and Bear Stearns Cos. chief Jimmy Cayne. Together they set a record for fundraising to back their prescient investments in Antarctica apartment complexes and the recently legalized marijuana farming.
It wasn’t all good news. As expected, the newspaper industry died, save for those unwanted shoppers. Most people didn’t notice, they figured it was just another delivery glitch at the old folks’ home.
There were misperceptions too. A year ago, Tiger Woods looked like a serial womanizer, not the philanthropist and golf promoter we know today who took it upon himself to give lessons to even the most uninterested of students, turning them into PGA-caliber players and giving them new careers.
And even though Wall Street effectively disappeared and was remade, the Treasury Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission spent 2010 doing what they did in 2009: talking about a new regulatory framework and how Washington would police naked-short selling and high frequency trading.
They did so even though the industry had moved on to just plain trading naked and trading so fast it made the speed traders of yesteryear look slow.
Some things never change.
David Weidner’s Writing on the Wall: The ghost of Wall Street future
Hot News: Financial Stocks: Financials up as investors cheer State Street buy
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12.15.09
Posted in economic, money, news, online, top tagged business, campaign, news, political, writing at 7:12 am by carydalton
SYDNEY — How can a company give away millions of products, help poor people, address climate change and turn a profit? A boutique energy company run by the unlikely partnership of an Anglican priest and a handful of business executives thinks it has the key.
The Melbourne company, Cool nrg International, is handing 30 million energy-efficient light bulbs out to poor and middle-income families in Mexico in a bid to capture a previously untapped corner of the carbon offset trading market and to nudge the developing world toward cleaner energy.
Cool nrg is one of a growing number of businesses trying to cash in on the multibillion-dollar market for carbon offsets approved by the United Nations under its Clean Development Mechanism, a program created by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to fight emissions of greenhouse gases. The program allows wealthy countries that have binding greenhouse gas targets to offset their emissions by investing in clean technology in developing countries, which have no targets.
The Mexican venture, called Cuidemos Mexico, or Let’s Take Care of Mexico, is the first C.D.M. project to focus on reducing energy demand by improving efficiency at the household, rather than the industrial, level. It is also the first project to receive “programmatic” status, meaning that it can be introduced at multiple sites without needing U.N. approval each time.
The company’s executive director is Nic Frances, 48, a charismatic former stockbroker turned Anglican priest who has been given a seat at the World Economic Forum in recognition of his success in setting up socially responsible enterprises.
Before moving to Australia in 1998, Mr. Frances ran two large projects in his native Britain that trained unemployed people to restore castoff furniture and electrical appliances that were then sold to low-income households. He also ran a Christian charity in Australia before turning his sights on the environment. At Cool nrg, his partners include executives drawn from Ernst & Young and BP Asia.
Mr. Frances and his backers believe their project will address some of the main criticisms that have been leveled against the C.D.M., which is being reviewed by international negotiators in Copenhagen as they try to develop out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
The idea is relatively simple: By the end of 2012, the company plans to distribute 30 million compact fluorescent light bulbs to 7.5 million households across Mexico — four bulbs per home. To receive the bulbs, each family must hand over four energy-gobbling incandescent bulbs and a power bill as proof of address. The details are recorded in a database to avoid duplication and to stop profiteers from stockpiling and reselling the bulbs.
For every ton of carbon saved by the lights — a large sample of which will be monitored using wireless devices — Cool nrg receives a U.N.-certified carbon credit that it can sell to a country or company seeking to meet its emissions targets.
Over 10 years, the average life of a compact fluorescent bulb, the company expects to generate about 7.5 million carbon credits. On the European Climate Exchange, credits for greenhouses gases that have already been saved — called certified emissions reductions — trade for about €13, or $19. But many entities, including Cool nrg, have chosen to sell their relatively riskier, not-yet-generated credits at fixed discounts that are not made public.
While Cool nrg makes money selling carbon credits, Mexican families can enjoy lower energy bills, since compact fluorescent bulbs consume as much as 80 percent less electricity than standard incandescents. And the Mexican government — which underwrites electricity costs for low-income families — is expected to reap a double windfall, paying fewer subsidies and deferring the need to build new power plants immediate payday loans online.
Cool nrg gave out the first million light bulbs in the Mexican state of Puebla in November, supported by a loan from the ING Group and a promise from a Dutch utility, Eneco Energie, to purchase all of the 240,000 credits that are expected to be created by the Puebla project in the next 10 years. It also has the right of first refusal for buying any credits generated by the remaining 29 million bulbs.
The lack of certainty around the future of the carbon market after the Kyoto accord expires is keeping the price of carbon credits relatively low, Mr. Frances said. Mexico is covering about 30 percent of the project’s costs — but the proportion could fall if the price of carbon credits rises.
The Puebla pilot is unlikely to turn a profit, “but we did it because we wanted to show, by Copenhagen, that it would work,” Mr. Frances said. “However, at a price of €18 a ton, projects like this suddenly become very profitable — and we don’t have to do the others until the price is right.”
In its submission to the United Nations, Cool nrg estimated that the project would save Mexican families about $165 million a year in electricity bills, while the government would save $200 million a year in subsidies.
“For the Mexican government, which owns the power companies, this is a really cheap way of effectively building a power station,” Mr. Frances said.
But Mr. Frances’s profit vehicle — the Clean Development Mechanism — has plenty of detractors.
Critics say that the mechanism has become distorted, despite its good intentions. The ratio of one credit per ton of greenhouse gases saved has given rapidly industrializing countries with large, emissions-intensive factories — China, in particular — a substantial edge over smaller rivals.
And the high cost of shepherding a project through the labyrinthine U.N. approval process has shut many poorer countries out. In 2006, more than 60 percent of approved projects were in China. India received 12 percent and Brazil, 6 percent. African countries all together received just 3 percent.
Cool nrg chose Mexico in part to show that it was possible to run a successful C.D.M. project outside China, India or Brazil. Also, Mexico’s relatively heavy use of fossil fuels for electricity translated into more carbon credits for every kilowatt hour of power saved, making the project potentially more profitable.
Many environmental groups say the C.D.M. undermines efforts to curb greenhouse gases because it gives rich countries leeway to continue polluting when they buy credits from projects in China and India, where emissions are also rising quickly.
“We’re putting ever more greenhouse gas into the air,” said William Whitesell, the director of policy research at the Center for Clean Air Policy, a private research organization in Washington. The group is one of many advocating that the mechanism be substantially reformed in the post-2012 climate framework.
“The current system is a good start, but it is not making enough progress to achieve global climate goals” like cutting overall emissions, he said. “The major developing countries need to move away from C.D.M. credits that are based on everything relative to business as usual.”
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