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Major U.S. auto dealerships see only a grudging recovery in demand in 2011, a cautious outlook at odds with the consensus view that the battered industry could see a double-digit percentage rebound.

“We can feel that there is demand, but it is very cautious demand,” Asbury Automotive Group Chief Executive Officer Charles Oglesby said in an interview on Thursday.

Asbury, which ranks sixth in sales among U.S. dealerships, said it was basing its own planning decisions on the view that 2010 U.S. auto sales would be only flat with the 10.5 million vehicles projected for this year.

“While that may prove to be conservative, we feel that’s the prudent way to run the business,” Asbury Chief Financial Officer Craig Monaghan also told Reuters.

That view echoed the line taken earlier this week by Sonic Automotive. The No. 3 U.S. auto retailer also set its 2010 industry sales forecast at 10.5 million vehicles.

That is sharply lower than most industry forecasts, including those from major auto manufacturers.

CSM Worldwide has forecast industrywide U.S. sales of 11.8 million cars and light trucks for 2010, while J.D. Power is expecting 11.5 million.

Ford Motor Co, the only U.S. automaker to avoid bankruptcy and the most bullish in its projection for a recovery, has forecast sales of more than 12 million.

General Motors Co GM.UL has said it expects sales of about 11.5 million vehicles in the United States next year low fee payday advance.

The gap between the outlook of auto retailers and major manufacturers could be an issue for the industry as dealerships look to restock inventories that plunged to record lows this summer in the wake of the brief boom touched off by the U.S. government’s “Cash for Clunkers” sales incentive program.

Automakers are in the process of setting production plans for next year. If the industry fails to see the stronger growth expected, it could force automakers to discount more heavily, a step that those based in the United States have vowed to avoid.

Both GM and Chrysler went through government-funded bankruptcies this year to slash their operating costs and give them flexibility to run factories at lower volumes.

AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson said he believed the industry’s crisis this year and the changes made under pressure from U.S. officials had killed a failed “push” model in which automakers set output targets without regard to demand.

Jackson expects U.S. auto sales to recover to above 11 million vehicles in 2010, a level that he said was still deeply depressed by historical standards.

He said he was encouraged by “signs of life” in the market for financing near-prime and subprime borrowers and for underwriting vehicle leases. Last year’s credit crisis had shut down those riskier areas of the auto market. 

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Credit rating agencies would be more tightly regulated and more exposed to lawsuits under legislation approved on Wednesday by the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.

In another procedural step forward for the Obama administration’s and congressional Democrats’ push for financial reform, the committee voted 49-14 to send the bill to the full House for a vote, likely next month.

Credit rating agencies are widely blamed for failing to spot credit market problems, with securitized debt and other instruments, in the run-up to last year’s financial crisis.

President Barack Obama and Democrats have been working for months on a package of proposals to tighten bank and capital market regulation after the crisis, the worst in decades.

“The rating agencies really screwed up and now people are asking for us to put their heads in the guillotine … But what really needs to happen is to see what can be done to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said Representative Paul Kanjorski, author of the committee’s bill.

The agencies are viewed by critics as compromised by their prevailing business model, in which issuers of debt pay the agencies for debt ratings. Kanjorski said lawmakers explored ways to change that model, but found it was impractical no fax payday advances.

Instead, the bill imposes regulations on the industry intended to “close many of the weaknesses and the loopholes,” said Kanjorski, a Democrat.

Firms affected by the bill include Moody’s Corp, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.

The bill would for the first time set up an office in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to oversee the agencies and their ratings and how they are determined.

It would also open the door to more lawsuits by investors against agencies over flawed ratings, a provision opposed by the agencies and likely to attract controversy as the bill works its way to the House floor and the Senate.

The bill also calls for removing some references in federal law that mandate certified agencies’ credit ratings as a way to reduce the pervasiveness of their use.

The committee, chaired by Democratic Representative Barney Frank, was expected to vote later on a bill to beef up the SEC’s budget and legal protection standards for investors.

(Editing by Dan Grebler)

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French consumer confidence climbed in October for a third month as lower energy prices improved disposable income and government support spurred growth.

A gauge of household sentiment rose to minus 35 from minus 36 in September, Paris-based national statistics office Insee said today. Economists expected a reading of 35, a Bloomberg survey showed.

French consumers, helped by tax cuts, state incentives to buy cars and falling oil prices, have boosted the economy this year, lifting France out its deepest recession since World War II. Whether they’ll keep spending as energy prices recover and unemployment rises will be key to Europe’s second-largest economy in the months ahead.

“The behavior of consumers will be crucial” for 2010, said Gilles Moec, an economist at Deutsche Bank AG in London. “Households will have to face the disappearance of the deflation windfall” and a deteriorating labor market.

Consumer prices dropped from last year’s levels in each of the past five months as the price of crude oil fell from the record highs hit in mid-2008.

That effect is diminishing just as joblessness is rising. Jobless claims rose by 21,600 in September to 2.57 million, the Labor and Finance ministries said yesterday.

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Japan and Australia outlined competing visions for an East Asian trade bloc during a 16- nation summit in Thailand, offering plans that differ on what role the U.S. will play.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd discussed his idea for an “Asia-Pacific Community” that would include the U.S. and India. Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who took power last month, suggested an “East Asian Community” whose membership has yet to be determined, foreign ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama said yesterday.

“Both Japan and Australia proposed bigger communities, which is a test for us,” Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said yesterday in a weekly interview on a channel operated by state-controlled MCOT Pcl. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations “must be firmly integrated when we enter a bigger community.”

The proposals, which included few specifics, underscore different views within the region on U.S. power and economic dominance. The model of relying on Western demand for local goods and services “will no longer serve us as we move into the future,” said Abhisit, the meeting’s host.

“Japan wants to stay a major player and keep China from dominating,” said Carlyle A. Thayer, a politics professor at the University of New South Wales in Canberra. “Australia is worried about American staying power in the region.”

Asean countries account for about half of the world’s population and a quarter of global gross domestic product.

‘Closely Discuss’

Japan will “closely discuss and coordinate” with the U.S., Kodama said yesterday without elaborating. China is “positive and open” to the establishment of an “East Asian community,” Assistant Foreign Minister Hu Zhengyue said two days ago.

The U.S. signed a friendship accord with Asean in July to bolster ties with an area that contains sea lanes vital to world trade, as well as coal, oil and other commodities. The treaty is a prerequisite for joining the East Asia Summit, which consists of the 10-member Asean, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand, which also took place yesterday in Thailand.

Border Disputes

In a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao vowed to improve relations and work on “issues” such as border disputes. The two countries need to build “better understanding and trust” to keep relations “robust and strong,” Singh said, according to a statement from India’s Ministry of External Affairs.

Asean also set up its first human rights commission at the weekend’s meeting, one without any authorization to discuss country-specific violations. Human rights groups have faulted Asean for its reluctance to criticize members such as Myanmar that are accused of silencing dissent.

Myanmar authorities may consider easing their stance on the detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi if she continues to have a “good attitude,” Kodama told reporters, citing comments by Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein.

Rice Reserves

China, Japan, South Korea and Asean said they will expedite the development of permanent emergency rice reserves to ensure food security in times of crisis and disasters, according to a joint statement. China pledged 300,000 tons of rice.

Australia and New Zealand’s free-trade agreement with a group of Southeast Asian nations will take effect next year, Australia said yesterday. The deal, originally signed in February at an earlier Asean meeting, is designed to eliminate or lower tariffs on products such as coffee, dairy, minerals, cars and vegetables in the next 12 years.

Southeast Asian countries are “on track” to eliminate tariffs on most goods traded within the region by the beginning of 2010, Asean said in a statement yesterday. The group aims to form a free-trade area by Jan. 1 that would remove tariffs on more than 87 percent of imports, part of its efforts to create an economic zone modeled after the EU, without a common currency, by 2015.

Regional Groups

The Japanese and Australian proposals would build on existing regional groupings. Those include the 10-member Asean, the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation bloc set to meet next month in Singapore and the 27-member Asean Regional Forum that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended in July.

Rudd’s Asia-Pacific Community would include the U.S., Japan, China, India, Indonesia and “the other states of our region,” he said in a speech last year. Its purpose would be to cooperate on economic, political and security matters and dispel notions that a conflict in Asia may be inevitable, he said at the time.

Hatoyama, who came to office Sept. 16, said in a speech at the United Nations a week later that he would strive to create an East Asian community similar to the European Union. The goal was seen as potentially excluding the U.S. after he published an opinion article in the New York Times in August arguing that “the era of U.S.-led globalism is coming to an end.”

Besides Thailand, which holds Asean’s rotating chairmanship, the group includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam. A wider East Asian free trade area may emerge before a new regional community is formed, Abhisit said yesterday.

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U.K. gross domestic product unexpectedly dropped in the third quarter as enduring slumps in services, manufacturing and construction kept the economy mired in its longest recession on record.

Gross domestic product dropped 0.4 percent from the previous three months, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. Economists predicted a 0.2 percent increase, according to the median of 33 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. The economy has now contracted in six quarters, the most since records began in 1955.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said this week he will focus on spurring economic growth as he struggles to cement a recovery in time for a general election due by June. Today’s data may add to pressure on Bank of England officials to expand bond purchases at their Nov. 5 decision after completing a plan to buy 175 billion pounds ($291 billion) in assets.

“The main picture for the government going into the general election isn’t particularly promising,” said David Tinsley, an economist at National Australia Bank in London who used to work at the central bank. “There hasn’t been a great deal of evidence on the recovery. It would seem a very inopportune moment to end quantitative easing.”

The data, the first for the third quarter from a Group of Seven nation, suggests Britain may turn out to be the last of them to exit the recession sparked by the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Central banks in Canada and Italy both forecast slumps in their economies ended in the same period, and the U.S. probably also returned to growth then, according to the median forecast of economists in a Bloomberg News survey. France, Germany and Japan exited their recessions in the second quarter.

Services Drop

U.K. services industries, which account for 76 percent of the economy, shrank 0.2 percent on the quarter, the statistics office said. The drop was led by distribution, hotels and catering, followed by transport, storage and communication, and business services and finance.

Industrial production shrank 0.7 percent as manufacturing contracted 0.2 percent, the statistics office said. Construction slumped 1.1 percent.

The economy’s output is “well below” the levels of a year earlier and there should be no illusion of a “smooth and painless” return to sustainable growth, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said this week. Officials said at the Oct. 8 meeting that there is still a danger of further losses.

Credit losses and writedowns worldwide now total $1.6 trillion. Lloyds Banking Group Plc and the government are weeks away from an agreement on whether the lender can escape a program to insure up to 260 billion pounds of potentially toxic assets, a person familiar with the matter said yesterday.

Setback for Brown

Today’s report is a setback for Prime Minister Gordon Brown as his ruling Labour party struggles to erode the poll lead held by David Cameron’s Conservatives. The opposition party had a 17 percentage-point gap over Labour in an ICM Research poll for the Guardian newspaper published on Oct. 21.

The economy will contract 4.4 percent this year and then expand 1.3 percent in 2010, according to forecasts released this week by the National Institute of Economic Research.

Some companies are weathering the slump. British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc, the U.K.’s biggest pay-television provider, said today that first-quarter profit rose. “We have won more clients despite the tough economic environment and I’m confident that we will continue to grow,” Chief Financial Officer Andrew Griffith said in an interview on Bloomberg TV.

Slump Damage

Today’s data show the recession shrank the U.K. economy by 5.9 percent, compared with a total 6 percent slump in the recession that ended in 1981, the statistics office said.

Unemployment may keep rising even after the end of the recession as a lagged effect of the slump. St. Ives Plc, the U.K. printer of the Economist and Vogue magazines, has shed about 12 percent of workforce, Finance Director Matt Armitage said on Oct. 19.

Niesr says that the Bank of England should pause its bond purchase program at the Nov. 5 decision, when officials will have revised forecasts on the economy. The British Chambers of Commerce has called for a further expansion of the plan to reach 200 billion pounds to secure the recovery.

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Research In Motion has rolled out an updated version of its top-end BlackBerry Bold, aiming to reassert its dominance in the professional market at a time when its retail consumer business has come under growing pressure from Apple’s iPhone.

The latest Bold, part of a series of new devices that Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM plans to bring to market in the next 12 months, is designed for business executives, lawyers, politicians and other professionals, a market that the company still rules.

But in the broader consumer market, RIM has seen stiff competition from Apple’s iPhone and handsets from rivals such as Nokia.

The new Bold is thinner and lighter than its predecessor, which hit the market last year, and replaces the original Bold’s track ball with an optical track pad. The new model also features a faster Web browser.

The Bold’s new features are aimed at defending the business market from the Apple threat, and also at attracting wealthier retail users.

“RIM still isn’t in a position where it has any one device that can be considered an iPhone killer,” said independent technology analyst Carmi Levy.

“Apple is in a position of power in this market and you are either aware of their strategy and you counter it in some way, or you find another business to be in payday loans with no fax.”

Apple reported on Monday it sold 7.4 million iPhones in its last quarter and it posted earnings that handily beat Wall Street forecasts, pushing its stock to record highs.

RIM, meanwhile, has stumbled. Late last month, it reported results and an outlook that disappointed investors and sent its shares tumbling more than 15 percent.

APPS AND SECURITY

RIM’s main counter to the iPhone is the BlackBerry Storm, a well-selling touchscreen smartphone similar to Apple’s device.

RIM unveiled a new version of the Storm last week, and it has to continue to wow retail users with sleek, fashionable handsets if it is to succeed against Apple.

Software is equally important, said Research Capital analyst Nick Agostino.

From games to calendars and from horoscopes to news summaries, applications are playing an increasingly important role in attracting users. Indeed, the success of Apple’s application store prompted RIM to open its own in April.

As apps continue to get more sophisticated, RIM could find an advantage in its reputation for providing what some view as unmatched security on its smartphones, Agostino said. 

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Qatar is selling a 1.3 billion pound ($2.1 billion) stake in British bank Barclays, stoking talk it will use a big profit to make a move on UK food retailer J.Sainsbury.

Qatar owns 26 percent of Sainsbury and the retailer’s shares jumped by a fifth last Thursday on talk the sovereign wealth fund was planning a renewed offer for it, after a previous bid attempt failed in 2007.

Qatar Holding is set to make a 600 million pound ($985 million) profit on its Barclays stake, making it the second big Middle-Eastern investor to make a big profit from a stake in the bank this year, after Abu Dhabi made $2.5 billion on the sale of an 11 percent stake in June.

Qatar will remain Barclays’ biggest shareholder with a stake of about 7 percent. It is selling 379.2 million shares, which will come from the exercise of warrants for the same amount of shares at a price of 197.775 pence.

Barclays will receive 750 million pounds from the warrants.

The warrants were part of a controversial 5.8 billion pound fundraising by the bank last November, when the bank avoided selling the state a stake by raising money privately.

Roger Jenkins, a top Barclays banker who orchestrated that fundraising, left the bank in August and his new investment firm is working with Qatar, according to an industry source. A spokesman for the firm, which specializes in the Middle East, declined to comment.

The Barclays shares are being sold by Credit Suisse via an accelerated bookbuild.

By 0800 GMT Barclays shares were down 4.6 percent at 364.5 pence. Sainsbury shares were up 3.2 percent at 340.8p, valuing the retailer at 6.3 billion pounds.

Sainsbury declined to comment.

The Qatar Investment Authority was mulling an offer at 420p per Sainsbury share, traders said last week, well below its 2007 proposal of 600p a share.

QIA was founded by the State of Qatar in 2005 to strengthen its economy by diversifying into new asset classes. Subsidiary Qatar Holding is its main vehicle for strategic and direct investments by the state.

($1=.6088 Pound)

(Editing by Hans Peters)

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Homebuilders and real-estate agents were probably busier in September, and the index of leading indicators increased, adding to evidence the next U.S. expansion has begun, economists said before reports this week.

Construction started last month on 610,000 houses at an annual rate, the most since November, according to the median forecast of 53 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before an Oct. 20 Commerce Department report. Sales of existing homes rose to a two-year high and the gauge of the economy’s future course advanced for a sixth month, other reports may show.

Housing is stabilizing as Americans take advantage of government programs, including credits for first-time buyers and efforts to lower borrowing costs, aimed at stemming the recession. Some Federal Reserve policy makers remain concerned the economy will relapse should the stimulus be removed too soon, signaling interest rates will remain low for months.

“The housing market is recovering from very depressed levels,” said Zach Pandl, an economist at Nomura Securities International Inc. in New York. “We’re definitely emerging from recession, finding a bottom in some sectors, but the recovery is still uneven and it’s not particularly vigorous.”

Building permits, a sign of future activity, may have risen to a 590,000 pace, also the highest since November, the Commerce Department’s report on housing starts may show, according to the survey median.

In April, builders broke ground on new homes at a record- low 479,000 pace.

Leading Index

The index of leading economic indicators, due from the New York-based Conference Board on Oct. 22, may have risen 0.9 percent, according to the survey of economists. The gain was probably driven by the increase in building permits, a drop in claims for jobless benefits and an improvement in consumers’ outlooks, economists said.

A sixth consecutive gain in the leading index would mark the best performance since early 2004.

U.S. stocks have risen in recent weeks amid better-than- forecast earnings and signs the economy is improving. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index closed at the highest level in a year on Oct. 15.

Google Inc., the world’s most popular Internet search engine, plans to resume hiring and acquisitions after the recovering economy helped third-quarter sales beat analysts’ estimates. Large customers stepped up spending on Google ads last quarter, a rebound from the first half of the year, Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette said.

‘Incredible Recession’

“We weathered what is an incredible recession,” Pichette said in an interview last week. “If you have all this behind you, the only outcome you should have as management is: ‘OK, let’s build now.’”

Fed policy makers at their September meeting decided to slow purchases of mortgage securities to avoid disrupting the housing market while extending the duration of the program by three months. In the minutes of the Sept. 22-23 meeting, which were released last week, they noted the housing market and retail sales got a boost from government incentives.

The Fed’s Beige Book report on regional economies, scheduled to be released on Oct. 21, will be used by policy makers to gauge the state of the housing market and the economy overall when they meet again in the first week of November.

An Oct. 23 report from the National Association of Realtors may show that sales of existing homes rose to a 5.35 million rate last month, according to the Bloomberg survey. That would be the highest level since August 2007.

Less Pessimistic

Tomorrow, a report may show builder confidence continued to climb this month. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo index probably rose to 20 from 19, economists surveyed said. It would be the seventh straight increase. While higher, readings less than 50 still signal that most respondents view conditions as poor.

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Former Bear Stearns hedge fund manager Matthew Tannin, on trial for fraud and lying to investors early in the financial crisis, might have made strategic mistakes but he did not conspire with colleagues to commit a crime, his lawyer said on Thursday.

A New York jury also heard testimony from a wealthy investor who said he would have pulled money from a Bear Stearns Asset Management fund had he known Tannin’s boss and co-defendant, Ralph Cioffi, transferred $2 million of his own money to another fund.

Cioffi, 53, and Tannin, 48, have denied charges of fraud and conspiracy in a June 2008 indictment that made them the first high-profile Wall Streeters to face criminal charges stemming from problems with subprime mortgages and overall market liquidity.

Cioffi is also accused of insider trading over the transfer, a charge his lawyer described as “ridiculous” in his opening statement on Wednesday. He said Cioffi was not required to give notice to investors over decisions about his personal investments in the funds he managed.

“I would have pulled my money out. Why? If he didn’t have faith in what he was doing, why should I?” Howard Brown, chief executive officer of Rentacrate LLC, said under questioning by U.S. prosecutor James McGovern.

Brown, the first witness called by the government, said he lost a little more than $3 million. He first invested with one of Cioffi’s funds in mid-2006. Statements from the fund did not show a negative month until a drop of 6 percent in May 2007, which he told the court was “quite a shocker.”

Cioffi and Tannin managed two hedge funds that collapsed in mid-2007, costing investors — some of them large banks — between $1.4 billion to $1.6 billion. The funds were crammed with collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), securities backed by pools of debt that included subprime mortgage-backed securities.

Neither man is charged with contributing to the demise of Bear Stearns Cos not long after the funds collapsed. The company was sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co in a government-backed deal.

FEARS IN EMAILS

Emails written by Cioffi and Tannin are key to the government’s charges that they intended to deceive investors at an early stage in the subprime market meltdown.

“No one can lie about what the future will bring because nobody knows what the future will bring,” Tannin’s lead lawyer, Susan Brune, told the jury in her opening statement on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

“He tried to foster debate, think through all the options and he used emails to foster that kind of debate,” Brune said.

Prosecutors contend that by March 2007 — more than 18 months before the full extent of the global financial crisis became clear — the pair promoted the funds to investors while privately emailing their fears about a possible market calamity.

Brune addressed a lengthy April 22, 2007, email by Tannin to Cioffi and another colleague, one paragraph of which was highlighted in the indictment. Tannin presents two extreme positions: either closing the funds or aggressive investment following an internal company report on CDOs.

He wrote that if the report was at all accurate “then the subprime market is toast” and the funds should be closed. 

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Tech stocks rallied on Wednesday after bellwether Intel Corp reported quarterly earnings and a revenue forecast that blew past expectations, buoying investor hopes of a recovery.

Investors have been scrutinizing the battered tech sector for signs of strength after the economic crisis depressed demand and severely crimped corporate spending.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc and Nvidia Corp should see a direct impact from Intel’s strong report, and there could be secondary impact on companies like Intersil Corp, said Oppenheimer & Co analyst Rick Schafer.

“It sets the tone. It sets the pace for semiconductor companies, particularly those with PC exposure.”

“Valuations for chip stocks look attractive, particularly when you consider we believe there is a positive bias, or an upward bias to earnings,” he said.

Intel’s shares rose more than 2 percent on Wednesday after analysts raised their price targets for the stock following the strong quarterly earnings report and revenue forecast on Tuesday. The shares are trading at roughly 31 times forward earnings, compared with a semiconductor industry figure of 17 times forward earnings.

Chief rival AMD is not currently profitable. Tech companies Google Inc and International Business Machines Corp are respectively trading at 24 times forward earnings and 13 times forward earnings. All three companies are due to report on Thursday.

Despite Intel’s strong results, some analysts were cautious. Robert W. Baird and Co analyst Tristan Gerra reiterated his neutral rating on the company.

“We expect gross margin to peak in this December quarter, and historically, the stock peaks when gross margins peaks,” he said.

Gerra said in a note that Intel’s business is still highly sensitive to consumer demand and the company’s push into smartphones and set-top boxes is “unlikely to materially impact revenue growth in 2010-2011.”

UBS raised its price target for Intel shares to $27 from $24 after the report while Lazard Capital increased its price target to $26 from $24.

“Intel is benefiting from strong demand for retail notebooks and Nehalem servers. With better control of costs and prices, we see a structural improvement in Intel’s margin profile,” Needham & Co analyst Edwin Mok said in a research note in which he announced a price target increase to $28.

Computer maker Dell Inc saw its shares rise more than 2 percent after Intel forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $10.1 billion, well above Wall Street expectations of $9.5 billion. Microsoft Corp shares were up 1.5 percent.

In 2010, Mok said, technology investors could look forward to a boost in computer sales after Microsoft releases its Windows 7 computer operating system on October 22.

“Beyond the near-term, we believe Windows 7 will drive a much-needed corporate refresh in 2010, leading to further revenue growth and substantially higher earnings,” Mok said.

FBR Capital Markets analyst Craig Berger said Intel’s fourth-quarter revenue guidance “is back to levels achieved … before the credit driven financial meltdown.” 

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