Welcome to Finance World

Consumer confidence rose more than expected in December, hitting an eight-month high, as Americans grew more upbeat about the labor market and their financial situation.

The Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of consumer sentiment increased to 64.5 from a downwardly revised 55.2 in November.

Economists had expected a reading of 58.3 from a previously reported 56.0 in November.

The rise in sentiment offered hope for a pick-up in consumer spending after a tepid performance in November.

Labor market conditions have improved in recent months, with the unemployment rate falling to a 2-1/2 year low in November and applications for first time jobless benefits at the lowest since April 2008.

The survey’s present situation index rose to 46.7 this month — the highest since September 2008 — from 38.3 in November. The expectations index surged to 76.4 from 66.4 in November.

“Consumers are more optimistic that business conditions, employment prospects and their financial situations will get better,” the Conference Board said in a statement.

“While consumers are ending the year in a somewhat more upbeat mood, it is too soon to tell if this is a rebound from earlier declines or a sustainable shift in attitudes.”

Read more

Ameren Missouri said it will move swiftly to resolve a dispute threatening more than 1,200 waterfront homes at Lake of the Ozarks that are on land currently set aside for the utility’s Bagnell Dam project.

The St. Louis-based company on Friday promised to deliver a proposal to adjust the dam project boundary around the 93-mile serpentine lake to federal regulators before March 31 — two months before a deadline set by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

FERC last week ordered the plan in an effort to assuage property owners who feared their homes faced condemnation because were built on property reserved for the dam and Osage hydroelectric project.

The July 26 FERC order ignited a furor among lake residents and businesses, banks and Missouri’s congressional delegation, which proposed legislation to clip the federal government’s oversight of the lake.

FERC, which regulates 2,500 hydroelectric dams, said its July order had been misinterpreted by some property owners. The agency also criticized Ameren for lax management of shoreline development under its federal hydropower license.

“We’ve hopefully ratcheted down the passion,” Philip Moeller, a FERC commissioner, said during a meeting the Post-Dispatch editorial board this week. “It is (Ameren’s) duty to enforce their license. It’s not our duty.” Moeller was in St. Louis for a nationwide conference of utility commissioners.

Moeller said Ameren previously suggested it would seek revisions to exclude privately owned lands from the project boundary, but never followed through.

Ameren Missouri’s chief executive, Warner L. Baxter, too, is trying to calm jangled nerves. He discussed the issue with some Missouri congressional leaders on Thursday in Washington, D.C.

“We understand the heightened concerns of affected property owners and others regarding this issue and are taking what we believe to be necessary steps to expedite submitting a proposal to FERC,” Jeff Green, Ameren Missouri’s shoreline supervisor, said today payday loan lenders in states.

The 93-mile serpentine lake, created when the Osage River was dammed in 1931, serves as the reservoir for the hydroelectric plant. Ameren owns and manages the lake, dam and hydro plant under FERC’s oversight. Terms are spelled out in a 40-year license issued in 2007.

The license requires Ameren to submit a plan to manage land within the Bagnell Dam project, a narrow ring of shoreline encircling the lake. The project boundary is defined by elevation and reaches from the waterline to 678 feet above sea level in places.

Ameren said it’s considering a proposal to lower the boundary elevation to 662 feet, eliminating most of the lakefront property at issue. The utility said it will also consider additional revisions for homes or other structures below that elevation. The utility plans to give stakeholders a month to provide input before sending it to regulators.

However, even if FERC accepts Ameren’s proposed boundary changes, it won’t resolve the property ownership questions, which are already the subject of a handful of lawsuits.

“Just moving the project boundary does not necessarily change the ownership of that property,” Green said.

Ameren sent letters to hundreds, if not thousands, of property owners at the lake over the past couple of years claiming that all or part of their homes, decks, gazebos and patios were built on utility land. Those claims have been challenged in many cases by those who say they have paid taxes on the properties for years.

Ameren said it has no desire to own lakefront property that’s not part of the Bagnell Dam project and will seek to resolve the ownership issue after getting the project boundary redrawn.

Source

A committee of US Fidelis creditors wants to settle a suit it filed earlier this year accusing a former chief executive of fraudulently stripping at least $500,000 from the Wentzville company in the months leading up to its March 1, 2010, bankruptcy petition.

Before it stopped doing business in late 2009, US Fidelis was the nation’s largest seller of vehicle service contracts. The company imploded amid allegations of consumer abuses and plundering by its owners, the brothers Darain and Cory Atkinson, who were indicted on June 15 on charges of consumer fraud, stealing and illegally selling insurance payday loans in one hour.

In March 2009, the Atkinsons hired Chris Riley to turn around the company’s image and, if possible, prepare it to be sold. Riley, a consultant who specialized in corporate mergers and acquisitions, was to be paid an annual salary of $300,000 and one year of company-paid rent at his house in Creve Coeur.

In October 2009

TORONTO — The financial sector helped push the Toronto stock market sharply higher Wednesday amid reports that European Union officials are examining plans help banks better withstand fallout from the eurozone’s government debt crisis.

In an interview with the Financial Times, European Commissioner Olli Rehn hinted at a possible bank recapitalisation plan but didn’t provide any details.

The S&P/TSX composite index surged 198.49 points to 11,376.4 while the TSX Venture Exchange rose 34.66 points to 1,354.98.

Investors have been concerned over the last couple of months about the slowing pace of economic revival and a possible debt default by Greece, which would worsen economic conditions and cause havoc on the European financial sector.

Recapitalising eurozone banks could limit the damage to the financial system should the Greek government default.

An increased appetite for risk sent the Canadian dollar up 0.39 of a cent to 95.19 cents US.

U.S. markets were also supported by positive economic data, with the Dow Jones industrial average ahead 22.86 points to 10,831.57. The Nasdaq composite index rose 10.1 points to 2,414.92 while the S&P 500 index was up 3.69 points to 1,127.64.

The Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index showed the services sector continuing to expand during September. It came in at 53, which met expectations and was just slightly lower than the August reading.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund is pushing for radical changes in the way the eurozone’s debt crisis should be handled.

Antonio Borges, the head of the IMF’s Europe program, said the eurozone’s bailout fund should get more firepower and new tools. To help, he said the IMF could intervene in bond markets to keep the crisis from engulfing large economies like Italy and Spain

Franco-Belgian bank Dexia was in the spotlight once again Wednesday amid mounting expectations that it will be broken up somehow, possibly as soon as Thursday.

Dexia has been at the forefront of investor concerns over its exposure to potentially bad debt from Europe’s most indebted countries. Investors are concerned about what bonds Europe’s banks are holding, and banks themselves have become reluctant to lend to one another.

An announcement that ratings agency Moody’s Investor Services had downgraded Italy’s debt by three notches to A2 was taken in stride on financial markets. Moody’s cited high debt, a weak global economy and political uncertainties.

Markets failed to find much lift from positive employment data two days before the release of the U.S. government’s non-farm payrolls report for September. Economists hope the economy created around 55,000 jobs.

On Wednesday, payrolls firm Automatic Data Processing said that the U.S. private sector added 91,000 jobs last month.

The financials sector was up 1.43 per cent in the wake of the Financial Times report. Royal Bank was up 39 cents to $46.34 and TD Bank rose $1.03 to $72.17.

The energy sector gained 2.21 per cent as hopes for improving demand prospects sent the November crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange ahead $2.11 to US$77.78 after losing almost $2 on Tuesday to its lowest close since September 2010. Suncor Energy was up $1.12 to C$26.55 and Cenovus Energy gained 94 cents to $31.34.

Other commodities were mixed with December gold in New York ahead $3.60 to US$1,619.60 an ounce, leaving the gold sector up 1.42 per cent. Barrick Gold Corp. rose 50 cents to C$47.64 and Goldcorp Inc. climbed $1.22 to $47.16.

The base metals sector was 2.4 per cent higher while December copper prices were down seven cents at US$3.04. Teck Resources climbed $1.20 to C$32.19 and HudBay Minerals was ahead 23 cents to $10.28.

The TSX has closed lower for the past three days, leaving Canada’s biggest stock market in bear market territory, down 22 per cent from its 2011 highs from early March.

Commodity prices have taken a huge hit since early August when investors started to get concerned that global growth was faltering and there was a growing possibility that economies could slide back into recession.

That in turn has resulted in large losses in energy and mining companies on the resource-heavy TSX as oil prices have slid about 20 per cent in the last two months while copper has plunged 31 per cent.

Copper is widely viewed as a barometer for the health of the overall global economy since it is used in electronics, homes and infrastructure.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei index closed 0.9 per cent lower and Korea’s Kospi index ended 2.3 per cent down.

Stock markets in Hong Kong and mainland China were closed for a holiday.

European bourses advanced with London’s FTSE 100 index up 2.81 per cent, Frankfurt’s DAX gained 4.48 per cent and the Paris CAC 40 advanced 3.27 per cent.

On the corporate front, Talisman Energy Inc. lowered its full-year production forecast to about 425,000 barrels of oil per day, down from a previous estimate of 430,000 to 440,000 barrels, as it resumes production at its Rev facility in Norway. Its shares fell 15 cents to $12.

Precision Drilling Corporation has signed deals to build eight new rigs for the Canadian and U.S. oil and gas industry. Financial terms of the contracts were not revealed by the big Calgary-based drilling services company. Its shares lost 12 cents to $8.95.

Labopharm Inc. and Gruppo Angelini have terminated their existing joint venture agreement established in May 2010 and restructured their drug-commercialization partnership and its shares dipped half a cent to 28 cents.

Costco Wholesale Corp.’s fiscal fourth-quarter net income climbed 11 per cent to US$478 million as the wholesale club operator made more money on membership fees and saw sales rise. But the performance missed analysts’ expectations. The company also said it will raise annual membership fees starting next month.

Source

It looks like the United Auto Workers union and General Motors Co. are nearing an agreement on a new contract.

UAW Vice President Joe Ashton, the union’s chief negotiator, told workers in an email update Friday that bargainers are getting “very close” to the framework of a deal.

“I am optimistic that the negotiations process is entering its final stage,” Ashton wrote. “I truly believe that a settlement is within reach.”

But Ashton also cautioned that both sides still need to do more work, saying that agreements of this size undergo many revisions before they are final.

Contract talks between the union and GM, Chrysler Group LLC and Ford Motor Co. began in July and will determine wages and benefits for factory workers at all three companies. They will also set the bar for wages at auto parts companies, U.S. factories run by foreign automakers and other manufacturers, which employ hundreds of thousands of people. The talks are the first since GM and Chrysler needed government aid to make it through bankruptcy protection in 2009.

Workers at all three companies have stayed on the job under terms of a contract that expired Wednesday night. Workers at GM and Chrysler cannot strike over wages under the terms of the companies’ 2009 government bailouts. Ford workers can still strike. Each company negotiates with the union separately.

Negotiators with GM and the union bargained until around 9 p.m. Thursday and resumed talks on Friday morning.

“We continue to make progress in negotiations,” GM spokeswoman Kim Carpenter said, declining further comment.

The union is seeking bigger profit-sharing checks, guarantees of more jobs, signing bonuses and raises for entry-level workers. Ford and GM want to cut their hourly labor costs, which still are higher than Asian automakers with U.S. factories. Chrysler is trying to hold its costs steady.

Talks with Chrysler and Ford also are continuing, but have slowed as the union concentrates on GM. Any deal with GM would be used as a template for the other two companies, although unlike past years, there will be differences to match each company’s finances.

Source

To some heavyweight pundits, the resizing of the iconic Ikea Billy bookshelf signals the death of the print book and the demise of reading.

To Ikea, it just means you can finally shelve your coffee-table books.

Billy shelves deeper than the standard 28 centimetres (11 inches) just allow people to store bigger books, Ikea Canada spokeswoman Madeleine Löwenborg-Frick told the Star on Tuesday.

“This design update is quite simply to accommodate a wider selection of books.”

Nearly 50 million Billy bookshelves have been sold worldwide and there has been no drop in sales, said Löwenborg-Frick.

Regardless, The Economist smelled doom.

“The firm reckons customers will increasingly use them for ornaments, tchotchkes and the odd coffee-table tome — anything, that is, except books that are actually read,” the magazine warned.

Time magazine picked up the banner, declaring that the move “foreshadows the demise of books.”

“They’ve realized we’re more comforted by the endless capacity of a millimeters-thin box of transistors,” blogger Nick Carbone wrote.

“In the first five months of this year, sales of consumer e-books in America overtook those from adult hardback books,” The Economist reported.

“Just a year earlier, hardbacks had been worth more than three times as much as e-books, according to the Association of American Publishers. Amazon now sells more copies of e-books than paper books.”

High profit margins for e-book are spurring the trend, compounded by retailing giant Amazon.com’s move to “agency pricing.” The six major U.S. publishers have agreed to set the consumer prices for their e-books, The Wall Street Journal reported. It means retailers can’t discount an e-book price without the publisher’s approval.

Publishers also get 70 per cent of each sale, from which they pay the author royalties; the retailer gets 30 per cent, WSJ said.

For the consumer, it means far fewer $9.99 bestsellers through Amazon and prices that are higher today than they were at the start of last year.

Source

Leaders of Alabama’s most populous county voted unanimously Friday to reject a settlement with Wall Street creditors to pay off more than $3.1 billion in debt and bought more time to avoid what would be the largest municipal bankruptcy ever filed.

The five members of the Jefferson County Commission also unanimously approved a resolution to give the commission president and finance chair until Sept. 16 to personally negotiate a deal.

The county has been trying to avoid filing bankruptcy over more than $3.1 billion in sewer system debt for three years. Its problems stem from a mix of outdated sewer pipes, the economy, court rulings and public corruption.

State officials and a court-appointed receiver have been closely involved in the negotiations. Republican Gov. Robert Bentley’s chief of staff, David Perry, attended Friday’s meeting.

Perry said a Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceeding was still a possibility but “a general framework for a deal is in place.”

Perry said Bentley and legislative leaders would get personally involved to make sure any needed legialtion passes if county officials can work out a deal.

“The county and creditors do not have a definitive deal in place yet but they have a conceptual framework that keeps sewer rate increases at a minimum and resolves the problem once and for all for the county,” the governor said in a statement.

Commissioner Jimmie Stephens, who oversee the county’s finances, said members thought they could get a better deal in bankruptcy court than was offered by lenders.

“That’s the reason we didn’t accept the creditors’ offer,” he said.

The main problem is some $3.14 billion in sewer debt. The total value of the bankruptcy would exceed $4.1 billion once the county’s debts for schools and other projects are included, officials said.

Commissioners sharply criticized the settlement proposal by Wall Street, which would have resulted in rate increases of almost 25 percent within 18 months and additional, single-digit rate hikes for as long as 40 years. Creditors would have forgiven more than $1 billion in debt and the county would have refinanced $2.3 billion, which would be used to pay off old debts, create a $233 million reserve and cover more than $23 million in issuance costs.

The settlement also would have resulted in dismissal of litigation including the county’s lawsuit against JPMorgan over deals that helped lead to the debt. Commissioners said all those cases should go forward and criminal investigations into the debacle should continue.

“There are still bad people out there,” Commissioner Sandra Little Brown said.

State lawmakers would have to approve legislation to put key parts of any agreement in place and commissioners said the governor had asked for additional time to work with lawmakers building support. But Stephens said he was skeptical, particularly because the Legislature this year failed to approve bills needed to fix other problems in the county’s operating budget cash advance now.

Jefferson County has about 658,000 residents and is home to both Alabama’s largest city, Birmingham, and its medical and financial centers. A bankruptcy filing by Jefferson County would far exceed the current record for a municipal bankruptcy, set 17 years ago by Orange County, Calif.

Jefferson County resident David Roebuck, 25, said the financial debacle was disappointing, and he fears it will tarnish the area’s reputation for years.

“It’s embarrassing,” Roebuck said. “How are you going to attract new business or industry if the county isn’t being run very well?”

The county has been trying to avoid filing bankruptcy since 2008. It offered JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other creditors a deal that would have wiped out more than $1 billion of the sewer and led to sewer rate increases.

A court-appointed official last month recommended a 25 percent rate hike for sewer customers, whose average residential bill would increase by more than $9 a month to $46.88, calling it a necessary step toward financial viability, but it’s unclear what might happen to rates, county services and its workforce should leaders opt for bankruptcy.

Jefferson County financial woes result from a mix of outdated sewer pipes, the economy, court rulings and public corruption.

A federal court forced Jefferson County to begin a huge upgrade of its outdated and overwhelmed sewer system to meet federal clean-water standards in the ’90s, and officials used bonds to finance the improvements. Outside advisers suggested a series of complex deals with variable-rate interest that were later shown to be laced with bribes and influence-peddling.

Loan payments rose quickly because of increasing interest rates as global credit markets struggled, and the county could no longer afford its payments. Meanwhile, a string of elected officials, public employees and business people were convicted of rigging the transactions that helped put the county in so much trouble.

The sewer debt isn’t Jefferson County’s only problem, though. It already has laid off about 550 of its 2,300 workers and reduced government services because courts struck down an occupational tax and business license that provided more than $74 million annually for its operating budget. The county has closed satellite offices and reduced hours, and long benches now line a hall in the main courthouse where residents often have to wait hours for the simplest of transactions, like getting a new car tag.

Jefferson County’s bankruptcy filing would be nearly twice as large as the record one filed by Orange County, Calif., in 1994 over debts totaling $1.7 billion. Jefferson County officials have been consulting with one of the lawyers who worked on the Orange County bankruptcy.

Source

Debit cards, a gleam in bankers’ eyes 30 years ago, have become the preferred method for people to tap their bank accounts, a free and easy alternative to paper checks, live tellers or cash machines.

U.S. shoppers used them 37 billion times last year, making them more popular than credit cards (19 billion transactions) and checks (18 billion), according to the newsletter Nilson Report. Another estimate puts the figure at 45 billion debits.

But big changes are afoot that could make it much more expensive for consumers to use the cards. For years, banks subsidized most debit card holders by levying heavy fees on retailers and overdrawn consumers. Merchants paid a processing fee averaging 44 cents every time a shopper swiped a card. And careless cardholders at major banks typically got dinged $35 every time the bank covered an overdraft my credit score.

Last year the nation’s banks collected more than $50 billion from merchant fees and overdrafts. That’s likely to decline, however, thanks to rules Congress mandated after the financial crisis. Starting next month, merchants will pay just 12 cents for debit processing, unless bank lobbyists persuade the Federal Reserve to tack on a surcharge for fraud prevention. Even then, the fee would probably not exceed 18 or 20 cents.

Banks stand to lose more than $10 billion a year in merchant fees and more than $6 billion in overdraft fees. They’ll be looking to make it up somewhere.

Source

Officials and business leaders are gathering in Joplin, Mo., today to announce a new fund aimed at expanding and attracting businesses in the aftermath of one of the nation’s deadliest tornadoes.

The new “Joplin Tomorrow” fund seeks to raise more than $10 million to spur commercial growth in the Joplin area after a powerful tornado killed more than 150 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses there on May 22.

The fund will provide low- and no-interest loans to businesses hoping to relocate to the Joplin region or expand there. Among the first gifts made to the fund was the Danforth Foundation’s May 27 donation of $500,000, its last donation before the foundation closed May 31 and formally ended the family’s 84-year history of philanthropy.

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce also donated $25,000 to the fund Payday advance.

The non-profit fund, which seeks to raise $10 million, asked former U.S. Sen. John Danforth for help raising money. Some of the money will be used to finance capital projects.

In a telephone interview Monday, Danforth said the new fund will supplement federal loan programs that focus on restorative efforts. Rather than just loaning money to restore what was lost, the fund seeks to expand businesses and lure new entrepreneurs to Joplin.

The fund’s long-term goal, Danforth said, is “to build something even better than what would have been the case had the disaster not occurred.”

The fund will work with the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce to raise money. Five Joplin business leaders will serve on the fund’s board of directors:

U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fell slightly last week, according to fresh government data, but new claims remained at a level typically associated with subpar hiring trends.

The Labor Department on Thursday said 422,000 people nationwide requested jobless benefits in the week ended May 28. The prior week’s number was revised up to 428,000 from an originally reported 424,000.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected initial claims to decline to a seasonally adjusted 418,000.

The average of new claims over the past four weeks, considered a more accurate measure of employment trends, fell 14,000 to 425,500, the lowest level in more than a month. The rolling average smooths out week-to-week volatility in the data.

Initial claims, which fell to a three-year low of 375,000 in mid-February, have topped the 400,000 mark for eight straight weeks. Weekly applications for benefits usually fall well below 400,000 when the economy is strong and companies are hiring rapidly.

The weekly claims report, however, gives just a rough picture of the labor market because it tracks only the number of people who seek government benefits payday loan companies. The data do not take into account how many people got hired in an economy in which millions of Americans switch jobs every month.

Still, economists have viewed the recent uptick in claims and a string of other weak economic reports as a warning sign that hiring could throttle back after solid job growth in the first four months of 2011. Most predict that the economy added far fewer jobs in May than it did in April.

The MarketWatch survey of economists, for example, puts net job growth at 125,000 last month, down from a prior estimate of 170,000. By contrast, the U.S. added 244,000 jobs in April.

“The level of claims is consistent with very weak job gains, something we expect to be reflected in the May employment report,” said economist Julia Coronado of BNP Paribas. The government will release the May employment data today.

Source