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VIENNA, Austria — The just-ended OPEC meeting was about more than what a barrel of oil can fetch on the open market as the global economic picture dims.

OPEC heavyweight Saudi Arabia gave a nod, at least symbolically, to fellow member states that have grown increasingly uneasy about the rapid decline in crude prices. The Saudis attempted to placate rival Iran, and laid the groundwork for a potential new alliance with Russia, the world’s second-largest oil producer.

But OPEC’s announcement that it would cut output by more than 500,000 barrels by sticking closer to quotas did little to change what most consumers care most about — the cost of filling up a car with gas or heating a home over the winter.

Benchmark oil prices were on a downward course Wednesday, shedding 68 cents to fetch $102.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude briefly touched $98.10.

Behind the scenes, the 13-nation energy cartel juggled the conflicting interests of Saudi Arabia and Iran — and brought oil and gas giant Russia closer into the fold by agreeing to sign a cooperation agreement with the Kremlin.

OPEC’s continued ability to present a common front, while extending a hand to Russia, is potentially bad news for major crude consumers including the United States and Europe. There may be even less wiggle room in trying to find the lowest bidder to meet their energy needs at a time when the summer’s record oil prices close to $150 are a still vivid memory.

But it also may have signaled that record oil prices have spoiled the global appetite for crude, at least for the near future easy payday loans.

"The ministers appear genuinely concerned that the bottom is falling out of global demand and that once-depleted stocks are rebounding with a vengeance," said Antoine Halff, an energy analyst with Newedge USA. "Their panic is testament to how soft the market has become. It is likely to grow even softer."

Saudi Arabia’s clout is key for Washington. President George W. Bush visited Riyadh twice this year to push an oil production increase. The Saudis answered by ramping up production by about 500,000 barrels a day.

OPEC’s decision Wednesday to cut output by 520,000 barrels effectively canceled even that relatively modest nod to U.S. requests, leaving some talking about a Saudi defeat and a victory for Iran, which has sought higher oil prices through production cuts.

Not so, said analyst and trader Stephen Schork, who was monitoring the meeting in Vienna.

"I wouldn’t say the Saudis backed down," he said. "I’d say it was a respectful nod to the other members of the group."

In reality, the Saudis are the tail that wags the dog at OPEC, accounting for nearly a third of the group’s production of around 30 million barrels a day. They often get their way at OPEC ministerial meetings, and a strong push by them in Vienna to keep the status quo on output probably would have succeeded.

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Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. announced yesterday it has made a $72-million (U.S.) bid for Polish reinsurer Polskie Towarzystwo Reasekuracji Spolka Akcyjna, valued at 66 cents per share.

Fairfax has commitments to tender the offer from shareholders who own about 47 per cent of PTR’s shares.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2009.

"We are excited about future prospects for the Central and Eastern European economies in which PTR is active," Fairfax chair and chief executive officer Prem Watsa said in a statement issued from the company’s head office yesterday.

"This investment will increase Fairfax’s exposure to the region and will provide a long-term platform for expansion," Watsa said pay day loan.

Fairfax is a financial services holding company that, through its subsidiaries, is engaged in property and casualty insurance and reinsurance and investment management.

Fairfax shares closed up 1 cent at $226.51 Canadian yesterday in Toronto.

The Canadian Press

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Smith & Wesson Holding Corp.’s first quarter revenue rose 5 percent on the strength of increased demand for pistols.

The Springfield, Mass., company reported revenue of $78 million for the three months that ended July 31. That’s up from $74.4 million in the year-earlier period.

Pistol sales grew 18.4 percent, as they were snapped up by consumers and law enforcement agencies payday loans online. Net income in the quarter was $2.3 million, compared with $4.7 million in the year-earlier quarter.

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Morgan Stanley (MS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is raising $10 billion for a global property fund and plans to put $1.5 billion or more of that into China, shrugging off concern about a property market downturn, a banking source said on Wednesday.

The Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund VII Global, the latest in a series of property investment funds, is expected to begin investing worldwide before the end of this year, said the source, who had direct knowledge of the fund.

It will invest at least 10 billion yuan ($1.46 billion) in China over the next few years, taking a gradual approach while focusing on the largest cities such as Shanghai, where the price for a luxury downtown apartment can exceed $20 million, said the source.

The retail portion of the fund-raising has been completed with a minimum requirement of $1 million for individual investors in Asia.

The institutional portion, which requires at least $10 million for each institutional investor, will be completed soon, the source added.

“It should not be too difficult for Morgan Stanley to raise funds from retail investors in Asia since, as you know, in China alone the number of millionaires has been growing very fast in recent years,” the source said.

“As for the institutional portion, many of them are old friends of Morgan Stanley,” he said, referring to investors in the Wall Street bank’s last six global property funds.

The source declined to be identified because he was not authorized to comment on the fund to the media payday loans. Morgan Stanley declined to comment. 

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You can’t walk within shouting distance of the Pepsi Center here without sighting Ben Affleck, Eva Longoria, Stephen Spielberg or Melissa Etheridge creditscore.

After Hillary Clinton’s speech Tuesday, reporters lurched after passed canap

Oil traders have long been accustomed to reading the tea leaves for clues to the true state of fuel consumption in China, but even the savviest analysts are being tested this year by a befuddling mix of signals.

An unexpected second month of weak crude oil imports reported on Monday gave fresh vigor to the bears, who read it as a signal that refiners had overestimated demand; bulls are still enraptured by surging diesel and gasoline imports, which they say may continue as industries resume operations after the Olympics.

Both could be wrong.

With major new refiners being started toward the end of this year, China’s crude oil import growth should accelerate but its massive products stockpiling will slow, cutting fuel imports.

Between the rapidly shifting trade flows and the lack of transparency around inventory levels, which were built up substantially ahead of the Olympic games this month, traders will be hard pressed to determine whether a U.S.-spawned economic slowdown is finally taking the wind out of China’s sails.

That’s a key question for oil markets that have risen sixfold in as many years, driven in large part by burgeoning Asian demand.

Some closest to the pump say the day has already arrived, nearly two months after Beijing surprised the nation with a near 18 percent rise in subsidized gasoline and diesel prices.

“Demand is definitely coming off after the price hike bad credit payday loans. Among the worst hit is the transportation sector, which had been operating on razor-thin margins even before the increase,” said Qi Fang, a long-time independent dealer who owns a dozen petrol stations in Hebei province, near Beijing. 

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China’s wholesale inflation in July accelerated to its highest rate in 12 years, adding to the government’s headaches as it tries to rein in surging consumer prices, according to data reported Monday.

The producer price index was up 10% in July over the same month last year, the highest rate since 1996, the Xinhua News Agency said, citing the government’s statistics bureau. The index measures the price of goods as they leave the factory.

Analysts have warned that rising costs for energy and raw materials would push up Chinese wholesale prices, squeezing thin profit margins for companies and adding to pressure for retailers to raise consumer prices. The government is due to announce July consumer inflation on Tuesday.

The July rise in the producer price index, or PPI, exceeded analysts’ expectations and was a sharp jump over June’s 8.8% rate.

"It is perhaps still too early to conclude that PPI growth has peaked," Sherman Chan, an economist for Moody’s Economy.com, said in a report to clients.

"The sharp acceleration in producer price inflation seen in recent months is a concern to policymakers, as this poses a strong upside risk to CPI (consumer price index) growth," Chan said faxless payday loans. "In the next few months, the authorities will likely further tighten monetary policy and impose price curbs to deal with this inflation risk."

Beijing has been trying for a year to control surging consumer inflation. It is trying to raise farm output to bring down food costs and imposed price controls on basic goods. Consumer inflation eased in June to 7.1%, a decline from a peak of 8.7% in February but well above the official target of 4.8% for the year.

The price rises initially were blamed on shortages of grain and pork, but costs for labor, energy and a wide range of goods also are climbing. The government boosted state-set fuel prices in June to curb rising demand, adding to producer costs.

Producer prices for raw materials, fuel and power rose 15.4% in July over the same month last year, up from June’s 13.5% rate, Xinhua said. 

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Federal Reserve Bank of New York President Timothy Geithner signaled the central bank's emergency lending programs are still needed, citing “exceptional'' tensions in financial markets.

“These facilities, all of them, are still providing a very important role in confidence as a backstop source of liquidity,'' Geithner said during a House Financial Services Committee hearing today. There's still an “exceptional set of tensions,'' he said.

Geithner indicated he favors keeping the programs, which include direct loans to primary U.S. government bond dealers, in place even as their use fades. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said earlier this month the central bank may extend the facilities into next year.

“I don't think you can really judge the value today to the firms themselves, or the people that fund them, from looking at use day-by-day,'' Geithner said at the hearing in Washington.

The Fed's Primary Dealer Credit Facility, engineered by Geithner in March to provide direct loans to dealers in the wake of the Bear Stearns Cos. collapse, has seen almost no lending for three weeks. A separate program that lends Treasuries typically draws fewer bids than the totals offered by the central bank.

The PDCF reached a record $38.1 billion in the week ending April 2. Officials said when they introduced the tool in March that it would be in place for “at least'' six months.''

`More Conservative'

Fed and Securities and Exchange Commission officials are trying to ensure that “major investment banks move to adopt a more conservative mix of leverage and funding than they had on the eve of the Bear Stearns'' crisis, Geithner also said, responding to questions from Representative Edward Royce, a California Republican fastcash.

“They have made substantial progress in moving towards an appropriately more conservative mix of leverage and funding,'' Geithner said.

Bernanke said July 8 the Fed may extend the facilities into next year “should the current unusual and exigent circumstances continue to prevail in dealer-funding markets.'' Bernanke has yet to say that such conditions have subsided.

Geithner said in his prepared testimony that the central bank should play a prominent part in regulating financial institutions and ensuring market stability after the biggest credit crisis in decades.

Fed's Role

The Fed “should play an important role in the consolidated supervision of those institutions that have access to central- bank liquidity and play a critical role in market functioning,'' he said.

During the same hearing, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox asked lawmakers to bolster his agency's authority to police investment banks. Former securities regulators say a more powerful Fed may undermine the SEC's authority and impede its efforts to protect investors.

Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, the House panel's chairman, and the U.S. Treasury advocate giving the Fed more supervisory authority over such companies to create safeguards against risk. Congress is likely to consider such legislation in 2009.

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Call it the big fizzle. The hoped-for second-half economic rebound is looking to be lethargic, with the country straining under high energy prices and fallout from the housing and credit debacles.

Forty-five percent of economists believe the economy won’t log any growth or will clock in at a feeble 1% pace in the final six months of this year, according to a survey being released Monday by the National Association for Business Economics, which is known by the acronym, NABE. And, 10% think economic activity could actually contract during the period.

"Forecasters are approaching the second half with a lot of caution," Ken Simonson, point person on the survey and chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America, said in an interview. "Most forecasters are suggesting the outlook will be sluggish, but not desperate. I’m afraid we’re stuck on the ground floor of growth."

Thirty-two percent, meanwhile, think the economy growth’s during the second half could be between 1% and 2%, which would mark a plodding performance. The more bullish are clearly in the minority camp: 11% think growth will come in between 2% and 3%. Only 1% expect growth to surpass 3%.

The economy’s growth slowed sharply in the final quarter of 2007 and remained stuck in a rut in the first quarter of this year. Tax rebates, which have energized shoppers, should help lift the country out of the doldrums somewhat in the second quarter. The government releases its estimate of the second-quarter’s economic performance at the end of this month. However, as the bracing force of the rebates fade, some analysts fear the economy could hit another rough patch near the end of this year.

Earlier this year, many thought that the first half of this year would be difficult and the second half would be stronger, lifted by the government’s $168 billion stimulus, including tax rebates for people and tax breaks for businesses. With the rebates kicking in earlier than some expected, the second half could turn sluggish.

Many have "abandoned the notion of seeing a rebound," Simonson said.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who briefed Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday, warned that over the rest of this year, the economy will grow "appreciably below its trend rate" mostly because of continued weakness in housing markets, high energy prices and tight credit conditions.

Normal activity would be along the lines of a 2.5% to 3% growth rate for the economy.

Not only is the country slogging through lethargic growth, but it is also confronted by rising prices that threaten to spread inflation.

In the NABE survey, 75% reported paying more for raw materials, such as fuel and steel no fax payday loans. That’s the highest percentage in record keeping going back to 1994. Those higher prices are squeezing profit margins and leading some firms - 35% - to boost their prices, the survey found. That’s up from the 29% who said their companies raised prices in the previous survey in April.

Consumer prices in June rose at the second-fastest pace in a quarter century, the government reported Wednesday. Wholesale prices also went up sharply during the month.

Meanwhile, most forecasters expect a continued slowdown in housing over the next six months, although they think it will be "mild" versus "substantial."

Grappling with fallout from housing and credit troubles and stung by high costs for energy and other raw materials, employers have cut jobs in each of the first six months of this year. Over the next six months, 51% said they expected to hold payrolls steady. Twenty-nine percent expected to boost them and 20% thought jobs would be reduced through layoffs or attrition.

Caught between slow growth and rising prices, the Fed is likely to leave interest rates alone when they meet next on Aug. 5. Boosting rates to fend off inflation would deal a setback to the economy and further hurt the housing market. The Fed can’t afford to lower rates more to shore up economic activity because that would make inflation worse.

Sixty-two percent said the Fed’s nearly yearlong string of rate reductions and other steps to prop up financial markets, had no effect on their business.

The survey, based on the responses of 101 NABE members, was conducted between June 19 and July 10. 

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The U.S. economy needs months to recover from its slowdown, but the banking system remains sound despite a home mortgage crisis that could cause more problems, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said.

Paulson also said on Sunday morning news programs he was optimistic Congress would approve the Bush administration’s request for authority to shore up the troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The treasury secretary has been trying to reassure nervous financial markets and is scheduled to deliver an important speech on markets and the economy in New York on Tuesday.

“We’re going to be in a period of slow growth for a while,” Paulson told “Face the Nation” on CBS. “I think it’s going to be months that we’re working our way through this period.”

High energy prices would prolong the slowdown, but the key to recovery was stabilizing the housing market, Paulson said.

He added that U.S cashadvance.com. banking problems were manageable despite this month’s highly publicized failure of mortgage lender Indy bank.

The July 11 takeover of the bank by Federal regulators marked the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history. The lines of frustrated depositors outside its doors provided a stark illustration of the U.S. home financing crisis.

“Our banking system is a safe and a sound one,” Paulson insisted on CNN’s “Late Edition.” 

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