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Latest Articles: Business
Payrolls Climb in 31 States, Led by New York, Texas; Nevada Is at Bottom
Post Date: 2011-08-19 11:31:22 by Brian S
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Payrolls climbed in 31 U.S. states in July, led by New York and Texas, while the jobless rate increased in 28, painting a mixed employment picture the month before global stock markets slumped. Employers in New York boosted staff by 29,400 workers, while those in Texas added 29,300, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. Joblessness increased by 0.4 percentage point in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and South Carolina. Nevada continued to lead the nation in unemployment with a rate of 12.9 percent. Widespread job growth is needed to shore up incomes after spending among consumers ground to a halt in the second quarter, raising concern the world’s largest ...
Court Ruling Offers Path to Challenge Dodd-Frank
Post Date: 2011-08-18 16:01:37 by CZ82
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Court Ruling Offers Path to Challenge Dodd-Frank By BEN PROTESS Alex Wong/Getty ImagesMary L. Schapiro, the S.E.C. chairwoman, said the agency spent 21,000 staff hours drafting the proxy rule over two years. A new front has opened in the behind-the-scenes battle over financial regulation. Industry groups have been examining legal challenges to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new corporate whistle-blower program and a provision surrounding the extraction of oil and natural gas from foreign countries, people briefed on the talks said. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s plan to curb speculative trading is also under fire. The catalyst has been a federal appeals ...
Too Late To Jump On the Goldwagon?
Post Date: 2011-08-18 13:46:27 by Capitalist Eric
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The Stealth Market in Gold Gold has gone up for 12 straight years in a stealth market. In the last ten years gold has had a compound annual growth of 20.5%. This is an absolutely outstanding return but investors should not look at gold as an investment but as money. Gold reflects governments’ deceitful actions in totally destroying the value of paper money by printing unlimited amounts of it. With gold up 7 times since the bottom in 1999, is it too late to jump on the Goldwagon? The answer to the above question is a categorical NO. Virtually no major investor group has participated in gold’s spectacular rise. In spite of a seven fold increase in the gold price, only circa 1% of ...
Philly Fed’S Factory Index In August Freefall; Regional Gauge Falls To Negative 30.7, Stunning Markets
Post Date: 2011-08-18 11:19:54 by Brian S
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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Factory activity in the Philadelphia region weakened sharply in August to the lowest level seen in more than two years, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said Thursday, adding to fears that the economy has ground to a halt. The Philly Fed’s business outlook survey fell to negative 30.7 in August from 3.2 in July. This is the lowest reading since March 2009. Readings below zero indicate contraction in the region’s factories. The size of the decline in the index stunned analysts — economists had expected a reading of 0.5 in August, according to a survey conducted by MarketWatch — and added fuel to Thursday’s rout in the stock ...
Weekly Jobless Claims Rise 9,000 To 408,000
Post Date: 2011-08-18 11:17:20 by Brian S
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By Greg Robb WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The number of initial claims in the week ending Aug. 13 rose 9,000 to 408,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The increase was larger than expected. The consensus forecast of Wall Street economists was for claims to rise to 400,000. The four-week average fell 3,500 to 402,500. The number of people who continued to receive state unemployment checks increased by 7,000, to 3.7 million, in the week of Aug. 6. Continuing claims are reported with a one-week lag Click for Full Text!
U.S. Consumers Most Negative Since Recession
Post Date: 2011-08-18 11:14:00 by Brian S
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Consumer confidence in the U.S. economic outlook slumped in August to the lowest level since the recession, raising the risk that spending will dry up. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index’s monthly expectations gauge dropped to minus 34, the weakest since March 2009, from minus 22 in July. The weekly measure of current conditions was minus 48.3 for the period ended Aug. 14 compared with minus 49.1, which was the worst reading since mid-May. The most unstable market in the history of American stocks, wage gains that are failing to keep up with inflation and unemployment hovering around 9 percent may be causing Americans to lose faith that the economy and their financial situations ...
Wall Street Slammed Amid Global Growth Concerns, Euro Zone Woes
Post Date: 2011-08-18 11:11:06 by Brian S
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Stan Choe, AP Business Writer, On Thursday August 18, 2011, 10:55 am NEW YORK (AP) -- More signs of economic weakness sent stocks tumbling around the world Thursday. Economic reports in the U.S. and Japan were the catalyst for the drop. The number of people who applied for unemployment benefits last week was higher than expected. And a report on inflation showed that consumers were paying more for gasoline, food and clothes. Japan said its exports fell 3.3 percent in July from a year earlier -- the fifth straight month that exports fell for the world's third-largest economy. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 445 points, or 3.9 percent, to 10,958 about an hour after the open. It ...
Fitch Ratings Downgrades New Jersey's Bonds On Budget Pressure
Post Date: 2011-08-17 19:56:55 by Brian S
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DOW JONES NEWSWIRES Fitch Ratings cut its ratings on New Jersey's bonds by one notch Wednesday, saying the state's budget faces growing funding needs to meet pension and worker-benefit liabilities. The ratings company said the pressure is exacerbated by New Jersey's weak economic recovery, high debt burden, limited financial flexibility and persistent structural imbalance. Fitch now rates New Jersey's bonds at double-A-minus, three steps below the highest credit-quality rating of AAA. The outlook was revised to stable. The ratings company had lowered its outlook on New Jersey to negative in April. Fitch projected funding levels would continue to deteriorate through the ...
Municipalities to S&P: Drop Dead
Post Date: 2011-08-17 19:36:55 by Brian S
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The City of Los Angeles and two other municipalities that voluntarily commissioned Standard & Poor's ratings for their investment portfolios have dropped those ratings after being downgraded following the ratings firm's cut to the U.S.'s triple-A status. Some other municipalities, including St. Lucie County, Fla., said they might consider dropping S&P ratings for their investment pools as well. S&P said it currently rates about 90 such investment pools. It had downgraded 14 of them as part of a broader downgrade last week of 73 funds due to what S&P called "significant exposure" to investments in U.S. Treasury and U.S. government-agency securities, ...
Gold, Oil & the Dollar: Correlation Breakdown Is Concerning Says Yamada
Post Date: 2011-08-17 11:54:24 by Brian S
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Video Player ControlsPlay/Pause VideoSeek ReverseSeek ForwardReplay VideoVolume DownVolume UpFocus Video Over her multi-decade legendary career, technical analyst Louise Yamada has seen all kinds of markets and probably analyzed more than a million charts. For Macke to refer to her as a "national treasure" speaks volumes about the quality and value of her work. It is also precisely why I take notice when I hear Louise call anything "amazing." "What's amazing is everybody talks about the correlation between dollar direction and commodities, but the dollar has done absolutely nothing, flat for months, yet gold went up and oil went down, so there was no ...
Credit Card Late Payments Hit 17-Year Low In 2Q
Post Date: 2011-08-16 11:31:17 by Brian S
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NEW YORK (AP) -- Credit card users are so focused on keeping their accounts in good standing that they've driven the rate of late payments down to its lowest level in 17 years. The national credit card delinquency rate, or rate of payments 90 days or more past due, fell to 0.60 percent in the second quarter, down from 0.92 percent a year ago. That's the lowest rate since 1994, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion. Delinquencies were expected to drop, but the improvement in that April to June period was faster than forecast. And the improved payment habits came despite increased use of credit cards, based on quarterly data reported by banks that issue Visa and ...
Fitch Keeps US Debt Rating At AAA, Outlook Stable
Post Date: 2011-08-16 11:03:18 by Brian S
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(Reuters) - Fitch Ratings said on Tuesday it affirmed the United States' top-notch credit rating at AAA, giving the world's largest economy a reprieve after it was downgraded by Standard & Poor's little more than a week ago. Fitch said the outlook for the rating was stable. However, it warned that the United States was falling behind its peers among the AAA-rated nations on fiscal matters and the country had to show tangible results in its efforts to reduce the budget deficit. It said it would review its fiscal projections at the end of November and medium-term economic outlook by the end of the year. "The affirmation of the US 'AAA' sovereign rating ...
Factory Output Rose In July By Most Since Japan Crisis; Industrial Production Hits 2011 High
Post Date: 2011-08-16 10:56:23 by Brian S
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WASHINGTON — A busy month for U.S. automakers lifted overall factory output in July by the most since the Japan crisis. A stronger manufacturing sector is the latest evidence that the economy may not be as weak as some had feared. The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that factory output increased 0.6 percent last month. That’s the biggest increase since the March 11 earthquake in Japan, which disrupted supply chains and limited output by some U.S. auto plants. The resurgent auto industry accounted for nearly all of the increase in factory production. Motor vehicles and parts jumped 5.2 percent. Excluding that category, factory output grew only 0.2 percent. Overall industrial ...
New York Area Manufacturing Shrinks in August
Post Date: 2011-08-15 10:53:13 by Brian S
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Manufacturing in the New York region unexpectedly contracted for a third straight month in August as orders and inventories dropped, a sign the industry that has led the economic recovery is at risk of stumbling. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s general economic index fell to minus 7.7 from minus 3.8 in July, a report showed today. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for an index of zero, the dividing line between expansion and contraction. The so-called Empire State Index covers New York, northern New Jersey and southern Connecticut. Weaker demand from consumers and businesses, coupled with slowing growth in emerging economies and Europe, means factories are ...
Google to Buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 Billion
Post Date: 2011-08-15 09:37:57 by go65
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Google Inc. agreed to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for about $12.5 billion in cash, a deal that spells the end of independence for a venerable American company and reshapes the booming market for smartphones as computing shifts from the desktop to mobile devices. The deal gives Google—which has spurred widespread adoption of its Android mobile operating system by licensing it freely to mobile-phone makers —its own in-house hardware operation, potentially enabling it to challenge rival Apple Inc. on better terms, but it also raises questions for partners like HTC Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. with which Google will now compete. Click for Full Text!
American idiocracy
Post Date: 2011-08-14 19:54:05 by jwpegler
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THE great Calvin Coolidge reputedly said that “the business of America is business.” These days the business of America is carpet-chewing rage. American politicians are intent, not on improving their country’s competitiveness, but on gouging each other’s eyes out. Business people still enjoy huge advantages from being in America. Business is part of its DNA in much the same way that la dolce vita is part of Italy’s. America has a disproportionate number of the world’s most innovative businesses, from greybeards such as 3M to toddlers such as Salesforce.com. And Americans are to management what Brazilians are to soccer. After studying 10,000 firms in 20 ...
Consumer Sentiment Drops to Three-Decade Low
Post Date: 2011-08-12 12:12:02 by Brian S
8 Comments
Confidence among U.S. consumers plunged in August to the lowest level since May 1980, adding to concern that weak employment gains and volatility in the stock market will prompt households to retrench. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment slumped to 54.9 from 63.7 the prior month. The gauge was projected to decline to 62, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey. The biggest one-week slump in stocks since 2008 and the threat of default on the nation’s debt may have exacerbated consumers’ concerns as unemployment hovers above 9 percent and companies are hesitant to hire. Rising pessimism poses a risk household ...
Retail Sales in U.S. Climb by Most in Four Months
Post Date: 2011-08-12 12:07:15 by Brian S
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Retail sales in the U.S. climbed in July by the most in four months, showing consumers are holding up even as employment slows. The 0.5 percent increase reported by the Commerce Department in Washington today matched the median forecast of 81 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and followed a 0.3 percent gain in June that was larger than previously estimated. Excluding auto sales, purchases rose more than projected. More Americans drove away from auto dealerships in new cars last month as an easing of supply-chain constraints caused by Japan’s March disasters provided consumers with more variety and better pricing. Even so, Federal Reserve policy makers this week said they were ...
Analysis of Financial Terrorism in America, Economic Elite Make Off With $46 Trillion [A LONG Read, But Good]
Post Date: 2011-08-12 11:37:21 by Capitalist Eric
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Abstract: Welcome to World War III Despite increasing personal financial hardship, most Americans remain unaware of the economic world war currently unfolding. An all-pervasive corporate and government propaganda campaign has effectively obscured this blatant reality. After extensive analysis, it is evident that World War III is a war between the richest one-tenth of one percent of the global population and 99.9 percent of humanity. Or, as I have called it, The Economic Elite Vs. The People [18]. This war has been a one-sided attack thus far. However, as we have seen throughout the world in recent months, the people are beginning to fight back. The following report is a statistical ...
Two of the All-Time Greatest Successes in Cutting Taxes and Spending
Post Date: 2011-08-11 20:24:26 by CZ82
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Two of the All-Time Greatest Successes in Cutting Taxes and Spending by Jim Powell This article appeared in Forbes on August 10, 2011. Federal spending has been out of control for so long, it's hard to imagine how big cuts in taxes and spending — actual cuts, not baseline cuts — could ever be achieved. True, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan achieved epic personal income tax cuts, but neither controlled spending, and both incurred budget deficits every year of their administrations. The federal government has incurred budget deficits more than 80% of the time since 1930, a period when the number of governmental functions increased dramatically. It's instructive to look ...
Jobless Claims At 4-Month Low, Trade Gap Widens
Post Date: 2011-08-11 11:35:00 by Brian S
2 Comments
(Reuters) - The number of Americans claiming new jobless benefits fell to a four-month low last week, a sliver of hope for an economy battered for days by a credit rating downgrade and falling share prices. The jobless claims data released by the Labor Department on Thursday eased concerns that the economy was heading back into recession as feared by investors, and buoyed U.S. stocks. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 395,000, the Labor Department said, the lowest level since early April. Economists had expected a reading of 400,000. "We are not necessarily on the verge of another dip in economic activity," said Millan Mulraine, ...
Gold Tops $1,800 on Demand for Haven
Post Date: 2011-08-10 14:31:36 by Brian S
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Gold futures extended a rally to a record, topping $1,800 an ounce, on mounting demand for a haven as global equities plunged amid escalating U.S. and European debt woes. The MSCI World (MXWO) Index of shares approached the lowest level since September as U.S. stocks tumbled. The euro dropped as much as 1.5 percent against the dollar, and the yen strengthened close to a post-World War II high against the greenback. Gold has climbed almost $150 this week. “The race to debase currencies is on,” James Dailey, who manages $185 million at TEAM Financial Management LLC, said in a telephone interview from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “Gold will continue to appreciate until there is a ...
Home Prices Decline in Almost Three-Fourths of U.S. Metropolitan Areas
Post Date: 2011-08-10 11:20:44 by Brian S
1 Comments
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Median existing-home prices fell in about 73% of U.S metropolitan areas in the second quarter, as the housing market remained one of the weakest parts of the economy. The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that median prices for existing homes fell in 109 out of 150 metro areas in the April-June period. One metro area was unchanged, and 40 showed price increases. The results were slightly better than the first quarter, when 118, or 77%, of 153 metro areas surveyed showed price declines and 34 gained. "Median home prices have been moving up and down in a relatively narrow range in many markets," said Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist. ...
Pay Tv Industry Loses Record Number Of Subscribers
Post Date: 2011-08-10 11:16:28 by Brian S
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NEW YORK (AP) -- The weak economy is hitting Americans where they spend a lot of their free time: at the TV set. They're canceling or forgoing cable and satellite TV subscriptions in record numbers, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of the companies' quarterly earnings reports. The U.S. subscription-TV industry first showed a small net loss of subscribers a year ago. This year, that trickle has turned into a stream. The chief cause appears to be persistently high unemployment and a housing market that has many people living with their parents, reducing the need for a separate cable bill. But it's also possible that people are canceling cable, or never signing ...
U.S. Wholesale Inventories Climbed in June at Slowest Pace in Seven Months
Post Date: 2011-08-10 11:14:44 by Brian S
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Inventories at U.S. wholesalers climbed in June at the slowest pace in seven months as distributors kept stockpiles in line with sales. The 0.6 percent increase in inventories followed a revised 1.7 percent rise in May, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Economists projected a 1 percent gain, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey. Sales also rose 0.6 percent in June after dropping the previous month. Wholesalers may be trying to limit the amount of unsold merchandise on hand after the U.S. economic expansion slowed in the first half of this year. To help bolster the economy, Federal Reserve policy makers yesterday pledged to keep their benchmark ...
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