Some Starbucks customers bugging out over frappuccino ingredient - WAOW

CNN -?An ingredient that makes Starbucks' Strawberry Frappuccino pink has some people seeing red. The grande Starbucks strawberries & creme frappuccino tastes terrific and has a beautiful pink hue -- courtesy of crushed insects.?

A barista at a Starbucks, who's vegan, recently divulged that the strawberries and creme frappuccino is colored- using cochineal extract: the ground-up bodies of cochineal insects, native to South America. The barista then gave that information to a vegan news-site, run by Daelyn Fortney, who says she's shocked. "We were told that the any-way-you-wanted frappuccinos when made with soy milk were completely safe for vegans."A Starbucks spokeswoman says the company never claimed the drink was vegan-friendly. Starbucks didn't want to put anyone on-camera and didn't want anyone filming in its stores but company spokesmen did tell us, they started using cochineal extract to move away from some dyes and other artificial ingredients. They also noted that the extract is FDA-approved and that it would never do anything to harm its customers. ?As for the customers we spoke with. "It is still technically all-natural. It is still probably organic. We use bugs in all sorts of things. I'm not terribly surprised or concerned."After all, bugs have been a staple of nutrition for years, on discovery channel's 'man vs. Wild.' You can just eat them eat them raw.?Starbucks officials also point out, products like juices, made by other companies, have the same insect extract in them.?But according to the World Health Organization, there have been instances where cochineal extract is believed to have caused asthma attacks and allergic reactions.?Renowned nutritionist Katherine Tallmadge also warns of those symptoms however, she says nutritionally it's fine. "But anytime a restaurant puts an ingredient in a food, it should be disclosed," said Tallmadge.Tallmadge says the cups seen by customers should disclose that the strawberry frappuccino has insect extract in it. Right now only the boxes of liquid mixture used by the baristas behind the counters have those labels.?
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Millennial Media soars in IPO - CNN

Dot-com survivor CafePress is one of two tech ventures going public on Thursday.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Shares of mobile ad Millennial Media company more than doubled in their public debut Thursday.

Millennial (MM) priced its initial public offering at $13 per share, the high end of its range. Shares opened on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday at $25, and they quickly rose to $27.50 each.

Millennial Media has quickly emerged as a competitor to behemoth rivals Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and Google (GOOG, Fortune 500). Facebook, which has dominated in display advertising, has so far ignored the mobile ad sector.

Also on tap for a Thursday IPO is CafePress (PRSS). The company, which prints custom designs on items like T-shirts and mugs, priced its IPO late Wednesday at $19 a share. That was above the $16 to $18 range the company had set previously.

CafePress, which was founded in 1999, will begin trading later Thursday on the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

CafePress and Millennial are just two of 10 companies expected to go public this week. On Wednesday, organic food company Annie's (BNNY) closed 89% higher after pricing at the top of its range.

Two other companies that went public Wednesday also surged. Vocera Communications (VCRA), a maker of health care technology, closed 32% higher, and consumer finance company Regional Management (RM) finished the day up nearly 10%.

Investors appear to have an insatiable appetite for IPOs this year. According to the New York Stock Exchange, the average return for IPOs on their first day of trading this year is 15%.?

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Jobless Claims at Lowest Since 2008 - New York Times

New claims for unemployment benefits fell to a new four-year low in the United States last week, according to a government report. A separate report confirmed the American economy expanded at an annual rate of 3 percent late last year.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 359,000, the lowest level since April 2008, the Labor Department said Thursday.

The report included revisions for claims data from 2007 based on updated seasonal adjustment calculations. New seasonal adjustment factors were also introduced for 2012.

The prior week's figure was revised up to 364,000 from the previously reported 348,000. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a reading of 350,000 for last week.

The four-week moving average, a better measure of labor market trends, declined 3,500 to 365,000.

A total of 7.153 million people claimed unemployment benefits during the week ended March 10, down 131,488 from the prior week.

The Commerce Department, meanwhile, said the economy expanded as expected in the fourth quarter. while personal income grew at a much faster pace than previously thought, which should help underpin spending this quarter.

Gross domestic product increased at a 3 percent annual rate in the final three months of 2011, the quickest pace since the second quarter of 2010, the Commerce Department said in its final estimate on Thursday, unrevised from last month's estimate.

That was in line with economists' expectations. The economy grew at a 1.8 percent rate in the third quarter.

However, personal income was $13.162 trillion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, $3.3 billion more than previously reported. Disposable income was $10.6 billion more than previously thought, probably reflecting the strengthening labor market.

Gross domestic income, which measures output from the income side, increased at a 4.4 percent rate - the fastest since the first quarter of 2010 - from a 2.6 percent rise in the third quarter.

The department also said after-tax profits increased at a 1.1 percent rate, slowing from 2.7 percent the prior quarter. The slowdown in profits reflected the increase in wage costs as companies stepped up hiring.

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Eurozone plan to hold €240bn in reserve - Financial Times

? The Financial Times Ltd 2012 FT and 'Financial Times' are trademarks of The Financial Times Ltd.

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Household income trending up, boost for spending - Reuters

Shoppers look at washers and dryers at a Home Depot store in New York, July 29, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton

WASHINGTON | Thu Mar 29, 2012 9:30am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Household income grew at a faster pace in the fourth quarter than previously thought, which should help underpin spending this quarter.

The Commerce Department said on Thursday personal income increased to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $13.162 trillion, $3.3 billion more than reported last month, likely reflecting the strengthening labor market.

Growth in disposable income was $10.6 billion more than previously estimated.

While the government's final estimate left gross domestic product growth at an unrevised 3.0 percent pace last quarter, when measured from the income side, output increased at a 4.4 percent rate.

That was the fastest rise in gross domestic income since the first quarter of 2010 and followed a 2.6 percent rise in the third quarter.

"The data paints a clear picture of an economy that built momentum throughout the course of the year, closing on a high note," said Jim Baird, chief investment strategist for Plante Moran Financial Advisors in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The department also said after-tax profits increased at a 1.1 percent rate, slowing from 2.7 percent the prior quarter. The slowdown in profits reflects the increase in wage costs as companies step up hiring.

Rising incomes should help to cushion consumer spending against surging gasoline prices. Spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, grew at an unrevised 2.1 percent pace in the fourth quarter.

Other data on Thursday showed initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 359,000, the lowest level since April 2008, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

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Graphic - U.S. jobless claims: link.reuters.com/puf47s

Graphic - U.S. GDP: link.reuters.com/wuf47s

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While the economy grew solidly in the final three months of 2011, momentum has slowed this quarter amid signs of cooling in manufacturing, business spending and a pause in the housing market recovery - even as the labor market strengthens.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke this week said growth needed to accelerate to bring the unemployment rate down further. While he offered no sign that the U.S. central bank would launch a third round of bond purchases or quantitative easing, Bernanke said all options remained on the table.

First-quarter growth is seen around 2 percent, also as the economy loses the boost from restocking by businesses. However, rising gasoline prices are a wild card.

So far there is little sign that consumers have cut back, with auto sales surging in both January and February.

The build-up in business inventories accounted for the bulk of the rise in output in the last quarter. But the final GDP revisions showed a slightly better tone in the overall growth picture.

Business spending was revised up to a 5.2 percent growth rate from 2.8 percent, to account for slightly stronger investment in equipment and software. That offset weaker export growth.

There were also small upward revisions to spending on home building projects. Though home sales stumbled in February, the housing market is slowly recovering and homebuilding is expected to contribute to growth this year for the first time since 2005.

While the rebuilding of inventories added a hefty 1.81 percentage points to GDP in the last quarter, the pace of accumulation was not as fast as previously reported. Business inventories increased $52.2 billion, instead of $54.3 billion.

Excluding inventories, the economy grew at an unrevised 1.1 percent rate. That was a sharp step-down from the prior period's 3.2 percent pace.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

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TREASURIES-Bonds rise on jobless data before 7-year sale - Reuters

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BRICS Leaders Seek to Spur Trade, Call for More Global Sway - BusinessWeek

Leaders of the biggest emerging markets agreed on steps to increase lending in local currencies to foster trade, while calling on Western nations to give them more sway in global finance.

The BRICS economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa signed an accord to boost credit for trade transactions, according to a joint declaration issued after their summit in New Delhi today. The countries also authorized a study into the feasibility of establishing a multilateral bank for funding projects in the developing world.

“The agreement signed today by development banks of BRICS countries will boost trade among us by offering credit in our local currencies,” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said at the summit. “A suggestion has been made to set up a BRICS development bank. We have directed our finance ministers to examine the proposal and report back at the next summit.”

The initiatives come as the BRICS group, which accounts for more than 40 percent of the world’s population, seeks greater influence in bodies such as the World Bank to match its rising economic heft. The bloc today called on advanced nations to avoid creating “excessive global liquidity” that hurts emerging markets by stoking swings in capital flows and commodity prices.

“The signature initiatives of more use of local currencies and a new development bank are very much work in progress,” said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Mumbai-based Credit Analysis & Research Ltd. “The vision of BRICS as a powerful bloc acting cooperatively with a single voice remains more hope than reality. These countries are too different for that.”

The accord on local-currency lending aims to reduce demand for “fully convertible currencies” for trade and cut transaction costs, the Indian government said.

The BRICS group said it accounted for 15 percent of global trade in 2010, up from 3.6 percent in 1990, and that its share of world gross domestic product rose to almost 25 percent in 2010 from 16 percent in 2000 in purchasing power parity terms, which adjusts for exchange rates.

The study into the BRICS bank builds on a pledge leaders from the five nations made at their meeting in April 2011 in China, when they promised to “strengthen financial cooperation among the BRICS Development Banks.”

Efforts by the emerging world to end the practice of naming World Bank presidents from the U.S. and the head of the International Monetary Fund from Europe have so far failed. The positions should be filled on merit, the BRICS leaders said in today’s declaration, adding the World Bank should give greater priority for meeting development-finance needs.

China’s President Hu Jintao said at the summit that BRICS nations should enhance coordination at the Group of 20 and the United Nations. The world recovery faces challenges, he said.

The summit declaration flagged risks to the global recovery from swings in oil and food prices and Europe’s debt crisis.

The leaders met following a jump of about 28 percent in the price of crude in the past six months, partly on concern that international tensions with Iran may disrupt supplies.

The situation there can’t “be allowed to escalate into conflict,” they said in the communique. The leaders also called for “an immediate end to all violence and violations of human rights” in Syria, where the UN estimates more than 8,000 people have been killed since unrest began a year ago.

Singh hosted Hu, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff and South African President Jacob Zuma at the fourth BRICS summit. South Africa has attended since 2011. The term BRIC was coined by Goldman Sachs Asset Management Chairman Jim O’Neill a decade ago to refer to major emerging markets with growth potential.

To contact the reporters on this story: Unni Krishnan in New Delhi at ukrishnan2@bloomberg.net; Ilya Arkhipov in New Delhi at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Phang at sphang@bloomberg.net

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Civil War Raging at Wynn Resorts - Courthouse News Service

?????LAS VEGAS (CN) - Wynn Resorts shareholders say in a derivative complaint that Steve Wynn violated anti-bribery laws by donating $135 million to the University of Macau Development Foundation in exchange for land and casino concessions in the Chinese city.
The federal complaint is the latest salvo in a legal war being waged between Wynn and his former CEO Kazuo Okada. In the new complaint, the Louisiana Municipal Police Employees Retirement System claims Wynn and his board and top officers, including Okada, have wasted corporate assets and violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act "from at least 2009 to the present."
"Mr. Wynn has run Wynn Resorts as a personal fiefdom, packing the board with friends who do his personal bidding, and paying key executives exorbitant amounts for their unwavering fealty," the pension fund says in a Prologue to its 43-page complaint.
The pension fund claims that Wynn Macau Ltd.'s $135 million "gift" to the university is suspicious because "the chancellor of the University of Macau is also the head of Macau's government, with ultimate oversight of gaming matters."
The donation "has aroused suspicion that this was not a charitable gift," the complaint states. "Rather, it was an indirect attempt by the board to improperly influence the procurement of a casino license."
Shareholders say it's not Wynn's first lavish gift to the Macau government, that Wynn Macau donated a $10.1 million Ming Dynasty vase to the Macau Museum in December 2006.
"Beyond the donation of $135 million to the University of Macau, Wynn Resorts has admitted in a recently filed litigation that according to its own investigation, Kazuo
Okada ('Okada'), its vice chairman of the board, has, for the past several years, used accounts at Wynn Resorts to attempt to allegedly improperly influence gaming regulators in the Philippines for a casino project. Wynn described Okada's activities as prima facie violations of the FCPA [Foreign Corrupt Practices Act]. Okada could not, however, have used these accounts without the knowledge and approval of the board of Wynn Resorts."
Okada and Wynn are fighting a separate, but related, legal battle according to the complaint: "Okada has now accused the Wynn Resorts Board of improprieties and has alleged that the Board has breached its fiduciary duties to the company. (See Wynn Resorts, Limited v. Okada ... [also in Las Vegas Federal Court]) Okada alleges that in addition to defendants' improper donation to the University of Macau - for which he was the only member of the Wynn Resorts Board to vote against - defendants have also acted in a manner contrary to the best interests of Wynn Resorts by having the company engage in a reckless, improper internal investigation of Okada that was designed to: (1) force Okada out of his role as vice chairman of Wynn Resorts; and (2) allow for the forcible redemption of the nearly 20 percent of common shares in Wynn Resorts controlled by Okada through Aruze USA, Inc. ('Aruze USA') at a substantial 30 percent discount to its true value. According to Okada, the Stephen Wynn (sometimes referred to herein as 'Mr. Wynn')-controlled Board engaged in this behavior to allow Wynn to retain unfettered control of Wynn Resorts, which - following defendant Stephen Wynn's divorce from his wife, defendant Elaine Wynn, and the splitting of their assets - was at risk."
The pension plan claims that Wynn's buyout of Okada-in which Wynn Resorts allegedly bought ought Okada's $2.8 billion stake in the company, with a 10-year promissory note for $1.9 billion-was done so that "by getting rid of Okada, it allows him to maintain virtually absolute control over the company he founded."
Wynn and Okada have been lobbing lawsuits at each other over alleged wrongdoing in the development of the Chinese casino resort, and Okada's investment in a casino development in the Philippines.
"Regardless of who ultimately prevails in the Wynn Resorts boardroom battle, it is the company that has, and will, lose the most," the pension plan claims.
"Allegations of corruption are particularly damaging in the highly regulated casino industry, and the company may be particularly vulnerable since the accusations are being made at a time when U.S. regulators are pursuing a record-breaking number of corruption allegations."
The Louisiana police retirees' system also sued Las Vegas Sands Corp., last year, in Federal Court.
In the new lawsuit, the pension plan wants Wynn Resorts board members to pay unspecified damages, and to block the $135 million donation to the university.Plaintiffs are represented by John Aldrich?

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Glencore agrees C$6.1bn Viterra deal - Financial Times

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Using ETFs to Short the Treasury Market?...Read This First - Forbes

The current yield on the 10-year is 1.0% (a 33% move) lower, even after the run-up in mid- March. You would have lost a lot of money investing based on my belief rates would go higher, and it is possible for rates to go lower still.

This being said there are a lot of people out there who agree with me, and a lot of talk in the trading community about how to profit when interest rates rise. These conversations inevitably turn to the?bond market, and soon after to “inverse”?bond ETFs which are designed to rise in value when interest rates rise (and the price of the bond falls).

While we are certainly not recommending that long term investors?speculate on changes in interest rates, those who are going to speculate on the bond market with inverse ETFs should keep the following in mind:

Duration measures the sensitivity of a bond’s price to a move in interest rates. ?If a bond has a duration of 5 and interest rates move up by 1%, the bond’s value will fall by 5%. ?The farther a bond’s maturity date is in the future, the higher its duration. By buying an ETF with a very high duration, you will not need leverage to turn a modest interest rate move into a big profit or loss. ?You can?learn more about duration here.

While?corporate bonds with high?credit ratings generally follow changes in treasury yields, moves are not always a one to one ratio. Overall economic conditions have a major impact on the spread between Treasuries and corporate bonds. If you think Treasury yields will rise, its best to stick with a Treasury ETF.

If you buy a 3x?leverage ETF (and there are several inverse bond ETFs that offer this), you would expect the ETFs performance to be 3 times the performance of the unleveraged ETF. ?The problem with this assumption is that it only holds true for 1 trading day. ?If you are trying to capture a medium or longer term move in rates, the performance of the leveraged ETF can be drastically different than the 3X’s performance one would expect. ?This is true not only for Bond Market ETFs, but for leveraged ETFs in general.

For these reasons, I am suggesting that those who want short exposure to the bond market use only non-leveraged, high duration, inverse ETFs as a way of playing an increase in Yields. ?Unless you have a view on a specific sector of the bond market, then I also suggest those who want a pure interest rate play stick to inverse treasury bond ETFs.

This ETF provides the inverse performance of the well-known and popular TLT ETF. The duration of the ETF is 17.4 years, which means that a 1.0% move in interest rates should produce a 17% change in the value of the the ETF. The net expense ratio of the ETF is 0.95% however, which is relatively high.

This ETF tracks the NYSE 20 Year Plus Treasury Bond index and has a slightly lower duration of 16.25 years. On the plus side, the next expenses are a bit lower at 0.65%.

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Jefferies 1Q Results Beat the Street, Shares Rise - Fox Business

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US Housing Starts Dip; Permits Near 3 1/2-Year High - CNBC.com

Permits for U.S. homebuilding neared a 3 1/2 year high in February, even as groundbreaking activity slipped, suggesting a nascent recovery in the housing market was still on track.

New building permits surged 5.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 717,000 units last month, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday. It was the highest rate since October 2008 and far exceeded economists' expectations for an advance to a 690,000-unit pace from January's 682,000-unit rate.

Housing starts slipped 1.1 percent to a rate of 698,000 units. January's starts were revised up to a 706,000-unit pace from a previously reported 699,000 unit rate.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast housing starts little changed at a 700,000-unit rate. Compared to February last year, residential construction was up 34.7 percent, the biggest year-on-year rise since April 2010.

"The data we see now indicates housing activity has stabilized and we could be in the early stages of improvement,'' said Gary Thayer, chief macro strategist at Wells Fargo Securities in St. Louis.

Green shoots are starting to emerge in the housing market, but an oversupply of unsold homes, which is depressing prices, remains a major hurdle, even as sales have picked up in recent months as job growth accelerated.

Residential construction is expected to add to economic growth this year for the first time since 2005. While home building accounts for about 2.5 percent of gross domestic product, it remains a major force in the economy. Economists estimate that for every one house built, about 2.5 jobs are created.

"We are going to see housing (construction) add to GDP in 2012,'' said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities in Stamford, Conn. "There is still a glut of existing homes in areas where there are a lot of foreclosures. But the supply of new homes is getting tighter so if there is sustained demand for them we could see construction continue.''

Homebuilder confidence held at a near five-year high in March, a survey showed on Monday, and they were optimistic about sales over the next six months.

Housing starts last month were pulled down by a 9.9 percent drop in the construction of single-family homes — which account for a large portion of the market. Housing starts in the South rose to their highest level since October 2008.

Groundbreaking for multifamily housing projects soared 21.1 percent. This segment is benefiting from rising demand for rental apartments as falling house prices discourage some Americans from owning a home.

Permits to build single-family homes jumped 4.9 percent to a 472,000-unit pace — the highest since April 2010. Permits for multifamily homes increased 5.6 percent to a 245,000-unit rate.

In the Midwest, permits were the highest in almost two years, while in the Northeast, they were at levels last seen in December 2010. Overall home completions increased 6.2 percent to 568,000 units.

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
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Wall Street Down Amid China Worries - Fox Business

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RPT-How to Play It: A dividend strategy with Apple in mind - Reuters

By David K. Randall

NEW YORK, March 19 (Reuters) - Apple isn't the only prominent company that analysts have tagged as a potential source of dividend payouts. Investors can target the sweet spot of reliable income and share price gains by buying companies that are likely to initiate or increase dividends.

With nearly $100 billion in cash on its balance sheet, Apple will initiate a dividend and share buyback that will total $45 billion over three years.

A quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share will begin in July, marking Apple's 's first such payout since 1995.

It's a move that many institutional investors have been expecting. Apple increased its earnings per share by 83 percent in 2011, but its shares traded at price-to-earnings multiples more in line with industries like railroads or grocery stores than innovative technology businesses.

Apple's huge cash pile was one reason for its low P-E, because investors were acting as if shareholders would never see the benefit of that cash.

Here, then, are suggestions on how to build a dividend strategy with Apple in mind:

OTHER TECH COMPANIES

Analysts expect Apple's large technology peers to follow the leader and boost their dividend payouts.

"If anybody can make dividends cool, it's Apple," said Christopher Davis, a fund analyst at Morningstar who covers dividend funds.

With higher-than-average cash levels on their balance sheets and strong brand names, many tech companies look more like classic value companies than the go-go growth stocks of the late 1990s. Those cheap valuations may help these giant tech companies sustain share gains even if the market rally fizzles.

Microsoft pays a dividend with a yield of 2.4 percent, while Cisco Systems pays a dividend yield of 1.6 percent. Higher dividends would make these large-cap technology companies even more attractive to fund managers and other institutional investors, analysts say.

And more dividend initiations could be coming out of Silicon Valley. With Apple set to pay a dividend with a yield of 1.8 percent, Google now becomes one of the largest tech companies that does not offer a payout. The company has some $45 billion in cash and is trading at a price-to-book value of 3.5, well below Apple's 7.1 price-to-book value.

"Digesting the pending acquisition of Motorola Mobility will keep them occupied for now, but longer term Google's core business is a strong cash generator, and a dividend would be one way to put that cash to work," said Daniel Ernst, an analyst at Hudson Square Research in New York.

A technology-focused ETF could be another way to play possible dividend increases in the sector. The $9.5 billion Technology Select SPDR, for example, is top heavy with dividend payers Apple, Microsoft, International Business Machines and AT&T accounting for 41 percent of the fund's assets. Google is the fifth-largest holding at 5.3 percent.

The fund, which costs 18 cents per $100 invested, yields 1.33 percent.

GROWING DIVIDEND FUNDS

The volatility in the stock market last year made dividend strategies increasingly popular. Dividend-focused funds and ETFs collectively had $17.3 billion in inflows last year, despite a broader investor push away from equity funds, according to Morningstar data.

It's a trend that shows few signs of letting up, despite a new risk: the end of low tax rates on dividends. Dividend income tax rules are set to revert to the pre-George W. Bush era, which means dividends will be taxed at ordinary income rates of up to 39.6 percent. The tax is currently 15 percent.

Investors who focus on dividends argue that they are a sign of a strong balance sheet and a proven business model. Classic dividend payers like Johnson & Johnson and Exxon Mobil tend to hold their value during volatile markets because of the payouts, said Linda Duessel, a senior equity strategist at Federated Investors specializing in equity income.

What's more, many blue chip companies pay higher dividends than 10-year Treasurys, which currently yield about 2.4 percent. While these stocks come with more risks than U.S. bonds, their large cash positions are attractive to income-seeking investors.

The $9.6 billion Vanguard Dividend Growth fund is one way to target companies upping their shareholder payouts. It yields 1.9 percent and costs 34 cents per $100 invested. Automatic Data Processing, Occidental Petroleum and PepsiCo are among its largest holdings.

Be prepared for the fund to lag the market during rallies like the current one. The fund is up 7.1 percent so far this year, which is five percentage points behind the broad S&P 500 index.

Its long-term performance is better, however. The fund is up an annualized 5.6 percent over the last 10 years, or 1.7 percentage points above the S&P 500.

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Oil slips below $124 on Strait of Hormuz reassurance - Reuters

1 of 3. A driver pumps petrol into his car at a petrol station in Brussels March 8, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Yves Herman

By Drazen Jorgic

LONDON | Tue Mar 20, 2012 9:56am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Brent crude fell more than $2 to around $123 a barrel on Tuesday as Kuwait said Iran had reassured the Gulf state it would not close the strategically important Strait of Hormuz shipping lane and Saudi Arabia signaled it was ready to increase supply.

A return to pre-war exports from Libya also eased pressure on the market, while a slowdown in Chinese demand and a stronger dollar also weighed.

Brent crude fell $2.29 to $123.42 a barrel at 1337 GMT, while U.S. crude was down $1.71 at $106.38 a barrel.

Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, the ruler of Kuwait, said Iran officials had assured his country that Tehran would not close the Strait of Hormuz.

Saudi Arabia, which has said it stands ready to fill in for any gap created by the loss of Iranian oil, late on Monday said it would work to return oil prices to fair levels, according to a state news agency.

Supply concerns were also eased by Libya, where oil exports in April are set to exceed pre-war levels, according to a senior official at its National Oil Corporation.

"We have been seeing articles about increases in Saudi supply offsetting a reduction in Iranian oil since Friday ... I'm surprised the market hasn't reacted until now," said Tony Machacek, an oil futures broker at Jefferies Bache Ltd.

"But now combined with Libya coming back up and running and weak Chinese demand, it is all contributing."

China said on Tuesday it was raising retail gasoline and diesel prices by 6 to 7 percent, the biggest increase in nearly three years, which analysts say could curb demand growth.

"The move might sap demand growth. Higher prices tend to discourage wasteful consumption," said Gordon Kwan, head of energy research at Mirae Asset Management in Hong Kong.

However, any impact is expected to be muted as China's economy continues to grow robustly, albeit at a slower pace.

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FACTBOX-Sanctions imposed on Iran

PDF of Iran reports: link.reuters.com/duf27s

Table of China's fuel price history

China fuel prices vs U.S. crude prices:

here

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SUPPLY GROWS

Exports from Saudi Arabia rose by 143,000 barrels per day (bpd) in January, as the world's leading crude seller boosted sales to the United States. The kingdom pledged to work individually and with other Gulf countries to return oil prices to what it called "fair" levels.

"Up until now, Saudi Arabia has not done much to ease the oil prices ... We have however to consider the risk that the combination of the Vela fixtures and the Saudi cabinet statement could signal a change of policy," said Olivier Jakobs of Petromatrix in a note.

Libya is also ramping up production as it plans to export almost 1.4 million bpd of crude oil in April, exceeding deliveries in February 2011 before the uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi.

This boost in global supply has helped eased concerns about the standoff between the West and Iran over Tehran's nuclear programme, which has lifted oil prices this year and kept oil markets on edge.

"Coupled with increased production from other members, OPEC should be able to offset a complete loss of Iran's exports, but doing so would effectively push OPEC spare capacity to zero," analysts at Morgan Stanley said in a report on Tuesday.

Iran has agreed to a new round of talks with the West, but Western sanctions aimed at curtailing Tehran's nuclear ambitions have already hit oil exports.

A ban on Iranian oil set to kick in on July 1 has already driven a 17 percent surge in crude prices this year and could take the market higher when sanctions are enforced.

U.S. commercial crude stockpiles are forecast to have climbed last week on higher imports and lower refinery activity, in line with seasonal patterns, a preliminary Reuters poll of analysts showed on Monday.

The survey of five analysts before weekly industry and government inventory reports for the week to March 16 produced an average forecast of a 2.4 million-barrel increase.

(Additional reporting by Jessica Donati, Francis Kan and Florence Tan; Editing by Mark Potter and Jane Baird)

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Tiffany Profit Trails Analysts&apos; Estimates - BusinessWeek

Tiffany & Co. (TIF), the world’s second- largest luxury jewelry retailer, rose the most in more than six months after forecasting annual profit that beat analysts’ estimates, driven by sales growth in the Americas and Asia.

Tiffany advanced 7.7 percent to $73.96 at 10:06 a.m. in New York, after earlier increasing as much as 8 percent for the biggest intraday gain since Aug. 26. The shares rose 3.7 percent this year before today.

Profit excluding some items will advance to as much as $4.05 a share in the year ending Jan. 31, 2013, the New York- based company said today in a statement. Analysts projected $3.92, the average of 22 estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Tiffany is benefiting from stock-market gains that have prompted luxury consumers to resume jewelry purchases, a turnabout from January, when the retailer said weak spending from U.S. customers had slowed holiday sales. New designs, such as Paloma Picasso’s Venezia collection introduced in the fall, helped boost fourth-quarter sales 7.8 percent to $1.19 billion.

“Their guidance suggests that business has reaccelerated,” David Schick, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Baltimore, said today in an interview. “When the financial markets, economic conditions and consumer sentiment improve, people go shopping.”

The company projected annual sales growth of about 10 percent and said most earnings gains will occur in the latter part of 2012. Tiffany plans to add 24 stores this year, including 9 in the Americas and 7 in the Asia-Pacific region. As of Jan. 31, the company operated 247 stores worldwide.

“While it is obviously still quite early in this new fiscal year, we are pleased that worldwide sales growth is tracking in line with our internal expectations,” Chief Executive Officer Michael Kowalski said.

Tiffany said profit in the fourth quarter was hampered by higher product costs and expenses to relocate its New York headquarters.

Fourth-quarter net income fell 1.6 percent to $178.4 million, or $1.39 a share, from $181.2 million, or $1.41, a year earlier, Tiffany said. Analysts projected $1.42, the average of 17 estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Cie. Financiere Richemont SA (CFR) is the world’s largest luxury jewelry maker.

To contact the reporter on this story: Cotten Timberlake in Washington at ctimberlake@bloomberg.net;

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Robin Ajello at rajello@bloomberg.net

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Goldman Sachs cuts staff in annual review process - Reuters

By Lauren Tara LaCapra

Mon Mar 19, 2012 5:31pm EDT

(Reuters) Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) has begun a new round of staff cuts in its trading and investment banking divisions, three sources familiar with the matter said, a sign of a continued penny-pinching on Wall Street.

The job cuts follow 2,400 positions Goldman eliminated last year, and further reductions are possible as the company continues to reduce costs to raise profitability, the sources said.

The latest round of cuts is part of Goldman's annual culling process in which the company fires employees who miss performance targets or can be replaced with technology or less expensive staff.

It's unclear how many people will be affected by the job eliminations, which began two weeks ago, because different divisions have received different targets, the sources said. While management has formulated an overall plan for cost-cutting, all of the job cuts may not be completed for months, said a source familiar with the matter.

Recent staff reductions have been less drastic than the culling Goldman performed in March 2011, when 5 percent of its trading staff was let go, said the sources, who have either worked at the company or recruited for it, and spoke under condition of anonymity.

Goldman spokesman Michael DuVally declined to comment on the job cuts.

In late 2011, Goldman management targeted $1.4 billion in annual cost savings that would be achieved largely through staff and bonus cuts. When asked on a conference call in January whether the bank might have to do more such trimming this year to meet the goal, Chief Financial Officer David Viniar said "there is a small amount left to go."

The new job cuts are taking place in all of Goldman's four main divisions, including sales and trading, investment banking, wealth management and investing and lending, according to one source familiar with the matter.

Many of the cuts are aimed at traders who can be replaced with new technology, or back-office, technology and operations staff who can be replaced with less expensive employees, the source said. The bank has been pushing aggressively to replace staff in high-cost areas like New York and New Jersey with less costly workers in Salt Lake City, where the company is building a sizable workforce.

Goldman has also been cutting some staff from divisions likely to be affected by new trading restrictions, such as merchant banking.

"In general the whole paradigm of the business is changing," said one source familiar with Goldman's recent job cuts. "As the business is consolidating and the volumes are going down and there's still this regulatory pressure, management is really looking at the new paradigm and seeing how many bodies are absolutely required for the business."

Many Wall Street banks weed out underperformers or costly employees, who are placed on what's known as a "RIF," or reduction-in-force, list. Morgan Stanley (MS.N), for instance, cut 887 financial advisers -- many of whom were not meeting revenue targets -- from its wealth-management business throughout 2011 as part of a broader cost-cutting effort.

Goldman is known to create such lists early in the year and send at-risk employees a signal through low bonuses that are handed out in February. Those who do not get the hint are let go in mid-to-late March.

While Goldman's cuts are part of an annual Wall Street ritual, sources familiar with Goldman's trading business say. Bank management has been issuing aggressive revenue targets that have been difficult to meet, particularly with fewer traders, weak trading volumes and low morale.

One equities trading division at Goldman met revenue targets last year but was still required to cut 10 percent of its staff and reduce bonuses by 25 percent to meet cost targets, according to a source familiar with the desk. The business was required to do even more cutting in recent weeks amid weak trading volumes, even as performance targets have risen.

At a conference last month, Viniar said investors have been complaining that the bank has nearly 11,000 more staffers than it did six years ago, but only generates slightly more revenue.

Goldman's 33,300 employees generated $28.8 billion in revenue and $2.5 billion in profit last year, which amounts to $865,195 in revenue per employee and $75,375 in profit per employee. That represents a 25 percent decline in revenue per worker and a 71 percent decline in profit per worker compared with 2005.

(Reporting By Lauren Tara LaCapra; Editing by Alwyn Scott and Steve Orlofsky)

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Treasury 10-Year Notes Snap Longest Drop Since 2006 - BusinessWeek

Treasuries rose, pushing 10-year note yields down from four month highs, and ending a nine-day decline that was the longest run of losses since 2006, as yields climbed to levels that lured investors.

Yields on the 30-year bond dropped from the highest levels since September before the Federal Reserve buys as much as $2.25 billion of Treasuries maturing from February 2036 to February 2042. China raised fuel prices, sparking concern its domestic growth may slow and boosting demand for U.S. government debt.

“The selling has been overdone,” said Paul Horrmann, a broker at Tradition Asiel Securities Inc., an interdealer broker in New York. “We’re in for a correction. The market has paused as it got closer to the 2.4 percent level.”

Yields on 10-year notes fell three basis points, or 0.03 percentage point, to 2.35 percent at 8:35 a.m. New York time, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader prices. The 2 percent securities maturing in February 2022 rose 8/32, or $2.50 per $1,000 face amount, to 96 30/32. The yields increased yesterday to 2.39 percent, the highest level since Oct. 28.

While 10-year Treasury yields were up 27 basis points last week, they’re still below last year’s high of 3.77 percent and their average of 3.87 percent over the past decade.

The 14-day relative strength index for 10-year yields was 72.2 today, exceeding 70 for a fifth day. A reading above that level indicates to some traders that a gain in the yields may be hard to sustain.

“Yields overshot,” said Will Tseng, who trades Treasuries at Taipei-based Shin Kong Life Insurance Co., which has the equivalent of $52.1 billion in assets. “I will definitely jump in” if yields rise further. Tseng said he is planning to buy 10-year notes at 2.4 percent.

Thirty-year bond yields dropped four basis points to 3.44 percent. They reached 3.49 percent yesterday, the highest level since Sept. 2.

German 10-year bunds rose, with yields dropping two basis points to 2.03 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 0.9 percent, and futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index expiring in June slid 0.6 percent.

Housing starts in the U.S. fell in February from a three- year high, showing the recovery in the residential real estate market will take time to develop.

Builders broke ground on 698,000 homes at an annual rate, in line with the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and down 1.1 percent from a January pace that was stronger than previously reported, Commerce Department figures showed today. Building permits, a proxy for future construction, climbed to the highest level since October 2008.

The Fed raised its assessment of the economy last week while reiterating its plan to keep the target lending rate at virtually zero through at least late 2014.

This month’s sell-off in Treasuries presents opportunities for resuming trades that bet the central bank will stay on hold, Barclays Plc strategists Anshul Pradhan and Vivek Shukla wrote in a report today.

“The market is being too aggressive in pricing in the Fed hiking cycle, and we recommend long positions in the front end of the U.S. rates curve,” they wrote. “We recommend being long two-year notes.” A long is a bet an asset will gain in value.

The two-year note yield, currently at 0.37 percent, will fall to 0.25 percent, the strategists wrote.

Treasuries rose earlier as BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s largest mining company, said China’s steel production is slowing, underpinning demand for the safest assets.

Treasuries have lost 2.1 percent in 2012 after returning 10 percent last year, according to indexes compiled by Bloomberg and the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies. German bunds have lost 1.3 percent this year, the indexes show.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s MOVE index, which measures price swings based on options, rose yesterday to 92.3 basis points, the highest level this year.

To contact the reporters on this story: Susanne Walker in New York at swalker33@bloomberg.net; Emma Charlton in London at echarlton1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dave Liedtka at dliedtka@bloomberg.net

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ECB: Gloomy on economy, upbeat on euro - CNN

ECB president Mario Draghi said the bank's efforts to avert a credit crunch have been an 'unquestionable success.'

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The European Central Bank offered a slightly more pessimistic outlook for the eurozone economy Thursday and said it expects inflation to rise this year on higher oil prices.

The ECB expects eurozone economic activity in 2012 to range between a decline of 0.5% and an increase of 0.3%. That's worse that August, when the bank projected activity would range between a contraction of 0.4% and growth of 1%.

Inflation in the euro area will likely remain above 2% this year, reflecting higher energy prices and higher taxes, according to the ECB.

The latest projections were issued after a policy meeting at ECB headquarters in Frankfurt, where the bank's governing council voted to hold interest rates steady at 1%, as expected.

During a press conference, ECB president Mario Draghi said this year's two long-term refinancing operations, designed to support European banks struggling to fund themselves, have been an "unquestionable success."

He said the operations, in which the ECB funneled some €1 trillion worth of 3-year loans at ultra-low interest rates into the banking system since December, helped restore confidence in financial markets.

"We see many signs of return of confidence in euro," he said. "The so-called real money investors have, to some extent, come back," he added, pointing to the return of money market funds and improvements in certain bank funding markets.

Draghi said it was mostly German banks that have borrowed relatively small amounts in the second round of lending, which took place earlier this month. This suggests that the money is now closer to the small and medium size businesses that are the main drivers of employment in the eurozone, he said.

But the ECB president also stressed that banks need to do more to strengthen their balance sheets, including retaining earnings, in order to lend more and support the economy.

According to a recent "ad hoc" survey, Draghi said there has been "a modest pick up in credit and bank lending" since the first liquidity operation was conducted in December.

Meanwhile, Draghi urged euro area policy makers not to be "complacent" and push ahead with fiscal consolidation and structural reforms.

"The LTRO had the powerful effect of removing what's called tail risk from the environment," he said. "Now the ball is in the governments' and other actors', especially the banks, court."

Draghi said he was "absolutely confident" that the pact on fiscal discipline that most European Union leaders signed earlier this month will be implemented.

The fiscal compact, which must be written into law by individual euro area governments, is designed to strengthen budgetary discipline to help prevent a future crisis.

Draghi called the agreement a "pillar of trust between countries" and stressed that greater fiscal integration is essential for the future stability of the European Monetary Union.

"I think it's clear that if countries don't release some of their national sovereignty about fiscal policy, there is no way we can be together," said Draghi. "We cannot have one or two countries that pay for everybody else."

Draghi said he could not comment on the potential outcome of a crucial debt restructuring for Greece. But he noted that investors appear to be optimistic that a sufficient number of bondholders will accept the deal, which Greece needs to secure more bailout money and avoid a default.

While investors were concerned about Greece earlier this week, "today they are not nervous and seem to be happy with what's going on, and they certainly know more about what's going on than I do," said Draghi.

Draghi rejected criticism about the relaxation of collateral standards at the ECB, which he said "could be a lot looser."

He also downplayed concerns that the German Bundesbank, which has opposed the ECB's controversial government bond buying program, has been isolated on the bank's governing council.

While he acknowledged that "there is always a difference of views" on the council, he stressed that "it is not only Germany against everybody else."

"I am determined to do the right thing, and to do them together," he said.?

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Greece Confident of Bond Swap Approval - New York Times

LONDON -- As its self-imposed deadline neared, Greece looked set Thursday evening to clinch a landmark debt restructuring deal with its private-sector lenders, clearing the way for the release of bailout funds from Europe and the International Monetary Fund that would save the country from default.

Already, 60 percent of those holding Greek bonds — mostly large European banks and local institutions in Greece — have publicly agreed to swap their old Greek bonds written under local law for a package of new securities, accepting losses of as much as 75 percent in return for more secure bonds that have a greater prospect of actually being paid off.

And as the Thursday night deadline neared, reports suggested that the “voluntary” participation rate could reach 70 percent or higher.

By the terms of the newly revamped Greek bond contracts, a 66 percent participation rate would allow for Athens to invoke collective-action clauses, requiring even the holdouts to take the same losses whether they like it or not.

Given all the twists and turns in the negotiations, something could still go wrong at the last minute, participants said, but most bond investors and government officials were expecting a positive outcome.

“It’s a done deal,” said Hans Humes, the president and chief investment officer of Greylock Capital in New York, whose fund is a member of the committee of banks that negotiated the transaction. “I would not be surprised to see 75 percent.”

Greek officials said the total number of participants in the deal would be announced at 6 a.m. Friday morning, London time. The Greek Finance Ministry had been hoping to announce a 90 percent figure before activating the collective-action clauses, but it is expected to go ahead anyway as long as it reaches the legal threshold.

One remaining wild card in the deal is the €20 billion, or $26.5 billion, of Greek bonds governed by foreign law. These securities have attracted the attention of potential holdouts because they afford better legal protection and provide an easier opportunity for speculators who have bought them at a discount on the open market in hopes of extracting a better deal. Interest in these bonds may be on the wane, though, now that Petros Christodoulou, the head of Greece’s debt management agency, has vowed to wavering bondholders that there will be no sweetheart deals for hold outs.

“We know what money we have and we know what money we don’t have,” he said during a recent interview. “My blood curdles to think what happens if this deal does not get done.”

The Institute of International Finance, the global banking body that has represented private bond holders in the discussion, circulated a confidential memorandum to European leaders recently estimating that a disorderly Greek default and departure from the euro could result in losses to banks, corporations and governments of as much as €1 trillion.

Seen by many as a scare tactic, it nevertheless seems to have had an effect on some of the potential holdouts.

Put in such stark terms, many investors have come to the conclusion that it is better to accept the swap and receive a package of foreign-law Greek bonds and securities from Europe’s rescue fund than to end up with nearly worthless bonds subject to Greek law. The value of Greek 10-year bonds recently hit an all time low of 16 cents on the euro.

“This is the best offer they can make to investors,” said Ioannis Sokos, a bond analyst at BNP Paribas. “Because at the end of the day Greece has no cash.”

Still, many foreign investors believe that even with a successful debt swap, the Greek debt burden will remain untenable, well above the 120 percent of Greece’s gross domestic product that the I.M.F. considers the highest sustainable level. And with the economy still in free fall and the makeup of the next government uncertain, many analysts contend that Athens may have to restructure its debt again within a year or so.

If that proves to be the case, some hedge funds and other investors are talking about the prospects of buying the new foreign-law bonds at rock bottom prices and then fighting Greece in courts outside the country in hopes of earning a handsome profit.

The deal also will leave much of Greece’s debt in the hands of official lenders like the European Central Bank and the I.M.F., which may ultimately face large losses themselves if Greece cannot find a way to manage its finances without further bailouts.

Legal analysts contend that the Greek government’s strategy of emphasizing in such blunt terms the cost of not participating has been a significant factor behind the deal coming together so quickly.

“What is remarkable is the speed with which this has been executed — that is unprecedented,” said Michael Waibel, an expert on sovereign debt law at Cambridge University. “And this very well may have been done by design.”

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Forbes: Spanx inventor is youngest self-made female billionaire - Los Angeles Times

Sara Blakely at the Spanx Fall 2012 Fashion Week on Feb. 13. (Skip Bolen / Getty Images for Spanx)

Spanx inventor Sara Blakely is now a billionaire at 41 years old, making her the youngest woman on the latest Forbes magazine billionaires list to amass that much wealth on her own.

Blakely, the creator and owner of the line of women’s slimming, smoothing undergarments called Spanx, is the youngest self-made woman to make Forbes list – meaning she didn’t inherit or marry into the money.

She's one of several billionaires who appear on the cover of the latest Forbes issue.

According to Forbes, Blakely was 29 when she invested $5,000, her entire life savings, in an attempt to come up with something flattering to wear under her white slacks. She ended up inventing a new line of shaping underwear.

On Thursday, Blakely appeared on "CBS This Morning" and talked about her rise to wealth.

"I've always had that gratitude that I had the opportunity to pursue my potential," she said. "So I think my story says that, when women are given the chance and the opportunity, that we can achieve a lot. We deliver. We can make the world a better place, one butt at a time."

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Household Worth Rises for First Time in 3 Quarters - Bloomberg

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Foreclosure Aid May Help Property Investors Buildings in San Francisco. Photographer: Chip Chipman/Bloomberg

Rows of houses stand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photographer: Jacob Kepler/Bloomberg

Household wealth in the U.S. climbed from October through December for the first time in three quarters as an increase in stock prices outstripped a decline in home values.

Net worth for households and non-profit groups increased by $1.19 trillion in the fourth quarter, or 2.1 percent from the previous three months, to $58.5 trillion, the Federal Reserve said today in its flow of funds report from Washington. Housing wealth decreased by the most in more than a year.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX), which rose 11 percent in the final three months of 2011, is again climbing this year as the improving job market builds confidence in the expansion. At the same time, the gain in wealth last quarter was less than half the previous period’s slump, indicating households may continue to repair balance sheets hurt by the recession.

“Consumers are generally repairing their balance sheets,” said Guy LeBas, chief fixed-income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia. “The performance of the stock market has been a crutch for households. Consumer spending is constrained by the need to pay down debt.”

Since reaching a five-year low of $50.5 trillion in the first quarter of 2009, net worth has improved by $8 trillion. That still leaves it $8.4 trillion below the record high of $66.8 trillion reached in the quarter ended June 2007, six months before the recession began.

The value of household real estate fell by $367.4 billion in the last three months of 2011, the first decrease in three quarters.

Owners’ equity as a share of total household real-estate holdings dropped to 38.4 percent last quarter from 38.9 percent.

The S&P/Case-Shiller national index of home prices decreased 4 percent in the fourth quarter from the same time in 2010, according to figures released Feb. 28. The gauge fell 3.8 percent from the prior three months before seasonal adjustment, and fell 1.7 percent after taking those changes into account.

The value of financial assets, including stocks and pension fund holdings, held by American households increased by $1.46 trillion in the fourth quarter, according to today’s flow of funds data.

The S&P 500 has risen 7.6 percent this year through yesterday amid better-than-estimated economic data and expectations Europe would tame its debt crisis.

Household debt rose at a 0.3 percent annual rate last quarter, the first increase in more than three years, today’s report showed. Mortgage borrowing decreased at a 1.5 percent pace, the 11th consecutive drop. Other forms of consumer credit, including auto and student loans, climbed at a 6.9 percent pace, the biggest gain in at least seven years.

The labor market may help to repair household finances. Payrolls rose by 210,000 in February and the jobless rate held at 8.3 percent, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before a Labor Department report tomorrow.

Company balance sheets are faring better than households, today’s report showed. Businesses had a record $2.23 trillion in cash and other liquid assets at the end of the fourth quarter, up from $2.12 trillion in the prior three months.

Total non-financial debt climbed at a 4.9 percent annual pace last quarter, led by a 13 percent increase by the federal government and a 4.6 percent gain among businesses. State and local government borrowing dropped at a 1 percent pace.

To contact the report on this story: Shobhana Chandra in Washington at schandra1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net

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Busting One Myth Behind the Unemployment Rate - Fox Business

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Stocks climb as Greek fears ease - Sydney Morning Herald

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Jobless claims rise, but labor market healing - Reuters

1 of 3. A woman opens a glass door with a ''Now Hiring'' sign on it as she enters a Staples store in New York March 3, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON | Thu Mar 8, 2012 1:27pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits unexpectedly rose last week, but not enough to change perceptions that the labor market was strengthening.

Initial claims for state unemployment aid increased 8,000 to 362,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Even with the increase, new claims remained near the four-year low reached last month. They have dropped about 40,000 since the start of 2012.

Economists who had expected claims to stay at 351,000, shrugged off the rise, which marked three straight weeks of small gains since breaching a four-year low in mid-February.

"You are bound to get some uptick even when the overall trend is downward. The labor market is improving, but it's still quite impaired," said Paul Edelstein, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

A four-week moving average of new claims, considered a better gauge of labor market trends, held near a four-year low.

The data has no bearing on Friday's closely watched employment report for February, which is expected to show solid job growth and could reduce the chances of extra stimulus measures from the Federal Reserve.

The government is expected to report the economy added 210,000 new jobs last month, according to a Reuters survey, adding to January's tally of 243,000.

That would mark three consecutive months of nonfarm payrolls growth above 200,000. The unemployment rate is seen holding at a three-year low of 8.3 percent.

Data on Wednesday showed private employers stepped up hiring in February. That improving labor market tone was reinforced by a separate report on Thursday showing planned layoffs at U.S. companies declined 3.3 percent last month.

With labor market conditions improving, Americans are starting to take on more debt.

Household debt in the fourth quarter rose for the first time in 3-1/2 years, the Federal Reserve said in a separate report. But after-tax incomes rose even faster than liabilities, easing debt burdens and putting consumers in better shape to drive the recovery.

SLOWING PRODUCTIVITY BEHIND JOB GAINS

The claims data had little impact on U.S. financial markets, with traders taking their cue from developments on the Greek debt issue and comments from European Central Bank President Mario Draghi.

The U.S. economy has added 917,000 jobs since September, a surprisingly strong figure given the economy has not been particularly robust.

Instead, business productivity has suffered. As companies have added new workers, the amount of output workers produce per hour has slowed.

"One of the primary reasons that the labor market appears to have gone from an underlying 125,000 payroll increase to 175,000 is that productivity growth has slowed sharply," said Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities in New York.

Despite significant job gains, the recovery in the labor market remains painfully slow. The number of people still receiving benefits under regular state programs after an initial week of aid rose in the week ended February 25.

In January, about 43 percent of the 12.8 million unemployed Americans had been out of work for more than 6 months, a major cause of concern for the Fed.

Fed policymakers, who meet on Tuesday, appear to be in a wait and see mode, neither ready to launch another round of bond buying nor ease off extraordinary support for the recovery.

Moreover, 23.8 million people are either out of work or underemployed and there are no job openings for nearly three out of every four unemployed people.

(Editing by Neil Stempleman)

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DOJ targets Apple and publishers for e-book price fixing - CNN

Apple and five large book publishers allegedly teamed up to fight Amazon's discounted e-books.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Apple and five large book publishers could be hit with a lawsuit over allegedly teaming up to raise the price of e-books, according a report Thursday.

The U.S. Justice Department has warned Apple, along with Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, Penguin Group, Macmillan, and HarperCollins, that it plans to sue them for antitrust violations, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the inquiry.

The six companies allegedly colluded in 2010 to force Amazon to raise its discounted e-book prices.

Three of the book publishers -- HarperCollins, Hachette and Penguin -- declined to comment. Representatives for the Justice Department and the other companies named in the report did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Similar accusations of collusion have come up before. As Fortune reported, a lawsuit filed in California District Court last summer first alleged a conspiracy: Booksellers were "terrified" by the discounted e-book price structure Amazon launched in 2007, when it sold many titles for $9.99.

The spooked publishers went to Apple in 2010, the suit alleges, to find a way to force Amazon to raise its prices. The European Commission launched its own investigation, which seems to hinge on the same theory, in December.

The pressure worked. With the entire publishing industry pushing to set prices themselves, Amazon backed down in 2010 and allowed e-book prices to rise.

It still has regular skirmishes with publishers over rates it considers too high. Last month, Amazon yanked independent publisher IPG's digital books from its Kindle store over a pricing dispute.

Amazon, too, has come under fire for dancing on the legal lines around e-book pricing.

Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) and Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) both strike deals with publishers that forbid them from offering other retailers deeper discounts. Those agreements, dubbed "most favored nation" clauses, aren't straight-out illegal under antitrust laws -- but they're also not always legal.

Back in 2010, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal publicly called on both companies to meet with him and "address concerns" about the deals. ?

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Fender, guitar maker for Clapton and Hendrix, files to go public in $200 ... - Washington Post

Fender, guitar maker for Clapton and Hendrix, files to go public in $200 million IPO - The Washington Post Print SubscriptionConversationsToday's PaperGoing Out GuideJobsCarsReal EstateRentalsClassifiedsHomePoliticsCampaign 2012CongressCourts &LawThe Fed PageHealth CarePollingWhite HouseBlogs & ColumnsIssues: EnergyTop Blogs

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Fender, guitar maker for Clapton and Hendrix, files to go public in $200 million IPOText SizePrintE-mailReprints By Associated Press,

NEW YORK — An instrumental piece of rock and roll history is going public.

Fender Musical Instruments Corp., the maker of legendary guitars strummed by the likes of Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, filed papers Thursday for a $200 million initial public offering.

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( Max Nash, File / Associated Press ) - FILE - In this July 24, 2008 file photo, the partly burnt 1965 Fender Stratocaster guitar which the late Jimi Hendrix set on fire during a concert at the London Astoria in 1967, is displayed in London before being auctioned on Sept. 4, 2008. Fender Musical Instruments, the maker of legendary guitars favored by the likes of Buddy Holly, Jimmy Hendrix and Eric Clapton, filed papers Thursday, March 8, 2012 for a $200 million initial public offering.

Founded in 1946 by Leo Fender, the company created the Telecaster and Stratocaster guitars in the 1950s.

The “Strat,” a favorite of Hendrix and scores of others, went on sale in 1954. It had a sturdy, all-wood body that could stand up to repeated abuse, making it popular in the rock and roll world.

“The Fender brand in particular is closely associated with the birth of rock ‘n roll and has a strong legacy in music and in popular culture,” the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In its filing with the SEC, Fender said it’s the country’s biggest seller of electric, acoustic and bass guitars. It also makes amplifiers and other instruments including banjos, ukuleles and mandolins, and sells instruments under other brands such as Squier, Jackson, Guild, Ovation and Latin Percussion.

The classic Strat and Telecaster models are still made today, with prices ranging from a couple hundred dollars for a basic model to several thousand dollars for high-end and custom versions.

Fender went through several owners before making its push to the public markets. In 1965, Leo Fender sold the company to broadcaster CBS Inc., which sold it to an investor group 20 years later.

Private equity firm Weston Presidio now owns 43 percent of Fender. Fender’s distributor in Japan, Yamano Music, holds the No. 2 stake with 14 percent of the company.

Launching the IPO will help Fender pay down its debt load of $246.2 million. Fender said it plans to use about $100 million of the IPO’s proceeds to repay debt, with money left over for working capital.

With sales in 85 countries, Fender said revenue could get a boost from growing interest in guitar-based music from emerging markets like China, India and Indonesia. But it warned that increasing popularity of other types of music, such as rap or house, could hurt demand for its guitars.

Guitars and amps make up nearly three-quarters of its sales.

In recent years, the Scottsdale, Arizona-based company’s guitars have been used by musicians from Bruno Mars to Shakira.

The company plans to trade the shares under the “FNDR” symbol on the Nasdaq, but didn’t say when. It did not lay out how many shares the company and its shareholders intend to sell or set a price target on its stock. The final offering may differ from the $200 million in Thursday’s filing as the IPO’s bankers gauge investor demand for Fender shares.

With the overall stock market now trending up, the conditions for an IPO are improving and investors are looking upon the offerings more favorably. In recent weeks, several companies, mostly in the technology and Internet sector, have made splashes in their Wall Street debuts.

Fender said it posted net income attributable to common stockholders of $3.2 million in 2011, from a net loss of $17.3 million the year before. Revenue grew 13 percent to $700.6 million from $617.8 million.

J.P. Morgan and William Blair are managing the IPO.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Johnny-come-latelies in Apple (AAPL) stock may be setting themselves up to get their pockets picked by professionals.

Unless one has been hiding under a rock, it has been impossible to hide from the constant bombardment of the same tired news that iPad 3 is coming.

Professionals and individual investors play the much anticipated event very differently.

Professional traders marked on their calendars on March 2, 2011 to start accumulating Apple stock in early January, 2012 subject to overall market conditions. What was so special about March 2, 2011? This was the day when iPad 2 was introduced. ?Based on past patterns, it was reasonable to assume that Apple will introduce iPad 3 in early March, 2012.

A simple analysis of the recent data shows that Apple stock gains about 1.7% leading into an announcement and then falls about 1.3% in the three week period after the event.

The basic plan is simple, but execution is usually difficult because markets seldom repeat exactly. There are always a number of other dynamic and sometimes very volatile variables.? The data set is also small and has large standard deviation.

The run up in Apple stock into iPad 3 is much larger than previous events. The reason is there are lots more Johnny-come-latelies in the stock. This can unfold into a dream scenario for professionals.

Readers will find looking at the following dates on an Apple stock chart that also has a PowerShares QQQ Trust, Series 1 (QQQ) instructive:

Oct. 4, 2011: Apple unveils the iPhone 4S.

March 2, 2011: Apple unveils iPad.

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