Financial thoughts

Unilever PLC said Friday that it plans to buy Sara Lee’s personal care unit for $1.87 billion in cash in an effort to boost its presence in Western Europe and in Asia.

Unilever (UL) is a major Anglo-Dutch consumer products maker that owns well-known brands like Dove soap and Axe deodorant.

"Personal care is a strategic category and a key growth driver for Unilever," said Unilever Chief Executive Paul Polman, in a statement. "The Sara Lee brands enjoy strong consumer recognition, offer significant growth potential and are an excellent fit."

The deal marks Unilever’s largest purchase since 2000, when it bought Slim-Fast Foods for $2.3 billion and Ben & Jerry’s for $326 million. That year it also acquired Bestfoods, the maker of Hellman’s mayonnaise, for $21.3 billion.

The Sara Lee acquisition will be Polman’s first since he was appointed CEO in October 2008. Unilever did purchase hair-care product maker Tigi for $411.5 million in January 2009, but that deal began under the previous CEO.

Unilever said it hopes to expand the newly-obtained brands in untapped developing and emerging markets, which already comprise about 15% of its annual sales.

The group of Sara Lee (SLE, Fortune 500) brands that Unilever is acquiring generated annual sales of $1.1 billion (€750 million) for the year ended June 2009, according to Unilever.

In a separate statement, Sara Lee said the sale should be completed in 2010.

Boosting Sara Lee’s bottom line. Sara Lee Chief Executive Brenda Barnes, who took the helm of the Fortune 500 firm four years ago, has been outspoken about divesting assets. More than two-thirds of the company’s profits come from overseas, and a stronger dollar in the first half of 2009 took its toll.

Sara Lee reported a quarterly loss of $14 million, or 2 cents per share, for the three-month period ended June 27 . But excluding items, the company beat analysts’ expectations and with profit of 29 cents per share. The company also forecast a weak 2010 due to continued unfavorable foreign exchange.

Barnes has said publicly that Sara Lee is aiming for savings of more than $200 million over the next three years.

Sara Lee said Friday that it has "received significant interest in the remainder of its household business" and will continue to pursue sale options for those units. Those include air care, shoe care, insecticides and non-European cleaning brands.

Its board has authorized a $1 billion stock buyback program, and the company will maintain the current quarterly dividend of 11 cents. 

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The federal government is offering a tax credit worth up to $8,000, or 10 percent of the cost of the house, for people who have not owned a home in the past three years.

To qualify, the home must be a primary residence, and the credit is to be refunded if the buyer moves within three years. The credit is phased out for single people earning $75,000 or more, or married couples earning $150,000, and can be claimed on either 2008 or 2009 returns. Closing must be completed before Dec. 1.

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Time Warner Inc will eventually sell the Time Inc magazine unit and could buy holdings in its core entertainment category, Gordon Crawford, managing director of its largest shareholder, said during a presentation this week.

“Time Warner just spun off their cable division, they are going to sell their print division, they are going to spin off AOL and they’re just going to be Warner Brothers, HBO and the Turner Networks,” said Crawford, managing director of The Capital Group.

“Now, they will make acquisitions … but they’re probably going to buy just stuff in their wheel house of those businesses. They’re not going to, I don’t think, go very far afield from their core competency.”

Crawford made the comments during a September 24 discussion at University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication entitled “The Art of the Long View: The Media Company of 2020.”

Time Warner declined to comment on Saturday no fax cash loans.

Time Inc’s magazines include popular titles such as People and Sports Illustrated. In the second quarter, revenue at Time Inc publishing, the largest U.S. magazine publisher, fell 22 percent to $915 million due to a 26 percent decline in advertising revenue.

While Crawford did not name specific acquisition targets, he did say there would be a “winnowing process” during which weaker companies in the sector would be gobbled up.

Capital Research Global Investors held 98.6 million shares of Time Warner, or 8.32 percent of the company’s total shares outstanding, as of June 30.

The presentation, which was available online, was discussed in a BusinessWeek blog posted on Friday.

(Reporting by Jessica Wohl, Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Let’s try this again.

When Group of 20 leaders meet in Pittsburgh this week, they will call for a coordinated global effort to tighten financial regulation to prevent future financial collapse.

That sounds a lot like the same thing they said at the previous two meetings they convened over the past year in April and last November.

"We’ll discuss some of the steps that are required to safeguard our global financial system and close gaps in regulation around the world — gaps that permitted the kinds of reckless risk-taking and irresponsibility that led to the crisis," President Obama said last week.

Leaders will probably walk away from the Pittsburgh summit with a general agreement on at least two priorities: Requiring banks to build stronger safety nets for their balance sheets and getting tougher on executive pay in order to curb risky practices. They may even set some deadlines — as in next year or several years from now.

"There’s little more you can expect from a meeting like this," said Benn Steill, director of International Economics at the Council of Foreign Relations. "Even I’d be a little uncomfortable with them trying to do more, because we’re a ways away from a consensus domestically on what the numbers should be."

European concern at pace of change

A White House senior adviser, speaking to reporters last week, defended G-20 progress on global regulatory reforms. For one thing, nations have been focused on the more immediate task of stabilizing their economies.

"If you asked people then what they thought the situation would be in September, they probably thought it would be worse than it is now," said Michael Froman, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs.

Froman also stressed that just getting all the nations to agree on regulatory reform principles is an accomplishment.

"We should not necessarily underestimate what the significance of countries coming together and saying, ‘Given the lessons of this crisis, here are the policies we agree to pursue going forward, some of which require adjustment in our approach to our economic policy,’ " Froman said. "That’s a fairly significant innovation in international cooperation."

However, some European officials are worried about what they see as a lack of progress.

A group of regulators and academics called the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee sent the G-20 a letter this week warning that proposals on the table "are not likely to substantially reduce the likelihood of future crises."

"We are concerned that not enough has been done," said Harald Benink, a banking professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands who chairs the group.

What will they do?

Earlier this month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner lobbied G-20 finance ministers to endorse a key reform effort: Requiring bigger capital cushions at financial firms. Such reserves can protect banks against losses and are considered important for preventing another financial crisis.

The idea is among those at the top of the list for the Pittsburgh meeting.

While nations agree about the need for boosting reserves, the debate will likely center around how best to do it. The more controversial question of how big capital reserves should be is not expected to be decided.

The United States would prefer to pass its own capital rules and have other countries follow suit, said Eswar Prasad, an international economist at Cornell University. The Europeans would prefer a multi-national process with all nations work together, more or less, as equals.

"The Europeans want to be very involved in developing those standards, so they’re not going to be as enthusiastic as they might be," Prasad said.

The more high-profile regulatory proposal will be over executive pay — and how to tackle it.

The French, among others, have been calling for global caps on executive pay, but the Obama administration isn’t budging on that issue.

"I think the president has been pretty clear that he supports a robust approach to executive compensation, but has been reluctant to sort of set individual compensation levels," Froman said.

International experts say they don’t expect the G-20 to endorse pay caps. Instead, the leaders are likely to give a nod to a set of principles that would encourage countries to decouple bonuses from risky behavior, while adding more disclosure of pay to regulators or shareholders.

Morris Goldstein of the Peterson Institute for International Economics said that the G-20 could create a compromise that satisfies all members by linking executive pay issues to stronger capital requirements. If financial firms are forced to increase capital requirements, it means they’ll have fewer profits, and less available for bonuses linked to profits.

Experts also say that the G-20 will also talk about the need for coordinated regulation of some of the kinds of complex financial products that were sold by Lehman Brothers and AIG (AIG, Fortune 500). However, the countries are not likely to reach agreement on how to do it.

Finally, experts believe the Pittsburgh meeting will feature discussion of broad, tricky issues of rebalancing different G-20 member economies.

The United States wants China to spend more and depend less on exports, and other nations want the United States to quit living on debt. But the meeting is not expected to produce a concrete plan for rejiggering the imbalances. 

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Stocks rallied Tuesday, finding momentum after a choppy morning, with the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all hitting one-year highs.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) rose 0.5% to end at 9,829.87 — its highest point since Oct. 6, 2008.

The S&P 500 (SPX) index added 0.7%, ending at 1,071.66 — its highest point since Oct. 3, 2008.

The Nasdaq composite (COMP) gained 0.4% to end at 2,146.30 — its highest point since Sept. 26, 2008.

Stocks have carved out one-year highs repeatedly over the past two weeks, with the Nasdaq ending Monday’s session at its highest level since shortly after the collapse of Lehman Brothers a year ago.

The slow, steady move up is creating anxiety in investors that they are missing out, which in turn is drawing more money into the market, said Larry Glazer, managing director at Mayflower Advisors.

"As the equity market keeps going up, its giving investors a reason to put their money to work," he said. "The bulk of (mutual) fund flows have been fixed income driven, but they are now starting to move incrementally into equities."

In the short term, investors are also attuned to the Federal Reserve meeting that concludes Wednesday and the Dow’s climb toward 10,000. Although 10,000 is not a key technical level, it is a significant psychological level.

Despite ongoing calls for a September slide, investors continue to use any declines as an opportunity to get back in.

"The sign on a money manager’s door is not ‘Larry the cash hoarder,’ it’s ‘Larry the money manager,’" said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group. "And if he’s sitting on a lot of cash, he’s behind."

Dollar impact: Stocks have also benefited from the weakness of the dollar versus other major currencies.

Dollar-traded commodities and corresponding commodity stocks tend to rise when the greenback weakens. In addition, the weaker dollar impacts the stocks of companies that have a strong presence overseas.

Harris said that over the last six months it’s been the most volatile names, leading the charge. He said that the leadership is now shifting to so-called higher quality names, as evidenced by the recent spikes in companies such as GE (GE, Fortune 500), AT&T (T, Fortune 500) and Verizon Communications (VZ, Fortune 500).

Since bottoming at a 12-year low March 9, the S&P 500 has gained 57.4% and the Dow has gained 49%, as of Monday’s close. After hitting a six-year low, the Nasdaq has gained 68.5%.

Stocks have risen during those 6-1/2 months on signs that the economy is starting to recover — and due to extraordinary amounts of fiscal and monetary stimulus.

On the move: Dow gainers were fairly broad based, with 20 of 30 issues rising, including Chevron (CVX, Fortune 500), Caterpillar (CAT, Fortune 500), Alcoa (AA, Fortune 500), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Fortune 500) and United Technologies (UTX, Fortune 500).

A number of financial stocks gained too, including Dow components Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500).

Among other gainers, Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) rose 5% after Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC said it sold half of its stake in the company. GIC had bought a 9% stake in Citigroup at its lows and opted to cash in on the recent market rally to earn $1.6 billion.

The KBW Bank (BKX) sector index gained 2.3%.

Market breadth was positive. On the New York Stock Exchange, winners beat losers seven to three on volume of 1.26 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, advancers topped decliners five to four on volume of 2.51 billion shares.

Fed: The Federal Reserve concludes its two-day policy meeting Wednesday, with an announcement expected at around 2:15 p.m. ET. The central bank is expected to hold short-term interest rates unchanged at levels near zero.

Investors will also look to the central bank’s statement for clarity on how they see the economic outlook. Fed chief Ben Bernanke said last week that the recession is likely over, but the labor market still has a long way to go.

Investors will also be looking to see if they say anything about how they plan to wind down programs that pumped trillions into the economy to cushion the blow of the recession.

Also Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is set to testify before the House Financial Services committee on regulatory reform, starting at around 9:30 a.m. ET.

Economy: July home prices rose 0.3%, according to a report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released shortly after the start of trading. That was short of forecasts for a rise of 0.5%, according to Briefing.com survey of economists. Home prices rose a revised 0.1% in June.

World markets: Global markets rallied. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100, France’s CAC 40 and Germany’s DAX all advanced. Asian markets ended higher.

Commodities: The weaker dollar helped boost oil and gold prices.

U.S. light crude oil for October delivery rose $1.84 to settle at $71.55 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. COMEX gold for December delivery rose $10.60 to settle at $1,015.50 an ounce. Gold closed at a record high of $1,020.20 last week.

Bonds: Treasury prices rose, lowering the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 3.46% from 3.48% late Monday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions. 

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A top White House adviser said Friday that business opponents of President Obama’s plan to create an agency to protect financial consumers are trying to "scare people."

Larry Summers, director of Obama’s National Economic Council, criticized an ad campaign by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for suggesting that a new consumer agency will hurt small businesses that extend credit to their customers.

Summers compared the advertisements to the "death panel ads" invoked by opponents of health care reform.

"I’d suggest those ads are the financial regulatory equivalent to the death panel ads being run with respect to health care," Summers said in a speech at Georgetown University. "Those without a good argument try to scare people … that’s what is happening here."

Summers’ comments are the harshest yet by a high-ranking White House official directed at foes of the consumer agency proposal, which has become the flash point in the congressional debate over how to overhaul the financial system to prevent future crises.

President Obama, during his weekly address on Saturday, also turned up the heat against campaigns to kill the consumer agency. He called creation of the agency key to financial system reforms, because they aim to help those who "signed contracts they didn’t fully understand offered by lenders who didn’t always tell the truth."

Obama railed that "lobbyists for big Wall Street banks are hard at work trying to stop reforms that would hold them accountable and they want to keep things just the way they are."

The proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency would be able to examine and subpoena information from banks, while regulating things like mortgages and credit cards.

Summers didn’t name the Chamber of Commerce, but he described its ads in detail, which say the proposed agency would prevent small retailers like florists and bakers from being able to extend credit to their customers.

The Chamber, one of the most powerful business lobbies in Washington, had announced earlier this month that it is spending $2 million to fight the proposal. On Friday, a spokesman said the group stands by its argument that the bill goes too far.

"Adding a layer of bureaucracy is not the right answer to consumer protection," Chamber spokesman Eric Wohlschlegel said.

The Chamber says the ads are intended to point out the group’s concern that the proposal is vaguely worded and could apply to many different kinds of businesses.

In talking about the ads, Summers also detailed top White House priorities for regulatory reforms.

"We’ve become convinced that consumer financial regulation be carried out by an independent body whose mandate is exclusively consumer protection," Summers said. "This idea, which one might not have supposed to be the most controversial has generated substantial controversy." 

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Finally!

After nearly two years of declines, the net worth of Americans rose by $2 trillion to an estimated $53.1 trillion in the second quarter compared with the first three months of the year.

The soaring stock market accounted for much of the gain. Stock holdings rose by 22% to $6.3 trillion, while mutual funds’ value jumped 15% to $3.7 trillion, according to a Federal Reserve report released Thursday.

To be sure, these are not exactly flush times for many people. Unemployment stands at 9.7%, the highest level in 26 years. And many people have yet to see their home values and portfolios recover from their recent trouncing.

Since only half of Americans own stocks, with even fewer having significant holdings, only a narrow group of people benefited from Wall Street’s springtime gains. The Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq had their best performances since 2003 and the broader S&P 500 since 1998.

Homeowners, who make up about two-thirds of the population, also saw a little relief. Real estate rose in value for the first time since the end of 2006, climbing 2% to $18.3 trillion.

Still, Americans have a long way to go before they recover the wealth they once had. U.S. net worth peaked at $65.3 trillion in the third quarter of 2007. That’s 18.7% higher than the current level.

Much of the nation’s wealth had been tied to the recent booms in the housing market and on Wall Street allstate insurance company. At the end of 2006, Americans’ homes were valued at nearly $22 trillion.

And in the following year, their stock holdings topped out at $10.2 trillion and their mutual fund portfolio at $4.9 trillion.

Thursday’s report is not likely to prompt consumers to resume spending, said Scott Hoyt, senior director of consumer economics at Moody’s Economy.com. Wealth is still down $12 trillion from its peak and many people may see the recent increase as a blip.

"Consumers are still focused on how much wealth they’ve lost," Hoyt said. "They still likely see themselves in a good-size hole."

Less debt

At the same time, consumers continue to pay off their bills. Household debt shrunk by an annual rate of 1.7% in the second quarter, the fourth consecutive decline. Debt loads had never contracted until the current downturn.

Businesses are also pulling back on the debt they carry. Debt contracted at an annual rate of 1.8%, the second decline in a row.

Governments, however, are loading up on debt as they try to prop up the economy. Federal government debt ballooned 28.2%, the fourth straight increase, while state and local governments increased their debt levels by 8.3%. 

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Parents have gotten a lot smarter in 2009.

Well, at least they’ve gotten smarter when it comes to telling their children about money, saving and investing. In the past, they rarely told them much of anything constructive about those topics.

Financial experts say the financial crisis has provided a unique teaching opportunity that many parents have seized upon. Adults want their kids better prepared to avoid the mistakes they’ve made.

"For a long time, the answer to a youngster’s question, ‘Can I get this?’ was, ‘No, we don’t have enough money’ or ‘Yes, we have enough money’," said Evelyn Zohlen, president of Inspired Financial LLC, Huntington Beach, Calif. "Now parents, as a result of the recession and economy of the past 12 months, are using this as an opportunity to expand their answers."
For example, parents are explaining that they don’t want to charge more on a credit card because they consider it important to pay off their credit card bill every month, Zohlen said. She considers this a "subtle refining" of the prior common response, providing a lesson on how the overall financial process works.

"It is ironic to me that adults have been forced to relearn financial lessons themselves," she said. "They’re sharing those lessons with their children now."

The tried-and-true approach of giving an allowance for chores done around the house remains valid, said Zohlen. It’s an easy learning opportunity to tell the child how much he’ll receive each week. The next step is planning what to do with money earned, such as how much will be saved or whether the child would want to donate a portion to an animal shelter or some other cause, she said.

Savings goes into a cash equivalent such as a money-market fund or bank account, she said, but when the child gets a bit older you must begin the conversation about investing.

Ask the youngster to name his favorite companies, with Walt Disney Co., McDonald’s Corp. or Coca-Cola Co. the typical types of responses you’ll hear, she said. Next, find some mutual funds for the child that own those shares, she said.

"Parents don’t have to teach their kids about modern portfolio theory, but they can begin to talk about what a mutual fund is and explain that it owns lots of different companies," Zohlen said.

Just don’t drop the weight of the entire global meltdown on your child’s small shoulders.

"It’s a terrific time to be talking to kids about saving and investing, given what’s gone on in the market," said Christine Benz, director of personal finance for Morningstar Inc. in Chicago. "But it’s a fine line, because if you’re nervous or worried, you want to be careful about communicating those feelings, since you really don’t want to scare your child payday loans."

A common mistake is not stressing to children the importance of starting to save and invest early in life so that it becomes a lifelong habit, Benz said. Studies show the dramatic difference a few years’ head start can make as far as the amount accumulated later in life.

"The bottom line is that you want to get kids interested in investing early because it can absolutely change their lives," asserted Charles Carlson, editor of the DRIP Investor newsletter.

An all-too-common parental error Carlson has observed is applying the parents’ time horizon and risk parameters to their kids, saying "stocks are bad" or some other investment directive that doesn’t take into account the child’s far longer time horizon.

"You can start with a company-specific approach, telling the child that it is possible to buy shares in the company that makes the jeans bought for him that day," suggested Carlson. "Or if he likes a video game, you can explain it is possible to buy shares of GameStop Corp., the store where the game was purchased."

Educate the child about savings but also get him interested in the process of investing, said Carlson. Both are easier if the child has some sort of connection with the company being discussed.

For youngsters Carlson prefers dividend reinvestment plans offered by companies, most with minimum initial investments of $250 or less, that make it easy for the parent or grandparent to make an initial investment. Then the youngster can kick in small amounts of money to build the investment gradually.

"To me, a mutual fund is a harder sell for kids," believes Carlson. "But if they like baseball you can talk to them about stock in Nike Inc., or if they’re into computers, you can talk about Microsoft Corp."

Weigh the possibilities, but whatever type of investment is chosen, it is important to get started.

"If you have a child who’s showing some interest in investing and the stock market, there’s probably nothing like investing in individual stocks to teach the child how to navigate that environment," said Benz. "But if the goal is to teach savings and the importance of investing, a mutual fund is the way to go."

Benz recommends these funds with $1,000 minimum initial investments as excellent launching pads for young people: Oakmark Equity and Income Fund; Ariel Fund; Artisan International Fund; and Vanguard STAR Fund.

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Stocks ended modestly lower Thursday as investors struggled to balance hopes for an economic recovery with fears that equities have surged too far, too fast.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 8 points, or 0.1% after ending the previous session at its highest point since last Oct. 6.

The S&P 500 (SPX) index fell about 3 points, or 0.3%, after ending the previous session at its highest point since Oct. 3 of last year. The Nasdaq composite (COMP) lost 6 points, or 0.3%, after closing at its highest point since last Sept. 26.

The three major indexes have ended higher in 8 of the last 10 sessions.

U.S. stocks surged to almost one-year highs Wednesday on continued optimism about the economy. Thursday brought new reports supporting hopes that a recovery is underway, but the response from investors was more muted as worries persist that the stock rally has outpaced the recovery.

By afternoon, investors were ditching some of the biggest gainers from the last few weeks, including financials, commodities and big industrial names.

Big Dow losers included Alcoa (AA, Fortune 500), General Electric (GE, Fortune 500), American Express (AXP, Fortune 500), Travelers (TRV, Fortune 500) and Verizon Communications (VZ, Fortune 500).

Stocks have surged over the last six months as investors have welcomed a rash of improving economic news and an unprecedented amount of fiscal and monetary stimulus. Since bottoming at a 12-year low in March, the Dow industrials have gained just shy of 50% and the S&P 500 has gained 58%, as of Wednesday’s close. Since bottoming at a six-year low, the Nasdaq has gained 68%.

However, the continuing gains could be a cause for concern.

"This is a playable market rally within a long-term poor economy and bear market," said Robert Loest, portfolio manager at Integrity Funds. "This is not in my view the beginning of a long-term sustainable bull market."

Trading could be volatile and volume could be higher through the quarterly options expiration Friday. On Friday, stock index futures and options, and individual stock futures and options all expire at the same time.

Economy: The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment fell last week to 545,000 from a revised 557,000 in the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday morning. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com forecast that claims would rise modestly.

Continuing claims, a measure of Americans who have been filing claims for unemployment for a week or more, rose to 6.23 million versus forecasts for a rise to 6.1 million.

A rise in apartment construction helped push August housing starts to the highest point in roughly nine months, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Starts rose 1.5% to an annual unit rate of 598,000 from a revised 589,000 in July, the government said. That was in line with economists’ forecasts.

Building permits, a measure of builder confidence, rose 2.7% to 579,000 from a revised 564,000 in July.

The Philadelphia Fed index rose to a 27-month high in September, adding to other evidence that the manufacturing sector is recovering. The index, a regional read on manufacturing, rose to 14.1 in September from 4.2 previously. Economists thought it would rise to 8, on average.

Corporate news: FedEx (FDX, Fortune 500) said fiscal first-quarter earnings fell 53% from a year ago, meeting the forecast it issued last week. The package delivery firm reported weaker earnings that met forecasts on lower revenue that was shy of expectations. Shares fell 2.2% Thursday.

Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500) reported weaker quarterly revenue that missed forecasts late Wednesday. The software maker also reported higher quarterly earnings of 30 cents per share that were in line with forecasts. Shares fell 2.8%.

American Airlines parent AMR (AMR, Fortune 500) said it raised $2.9 billion, including cash and financing. The airline also said it will shift some flights to more profitable hubs such as Chicago and New York and away from St. Louis and other places. Shares rose almost 20%.

Currency and commodities: The dollar hit a fresh 9-month low against the euro and bounced after hitting a 7-month low against the yen.

The falling greenback has been lifting dollar-traded commodities including oil and gold lately, but prices were muted Thursday.

U.S. light crude oil for October delivery fell 4 cents to settle at $72.47 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. COMEX gold for December delivery fell $6.70 to $1,013.50 an ounce after settling Wednesday at a record high of $1,020.20.

Bonds: Treasury prices gained, lowering the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 3.40% from 3.46% Wednesday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.

World markets: Global markets rallied. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100, France’s CAC 40 and Germany’s DAX all gained. Asian markets surged, with Japan’s Nikkei adding 1.7% after the Bank of Japan raised its economic forecast.

Market breadth was mixed. On the New York Stock Exchange, losers topped winners by eight to seven on volume of 1.52 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, advancers and decliners were narrowly mixed on volume of 2.65 billion shares. 

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Journalism is often called the first draft of history. The credit crisis has presented an unusually large share of professional scribes a chance to make their marks for posterity.

And they’re not alone. A slew of former financial professionals and public officials, including ex-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, are flooding the market with books offering their take on the meltdown. But it’s questionable whether demand will meet supply.

It’s not just a matter of separating the seminal works from the banal. After all, even though each book may present its own spin, few readers are likely to want to — or have the time to — worm their through every single tome.

And some may prefer insider accounts to ones written by reporters: former Lehman Brothers banker Lawrence McDonald’s take on the demise of his firm, A Colossal Failure of Common Sense has already made it into the New York Times bestseller lists, for example.

There’s also the fatigue factor. Interested readers have lived with near-blanket coverage of the crisis for two years in all media formats from print to TV to blogs. Many news organizations have already run in-depth reports on elements of the crisis that could count as mini-books themselves. CNBC anchor David Faber turned one such broadcast into print, with And Then the Roof Caved In: How Wall Street Greed and Stupidity Brought Capitalism to Its Knees.

That’s not to say the coming raft of credit crisis tell-alls will bomb low interest rate personal loans. Some, such as William Cohan’s Bear Stearns book House of Cards, have already garnered decent sales. But with so many books to choose from in coming months, it’ll be harder for any to distinguish themselves as the defining one of the era — think Liar’s Poker or Barbarians at the Gate for Wall Street in the 1980s, still in demand 20 years later.

Moreover, there are already signs that publishers handing out advances during the peak of the panic acted as profligately as bond investors buying subprime paper during the boom. Two books about Bernie Madoff have flopped, including one by the journalist who in 2001 first questioned his investment business; and another by an investor who had an affair with the Ponzi king. Advance leaks about that apparent rendezvous failed to sell books.

Sure, sales may pick up after the Lehman anniversary. But early performances of the few books out on the subject must leave some publishers worried about covering their costs, let alone making money. Or perhaps they should just take a longer-term view. After all, John Kenneth Galbraith’s classic on The Great Crash of 1929 wasn’t published until 1955. 

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