Financial thoughts

Stocks held onto gains Wednesday afternoon, with the Dow still hovering just below the 12,000 mark, after the Fed kept rates steady and left its bond-buying plan alone.

Earlier in the session, the Dow rose as much as 43 points, or 0.4%, to 12,020.52, hitting its highest intraday level since June 20, 2008 . However, the index is still far from its all-time intraday high of 14,198.10, reached Oct. 11, 2007.

The S&P 500 (SPX) added 6 points, or 0.5%, and the Nasdaq (COMP) gained 21 points, or 0.8%.

Optimism sparked from President Obama’s State of the Union address late Tuesday helped push stocks higher.

"The speech last night created a more business-friendly environment," said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial Group. "He emphasized working with businesses to promote investment and jobs, whereas a year ago the White House was criticizing financial institutions."

Sheldon said a better-than-expected report showing new home sales jumped to an 8-month high in December also added support.

Later in the day, the Federal Reserve said it was leaving interest rates unchanged near historic lows, and continuing move forward with its $600 billion bond buying program to stimulate the economy.

Investors weren’t expecting any significant changes in the Fed’s policy, which remains a positive for financial markets, Sheldon said.

On Tuesday, stocks closed mixed after staging a late comeback.

Companies: Toyota (TM) announced it is recalling more than 1.5 million vehicles worldwide for issues that could result in fuel leakage. News of the recall sent shares of the automaker 1.9% lower.

Shares of home improvement retail chain Lowe’s (LOW, Fortune 500) edged up 1.6% after the company said it is cutting 1,700 managerial jobs while adding up to 10,000 part-time workers in order to better staff its stores for weekend shoppers.

Shares of online content creator Demand Media (DMD) rose 37% Wednesday as the company made its public debut, raising $66.5 million in an IPO that valued the company at more than $1 billion. Shares of media conglomerate Nielsen (NLSN) were up 11% as the company also made its public debut.

Xerox (XRX, Fortune 500) was among the biggest losers on the S&P 500, with shares dropping more than 8%. The company logged earnings that fell from a year earlier, but were in line with expectations and announced its Chief Financial Officer Larry Zimmerman will retire next month.

US Airways (LCC, Fortune 500) posted its first quarterly profit since 2006 and widely beat Wall Street forecasts, lifting shares of the airline by almost 10%.

Shares of Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) slipped 2.7% after the company reported quarterly results late Tuesday that missed expectations and announced more layoffs.

Eastman Kodak’s (EK, Fortune 500) stock sank more than 16% after the company posted a fourth-quarter profit that plunged 95% from a year earlier. Revenue dropped 25% and missed expectations.

After the market close Wednesday, coffee chain Starbucks (SBUX, Fortune 500) is slated to report its quarterly earnings. Shares were 2% lower.

World markets: European stocks closed higher. Britain’s FTSE 100 climbed 1%; the DAX in Germany surged 0.9%; and France’s CAC 40 rose 0.7%.

Asian markets ended mixed. The Shanghai Composite gained 1.2% and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong edged up 0.2%, while Japan’s Nikkei slipped 0.6%.

Currencies and commodities: The dollar was flat against the euro, and slipped versus the British pound. It was slightly higher against the Japanese yen.

Oil for March delivery edged up 4 cents to $86.23 a barrel.

Gold futures for February delivery fell $7.20 to $1,325.10 an ounce.

Cocoa prices continued to rally for an eighth straight session Wednesday, rising 0.3% to 3,345 per ton amid a one-month export ban in the Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa supplier. Earlier in the session, prices rose 1.5% to 3,385 per ton.

Meanwhile, cotton futures climbed to an all-time high, rising 3.6% to $1.676 per pound. It later eased to $1.662 per pound.

Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury fell, pushing the yield up to 3.40% from 3.32% late Tuesday.  

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Government prosecutors got their first conviction of a person accused of defrauding the Troubled Asset Relief Fund Friday.

Charles Antonucci, the former president of the Park Avenue Bank, pleaded guilty in federal court to defrauding the TARP fund, securities fraud, self-dealing, bank bribery and the embezzlement of bank funds.

"Today’s plea marks an important chapter and demonstrates that SIGTARP and its law enforcement partners will ensure that would-be wrongdoers who seek to profit criminally from this historic program will be caught, charged, and brought to justice," Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky said in a statement.

Barofsky heads SIGTARP, the watchdog group charged with prosecuting those who waste, steal or abuse TARP funds.

Antonucci, who was arrested in March, was convicted after misrepresenting his bank’s capital position in the process of trying to secure more than $11 million in TARP funds.

In addition, he pleaded guilty to accepting bribes in exchange for approving various bank transactions. Among the payoffs: use of a private aircraft, a luxury car and over $250,000 in cash payments. 

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Google Inc. has introduced its new Google TV service that combines several new partnerships with media companies including NBC Universal Inc. and Amazon Inc.

The new service will let users access the Internet and search for videos on their television.

Mountain View-based Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) designed the software as a platform for content companies and others to develop TV applications. The company has promised "a new world of apps available for TV."

"One of our goals with Google TV is to finally open up the living room and enable new innovation from content creators, programmers, developers and advertisers," the company said in a blog post Monday.

The service will be available through set-top boxes from companies including Sony, on its Internet TV and Blu-Ray player, and Logitech, which has U.S paydayloan. headquarters in Fremont.

It will include video on demand from Amazon, with access to more than 75,000 movies and TV shows for a fee, and video streaming from Netflix Inc.

Media partners have been working to make content interactive. Websites of companies including Turner Broadcasting System Inc.'s TBS and CNN have been modified so they appear better on television screens.

NBC Universal has worked with Google TV to offer CNBC Real-Time, an app that tracks stocks and accesses news feeds.

HBO will offer hundreds of hours of programming to the Google TV service, and the NBA has developed NBA Game Time, an app that allows users to get scores and highlights in real-time.

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The University of Wisconsin-Madison was awarded five federal grants worth $3,682,798 to work on projects to advance nuclear energy research and development, the U.S. Department of Energy announced Thursday.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced the selection of 42 university-led projects for awards totaling $38 million to be funded over three to four years through the department’s Nuclear Energy University Program.

“We are taking action to restart the nuclear industry as part of a broad approach to cut carbon pollution and create new clean energy jobs,” said Chu in a press release.

UW-Madison’s five awards include one grant of $616,073 to research and demonstrate technologies that will enable the safe and cost-effective management of the used fuel, focused on developing novel technology options to improve used fuel storage, recycling and disposal.

Three grants totaling $2.5 million were awarded to UW for research and development of the next generation of nuclear reactors that will produce more energy and create less waste with a focus on developing new reactor technologies with higher safety, economic and sustainability performance.

The final grant of $538,032 is for research focusing on creative, innovative and “blue sky” research in the fields of nuclear science and engineering.

“These projects will help us develop the nuclear technologies of the future and move our domestic nuclear industry forward,” Chu said.

Actual project funding will be established during the contract negotiation phase of the projects.

A list of selected projects can be found at: http://nuclear.gov/pdfFiles/NEUP_FY10_RDAwards.pdf.

Additional information on the Nuclear Energy University Program is available at www.ne-up.org.

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For 18-year-old Stephanie Gielarowski, it was a school-sponsored trip to China that sparked her interest in Asia.

“I’ve always liked to travel,” she said, but it was that trip last summer where she saw first-hand the economic importance of the region.

“It’s important to be involved and educated in Asia,” she said, including understanding the region’s history and culture. It’s this newfound awareness that spurred her to pursue international business in college. So far, she says, her plan is to study at the University of South Carolina.

Gielarowski is one of hundreds of students who, over the years, have traveled abroad as part of one of the many programs offered by Upper St. Clair High School. The school’s Asian travel opportunities, which include a summer trip to China and an exchange to Thailand, are relatively new compared with some of the European programs, such as a German exchange that has been offered for 20 years.

Together, the school’s seven different language classes, its international and Asian studies, and its opportunities to travel prepare students for the world beyond western Pennsylvania.

“It really opens their eyes to their magnitude and place in the world,” in addition to preparing them for adulthood, said Principal Michael Ghilani.

Mary Eddins, an 18-year-old senior, participated in the Thai exchange her sophomore year and has taken the Asian Studies class offered by the school. Of her trip to Thailand, she says, “that opened my eyes up globally.”

Her previous foreign travel consisted of vacations to Mexico or the Caribbean, but that only offered the resort experience, whereas staying with a host family, “you’re immersed with the culture more, you learn the culture first-hand.”

That sentiment was echoed by Junior Rachel Amoroso, 16, who went on the exchange earlier this year.

“It was really a life changing experience,” she said. “I had never been out of the country before.”

But that cross culture taste has her hungry for more, and she is planning on studying abroad in college. In fact, she says, most of her questions at college fairs revolve around whether a school offers study abroad.

In addition to sending students overseas, Upper St no fax pay day loans. Clair High School also has foreign students come to Pittsburgh. In the spring, the school hosts Thai students and teachers. This April, 38 Thai students and three teachers arrived in Upper St. Clair.

The Thai exchange not only exposes the students to a new culture, but it also offers the entire community a way to connect. Organizing the program has become a labor of love for Thai native and Pittsburgh transplant Luck Kosoladolkitt. She first put the program together when her son was a junior and she wanted him to have a study abroad experience. From there, it has grown.

“The high school level is the most important time for students to make a decision before they go to university,” she said of the experiences of both the Thai and Upper St. Clair students. “They are in their teens, and they don’t know exactly what they want to do with their own life; this gives them the opportunity” to see other possibilities.

As part of the exchange, all of the students, Thai and American, host a Thai Night Gala in Upper St. Clair where the Thai culture is celebrated. The event also is a fundraiser to help pay for the program.

Many of the students who have gone on the Thai exchange or the summer trip to China also take the Asian Studies class that is offered. The semester-long elective looks at modern Asia as well as Asian history, and the curriculum was developed with the help of the University of Pittsburgh Asian Studies Center.

“We are a global society,” said Lauren Davidovich, who is teaching the current semester’s Asian Studies course. “Asia may not have been addressed as it should have been, and we would be remiss not to study it.”

In addition to personal growth offered by foreign travel, the school’s programs have students looking at careers in international business after they saw the economic importance of Asia.

Davidovich also noted that combining the class plus the real travel experience offers the students a unique perspective.

“Education breeds understanding,” she said.

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AMR Corp.’s American Airlines, once the world’s largest carrier by traffic, may pursue alliances to win more passengers as rivals’ mergers erase its advantage, analysts said.

Possible alliance partners include US Airways Group Inc. and JetBlue Airways Corp., the sixth- and seventh-largest U.S. airlines, said Jeff Straebler, a fixed-income strategist at RBS Securities Inc.

Alliances such as AMR’s Oneworld let members sell seats on each other’s jets, a benefit in an industry where the breadth of airlines’ networks attracts corporate fliers. American, now the second-largest U.S. carrier, would be No. 3 under the United-Continental merger, and said Monday that it is studying a "range of alternatives."

"American helped originate the whole idea of alliances and partnerships," said George Van Horn, an analyst at IBISWorld Inc. "If somebody should be good at it, you could make the argument they should be."

Straebler and Van Horn said an alliance might appeal to AMR by providing many of the benefits of a merger, such as adding passenger revenue and avoiding flight duplication, without the risks and expense of meshing fleets and unions. Ties to US Airways or JetBlue might help American in New York, the world’s busiest travel market, they said.

AMR was under pressure even before the United-Continental deal emerged. The company is the only major U.S. airline that may lose money in 2010, and has the lowest margins and highest costs among its peers, according to Jamie Baker, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst. American and unions representing about 77 percent of its work force are in contract talks, with the pilots’ negotiations dating to 2006.

American’s last merger came in 2001, when it bought Trans World Airlines for $2.8 billion.

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The Dow and S&P 500 ended at fresh 18-month highs Thursday, but tech concerns limited the Nasdaq composite’s gains ahead of a long weekend.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) added 70 points, or 0.7%, ending at 10,927.07, its highest close since Sept. 26, 2008, when it ended the session at 11,143.13. The blue-chip indicator rose to within 43 points of 11,000, a key psychological indicator, before pulling back.

The S&P 500 index (SPX) gained 9 points, or 0.7%. The Nasdaq composite (COMP) added 5 points, or 0.2%.

Stocks rose through the early afternoon as investors welcomed reports showing the pace of job losses is slowing and manufacturing is picking up both in the U.S. and abroad. The advance briefly lost steam in mid-afternoon, before picking up again near the close. Stock markets will be closed for Good Friday, although Treasury markets will have a shortened session.

Weaker-than-forecast readings on private-sector employment and manufacturing dragged on stocks Wednesday at the end of an up quarter, in which the Dow gained 4.1%, the S&P 500 gained 4.9% and the Nasdaq gained 5.7%.

Stocks have been on the rise since mid- February, as worries about a global debt crisis have given way to renewed optimism about the economic recovery. All three major stock indexes have risen in six of the last seven weeks.

On Thursday, reports showed that weekly jobless claims continued to slip, U.S. manufacturing continued grew at the fastest pace since 2004 and construction spending retreated. Reports coming out of China and the United Kingdom showed manufacturing activity picked up the pace in March.

"The initial claims number shows we are seeing shows slow and steady improvement in the jobs market and the manufacturing numbers are providing reassurance about the global economy," said Jim Baird, chief investment strategist at Plante Moran Financial Advisors.

However, he said Wednesday’s weak report on private-sector employment and the still relatively high weekly jobless claims numbers over the last few months show the jobs market is not recovering enough to spark economic growth.

"To get a good number tomorrow would be a strong indicator that we are moving toward a period of job creation," Baird said.

Jobs market: The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment fell last week to 439,000 from 445,000 in the previous week, matching the lowest level since August 2008. Forecasts were for 440,000 claims, according to a consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com.

The Labor Department report also showed that continuing claims, a measure of Americans who have been receiving benefits for a year or more, fell to 4,662,000 from 4,668,000 the previous week. Economists thought continuing claims would fall to 4,618,000.

A separate report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed that planned job cuts rose in March. Employers said they were planing to cut 67,611 jobs in March, a rise of 61% from February’s 42,090 cuts.

The biggest employment report of the week is Friday’s March jobs report from the government. Employers are expected to have added 190,000 jobs to their payrolls in March after cutting 36,000 in February. The unemployment rate, generated by a separate survey, is expected to hold steady at 9.7%.

Manufacturing: The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing indexrose to 59.6 in March from 56.5 in the previous month. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected a reading of 57.

February construction spending fell 1.3% after falling 1.4% in January, according to a Census Bureau report released in the morning. Economists thought it would fall 1%.

Company news: BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIMM) slipped after it posted fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that rose from a year earlier, but missed forecasts due to weaker-than-expected phone shipments.

The company also issued a fiscal first-quarter earnings and revenue forecast that was better than expected. But shares fell Thursday as analysts and investors expressed worries that the company is not keeping up with Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and Google (GOOG, Fortune 500).

Primerica, Citigroup’s soon-to-be spun-off life insurance division rallied more than 20% in its first day of trading as a public company.

Autos: General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) and Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) were among the automakers reporting improved sales in March, although forecasts were short of more bullish analyst estimates released earlier in the month.

Ford said sales rose 40% versus earlier forecasts for a gain of 55%. GM said sales rose 21% versus forecasts for a gain of 27%.

Overall auto industry sales were expected to rise sharply in March in comparison to a weak period a year earlier.

The dollar and commodities: The dollar gained versus the euro and fell against the yen.

COMEX gold for June delivery rose $11.60 to settle at $1,126.10 per ounce.

U.S. light crude oil for May delivery rose $1.11 to settle at $84.87 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest close for crude since October 2008.

Bonds: Treasury prices tumbled, raising the yield on the 10-year note to 3.86% from 3.83% late Wednesday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.

World markets: In overseas trading, European markets rallied. Asian markets ended higher as well.

Market breadth was negative. On the New York Stock Exchange, winners beat losers eleven to four on volume of 930 million shares. On the Nasdaq, advancers beat decliners five to four on volume of 2.28 billion shares.  

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San Antonio area cable companies are gearing up for 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

Starting Friday, Time Warner Cable and GVTC Communications will offer content from NBC Universal’s 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games.

The cable companies will show more than 835 hours of programming, the most ever for a Winter Olympics.

The games will be played between Feb. 12-28. On Time Warner Cable, NBC Universal will air a number of events on Sports On Demand Channel 950 and in HD on Showcase on Demand Channel 101.

Time Warner customers who are watching the Olympics on WOAI-TV will be able to press select on their remote when they see a Start Over prompt to restart a program in progress ay day loans.

Separately, GVTC customers also will have access to more than 1,200 hours of free online video content from the games not available on television. Subscribers will be able to visit MyGVTC.com and sign in with their GVTC e-mail account to access the content.

Also half the content will be exclusive online video unavailable on NBC and affiliate networks CNBC, MSNBC, USA and Universal HD.

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DETROIT—General Motors Co. chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre Jr., who said Monday he’ll stay on as head of the automaker for the time being, has reaffirmed that GM will repay in full the loans it got from the U.S. and Canadian governments by June.

Whitacre said GM’s board asked him last week to take on the position of chief executive permanently, ending a seven-week search for a new CEO.

“The board looked at the potential candidates and decided this place needs stability. We don’t need any more uncertainty,” Whitacre told reporters at a hastily called news conference at GM’s Detroit headquarters.

Whitacre also said GM will repay its $8.1 billion (U.S.) in loans from the U.S., Canadian and Ontario governments all at once and could pay them even earlier than June. The automaker owes $1.4 billion to the Canadian and Ontario governments, and has so far repaid $192 million.

Whitacre, 68, is a former CEO of telecommunications giant AT&T Inc.

He has been serving as interim CEO at GM since the board ousted former chief executive Fritz Henderson on Dec. 1. GM had hired a firm to conduct a global search for a successor.

Although GM had hired the search firm, there were strong signs that Whitacre would take the job permanently, or at least serve as CEO until the company is on solid enough ground to sell stock to the public in an effort to repay its government loans.

Whitacre wouldn’t name any candidates the board had considered. He said he intends to stay two or three years, or “long enough to get it done.”

Whitacre said he hadn’t planned to become CEO when he was named chairman, but feels comfortable at the company and knows what changes need to be made.

“I think this company is good for America. I think America needs this,” he said.

Whitacre often says in a folksy Texas drawl that he knows little about cars. But he’s already shaken up the company by hiring a new chief financial officer and transferring the old one to China, firing the Chevrolet and Buick-GMC brand managers, combining sales and marketing and consolidating control of GM’s core North American market under one executive no fax payday loans.

He also seems impatient to spur the plodding culture of GM, where decision by committee, an isolated upper management and fear of risk produced mediocre cars for years. He wants to increase GM’s sales and market share while shifting the company’s focus to cars from trucks.

Whitacre also confirmed Monday that Dutch luxury car maker Spyker Cars NV is still in talks with GM to buy its ailing Saab brand, but no deal has been reached.

Whitacre said GM is in “advanced talks” with Spyker but continues to wind down Saab’s operations.

“We do not have a deal to announce this morning,” he said.

GM spokesman Chris Preuss in Detroit would not say if the company is close to a deal with Spyker.

GM and Spyker negotiated through the weekend trying to work out a deal to save Saab, which GM has decided to jettison as part of its restructuring plan to focus on four core brands: Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC.

Swedish media reported that a deal was close, but Preuss said nothing had been finalized as of Monday afternoon in Sweden.

A deal for Spyker to buy Saab by itself is unlikely: Spyker sold 23 cars in the first half of 2009, its most recent reporting period, and it posted a net loss of 8.7 million euros. The six-year-old company has yet to make a profit, but it says funding for its operations has been guaranteed through 2010.

Money for a deal to buy Saab could come from Spyker’s largest shareholder, Russia’s Conversbank Financial Group, or other shareholders. It would also likely involve a large loan from the European Investment Bank, backed by the government of Sweden.

Saab Automobile sold around 90,000 cars in 2008, a 30 per cent decline from 2007. With another sharp sales decline expected, it filed for protection from creditors while it reorganized in February 2009. GM said at the time it expected to sell Saab and take $1 billion in losses.

GM filed for bankruptcy itself in June. Its attempts to sell Saab by a Dec. 31 deadline failed.

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It seems that consumers blinked this holiday season.

Rather than bet on heavy post-Christmas discounts, holiday shoppers loosened their purse strings a bit and spent a little more this season, according to data released Monday, giving merchants some reason for cheer.

Spending rose 3.6 percent in November and December, according to MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse, which estimates all forms of payment including cash. Adjusted for an extra shopping day between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the number was closer to a 1 percent rise. That was still better than the flat sales analysts had predicted.

The spending bounce means retailers managed to avoid a repeat of last year’s disaster even amid tight credit and double-digit unemployment. Profits should be healthier, too, because stores had a year to plan their inventories to match consumer demand and never needed to resort to fire sale clearances.

However, improved pricing and tighter inventories also means a tougher time for after-Christmas shoppers. The discount pickings were slimmer in many stores, while deep discounts were often limited to slow-moving items.

"It may be 70 percent off, but is it anything you want to buy?" asked Robert Buchanan, an assistant professor of finance at St. Louis University. "Nobody has any inventory."

Buchanan said he noticed low inventories over the weekend in some lines of goods at many stores at West County Mall in Des Peres, and at St. Louis Galleria in Richmond Heights, plus at Kohl’s in Crestwood, and Costco and Target stores in south St. Louis County.

"Almost without exception, inventories were light," he said.

It was a complaint shared by many local shoppers Saturday, when consumers began searching for the after-Christmas sales.

Shoppers looking for big sales should act quickly because there are relatively few leftovers to clear out.

"Retailers are much more nimble this year," said Marshal Cohen, an analyst at Port Washington, N.Y.-based market research firm NPD. "Their ‘Plan B’ is to have new receipts at the ready."

Cohen said he noticed J. Crew and Coach were two that had restocked shelves with new items last week.

Improving consumer sentiment aided holiday sales of discretionary items, said David Schick, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Baltimore.

"Consumer sentiment for higher-income folks has been improving faster as of late," Schick told Bloomberg News on Monday. "That is driving some of the better spending coupled with the fact that we are comparing with a dramatic drop-off in the more discretionary categories last year."

At Mid Rivers Mall in St. Peters, however, the economy continues to weigh on visitors.

Jason Caimi, 27, and his wife, Jen, 26, of Elsberry, brought their daughter Addilynn, 2, to the mall Monday. But the couple weren’t looking for after-Christmas sales. They went to get out of the house and let her play.

The Caimis are teachers, and they said their financial situation has improved, largely because they aren’t using credit cards and have focused on paying off debt.

Frugality and paying only with cash played roles in their holiday shopping, too.

"We didn’t buy anything full price," Jen Caimi said. She added that pre-Christmas deals were better this year.

Meanwhile, Delores White, 50, of O’Fallon, Mo., came to the mall to return a few items that didn’t fit.

White said she feels less confident than before about the economy going forward, primarily because jobs remain difficult for people to find, she said. "Everything is pretty much at a standstill," she said. She hopes it will turn around, though.

"I’m praying on it," White said. "That’s all I can do for everybody’s sake."

Now, merchants are facing big hurdles to lure shoppers back in January amid lean inventories and what appear to be weak gift card sales. Gift card sales are recorded only when they are redeemed.

Stores count on a post-Christmas boost because of the growing importance of January on the retail sales calendar. Last year, the week after Christmas accounted for 15 percent of overall holiday sales, according to ShopperTrak, a research firm.

Retail consultant Burt P. Flickinger describes gift cards as "the lifeblood" of the post-Christmas season because shoppers typically spend more than the value of the cards. "Retailers with a disappointing December are going to need January to survive," Flickinger said. "Inventories are even too low for retailers."

A better picture of how retailers fared during the holiday will be known Jan. 7, when many report December sales.

Buchanan says that at least the first half of 2010 will be tough, if not fatal, for some stores.

"In this recession, in this continuing lethargic consumer economy, retailers are still under tremendous pressure," Buchanan said.

Those suffering the most could be "middle of the mall" specialty stores not near an anchor store, he said.

"Every one of those retailers at places like West County and the Galleria is paying high rent," Buchanan added. "Those specialty retailers have low margins for error."

Tim Bryant and Shane Anthony of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report. So did The Associated Press and Bloomberg News.

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