Cass Informations Systems reported fourth-quarter net income of $5.5 million, or 53 cents per share, compared with $5.1 milllion, or 48 cents per share, in the corresponding period of 2010.
For the year, Cass–a Bridgeton-based provider of invoice payment and information services–reported record net income of $23 million, or $2.21 per share, compared with $20.3 million, or $1.95 per share, in 2010.
China will take measure to stabilize its exports and imports as slowing global growth creates a
The stock market is ending a tumultuous year right where it started.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index closed 2011 a fraction of a point below where it started the year. The S&P closed at 1,257.60, up 5.42 points or 0.4 percent. It ended 2010 at nearly the exact same level, at 1,257.64. Its loss for the year is 0.04 point.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 69 points, or 0.6 percent, at 12,218. The Dow is up 5.5 percent for the year. The Nasdaq composite index fell 9 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,605. It lost 1.8 percent for the year.
McDonald’s Corp. was the biggest winner in the Dow this year with a gain of 31 percent. Bank of America Corp. was the worst, down 58 percent.
The conventional wisdom is the more risk, the greater the potential rewards. But the opposite is proving true this year: Investors playing it safe have gained the most.
The most dull and conservative of stocks _ utilities _ gained 15 percent, the largest gain of the ten industry sectors in the S&P 500 index. Other winning groups are consumer staples and health care companies, up 11 percent and 10 percent in 2011 respectively.
In Europe, many of the biggest markets ended down for the year. Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 5.6 percent, Germany’s DAX 14.7 percent.
Trading has been quiet this week with many investors away on vacation. Volume on the New York Stock Exchange has been about half of its daily average pay day loans. Markets will be closed Monday in observance of New Year’s Day.
Better news on the job market and home sales lifted stocks Thursday, pushing the Dow up 135 points. On Friday Ford reported that its sales topped 2 million this year for the first time since 2007. Ford fell 0.1 percent.
Rising and falling stocks were about even on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was just 2.2 billion shares, about half of the recent daily average.
In other corporate news:
_ Sears Holdings Corp. fell 3 percent to $31.78 after Fitch Ratings downgraded the company’s credit rating to “junk.” Sears has plunged 30 percent this week after disclosing that it would close more than 100 Sears and Kmart stores because of weak holiday sales.
_ Diamond Foods Inc. jumped 2.4 percent to $32.27. Rumors have been circulating that the hedge fund manager David Einhorn has acquired a stake in the food company that makes Emerald Nuts.
_ AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines, fell 17 cents to 35 cents. The company filed for bankruptcy protection last month. Late Thursday the company said its stock would be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange next week.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner got little down time during his three-day dash through Europe. But what sleep he did get was in some of Europe’s finest hotels.
U.S. officials justify the luxurious bookings by explaining that where Geithner stays is often dictated by security concerns. The U.S. embassy in each country recommends hotels considered acceptable for overnight stays by high-level government officials like Geithner who get Secret Service protection.
In Milan, the hotel of choice for Geithner’s stay was the Hotel Principe di Savoia. It’s a five-star hotel graced by a grand foyer.
The top-of-the line Presidential Suite was featured in the 2010 movie “Somewhere” by director Sofia Coppola. The movie, set in Milan, also displayed the hotel’s opulent swimming pool.
Geithner’s digs were far less plush than the “Somewhere” suite _ just a standard room with a sitting area for meetings. And instead of a swim, he began his day in the hotel exercise room, walking on the treadmill while reading the morning newspapers.
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To meet with national leaders and financial officials in five cities in three countries in three days, you need a little help getting around. That’s where a police-escorted motorcade comes in handy.
Geithner’s caravan of limousines and vans for staff and reporters drew police escorts in each city he visited.
It all worked well until Geithner’s entourage hit Marseilles right at rush hour. The road from the airport to a downtown hotel where Geithner was meeting Spanish Prime Minister-elect Mariano Rajoy Brey was jammed.
Still, not to worry. The motorcycle escorts simply squeezed between the two lanes of cars headed into town. The cars were forced to both sides of the road, clearing a path in the middle for the motorcade.
Geithner’s meeting Wednesday night lasted about 40 minutes. Then it was back to the motorcade for the return to the airport. At least by then, the roads had cleared considerably, and the motorcycle escort had less work to do guaranteed payday loans.
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So much for legendary German efficiency. On Geithner’s three-country trip, it was the Italians who shined most in arranging a glitch-free meeting with reporters. The Germans and French ran into more difficulty.
Of course, the Italians had arguably more at stake. Geithner’s appearance with reporters in Milan on Thursday followed a meeting with new Prime Minister Mario Monti. By contrast, the sessions in Germany and France involved only finance ministers.
The Italians managed to position a crush of journalists and 15 television cameras well before the session began.
In France, Geithner and Finance Minister Francois Baroin made statements to the press in Baroin’s office. The French supplied no translator. After the session, non-French-speaking journalists found a kindly official who translated Baroin’s remarks by listening to a tape recording of it.
In Germany, reporters, TV crews and photographers crammed near a stage in the German Finance Ministry. Reporters had no chairs and instead crouched on the floor with laptops. When officials decided to move the crowd back and supply chairs, shouting and jostling erupted as photographers struggled to keep the prime positions they’d staked out.
Still, from reporters’ vantage point, the Germans fared best in one key respect: Alone among officials in the three countries, they allowed at least a couple of questions from journalists.
The French and Italian events were designed to have Geithner, Baroin and Monti give statements but take no questions. Given the sensitivity of the markets to Europe’s debt crisis, officials in France and Italy probably didn’t want to risk having an answer (or non-answer) to a question panic investors.
For more than two months, they were open-air communes where people came to rebuild society and start a nationwide discussion on how to close the wide gap between the rich and the poor. But as Occupy Wall Street tent cities fade away, a growing number of protesters are pushing to put a clear message ahead of the movement.
Alan Collinge has his list ready _ return bankruptcy protection to student loans. Bring back regulations that were removed from the Glass-Steagall Act. End corporate personhood.
“They should come up with a short term list of no brainer agenda items,” said Collinge, wearing a huge sign in the rain at New York’s Zuccotti Park calling for student loan reforms.
More than a dozen other protesters interviewed by The Associated Press also came up with a wish list of specifics to address what they say is corporate greed and economic inequality. The list of demands ranged from the simple _ get corporate money out of politics _ to the ethereal (make sure Washington politicians act with a moral conscience).
Asking Occupy protesters what, exactly, they would do to reform government and the financial system is a loaded question and a source of internal conflict. Collinge, 41, of Tacoma, Wash., said he has unsuccessfully lobbied Occupy’s general assembly meetings in New York to develop a strong platform, but has been rebuffed.
“A lot of people, they think that this should be sort of a catchall” for every issue, he said, the goal being to expose the economic problems in the country, not solve them.
Other cities’ movements have held meetings of committees with titles like “cohesive messaging” to discuss strategy, but haven’t agreed on listing specifics as a movement. The greater purpose isn’t to influence the government or the financial system through classic demands, but to foster broad cultural changes that will gradually empower people to stop depending on big corporations and Wall Street money.
“All the energy has gone into an outcry over economic conditions, with the hope that others will join us and pick up issues they care about,” says Bill Dobbs, press liaison for Occupy Wall Street in New York. “Our best hope is inspiring other people to take action to bring economic justice.”
Some observers and experts predict that Occupy groups may spend the next few months focusing on smaller actions while waiting for the summer when the Republican and Democratic conventions would give Occupiers a world-wide audience.
But ask around, and protesters who spent weeks living in encampments and talking about the country’s woes have a clear idea of what they want.
A number have called for limiting campaign donations and getting big money out of politics. Some Occupy members want to limit the amount of money a person is allowed to give a politician. Others want to ban corporate donations specifically, or the number of campaign ads.
“How did Abraham Lincoln ever become president without a television set?” asked Ryan Peterson, an entertainment company worker from Chicago who lived for weeks in Zuccotti Park. Paul Lemaire, a 20-year-old visual arts student from Brooklyn, wants the two-party system eliminated.
The influence of money in politics is one of the greatest factors behind the gap between the superrich and the poor, said James Parrott, chief economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute in New York, which published a report last year on economic disparity. It shows “that they’re very focused in understanding the root causes” of the country’s economic issues, he said.
The call for tighter regulation of campaign contributions won’t gain traction anytime soon. The Supreme Court, in its landmark Citizens United decision in January 2010, cleared the way for corporations to spend unlimited funds to influence elections, often using money from anonymous donors paperless payday loans. The court struck down most of the so-called McCain-Feingold law that had set tight restrictions on such donations, arguing that government did not have the right to regulate political speech.
Campaign regulation, stopping wars that strain resources, halting corporate personhood _ the spending power given to corporations in the 2010 Supreme Court ruling _ and addressing higher education costs have emerged as key goals of the Occupy movement in Los Angeles. Organizers say they are now focusing on sharpening their objectives, as police moved in to shut down the two-month-old encampment this week.
“We’ve been collecting ideas, seeing what the priorities are, vetting and researching them,” said activist Suzanne O’Keeffe, a member of Occupy LA’s Demands & Objectives Committee.
Los Angeles member Mario Brito said the movement plans to pressure elected and bank officials for a moratorium on foreclosures, and said members would “occupy” bank lobbies, boardrooms and executives’ homes to force the action.
In Minneapolis, five members of the Occupy MN “Cohesive Messaging Committee” gathered to talk strategy this week at a downtown coffee shop, asking that people attending recent General Assembly meetings fill out cards expressing broad themes that were important to them. The group entered the cards into a spreadsheet and found economic justice, democracy, education and campaign finance reform as the common themes.
Collinge, an aerospace engineer who later founded a website about problems with student loans, lists the congressional bill he wants passed to return bankruptcy protections to student loans. The Depression-Era Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial banking from investment banking, is another named law cited at the top of protesters’ demands in cities across the country. Most of the restrictions that regulated the two forms of banking were repealed in 1999, and are blamed by many economists for contributing to the financial crisis in 2007.
Kalle Lasn, the co-founder of Adbusters, the Canadian magazine that helped ignite the Occupy movement, supports a 1 percent global “Robin Hood” tax on big financial transactions. Similar taxes and increases have been proposed for years, including the Obama administration’s “financial crisis responsibility fee” tax proposal of last year, intended to raise $90 billion over the next decade.
As individual protesters and movements fashion a platform, experts and organizers warned that defining the movement more broadly keeps everyone in and keeps responsibility in the hands of the power brokers.
“They’ve achieved a lot by having the open ended process that they’ve had so far,” said Parrott, the Fiscal Policy Institute’s chief economist. “They should be selective in that there are some people who are trying to glom onto the stage that they’ve created” with ideas that aren’t part of the main movement.
Will Birney, who left his job as a waiter in Westport, Ct., to join Occupy’s New York movement, has one wish, although it can’t be passed into law or regulated by the Treasury Department.
“I would instill a fair conscience, if people could look to morality,” said Birney, 26.
He knows he’s reaching, but says that’s the point of the movement.
“I’m not even thinking we’re going to get concrete solutions out of this,” he said. “All I want is a change.”
Police say three roadside bombs have killed six people at a market in central Baghdad at the beginning of a Muslim festival.
Officials said the bombs, planted on Sunday in different parts of the Iraqi capital’s Shorja market, killed afternoon vendors and afternoon shoppers buying goods for the Eid al-Adha feast.
Police officials said twenty-one people also were wounded. The casualties were confirmed by health officials. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media quick pay day loan.
Iraqi Shiites mark the beginning of the Eid on Monday, while Sunnis do so on Sunday.
Violence across Iraq has dropped dramatically, but deadly attacks still happen nearly everyday as the U.S. moves to withdraw all of its 33,000 troops from Iraq by the end of the year.
Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc. said Thursday that it will cut the number of salaried workers at its cigarette business and related service subsidiaries by 15 percent as cigarette sales continue to decline industrywide.
The owner of the nation’s largest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, announced plans to trim $400 million in annualized costs by the end of 2013 as it reported quarterly earnings Thursday, which would include about $300 million in employee separation costs and additional reductions in spending.
Altria, based in Richmond, Va., would not say how many people would be impacted by the layoffs. The company said employees that will lose their jobs will be informed by mid-December and most will leave the company by late February. The reductions announced Thursday do not include hourly manufacturing workers.
Altria has 10,000 employees across the U.S., including about 4,600 in Virginia. Cigarettes make up the bulk of its business.
Cigarette volumes have declined annually by about 3 percent in recent years and have fallen significantly since a 62-cents-per-pack federal tax increase in 2009. Additional state tax hikes, smoking bans, health concerns and social stigma have made the cigarette business tougher. Consumers also face economic challenges, and unemployment remains high.
“One of the things that you’re going to have to do in this business is as volume declines … you have to take out cigarette-related infrastructure cost, in order to manage the business properly,” CEO Michael E. Szymanczyk said in a conference call with investors regarding the company’s third-quarter financial results. “You can’t carry infrastructure for a business that was originally designed for a bigger business. You have to continue to shrink it as the overall business shrinks.”
The number of cigarettes that Altria sold declined 9 percent in the third quarter to 33.3 billion cigarettes compared with a year ago, and the segment’s revenue during the quarter fell 6 percent to $3.64 billion, excluding excise taxes.
Tobacco companies like Altria have tried to offset declines in cigarette sales by reining in expenses and raising prices.
During the third quarter, Altria said it completed a multiyear cost savings program, exceeding its goal of reducing costs by $1.5 billion between 2007 and 2011. That program included the closure of its Cabarrus manufacturing facility in North Carolina in 2009.
Others in the industry also have made cost-cutting moves, including closing or consolidating factories and sales forces, and offering buyouts to some workers.
Efforts to reduce costs are commonplace for consumer goods companies in recent times, Edward Jones analyst Jack Russo said.
“Especially in developed markets such as the U.S. and Europe, it’s been very hard to grow for these consumer companies,” Russo said. “And when you can’t grow the top line, you’ve still got to grow profits in line with what Wall Street’s expecting, there’s only one way to do it, you’ve got to cut costs and headcount is part of that.”
An Australian court has temporarily banned Samsung from selling its new Galaxy tablet computer in the country, another setback for the South Korean electronics giant in a global patent battle with Apple Inc. that accuses it of slavishly copying the iPad and iPhone.
Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett on Thursday granted a temporary injunction against sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia. The decision prevents Samsung Electronics Co. from selling the device in Australia in its current form until a further court order, or until a pending patent lawsuit between the warring technology giants is resolved.
The ruling is a blow for Samsung, which had hoped to launch the new product in time for Christmas sales. It comes after courts in other countries including Germany and the Netherlands made judgments that upheld Apple’s claims that its intellectual property had been appropriated by Samsung.
The patent battle spanning 10 countries has underlined the perception of Samsung as an efficient imitator among technology companies rather than a pace setter. Over the years, the company has grown to become the global No. 1 in TVs and No. 2 in smartphones by sales. But unlike archrival Apple Inc., it has not mesmerized consumers with its originality and innovation.
In April, Cupertino, California-based Apple Inc. sued Samsung in the United States, alleging the product design, user interface and packaging of Samsung’s Galaxy devices “slavishly copy” the iPhone and iPad.
Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung Electronics Co No teletrack payday loans. fought back with lawsuits of its own, accusing Apple of patent infringement of its wireless telecommunications technology.
Apple filed the Australian lawsuit in July, accusing Samsung of copying its touch screen technology. In her ruling Thursday, Bennett said she was granting the temporary injunction in part because she felt Apple had a sufficient likelihood of winning the trial against Samsung.
The judge’s full orders will not be published until Friday. It was not immediately clear whether Samsung could _ or would _ attempt to sell a variation of the device that removed the features Apple objected to in the Australian lawsuit.
“We are disappointed with this ruling and Samsung will be seeking legal advice on its options,” Samsung said in a statement. “Samsung will continue its legal proceeding against Apple’s claim in order to ensure our innovative products remain available to consumers.”
Samsung, which filed its Australian countersuit in September, said it remained confident it could prove Apple violated its wireless technology patents.
“We will continue to legally assert our intellectual property rights against those who violate Samsung’s patents and free ride on our technology,” the company said in a statement.
An attorney for Apple declined to comment after the hearing.
Oswald Gruebel, the chief executive of UBS, has dismissed calls for his resignation as politically motivated, even as the Swiss banking giant raised its estimated loss by a rogue trader to $2.3 billion.
UBS AG had previously put the loss at $2 billion when news of the scandal first broke Thursday.
In a bid to reassure investors, the Zurich-based bank said Sunday it has “now covered the risk resulting from the unauthorized trading” and its equities business “is again operating normally within its previously defined risk limits.”
UBS also confirmed for the first time that the trader, 31-year-old Kweku Adoboli, was already under investigation by the bank when he revealed his actions to authorities Wednesday.
“The loss resulted from unauthorized speculative trading in various S&P 500, DAX, and EuroStoxx index futures over the last three months,” UBS said, adding that the magnitude of the bank’s risk exposure was hidden by fake trades.
Adoboli remains in custody in London, charged Friday with acts of fraud and false accounting dating back to 2008. His next court appearance is Thursday.
The fact that the fraud took place over three years raises serious questions about the bank’s ability to manage its risk. UBS said it has set up a special committee chaired by David Sidwell, the bank’s senior independent director, to investigate the incident.
But speaking for the first time since UBS revealed the loss Thursday, Gruebel told the Swiss weekly Der Sonntag that the loss couldn’t have been prevented.
“If someone acts with criminal energy, then you can’t do anything. That will always be the case in our business,” he said in the interview published Sunday.
But some Swiss politicians and commentators have called for Gruebel’s head to roll over the loss, which is likely to put UBS’s third-quarter results deep in the red. Such a move would signal defeat for the gravel-voiced German, who was brought in more than two years ago to revive the bank’s fortunes after a series of missteps that included vast losses in the U.S. subprime mortgage market and an embarrassing U.S. tax evasion case cash advance loans.
Gruebel told Der Sonntag that he has no intentions of resigning.
“I’m responsible for everything that happens at the bank,” Gruebel told the paper. “But if you ask me whether I feel guilty, then I would say no.”
Gruebel pledged to stamp out risky business practices at UBS when he came out of retirement in early 2009 to take the helm of Switzerland’s biggest bank. UBS had just suffered its biggest losses ever due to mistakes by the very investment unit that is now making headlines again, and had to take a $60 billion bailout from the Swiss government to stay afloat.
Swiss media on Sunday cited unnamed UBS board members saying the 67-year-old Gruebel retains the confidence of major shareholders, including the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. The sovereign wealth fund holds more than 6.4 percent of UBS’s stock, whose value dropped almost 10 percent following the announcement about the fraud.
Gruebel is expected to survive until at least Nov. 17, when he is presents investors with an update on the bank’s activities. Banking experts in Switzerland have suggested the investors day may be used to announce a downsizing or even a spin-off of the investment unit.
In a previous case of rogue trading causing massive losses, the chairman of French bank Societe Generale, Daniel Bouton, stepped down more than a year after the bank revealed that a single trader lost euro4.9 billion ($6.7 billion). Bouton said that repeated attacks on him were becoming a threat to the bank’s health.
So far, it is unclear who could even replace Gruebel.
The only name that has been mentioned is that of Sergio P. Ermotti, chief executive of the bank’s Europe, Middle East and Africa business. Promoting Ermotti would satisfy those who want to see a Swiss at the head of the country’s most important financial institution, to counterbalance incoming chairman Axel Weber, another German and a former president of Deutsche Bank.
Bank of America is slashing 30,000 jobs as part of an effort to reverse a crisis of confidence among investors. It’s the largest single job reduction by a U.S. company this year.
What CEO Brian Moynihan is trying to do is nothing less than save the nation’s largest bank. Investors have cut the bank’s market value by half this year. The bank is facing huge liabilities over soured mortgage investments and concerns over whether it has enough capital to withstand more financial shocks.
The cuts, which affect Bank of America’s consumer businesses, represent 10 percent of the Charlotte, N.C. bank’s work force. The bank said it hopes the cuts and other measures will result in $5 billion in annual savings by 2014. The bank has already cut 6,000 jobs this year. The bank also said it would look for cost savings at its other businesses in a six-month review that will begin next month.
“It’s as if someone has hit the panic button,” said Bert Ely, president of banking consultant Ely & Co.
Moynihan has been taking other steps to shore up the bank’s standing. Last week he shook up the bank’s top management ranks and has been selling parts of the company to raise cash. Last month Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. invested $5 billion in the company.
Moynihan has struggled to calm investors ever since he took the top job in January 2010. He is reversing the empire-building strategy of his predecessor, Ken Lewis, who stepped down amid controversy over the purchase of Merrill Lynch during the financial crisis. Lewis also engineered the ill-fated acquisition of Countrywide Financial Corp., then the country’s largest mortgage lender, which has led to heavy financial losses, lawsuits and regulatory probes.
Moynihan is now taking a knife to the company, hoping to shrink it down to a more manageable size even if it means losing the bragging rights of being the nation’s largest bank. “We don’t have to be the biggest company out there,” said Moynihan.
Bank of America’s stock has lost 48 percent this year, largely because of problems related to poorly-written mortgages at Countrywide. Just in the first half of the year the bank paid out $12 payday loan companies.7 billion to settle claims from investors that it sold them securities backed by faulty mortgages.
Some investors and analysts worry that the job cuts will lead to poor customer service and the bank will lose market share to rivals at a time when there are signs that the economy is slowing down. They also wonder if the job cuts are enough to produce the profits the bank needs to overcome the spiraling costs from its mortgage business.
“There is a fair amount of skepticism on Wall Street, and Brian is doing as much as he can do in the face of a worsening economy,” said Nancy Bush, an analyst and contributing editor at SNL Financial, a research firm.
The bank’s stock was down for most of the afternoon but rose along with the overall market to close up 7 cents, or 1 percent, at $7.05.
The job cuts follow a revamp of the bank’s top management team last week. Two senior executives, wealth management head Sallie Krawcheck and head of consumer banking Joe Price, left the bank. The bank also elevated commercial banking chief David Darnell and investment banking head Tom Montag to co-chief operating officers, reporting to Moynihan.
Bank of America is seen as one of the most bloated banks in the industry. The payroll cuts will bring its work force in line with some of its key rivals. JPMorgan Chase & Co. had 250,000 workers at the end of the second quarter.
“Financial companies have already been cutting for a few months now. He’s a little late to the game already,” said Walter Todd, a portfolio manager at Greenwood Capital, which owns Bank of America preferred shares.
The cuts are the largest by a U.S. employer this year, according to the outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Merck & Co. said this year it would cut 13,000 jobs. Bank of America’s cuts are the largest since the Postal Service announced 30,000 job cuts last year. General Motors Co. cut 47,000 jobs in 2009.