Financial thoughts

A Samsung unit is raising the ante in a patent dispute with a German rival over energy-saving LED lighting amid intensifying legal disputes among global companies jockeying for supremacy in key consumer technologies.

Samsung LED Co. said Sunday that it has asked the United States International Trade Commission to bar products of Osram GmbH and two units from entering the U.S.

Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung LED said it also filed a lawsuit in a U.S. district court in the state of Delaware alleging infringement of its LED patents, seeking unspecified damages.

Samsung LED is targeting Osram, Osram Opto Semiconductors and Osram Sylvania Inc. in the actions. Munich-based Osram GmbH is a unit of German industrial engineering giant Siemens AG. Osram Sylvania is Osram’s North American operation, based in Danvers, Massachusetts.

Last month, Samsung LED sued Osram Korea Co. and two local companies that sell its products in South Korea in retaliation for what is said were suits by Osram at the USITC, in the Delaware court and in Germany.

“Samsung LED intends to vigorously enforce its intellectual property rights, and these lawsuits reflect Samsung LED’s commitment to that enforcement,” the company said in a release.

Osram could not immediately be reached for comment.

Samsung LED is alleging infringement of eight patents covering what it calls “core” LED technologies used in products such as lighting, automobiles, projectors, mobile phone screens and TVs.

Semiconductor-based LEDs, or light emitting diodes, are becoming increasingly popular for their durability and energy-saving capability.

Samsung LED also suggested it could expand the scope of the USITC case pay day loan lenders.

“As new information becomes available it will continue to evaluate the potential to add additional parties who may be importing, using or selling the accused Osram LEDs in the U.S. market,” the company said in the release.

Samsung LED was established in 2009 as a joint venture between Samsung Electronics Co. and Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co.

Such complaints and lawsuits are common in the global technology industry and seldom lead to market disruptions as disputes take months or years to resolve and typically end with payments of licensing fees rather than any import bans.

Still, they highlight the intensity of competition in which technological advantage can give companies a key edge in attracting consumers.

Rochester, New York-based Eastman Kodak Co. has an ongoing patent dispute over photo technology at the USITC with Apple Inc. of Cupertino, California, and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. of Waterloo, Canada.

Samsung companies are taking an aggressive stance in global technology patent wars.

Samsung Electronics is embroiled in multiple complaints and lawsuits with Apple Inc. over smartphone and tablet technology. Separately, Samsung and Taiwan’s AU Optronics Corp. have launched legal actions against each other over alleged patent infringement in liquid crystal displays.

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Associated Press writer Debby Wu in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to this report.

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The firm that launched a proxy battle at Research In Motion Ltd. says it is riding a wave of investor discontent over the cozy corporate structure that combines the roles of chief executive and board chair at publicly traded companies.

NEW YORK — Real estate experts in New York City say the market for five-figure rentals is strong.

They tell The New York Times that some well-heeled Manhattan residents are still skittish about buying real estate. They’d prefer to pay hefty rent.

In fact, Rado Varchola, a senior vice-president at Citi Habitats, says it can be easier to market high-priced rentals than those in the lower brackets.

Among other things, he’s offering a 2,700-square-foot, four-bedroom apartment on East 77th Street.

The monthly rent? A mere $18,000.

That’s cheap when compared to the city’s most expensive rental — a mansion on East 80th Street, near Central Park.

It’s listed for — buckle your seat belt — $210,000 a month.

It’s also for sale at $90 million.

Here’s a look at three of the more expensive properties in Manhattan:

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World stock markets mostly fell Friday amid more evidence the U.S. economy is sputtering as investors turned their focus to a key monthly jobs report.

Oil prices dropped below $100 a barrel. In currencies, the dollar rose against the euro and was down against the yen after Moody’s warned that it might put the U.S. government’s credit rating under review for a possible downgrade.

Meanwhile, many investors were girding for the monthly U.S. employment report, which will be released later Friday and show whether the economy’s soft patch translated into less hiring in May.

In early European trading, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 0.2 percent to 5,861.01 while Germany’s DAX was up 0.6 percent to 7,116.90. The CAC-40 in France was 0.4 percent higher at 3,903.93.

U.S. stocks were poised to fall. Dow Jones futures were down 0.3 percent at 12,248.55 while S&P 500 futures were down 0.2 percent to 1,309.30.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index was down 0.7 percent to close at 9,492.21. Shares of Sony Corp. fell 0.6 percent after the company launched a probe into claims of another massive data breach.

Hackers claimed to have pulled off what they described as an elementary attack to highlight weaknesses in Sony’s security. In Tokyo on Friday, the company said it was looking into the claims but did not elaborate.

Sony Corp. is already facing questions over why it did not inform consumers more quickly after a cyberattack in April targeted credit card information through its PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment network, compromising more than 100 million user accounts worldwide.

Elsewhere, South Korea’s Kospi was 0.7 percent lower to end at 2,113.47, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tumbled 1.3 percent to finish at 22,949.56.

Analysts said a myriad of data pointing to slowing economic conditions globally _ particularly sluggish growth in Chinese manufacturing and a stubborn downturn in real estate and jobs in the U.S. _ is causing pessimism among investors.

First-time applications for U.S. unemployment benefits, an indication of how many people are losing their jobs, fell slightly last week to 422,000. But that was still well above the 375,000 level that signals that the economy is adding jobs.

“Job creation figures in the U.S. were way below expectations. That was the trigger,” said Francis Lun, a Hong Kong-based analyst. “That caused the mini-crash this week.”

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index shed 0.4 percent to 4,583.10, with mining shares sustaining more losses as expectations grew of a global economic slowdown that would crimp demand for metals and materials. BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company, lost 0.7 percent. Rival Rio Tinto fell 0.4 percent. Energy Resources of Australia Ltd. toppled 2.3 percent.

Mainland Chinese shares advanced as investors snapped up bargains following recent selloffs.

The Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.8 percent to 2,728.02 while the Shenzhen Composite Index rose 1.7 percent to 1,124.32.

“Today’s gain is technical. Inflation persists and credit tightening moves will continue for sure at least in the second half of the year,” said Liu Kan, an analyst at Guoyuan Securities, based in Shanghai. However, I do not think slower economic growth is bad. Actually, at around 8 percent, it is good for China.”

China’s economy has been growing at a rate of around 10 percent but Beijing has vowed to pursue a more sustainable pace of growth.

Mainland markets will be closed Monday for a national holiday.

On Wall Street on Thursday, weaker than expected sales reports from retailers and the large number of claims for unemployment benefits left stocks with a mixed finish _ and added to worries that the U.S. economic recovery was stalling.

In recent days, economists have sharply reduced their expectations for hiring in May. Nomura Securities now projects a gain of 85,000, down from 175,000 earlier this week. The consulting firm High Frequency Economics cut its estimate to only 50,000, from an earlier target of 200,000.

Those figures are much lower than average job gains of about 230,000 in the past three months, the strongest hiring spree in five years.

Meanwhile, Moody’s Investors Service warned that it could downgrade the U.S. government’s credit rating if Congress and the Obama administration don’t agree to raise the country’s borrowing limit. U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has told Congress that without an increase in the $14.3 trillion debt limit by Aug. 2, the government will be forced into its first-ever default, with potentially catastrophic results for the economy.

Benchmark oil for July delivery fell 65 cents to $99.74 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract added 11 cents to settle at $100.40 on Thursday.

The euro fell to $1.4477 from $1.4482 while the dollar was down to 80.63 yen from 80.84 yen late Thursday in New York.

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Researcher Fu Ting in Shanghai contributed.

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Chris Housand dumped his job as a forklift operator in January to seek skills that would make him valuable over a lifetime.

“Being 22 and with two kids and a wife I had a lot of weight on my shoulders,” said the Tarboro, North Carolina, resident. Warehouse work “was pretty much a dead-end job.”

He enrolled in electrical-lineman school at Nash Community College in nearby Rocky Mount. After graduation on May 6, he was hired into a four-month paid internship program that holds the promise of a permanent position, at a time when 16.1 percent of men in his age group are jobless.

Housand is catching a wave of demographic change that’s likely to benefit younger workers. A generational replacement cycle is taking hold as companies such as General Electric Co. (GE), Norfolk Southern Corp. (NSC), Boeing Co. (BA), American Electric Power Co. Inc. and Dominion Resources Inc. all try to hire skilled younger staff to prepare for a wave of retiring workers.

“Firms will increasingly find that the outflows of retiring workers are bigger than the inflows of younger workers,” said Nicole Maestas, a labor economist at the RAND Corporation, a Santa Monica, California-based policy group paydayloans. “Nobody is immune to these basic demographic facts.”

GE doubled its U.S. college hiring program to 1,278 in 2010. The world’s biggest maker of jet engines, gas turbines, and medical-imaging equipment scouts some 40 U.S. universities to replenish its pipeline of engineers and future managers and spends $300,000 per student in its two-year trainee program.

‘Big Swings’

“We can afford to take some big swings, and investing in people and growing talent is what we do best,” said Steven Canale, manager of global recruiting and staffing for Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE. “The workforce is getting older.”

The median age for the U.S. population climbed to a record 37.2 in 2010, according to the Census Bureau, and the workforce in several industries is even older.

The median age in aerospace manufacturing was 47.9 in 2010, meaning half the workforce in Boeing’s industry was older than that; in electrical power generation it was 45.4; and in rail transportation it was 46.5, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Norfolk Southern let its staff shrink through attrition and retirement during the recession that began in December 2007. The economy has since expanded for seven quarters, and demand for natural resources and exports has snapped back.

Coal Facility

The Norfolk, Virginia based railroad, which owns the largest coal-export facility in the northern hemisphere, hired 2,800 people last year and has plans to hire 4,000 this year, according to Cindy Earhart, vice president of human resources.

One goal is to rebuild the ranks of young managers. The company is seeking about 300 college graduates to replace the 6 percent of 4,800 managers who will retire this year.

Companies such as Dominion Resources in Richmond, Virginia, are also looking for young “gray-collar” workers for jobs that require both physical ability and technical knowledge. Matt Kellam, supervisor in charge of strategic staffing at Dominion, says finding a supply of linemen and engineers is a priority.

“A good number of our lineman are 45 years and older,” Kellam said, adding that community college graduates and military veterans can provide the company with the skilled technicians it needs.

The firm has about 48 people in its lineman training program. Starting salaries are about $33,000 in the industry, Kellam said, and can rise to $80,000 or more with overtime for a journeyman.

Dropout Rates

At Nash Community College, instructor Bob Schubauer says about 30 students enroll in his lineman classes each semester. Rigorous climbing in the rain, cold and heat, and demanding engineering math, usually cut that number by two-thirds by the time his 16-week certification program is over.

In an 8:30 a.m. class, Schubauer barks orders to his students after he asks them to diagram an electrical network on the white board.

“I don’t want any confusion, I don’t want any assumptions. I want these diagrams to speak for themselves,” he says. “I don’t want to see any inconsistencies.”

Housand approaches the board and begins to draw how he would configure a bank of three transformers to go from high to usable voltage. Some of the diagrams the students draw involve about two dozen calculations.

Schubauer wants the students to know the theory behind what they are handling even though most linemen head into the field with detailed plans. The cost of a mistake is blown transformer, a power outage, injury or death, he said.

Cold Climbing

An hour later, Housand and his classmates are cinching a BuckSqueeze, a climbing belt made by Buckingham Manufacturing Co. in Binghamton, New York, around 40-foot poles, then inchworming their way up. His internship at the City of Rocky Mount lasts for 16 weeks. Four other classmates also found work.

“It is very reasonable to expect, if we have an opening, for Chris Housand to be hired unless another applicant has a lot more experience,” said Darryl Strother, Rocky Mount’s electric superintendent.

Housand worked at a cotton gin right out of high school. Now, he calls himself a “linegineer,” his term for a job that requires physical stamina and engineering knowledge.

“We do not have a labor shortage in America, we have a skill shortage,” said Boeing’s Stephens. “The key is will there be enough people to meet our needs?”

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Pulaski Financial Corp.’s profit for the second quarter, $1.1 million, or 5 cents per share, improved from a loss of $4.3 million, or 47 cents a share a year ago, due to lower credit costs and higher net income. Pulaski Financial, the Creve Coeur-based holding company for Pulaski Bank, cited lower credit costs for the improvement in the second quarter that ended March 31, as delinquencies on commercial and residential loans in its portfolio declined.

Net interest income rose 4 percent for the second quarter, to $11.5 million, compared with a year ago.

The bank also reported a slowdown in its mortgage banking operations as the increase in market interest rates during the quarter dampened loan demand.

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France’s foreign minister says NATO should be doing more to take out heavy weaponry targeting civilians in Libya.

Alain Juppe says NATO’s actions are “not enough.” He says NATO should be firing on the weapons used by Moammar Gadhafi’s forces to target civilians in the rebel-held city of Misrata.

Juppe spoke on France-Info radio Tuesday, the day after Libyan rebels rejected a cease-fire proposal by African mediators because it did not insist that Moammar Gadhafi relinquish power low fee payday advance.

Juppe says, “NATO has to play its role in full. NATO wanted to take the military command of the operations.”

He also urged the European Union to do more to get humanitarian aid to Misrata.

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Hundreds of thousands are holding rallies across Yemen to protest against the killing of dozens of anti-government demonstrators during a two-month-old uprising.

About 100,000 marched Saturday in the city of Taiz, were four protesters were killed and about 400 injured Friday. Protesters blamed the local governor, chief of security and leader of the ruling party for the deaths.

More than 120 people have been killed since protests against Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, began Feb payday advance lenders. 11.

Meanwhile, tensions are rising between Yemen and Qatar, and Yemen recalled its ambassador to the Gulf nation. Qatar is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council which has proposed Saleh hand power to his deputy in return for immunity from prosecution.

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South Korea’s won rose, reversing earlier losses, as gains in the stock market helped offset concern rising oil prices will slow global economic growth.

The benchmark Kospi stock index advanced for a fourth day as neighboring Japan had some success cooling reactors at the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant. The U.S., U.K. and France launched cruise missiles and airstrikes at targets in Libya at the weekend, spurring renewed speculation oil supplies may be disrupted.

“Stocks are up; that’s why the Korean won is gaining a little bit,” said Ko Yun Jin, a currency trader at Kookmin Bank in Seoul. “We are looking at two things: Japan and the Middle East for financial stability, not only for the Korean won but also the global markets.”

The won advanced 0.2 percent to 1,124.80 per dollar at the 3 p.m. close in Seoul, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It earlier fell as much as 0.2 percent today. Crude rose 2 percent to $103.13 per barrel in New York.

Foreign investors bought more Korean stocks that they sold for a third day, according to exchange data. Using a helicopter with infrared equipment, officials determined that the pools atop the Japanese nuclear plant’s six reactors were below 100 degrees Celsius (212 Fahrenheit), the boiling point of water, Japan Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said.

Ten-year government bonds fell for a fourth day, with the yield on the 5 percent note due June 2020 increasing four basis points, or 0.04 percentage point, to 4.50 percent, according to prices from Korea Stock Exchange.

South Korea sold 1.6 trillion won ($1.4 billion) of 10-year notes at a yield of 4.5 percent at an auction today, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said. Investors bid to buy 5.84 trillion won of treasuries, or 3.65 times the amount on offer, the ministry said on its website.

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European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet indicated the bank still plans to raise interest rates next month, saying he doesn’t want to change his message on the need to contain inflation.

“I have nothing to add, nothing to withdraw,” Trichet told reporters today in Frankfurt when asked if policy makers are still in a posture of strong vigilance, ECB code words for an imminent rate increase. “No new message at all,” he said.

Trichet took investors by surprise earlier this month when he announced the ECB may raise its benchmark rate from a record low of 1 percent in April. Since a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami rocked Japan on March 11, triggering a nuclear crisis that threatens to erode confidence on financial markets and hurt economic growth, investors have pared bets on higher ECB rates.

“The potential impact of the earthquake and aftermath is something we will be thinking deeply about in the coming days,” Trichet said.

Euribor futures and German two-year notes extended declines and the euro advanced after Trichet’s comments free business cards.

The yield on the Euribor futures contract expiring in December jumped nine basis points to 2.03 percent as of 4:15 p.m. in London. The two-year German note yield was also nine basis points higher at 1.66 percent.

Euro-area inflation accelerated to 2.4 percent last month and has exceeded the ECB’s 2 percent limit since December.

“We are extremely attentive to preserve the appropriate anchoring of inflation expectations,” Trichet said.

Crude oil prices rose to a 29-month high of close to $107 a barrel on March 7 as escalating violence in Libya renewed concern that supply disruptions may spread through the Middle East and North Africa. Oil traded as high as $103 a barrel today.

ECB policy makers are concerned about so-called second- round effects, when companies increase prices and boost wages to compensate for higher costs, entrenching faster inflation.

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