Financial thoughts

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.

Source

Looking for accurate and precise life insurance quotes that will help you choose the right policy? This is the site where you will find all life insuranceand senior life insurance.

Driven by growth in insurance services, outpatient medical care and physician services, operating income rose 13 percent or $130 million for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for the six-month period ending December 31, the hospital network announced on Friday.

During the same period, operating revenue rose $216 million to $4.062 billion for a 5.6 percent increase, while the operating margin for the health insurance and medical giant improved to 3.2 percent from 3 percent.

The system’s earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization were $326 million for the first half of the fiscal year, up from $292 million for the same period a year ago and on target to exceed $600 million for fiscal 2010.

The results were released during a difficult period for health care providers and as UPMC’s cost of providing free care and contributions to the community rise, said CFO Robert DeMichiei. UPMC’s cost of charity care rose 16 percent to $518 million from 2007 to 2008, the most recent period data were available.

Key metrics for the six-month period include insurance services, up 8 percent to more than 1.4 million members; outpatient revenue, up 5 percent; and physician services, up 11 percent. During the same period, UPMC’s $3 billion investment portfolio gained $228 million, for a return of 11.8 percent, said Treasurer C. Talbot Heppenstall. UPMC reported a loss of $786 million for the same period a year ago.

Separately, UPMC’s pending $1.175 billion bond refinancing will be used to substitute fixed for variable rate debt and lower interest costs, Heppenstall said. Allegheny County Councilman Charles McCullough has been in court seeking to stop the refinancing because of UPMC’s decision to close Braddock Hospital Jan. 31, but Heppenstall predicted the litigation would not be a factor.

The biggest challenges may be ahead for UPMC and other hospitals, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

In a report released last month, Moody’s maintained its negative outlook for the nonprofit health care industry overall. The outlook was revised to negative from stable in Nov. 2008 based on credit market problems.

“Over the next 12 to 18 months, we believe the relative abilities of different not-for-profit hospital management and governance teams will become more apparent as they face one of the toughest environments in decades,” the report stated.

Source

Compare and purchase low cost car insurance rates from multiple auto insurance companies immediately online.

As Toyota’s gas pedal recall expands into Europe, the carmaker says it has a fix for cars there and that one will be coming soon to drivers in the United States.

A Toyota spokesman has said that the carmaker is very close to announcing a solution to the issue for cars here in the U.S.

Toyota still needs to get regulatory approval for a proposed repair in the U.S. and in Europe before a fix can be made.

The recall is to correct a problem that could cause the gas pedal, as it ages and becomes worn, to stick partway down under certain circumstances. Toyota recalled 2.3 million vehicles in the U.S. for this problem this week, although no repair procedure had yet been put in place.

The European recall involves eight different models, several of them not sold here. The precise number of vehicles involved in that recall is still under investigation but it could be as many as 1.8 million, Toyota said in a statement.

The gas pedal recall is separate from an earlier one, begun in November to fix a problem in which the gas pedal can become caught on the edge of the removable floormat.

The floormat recall was recently expanded so that it now covers a total of 5.3 million vehicles.

In many cases, the same vehicles are involved in both recalls. It was not immediately clear how many different vehicles, in total, are part of the two actions. 

Source

AWARDS

Communications and marketing agency Brighton won first place in the National Agri-Marketing Association’s Gateway Region competition for its work developing cottoncommunity.com, a social marketing site for cotton farmers.

Law firm Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP received the Legal Employer Diversity Recognition Award from the Black Law Students Association at Washington University.

EXPANDING
Maryland Heights-based Tagg Logistics is opening a new office in Reno, Nev., for distribution and packaging services.

Overland-based Clayco Inc., a real estate development, design and construction company, is opening a full service office in the Minneapolis area this year.

HELPING OUT

Ford Motor Co. and local Ford dealers raised $38,140 for St. Louis area schools through the "Drive One 4 UR School" program.

The Moneta Group Charitable Foundation donated $42,500 to area charities during 2009, bringing its total charitable donations during the past decade to more than $700,000.

St. Louis-based law firm Armstrong Teasdale LLP gave $2,878 to the American Red Cross after a "dress down" fundraising event.

OPENINGS

The Moore Law Firm LLC opened an office.

— 1001 Boardwalk Springs Place

Suite 111

O’Fallon, Mo. 63368

Phone: 636-887-5297

PROJECTS

Belleville-based Holland Construction Services Inc. is building a major expansion of Eckert’s Country Store and Restaurant in Belleville. The $5 million project, scheduled for completion later this year, will include a new store, an expansion of the Eckert’s Country Restaurant, more parking and a new outdoor plaza.

Edwardsville-based Contegra Construction Co. has completed a 42,500-square-foot, $2.5 million John Deere dealership in Scott City, Mo., for Wm. Nobbe and Co..

RECOGNITION

Don Downing, a principal in Gray, Ritter & Graham PC, was selected as a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

The Media Financial Management Association named Larry Rubin, partner-in-charge of Clayton-based RubinBrown’s media and entertainment services group, one of its People to Watch for 2010.

St. Louis-based Energizer Holdings Inc. and its partner Universal Power Group Inc. received Popular Mechanics magazine’s 2010 Editor’s Choice Award for the new Energizer All-in-One Auto Charger.

Source

Federal Reserve officials are more confident the U.S. economy is moving toward self-sustaining growth, giving urgency to discussions about the tactics and timing of an exit from record-low interest rates.

Kansas City Fed Bank President Thomas Hoenig said Jan. 11 the central bank should end purchases of mortgage-backed securities because the market is “healing.” Philadelphia Fed Bank President Charles Plosser said the next day that the recovery is “sustainable even as the fiscal and monetary stimulus programs eventually wind down.”

Policy makers are still studying ways to drain $1 trillion in excess cash from the financial system and debating how to signal a rate increase that economists say is at least 10 months away. The first test of their exit strategy will come in March, when the Fed’s purchases of $1.25 trillion of mortgage-backed securities are scheduled to end.

“They’ll tell themselves the unusual support is no longer necessary, the recovery is self-sustaining,” said Vincent Reinhart, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington who served as director of the Fed’s Division of Monetary Affairs under Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. “Deep down, they probably also believe they have the option of starting up again.”

A government report yesterday showed business inventories rose more than forecast in November as companies tried to keep up with a jump in sales. Fed officials are watching to see if inventory restocking sparks gains in jobs and incomes that will boost spending, leading to further increases in hiring.

Rate Forecast

The Fed will keep its target for overnight lending among banks unchanged through September and raise it by half a point in the fourth quarter, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists. Policy makers, who have kept the benchmark rate near zero since December 2008, next meet Jan. 26-27.

The world’s largest economy will expand 2.7 percent this year, the best performance in four years, the Bloomberg survey showed. Consumer purchases will grow 2 percent, up from a December estimate of 1.8 percent and the first gain since 2007, according to the median forecast of 60 economists.

Macroeconomic Advisors LLC, a St. Louis-based forecasting firm, says the economy probably expanded at a 5.5 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter, the fastest in more than five years.

Demand will be partly driven by business investment and exports, their forecast shows. Consumption should be supported by household wealth as stocks climb and housing prices steady. The Standard and Poor’s 500 Index is up 36 percent over the past year.

Consumer Spending

“The drag on consumer spending from rapid declines in wealth has gone away,” said Ben Herzon, an economist at Macroeconomic Advisers. “Demand will pick up.”

Reports today indicated the recovery is being sustained into 2010 without generating inflation. Industrial production climbed 0.6 percent in December, the sixth straight increase, the Fed said. Consumer prices rose 0.1 percent last month, less than forecast by economists, according to the Labor Department.

The Fed’s Beige Book business survey released Jan. 13 signaled the recovery is broadening, with 10 of the Fed’s 12 district banks reporting an improvement last month. Home sales increased toward the end of last year in most Fed districts, the report showed, and manufacturing improved or held steady while the labor market and loan demand remained weak short term personal loan.

Housing Stabilizes

Fed purchases of mortgage-backed securities have helped stabilize the housing market, which was at the epicenter of the financial crisis, by pushing down borrowing costs for home buyers. Government tax credits also helped propel existing home sales to the highest level in almost three years in November.

Yields on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage securities are near the lowest relative to Treasuries in nearly two decades.

The difference between yields on Washington-based Fannie Mae’s current-coupon 30-year fixed-rate mortgage bonds and 10- year Treasuries stood at 0.69 percentage point Jan. 14, up from 0.65 percentage point on Jan. 6, which was the lowest since May 1992, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Central bankers, like private economists, expect some increase in mortgage rates as purchases of securities tail off.

“As our agency mortgage-backed securities purchases come to an end, we’ll probably see a little bit of upward pressure on interest rates,” New York Fed President William Dudley said on Jan. 13 in an interview with PBS Television’s Nightly Business Report. “But there’s a big debate about whether they’ll be small or medium or large. So I think we’ll have to wait and see.”

Mortgage Rates

Economists expect the rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage to rise 30 basis points after the Fed’s purchases end, according to the median of 39 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News between Jan. 5 and Jan. 12. The average rate on Jan. 14 was 5.06 percent, according to Freddie Mac.

Central bankers are likely to keep rates unchanged until they see convincing signs the rebound in manufacturing generates enough jobs and income to spur household demand and reduce unemployment that’s near a 26-year high.

The U.S. unexpectedly lost 85,000 jobs in December, and revisions showed payrolls increased in November for the first time in almost two years, a Labor Department report showed this month. The jobless rate stayed at 10 percent in December.

‘Accommodative’ Policy

Job growth “will not likely be rapid enough to put a large dent in the unemployment rate,” Fed Bank of Boston President Eric Rosengren said in a speech on Jan. 8. “This should allow for accommodative monetary policy to continue to support the economy until the underlying demand of consumers and businesses becomes self-sustaining.”

Rosengren like Hoenig is a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee this year.

Sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly fell 0.3 percent in December, a Commerce Department report showed yesterday. After- tax personal income adjusted for inflation was up 1.5 percent in the year ended in November, compared with an average 3.3 percent gain in the decade before the recession.

“Short-term rates are going to stay low for a considerable period of time,” the New York Fed’s Dudley said Jan. 13. The policy of keeping borrowing costs low could remain in place “at least six months,” Dudley said. “It could be a year from now, two years from now. It’s going to depend on how the economy develops.”

Source

National statistic agencies should have the same autonomy as central banks to avoid any attempts by government to influence economic data, said Enrico Giovannini, chairman of the Italy’s national statistics institute.

“Both the legal and financial independence of statistics should be guaranteed, as is the case for central banks,” Giovannini, 52, said in an interview. “Otherwise, there may always be ways to choke a statistics institute, such as cutting its funding, something which can’t happen with a central bank.”

For more than a quarter-century, independent central banks have been able to take painful and politically unpopular measures such as raising interest rates to restrain inflation. In the euro region, the European Central Bank and national central banks are banned by law to take or seek instructions from governments of the EU member states.

Officials in the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have repeatedly asked data agencies to stop spreading bad economic news and have questioned Istat’s methodology. In a June 24 speech, before Giovannini’s appointment, Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti criticized the Rome-based institute’s methods for measuring unemployment, saying the survey overestimated joblessness.

Giovannini was chief statistician for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for eight years before taking over the Italian agency in July. He said that Italy should consider legislating the independence of the statistics agency as part of a debate on constitutional reforms.

Revisions of Greek economic data in October that showed the economy had been in recession for more than a year, rather than expanding as initially reported, demonstrate the urgency for statistics agencies to be autonomous, he said.

“The current practices are apparently not sufficient and need to be strengthened further,” Giovannini said. The “institutionalization of statistics should be aimed not so much at increasing technical reliability, but in raising the integrity and independence from political pressures.”

The credibility of Greece’s data had been previously questioned after revisions to budget deficit numbers. The European Commission in 2004 launched an investigation into Greece’s deficit after a revision of data revealed that, contrary to previous indications, the shortfall had exceeded the EU’s 3 percent of output ceiling ever since the country switched to the euro.

“The Greek case is unfortunately a repeat of what happened in 2004, when deficit and debt figures were questioned to the point that the European Commission established a code of good practice for official data,” Giovannini said. “This took place again despite the efforts put in place then by the EU’s statistics office Eurostat to monitor the Greek data.”

Greece’s credibility was further damaged by the government revising forecasts. Within weeks of the October elections, Prime Minister George Papandreou’s new government, said the 2009 budget deficit would be an EU-high of 12.7 percent of economic output, about twice the outgoing government’s prediction. The revision contributed to Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings cutting the country’s creditworthiness, which sent Greek bonds and stocks tumbling this month.

Giovannini replaced Luigi Biggeri as Istat chairman in July.

Source

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.

Source

Once the world’s online search leader, Yahoo’s share has sharply declined, putting it in danger of losing its relevance in a market increasingly dominated by Google.

Yahoo’s search market share in November fell to 17.5% from 18% in October, according to a monthly comScore report released late Wednesday. It’s the lowest share ever recorded for Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500).

Cannibalizing Yahoo’s market share is Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), whose new Bing search site gained 0.4 points of the search market to 10.3% in November. That was the first time Microsoft owned more than 10% of the market since September 2007.

Despite that good news, it’s really a mixed blessing of sorts for Microsoft, which entered into a search deal with Yahoo that is expected to start in the next several months. When the deal was announced in July, analysts largely praised the marriage, since the companies held a combined 28% of the market — close to the 30% that experts say is needed to convince advertisers that a company is a relevant competitor in a marketplace.

Since the July announcement, "Microhoo" has gone in the wrong direction. The companies’ combined share has taken a 0.4-point hit, as Yahoo’s share has fallen by 1.8 points, outpacing Bing’s 1.4-point gain.

"They’re still going to be a viable No. 2 behind Google, but less so than they expected," said Daniel Ruby, research director at search-advertising firm Chitika, Inc. "Everyone is surprised by the fact that Yahoo has lost such a significant amount of traffic. Thirty percent seems like a very long shot."

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) grew its share by 0.9 points since July to take 65.6% of the search market in November. That’s the largest share Google has ever garnered.

Meanwhile, Yahoo has lost share for 10-straight months. As the closing date nears for the search rivals’ deal, some say Yahoo is reaching a tipping point that could make or break the value of its partnership high risk personal loans.

The devil is in the details

Under the 10-year agreement, Microsoft will power the searches that users make on Yahoo.com. In return, Microsoft will pay Yahoo 88% of the revenue it gains from searches on Yahoo’s sites. Yahoo.com and Bing.com will maintain their own branding but search results on Yahoo.com will say "powered by Bing."

"There is no getting around the fact that the market share trend for Yahoo is absolutely awful," said Benjamin Schachter, analyst for Broadpoint AmTech. "The Microsoft deal does not guarantee any search revenue, only revenue-per-search levels; therefore, search share and volume are as critical as ever."

Still, another school of thought says not all is lost for Yahoo.

Both Yahoo and Microsoft have poured millions of dollars into advertising campaigns to get users to come to their Web sites. Yahoo’s new "It’s Y!ou" campaign has been plastered all over billboards and television spots. Microsoft just launched its new highly publicized Bing iPhone App on Tuesday.

As a result, some advertisers believe users who search on those sites are more likely to indulge a sales pitch and therefore are more likely to click on their ads than Google’s users.

"Microsoft and Yahoo offer quality versus quantity," said Ruby. "The traffic they drive is more valuable than Google’s in some advertisers’ eyes, because their users are going to be delivering higher margins."

So even as Google continues to gain share at "Microhoo’s" expense, Yahoo and Microsoft live on to fight for high-quality searchers as a way to stay relevant. 

Source

Social gaming leader Zynga Inc. has taken $180 million in capital from various investors, with the largest portion coming from the Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies, which this year also made a $300 million investment in Facebook Inc.

Others in the round included new investors Andreessen Horowitz and Tiger Global and existing investor Institutional Ventures Partners. Previous investors include Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, Union Square Ventures, Foundry Group and Avalon Ventures.

A portion of the new capital will be used to fuel Zynga’s growth and the rest will provide liquidity for employees and investors, Zynga said in a press release saving account payday loan.

Founded in 2007, San Francisco-based Zynga has grown at a spectacular rate with games including FarmVille, Café World, Zynga Poker, Mafia Wars, YoVille, FishVille and the new PetVille, currently the fastest growing social game online.

Zynga’s games are available on social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Friendster and Tagged, as well as on Yahoo and the iPhone.

Source

U.S. auto sales edged higher in November, led by an outsized gain for Hyundai Motor Co and mixed results for rivals in a trend automakers said pointed to a grudging recovery in the U.S. economy.

Hyundai posted a 46 percent gain in sales for November and said it was on track to take a 4 percent share of the U.S. auto market this year, up by a third at a time when the rest of the industry has been reeling. The Korean carmaker benefited from a recent marketing push and lineup of fuel-efficient cars.

Toyota Motor Corp, the world’s largest automaker and the best-selling brand in the U.S. market, saw a rise of nearly 3 percent in November sales.

Nissan Motor Co Ltd, the No. 6 automaker in the United States, reported a nearly 21 percent increase in sales. Honda Motor Co Ltd sales were off nearly 3 percent.

As a group, U.S. automakers lost share during the month, with Ford Motor Co distancing itself again from domestic rivals General Motors Co and Chrysler.

Ford posted flat sales while Chrysler, now under management control of Italy’s Fiat SpA, said sales fell 25 percent from the same month a year earlier. GM’s sales fell 2 percent.

Ford, the only U.S. automaker to have avoided a taxpayer-funded restructuring in bankruptcy, set a sharply higher target for North American production in the first quarter. It expects production to rise 58 percent from the previous year when it had cut back output as the auto market slid toward its weakest level since the early 1980s.

“It appears that the economy and the auto sales have stabilized and that the worst is behind us,” Ford U.S. sales chief Ken Czubay told a conference call.

Separately, GM’s CEO, Fritz Henderson, will leave the automaker, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The planned departure comes after a meeting of GM’s 13-member board of directors in Detroit.

SALES QUAGMIRE

U.S. auto sales results were pushed lower by a quirk in the calendar. November had only 23 selling days for dealerships — two fewer than the same month a year earlier.

On the adjusted and annualized basis tracked by industry planners and analysts, the U.S. auto market came just short of a sales rate of 11 million units in November. That is up from 10.4 million a year ago and in line with analyst estimates.

Results confirmed the industry is on the mend after a deep four-year downturn, analysts said, but they cautioned that sales are coming back from historically low levels. Sluggish consumer confidence and rising unemployment could make any recovery slow and uneven.

“You are comparing terrible numbers to terrible numbers, so it doesn’t look that bad,” said Dennis Virag, an analyst with Automotive Consulting Group.

“There still is a very dismal state within the auto industry and it will probably be another year or so until we start pulling out of the quagmire we are in,” Virag said. 

Read more