Investors trying to duck a blow from the stock market by moving to bonds may be positioning themselves to take a left jab that they didn’t see coming easy pay day loans.
As the economy has weakened lately, investors pulled about $3 billion from stock funds and poured more than $8 billion into bond funds
Canadian auto shoppers are finally showing they
A rush by European officials to maintain a 65-year lock on the International Monetary Fund’s top job leaves little hope for a candidate from an emerging economy, India’s representative to the institution said.
“I’m not totally pessimistic but I’m not at all optimistic,” Arvind Virmani, who represents India and three other countries on the IMF board, said in an interview yesterday in Washington. “There is no indication which suggests that the result will be any different this time.”
Officials including U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have said French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde should replace countryman Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned last week following his arrest on sexual assault charges in New York, as the IMF’s chief.
Virmani said the European stance contradicts calls by the Group of 20, which includes the advanced economies plus major emerging ones, for a selection process based on merit rather than geography.
Virmani and IMF representatives for Russia, China, South Africa and Brazil yesterday released a statement urging “abandoning the obsolete unwritten convention” by which the IMF leader is always a European and the head of the World Bank an American. Countries from the European Union hold about 31 percent of the votes at the agency and the U.S. 17 percent.
“If the Fund is to have credibility and legitimacy, its managing director should be selected after broad consultation with the membership,” the directors from the so-called BRICS nations wrote.
Virmani said he is consulting with his counterparts from Brazil, Russia and China about putting a candidate forward.
Advising Friends
“At this point in time if I was advising my own friends, I would have to frankly tell them that ‘the probability of your winning is minuscule and you’re really competing for second place,’” he said. At the same time “there is still perhaps merit in saying that ‘we tried’ even though we knew that it would fail.”
Mexico is nominating its central bank governor, Agustin Carstens, who in an interview yesterday said it was too early to say which countries will back him.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters last week that Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis “speaks for a European candidate.”
Virmani objected to that logic.
“There was no discussion about who’s the best, there were statements, saying that ‘we have to have a European because there’s a European crisis,’” said Virmani, who also represents Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.
The International Monetary Fund said it aims to complete the selection of a successor to Dominique Strauss-Kahn by June 30.
Countries will be able to nominate candidates for the managing director’s position between May 23 and June 10, the Washington-based IMF said in a statement today. The board will meet with all candidates if there are fewer than four and with a short list if there are more.
The procedure “allows the selection of the next managing director to take place in an open, merit-based, and transparent manner,” said Shakour Shaalan, the senior member of the 24- person board.
The IMF said the board’s objective is to select the managing director by consensus.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde emerged as the leading contender to replace Strauss-Kahn, who was indicted yesterday on charges including attempted rape, as European officials moved to maintain control over the institution.
Officials in emerging markets including Thailand, Russia and South Africa said the next IMF managing director should come from a developing nation even as they failed to unite behind one candidate the way Europe coalesced around Lagarde.
In case you missed the recent media blitz, this week marked the one-year anniversary of Panera Bread Co.’s experimental pay-what-you-want nonprofit cafe in Clayton fast cash without a hassle.
Yes, one year later, the cafe is still kicking.
Based on its success, Panera’s foundation has transferred two more cafes to the nonprofit model
Stock futures are pointed higher as traders await economic reports that could signal the relative strength of the U.S. economic recovery.
Ahead of the opening bell, Dow Jones industrial average futures are up 39 points, or 0.3 percent, at 12,571. Standard & Poor’s 500 index futures are up 4, or 0.3 percent, at 1,343. Nasdaq 100 futures are up 6 points, or 0.3 percent, at 2,368.
The Labor Department reports ahead of the market opening on the number of new unemployment claims last week. Economists expect a decline to 420,000 from 434,000.
Reports are also due on existing home sales and leading economic indicators.
Sears Holding Corp. reports that softer sales at its Kmart and Sears stores caused a first-quarter loss of $1.58 per share, worse than analysts expected. The results signal persistent weakness in the U.S. consumer recovery.
Shareholders trying to get into JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s annual meeting held Tuesday in this midwestern city were greeted by heavy security and over 400 protesters shouting slogans outside every entrance.
At least one person was handcuffed after a group of about 400 protestors marched up Chase’s property and placed a sign on a raft floating in a pond in the bank’s premises. The sign read: “Foreclosed: Chase sinks our economy.”
Police had each entrance blocked ahead of the meeting, as protesters gathered in the rain and cold chanting slogans such as “Make Banks Pay” and carried signs that said: “Chase gets rich, we lose homes, jobs, services.” At least 20 police cruisers circled the building.
Inside, several shareholders spoke out against the bank’s handling of mortgage foreclosures.
“As a person of faith, my God believes you shouldn’t take advantage of people when they are down,” said Dawn Dannenbring of the community group Illinois People’s Action, addressing CEO Jamie Dimon. “Do you believe in the same God I believe in?”
Dimon answered: “That’s a hard one to answer.”
After another question on foreclosures, Dimon said: “We are doing everything we can to keep people in their homes that should stay in their homes payday loans.”
Chase, headquartered in New York, is holding its annual meeting in Columbus for the first time. Along with all the major banks in the country, Chase has been criticized for its handling of mortgage foreclosures.
The protests were organized by The New Bottom Line, a coalition of clergy and unions, which is pushing for action and legislation around banking practices that hurt troubled homeowners.
Annual shareholder meetings of large banks routinely draw protesters. However, security this year has been especially tight after Wells Fargo & Co.’s annual meeting on May 4 in San Francisco became a rowdy scene after hundreds protested outside. Inside the meeting, a group of shareholders demanded that the bank immediately stop foreclosures and waive principal for troubled home owners. The shareholders were escorted out of the meeting by police. Eight people were arrested for blocking entrances to the building.
A loss of momentum on Wall Street, dropping commodity prices and worries over Europe’s debt problems caused Asian stock markets to sag Monday.
Oil prices fell below $99 a barrel as crude became more expensive for investors with other currencies amid gains in the U.S. dollar.
Doubts about the strength of the U.S. economic recovery have weighed on Wall Street and markets elsewhere recently. After sailing through their best first quarter since 1998, U.S. stocks are starting to lose some momentum.
The Standard and Poor’s 500 stock index, a broad market benchmark, is up just 1 percent this quarter after jumping 5.4 percent in the first three months of the year. That weaker performance is in large part because of conflicting data about the health of the U.S. economy.
Sluggishness on Wall Street was a sign that “investors continued to worry about slowing global growth and European debt concerns,” said Ben Potter of IG Markets in Melbourne.
Meanwhile, the arrest Saturday in New York of International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn on attempted rape charges was unlikely to directly affect Asian markets.
But the incident might prove a distraction in Europe, where the the IMF and Strauss-Kahn have been heavily involved in trying to resolve debt crises in countries such as Portugal and Greece, said Jackson Wong, vice president at Tanrich Securities in Hong Kong.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index dropped 0.9 percent to 9,560.46 with banking shares incurring losses following comments last week by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano suggesting that Tokyo Electric Power Co. will need help repaying its debts. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. lost 1 percent. Mizuho Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. both lost 1.5 percent.
Edano said Friday that TEPCO may need adjustments to its loans to help it cope with financial losses incurred following twin natural disasters on March 11 _ an earthquake and subsequent tsunami that smashed into one of the company’s nuclear plants in northeastern Japan.
The utility has been struggling for two months to bring a radiation leak from the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant under control. TEPCO has sought a 2 trillion yen ($24.8 billion) loan to tide it through the initial emergency period. It also expects to pay 50 billion yen ($620 million) in initial compensation to nearly 80,000 residents evacuated from around the plant. Overall damages are expected to be much higher.
South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.5 percent to 2,110.99, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 1.2 percent to 23,000.44. Benchmarks in Australia, Singapore and Taiwan were also lower, while those in New Zealand and the Philippines rose.
Falling commodities prices were keeping stock investors at bay, said Wong. Oil, for example, was nearly $114 a barrel at the end of April but is now below $100 per barrel. A slump on Wall Street on Friday also weighed on investor nerves.
On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 100.17 points to close at 12,595.75. The S&P 500 fell 0.8 percent to 1,337.77, and the Nasdaq lost 1.2 percent to 2,828.47.
Benchmark crude for June delivery was down 98 cents to $98.67 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract settled at $99.65 per barrel Friday, up 68 cents.
In currencies, the euro fell to $1.4089 from $1.4110 in late afternoon trading Friday in New York. The dollar strengthened to 80.95 yen from 80.84 yen.
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