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Knight Security Systems has won a contract with the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services to install security cameras at the San Antonio State Supported Living Center.

This is a home that cares for 300 mentally disabled people in San Antonio. The video cameras should help ensure residents are being kept safe.

The work is being done in San Antonio as part of a statewide contract between Aging and Disability Services and Houston-based Knight. In all, a total of 12 state-supported living centers will receive the company’s cameras.

The contract is worth $12 million.

Knight will install a total of 3,200 video cameras in 335 buildings.

Founded in 1983, Knight Security Systems has worked with more than 3,000 Texas customers since its inception.

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Salt River Project will build a 20-megawatt photovoltaic facility southeast of Phoenix that will come online in 2011.

The solar power station, to be built by Iberdrola Renewables, will be capable of powering about 4,500 homes.

SRP and Iberdrola have a partnership that extends to the Dry Lake Wind Farm, a 63-megawatt wind farm built on a combination of public and private land.

Mark Bonsall, SRP’s associate general manager for commercial and customer services, said the project is another step to bring renewable projects online.

"We are actively pursuing this project because it is not only good for SRP, but it is good for our customers and for the environment," said Bonsall. "We want to be in a position to offer our customers a new, lower-cost solar energy option by giving them the opportunity to purchase the green power directly from this solar facility payday loan companies. SRP will utilize whatever output may not be subscribed by our customers, if any."

Because it is a quasi-government entity, SRP is not required to meet the Arizona Corporation Commission’s requirement to have 15 percent of its power provided through alternative forms of energy by 2025. Still, SRP officials have said they intend to honor those standards.

The agreement will call for Iberdrola to own the power plant and sell the power to SRP, from which individual homeowners could buy into the deal.

The transaction is expected to go before the SRP Power Committee at its meeting in December and before SRP’s full board of directors in January 2010.

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Congress should allow the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to retain the fees it collects and become self-funding, Commission Chairwoman Mary Schapiro said on Thursday.

Speaking at Harvard University, Schapiro said that large swings in the agency’s annual budget have made long-term planning difficult.

“It is truly critical that, if the SEC is to become the kind of regulatory agency that the American people have a right to expect, we have sufficient, stable long-term funding,” Schapiro said.

The SEC collects fees from the thousands of companies it regulates. Its budget, which is much smaller than the fees it collects, is determined annually by Congress.

“Virtually, every other financial regulator is self-funded, which gives them the flexibility to respond to market events through increased staffing and technology developments. Like them, the SEC should be self-funded,” Schapiro said advanced payday loan.

Schapiro also said she is increasing the agency’s focus on educating retail investors about voting in corporate proxy elections for boards of directors and other matters.

The agency plans to offer a “very aggressive program” to counter the trend of the declining participation of retail investors, she said.

That comment followed a speech Schapiro gave on Wednesday, in which she said the agency was in the midst of a full-scale review of shareholder voting procedures.

The review will look at the low rate of voting by retail shareholders, the accuracy of vote tabulations and the use of proxy votes, she said in a speech to the Practising Law Institute in Washington.

(Reporting by Aaron Pressman, writing by Ros Krasny, editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

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Adecco, the world’s largest staffing company, has bought American rival MPS Group for $1.3 billion, boosting its position in the high-margin professional staffing business.

To shore up its balance sheet and protect its investment grade credit rating in the wake of the cash deal, Adecco also said on Tuesday it was launching 900 million Swiss francs ($888 million) of mandatory convertible bonds.

“We are delighted to have MPS Group become part of the Adecco Group, in a move that will see Adecco taking the world-wide lead in professional staffing,” Chief Executive Officer Patrick De Maeseneire said in a statement.

Adecco also sounded a more upbeat tone on its trading environment, saying market conditions had improved during the third quarter and had developed in line with its expectations. The group will post quarterly figures on November 5.

One Zurich-based trader welcomed the move to increase its share of the more lucrative professional market, but said: “The financing through the convertible bond will put shares under some pressure today, since dilution is around 8.7 percent and we will see some hedge funds switching from the shares to the bond.”

“The price seems to me at the upper end, with P/EBITDA of 9.9 times,” he added.

Adecco shares were indicated to open 1.6 percent lower.

UNANIMOUS BACKING

MPS Group’s board of directors has unanimously backed Adecco’s offer of $13.80 per share, which represents a premium of 24 percent over the Florida-based company’s previous last closing price.

This deal, as well as the recent acquisition of Britain’s Spring Group, means close to 25 percent of Adecco’s group revenues will be generated in the more lucrative professional staffing arena, up from 17 percent in 2008, Adecco said.

The move marks a significant coup for De Maeseneire who took over the helm in June from Dieter Scheiff. Adecco failed last year in its bid to buy professional staffing group Michael Page, which many believed was the reason behind Scheiff’s departure.

Adecco has repeatedly said it was on the prowl for acquisitions and that it wanted to strengthen its professional staffing business.

MPS Group, which had revenues of 1.5 billion euros ($2.24 billion) in 2008, will also boost Adecco’s UK and Canada business, and the deal will be earnings accretive on an adjusted earnings per share basis in the first year, Adecco said.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2010.

($1=1.013 Swiss Franc) 

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Sunburned and barbecued out, Wall Streeters returning to work Tuesday face the first big challenge to the six-month-old rally.

Even after a down week on Wall Street, punctuated by a mixed August jobs report, the S&P 500 remains 50% above the 12-year lows hit in March.

Stocks churned in a narrow range for most of August, ending the month higher. But with fewer people around and trading in August, the market rally didn’t really face much of a challenge. That won’t be the case in September.

"The fall campaigns begin next week for Wall Street, Congress and students," said Scott Armiger, portfolio manager at Christiana Bank & Trust Company. "Everyone has to conduct business, pass laws or study."

Armiger said he doesn’t put much stock in the markets’ seesawing over the last two weeks. Trading volume has been low, as is typical of late summer when many market pros on the sidelines.

"The week ahead will tell us more about where we stand," he said.

The week is fairly light on economic reports, with readings on the trade gap, weekly jobless claims and consumer sentiment being the standouts. Congress reconvenes on Tuesday. Wednesday night, President Obama will speak to the nation and the Congress on health care reform.

"We’ve had some artificial demand created by all the stimulus, but when you take that away, will there be enough fuel for real demand to take its place?" said Dave Hinnenkamp, CEO at KDV Wealth Management. "The market is looking at the data and trying to figure it out."

Hinnenkamp said that stocks are likely to seesaw or even slide five or ten percent over the next month or two, until the next batch of earnings come out and the initial readings on third-quarter GDP growth are released.

Month of meltdowns: September is typically a tough one for Wall Street, with the Dow industrials, Nasdaq composite and S&P 500 all posting their biggest percentage losses for the year, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac.

The month tends to be weak as the "back to work" mentality also tends to bring in a certain "cleaning house" momentum.

This particular September also ushers in a series of dubious anniversaries for Wall Street.

This Monday, Labor Day, is the one-year anniversary of the government’s takeover of mortgage lenders Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) and Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500).

On Sept. 8, 2008, the Bush Administration put the companies under a government conservatorship and replaced both chief executives. The two companies owned or backed half a billion in mortgage debt and had lost billions in the housing collapse.

One week later brings the anniversary of what many consider to be the accelerant that pushed the recession into full-blown crisis: the collapse of Lehman Bros. and 11th-hour buyout of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500). On Sept. 15, 2008, the Dow slumped 504 points, as financial shares tumbled, credit seized up and investors went into panic mode.

Stocks lurched dramatically all week, but managed to end just modestly lower that Friday after a series of government interventions. They included the Federal Reserve jumping in to save AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) from bankruptcy and the establishment of an early version of the TARP bank bailout plan.

One volatile year later, the Dow is still down 13 free credit score.5%, the S&P is down 15% and the Nasdaq composite is down just over 7%.

On the docket

Monday: All financial markets are closed for Labor Day.

Tuesday: The July Consumer Credit report from the Federal Reserve is due in the afternoon. Credit is expected to have fallen for the sixth consecutive month as the recession continues to nip borrowing. Credit likely dipped a seasonally adjusted $4 billion after falling $10.3 billion in June, according to a Briefing.com survey of economists.

Wednesday: The weekly crude oil inventories report is due in the morning, from the Energy Information Administration.

In the afternoon, the Federal Reserve releases its periodic "beige book" survey of the economy, which tracks 12 districts.

The stream of reports showing improvements in housing and manufacturing and continued weakness in the labor market have given investors a picture of the economy in the first half of the third quarter. But the beige book will put that in a broader perspective.

Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) is expected to introduce iPod Nano and iPod Touch models that include digital cameras, as well as other new updates, at its media event Wednesday. Apple watchers are also eager to see if CEO Steve Jobs will make an appearance now that he is back to work after a six-month medical leave.

Thursday: The July trade gap from the Commerce Department is expected to hold steady at $27 billion. Last month, imports rose for the first time in nearly a year due to higher oil prices, but that was partially offset by stronger global demand for U.S. goods and services. Investors will be looking to see if the trend continues this month.

Also in the morning, the Labor Department releases the weekly jobless claims report. Approximately 556,000 Americans are expected to have filed new claims for unemployment in the previous week versus 570,000 in the previous week.

Continuing claims, a measure of those receiving benefits for a week or more, are expected to continue to rise from the 6.234 million level hit last week.

RealtyTrac releases its monthly report on foreclosures.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner speaks before the Congressional Oversight Panel.

Friday: The initial reading on consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan is due shortly after the start of trading. The index is expected to have risen to 67.3 in September from 65.7 in August.

The Commerce Department is expected to report a drop in wholesale inventories for the 11th straight month, when the July report is released in the morning. Stocks at U.S. wholesalers likely fell 1% in July, according to forecasts, after falling 1.7% in June.

August import and export prices are also due in the morning, while the August Treasury budget is due in the afternoon.

How does your portfolio look nearly one year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers? What investment choices hurt you or helped you the most? What strategy changes are you making for the future? Tell us your story. E-mail realstories@cnnmoney.com and your thoughts could be part of an upcoming story. For the CNNMoney.com Comment Policy, click here. 

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Nine months ago, a historic meeting was breaking up in the ballroom of a Secaucus, N.J., hotel. Anheuser-Busch shareholders had just agreed to sell America’s biggest brewer to an aggressive Belgian brewer called InBev.

August A. Busch IV, whose stint as chief executive of Anheuser-Busch would end with the sale, stepped down from the podium. "A bittersweet day," he said.

And then, Busch — the fifth generation of his family to lead Anheuser-Busch — slipped out of the hotel’s lobby.

But he wasn’t supposed to slip out of the public’s eye.
The new regime had given him a seat on the board of the combined company and a lucrative consulting deal — indications that he would be a sort of public ambassador for the new Anheuser-Busch InBev. Many expected him to ease Anheuser-Busch’s transition to new ownership, and act as a liaison between the new owners and A-B’s many constituencies.

It hasn’t worked out that way.

Since the buyout, Busch has not been spotted at industry events. No quotes in media reports, no pictures at meet-and-greets. From trade meetings to sales conferences with distributors, Busch has been a no-show.

"He has not been visible in the beer industry," said Harry Schuhmacher, editor of Beer Business Daily. "I just haven’t heard of him being around."

The disappearance seems odd given how much InBev paid for Busch’s services. As part of the buyout, InBev made him a highly paid consultant for Carlos Brito, CEO of the combined company.

Busch, 45, received $10.35 million as a lump sum and started collecting additional fees of about $120,000 a month. He also got a personal security detail and free access to events sponsored by A-B.

The official merger document seemed to outline a clear role for him at Anheuser-Busch InBev. At Brito’s request, Busch would advise InBev on new products; review marketing programs; meet with retailers, wholesalers, advertisers and the media; scrutinize the quality of Anheuser-Busch’s beers; and give advice about A-B’s relationship with charitable organizations and local communities.

"He was supposed to represent continuity from one era to the next, but I don’t know if he’s played much of a role" in the combined company, said Benj Steinman, editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights.

The lucrative consulting deal also tied Busch and InBev to a mutual "non-disparagement" covenant, limiting what Busch could say about InBev and what InBev could say about him. The company declined to make Busch available for an interview. Reached directly by the Post-Dispatch, Busch declined to comment, citing the consulting deal.

If anyone has emerged as the public face of A-B since Busch stepped aside, it’s Dave Peacock, who was Busch’s right-hand man and is now president of Anheuser-Busch. Since InBev acquired A-B, Peacock has led the company’s efforts to maintain alliances with distributors and employees.

Peacock has represented the company for signature events such as the Super Bowl, while speaking on behalf of the company when controversies have arisen, such as the company’s decision to cut more than 1,000 area jobs in December.

A-B InBev acknowledges that Busch’s work for the company has been limited to behind-the-scenes activity. A spokeswoman told the Post-Dispatch that his contributions "have proven very valuable," especially relating to the U.S. market. She did not enumerate those contributions. The company also declined to say how many board meetings Busch attended, or when.

Did InBev ever intend to lean heavily on Busch after the takeover? Veteran consultant Tom Pirko said it was not surprising that Busch was not prominent in the new company’s dealings new car loan rates.

InBev wanted to change Anheuser-Busch’s culture and get rid of the Busch family’s hierarchy, Pirko said. The lucrative consulting arrangement was a way of hitting "the eject button" on the Busch family that had run the brewer since the Civil War.

"They wanted a clean break, without the baggage of the past," Pirko said. "When you do that, you have to remove the faces. To be a new company, you have to have new people."

The apparent withdrawal from public life isn’t just at the brewer. In January, Busch resigned as a director of FedEx Corp., a position he had held since 2003. That same month, he was granted a divorce from his wife of 2 1/2 years.

The next month, Anheuser-Busch held a large meeting of beer wholesalers in Houston. The event, aimed at introducing distributors to the new owners, would have been a perfect place to roll out August Busch IV. It would have been an opportunity to show continuity among all the changes. But he didn’t appear, according to industry observers.

Lately, Busch is splitting time between a new home near the Lake of the Ozarks and his other residence in Huntleigh. Busch, an experienced pilot, has been devoting some time to flying.

Not long ago, Busch was leading one of the world’s biggest brewers, trying to boost it out of a period of slow growth.

After being tapped in 2006 as the new chief executive, Busch became known for a management style more easygoing and low-key than that of his hard-charging father, August A. Busch III. In public appearances, the younger Busch was personable and energetic, Anheuser-Busch’s cheerleader in chief. He popped up at numerous state meetings, industry conferences and legislative summit meetings.

In April 2008, Busch IV rallied employees at a party outside A-B’s packaging plant on Pestalozzi Street to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Prohibition’s end.

"I love you guys, you ladies!" he said to rousing applause. "What an honor. An emotional day." Busch held up a bottle of Budweiser. "Here’s to our future … and another 75 fantastic years. Let’s go get ‘em!"

A few weeks later, at the company’s annual meeting at SeaWorld, Busch showed shareholders some of the company’s Super Bowl commercials, chatted about A-B’s NASCAR sponsorship and urged the hundreds of assembled investors to try some new Bud Light Lime.

Soon after A-B’s board approved InBev’s takeover bid on July 13, Busch started slipping into the shadows.

Perhaps, this shouldn’t have been a surprise, as an early scene of the A-B InBev era suggests.

It was the Monday morning after InBev’s acquisition of A-B was consummated. Busch joined the victorious Brito on a conference call with analysts and reporters. Busch spoke briefly of his faith that the Brazilian executive would "honor his public commitments and continue the traditions that have made Anheuser-Busch a success."

Then, for more than an hour, Brito talked about the future, outlining his plans for the new company. When Brito was through, he asked the St. Louis executives if they had anything to add.

Peacock offered a quick closing comment.

Busch remained silent.

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Shares of American International Group Inc. surged Thursday as analysts speculated the company might be reconciling with former CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, who could help bring private capital and other business benefits to the company.

Shares of AIG continued to climb in after-hours trading and last traded at $48.30. It finished the regular session at $47.84, up $10.15, or 27 percent. The shares have traded between $6.60 and $493.60 in the past year. AIG completed a 1-for-20 reverse stock split on July 1. More than 148 million shares changed hands, nearly seven times the 3-month average volume of 22.3 million shares.

Investor interest was fueled by the news that the company may be working to mend the strained relationship with Greenberg, who was forced out of the company in 2005 after an accounting scandal surfaced.

"It’s not just that they’re shaking hands with Greenberg, there’s a real financial value in doing that," said Bill Bergman, senior stock analyst for Morningstar Inc. "Given the fact that AIG would have access to capital and business opportunities could be had, the reconciliation is meaningful."

A company spokeswoman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Early this month, Greenberg agreed to pay $15 million to settle fraud charges that alleged the company had engaged in deceptive accounting practices.

Greenberg, who built AIG over his 35-year career from a small company into the world’s largest insurer, has been fighting AIG in court in an unrelated case over who controls an employee retirement fund. A judge’s decision in that case is expected by month’s end.

AIG was hit hard by the collapse of the home mortgage industry. The insurance company had divisions that originated mortgages, insured them and was heavily invested in mortgaged backed securities and other instruments tied to mortgages, Bergman said.

The credit crisis sent AIG reeling and the U.S. government rescued it from the brink of collapse with a loan bailout package worth up to $182.5 billion. The government now owns roughly 80 percent of the company.

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Don’t look now, but your local bank branch might be disappearing.

Faced with a severe economic environment and massive consolidation within the industry, banks are taking a hard look at their retail banking locations.

Severe loan losses in areas like credit cards and commercial real estate, have also put banks’ capital levels under severe pressure, prompting some lenders to look for ways to cut expenses.

"Banks are broadly reassessing their branches," said Bob Meara, senior analyst at the consultancy Celent. "What we don’t know is how they are going to react."

From big banks to regional players, there are already indicators that the nation’s massive banking system is trying to slim down.

Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), the nation’s largest bank by deposits, made headlines in July when reports surfaced of its plans to trim as much as 10% of its brick-and-mortar branch locations.

And Birmingham, Ala. -based Superior Bancorp (SUPR), which operates 77 offices in the Southeast, revealed plans late last month to shutter seven branches in an effort to save $3 million annually.

Some experts suggest that examples like BofA and Superior are the exception rather than the rule among the 8,000 or so institutions that populate the U.S. banking industry.

But what is clear is that banks will continue to feel pressure along a number of fronts to cut costs, which could mean shuttering more neighborhood locations.

For starters, some banks aggressively overbuilt in the years leading up to the crisis, experts note, hoping to capitalize on the housing market boom among other things.

"There is no question there were some areas that were overbranched," said Scott MacDonald, a professor of banking at SMU’s Cox School of Business. "If you go to somewhere like California, there was literally a branch on every corner."

As of the end of last June, the U.S. banking industry boasted over 99,000 branches. Five years earlier, that number stood at just under 88,000, according to recent data published by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Nowadays however, banks are coping with the fact that branches are generally much less profitable nowadays as banks have become reluctant to issue new loans in light of troubling economic signs like rising unemployment.

"What is absolutely clear is that the banking crisis of the last year and overall economic conditions have significantly hampered branch profitability," said Meara personal loans.

And running a bank branch isn’t cheap.

Bancography, a Birmingham-based consulting firm that advises lenders across the country on expansion plans, estimates that opening a new, 3,500-square-foot branch, costs, on average, anywhere between $2 million and $2.5 million to open.

To keep that same branch running, banks pay, on average, about $350,000 to $400,000 a year, to cover everything from employee salaries to taxes.

Consolidation and technology

Intensifying the prospect for branch consolidation is the unprecedented number of mergers within the industry over the last 12 months.

Even as it maintains its plans to continue building branches, JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), for example, has closed nearly 400 locations as a result of last fall’s purchase of thrift giant Washington Mutual.

And while Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) has yet to determine exactly how many branches it will keep or close as a result of its acquisition of Wachovia, there are already signs it will make cuts to its retail bank locations which totaled more than 6,600 as of the end of the last quarter. The company has already announced it will consolidate 14 stores in Colorado, where it plans to start its branch conversions this fall.

In such instances, notes Jamie Eads, a senior project manager with Bancography, lenders are looking closely at those two branches that are geographically redundant and determining which ones they can get rid of, based on a combination of factors including performance and location.

"It is just a way of continuing to serve the market without having much overlap," she said.

Consumers’ increased reliance on non-traditional channels to do their banking — including paying bills online or using the ATM to make deposits — is also pressuring some banks to rethink their branch strategy.

Insurer USAA, for example, has enjoyed explosive deposit growth in recent years despite having a virtually non-existent retail branch network.

But most experts label USAA’s success an anomaly in a business built on customer relationships. If anything, expect a more moderate decline in the number of bank branches in the years ahead.

"Branches will be central to deposit gathering for some time," said Meara. 

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Stocks rallied Monday, with the Dow adding more than 100 points and the S&P closing at an 8-month high, as investors signaled optimism about second-quarter financial reports.

Wall Street also got a charge from reports that small business lender CIT has secured private-sector financing to keep it out of bankruptcy. Investors were encouraged to see that the financial sector can take care of itself, without government bailout funds.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) jumped 104 points, or 1.2%. Monday’s rally pushed the blue-chip index into positive territory (in 2009) for the first time in more than 5 weeks.

The broader S&P 500 (SPX) index added 11 points, or 1.1%, to close at its highest level in more than 8 months.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite (COMP) added 23 points, or about 1.2%, to stretch to its highest level since early October, or about 9 months.

The major indexes are coming off a positive week. Last week was the Dow and S&P 500’s first up week — and the Nasdaq’s second — in the past five.

The major force on Wall Street is second-quarter earnings.

"We have a very heavy earnings calendar, light economic news calendar," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Company. "The name of the game is earnings."

Companies have beat analysts’ estimates by more than in other quarters, according to Ed Clissold, senior global analyst at Ned Davis Research, and that sentiment is supporting stocks Monday.

"The fact that companies haven’t come out with the dire earnings that were seen in the first quarter is a positive sign," he said.

Betting on recovery: Wall Street is using the second-quarter financial reports to set expectations for the pace of the economic recovery.

Investors "are looking at incremental changes in the earnings reports to give them a clue as to how companies are positioned to rebound when the economy starts to pick up some forward momentum," said Dickson cash loan.

A report from Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) released Monday increased its 2009 target for the S&P 500 index to 1060 from 940, a 13% jump in the index.

The report also cautioned that "the U.S. economic backdrop represents the most significant risk to our equity market forecast," and that "the risk of a double-dip recession is significant." Stocks hit their recent lows on March 9 of this year and have been struggling higher.

Market breadth was positive. On the New York Stock Exchange, advancers beat decliners by 3 to 1 on a volume of 1.13 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, advancers beat out decliners by almost 5 to 1 on a volume of 2.08 billion shares.

Earnings for the week: This week, 145 of the S&P 500 companies, or 23% of the broad index, are due to report quarterly results. Among them, 12 Dow components, including American Express (AXP, Fortune 500), Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), Coca-Cola (KO, Fortune 500) and Merck (MRK, Fortune 500), are set to release results.

Last week, a slew of major tech and finance companies reported either better-than-expected earnings or offered positive guidance: Intel (INTC, Fortune 500), IBM (IBM, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500).

"The mood of the market was lifted by the earnings surprises last week," said Dickson. Even though companies were posting weak year-over-year sales and profits, investors were focused on the fact that companies beat analyst expectations.

Texas Instruments (TXN, Fortune 500) reported earnings after the closing bell Monday. The chipmaker posted sales that fell 27% from the year ago period and net income that plunged 56% from the same quarter a year ago. Compared to the first quarter of 2009, however, sales and profits jumped.

CIT: The board of CIT (CIT, Fortune 500) has approved a deal for a $3 billion loan from bondholders in order to stave off a bankruptcy filing, according to published reports. The deal is expected to be announced later Monday.

The small and midsize business lender has been scrambling to raise money after the government said it would not provide it additional bailout funds. CIT received $2.3 billion in aid from the government late last year.

CIT (CIT, Fortune 500) shares had lost more than 80% since the beginning of June. On Monday, shares surged 79% to $1.25 per share.

The way that CIT’s financial struggles have been managed have a positive impact on the market, according to Clissold.

"If you compare it to the chaos that surrounded Lehman and AIG, it shows you how far we have come," he said.

Economic reports: The index of leading economic indicators (LEI) rose 0.7% in June, according a report from the Conference Board. Economists polled by Briefing.com were expecting the index to have risen by 0.5% in June, according to a consensus estimate. LEI rose 1.2% in the previous month.

Bonds: Treasury prices bounced, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year note falling to 3.61% from 3.64% Friday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.

Other markets: In global trade, Asian stocks rallied on the reports about the CIT loan, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index ending the day up 3.7%. Tokyo was closed for a holiday. European markets ended between 1% and 2% higher.

In currency trading, the dollar lost ground against the euro and British pound. Meanwhile, the greenback edged higher against the Japanese yen, which is considered another safe-haven currency.

U.S. light crude oil for August delivery settled up 42 cents to $63.98 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

COMEX gold for August delivery rose $11.30 to $948.80 an ounce.

Talkback: Do you work for minimum wage? How do you make ends meet? Will the increase in the minimum wage help you? E-mail you story to realstories@cnnmoney.com, and you could be part of an upcoming article. 

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I am obsessed with personal-management systems. Name a routine that promises to help its adherents work smarter or lose a few pounds, and chances are I’ve tried it at least once — especially if it involves technology. (My latest scheme: taking pictures with my cell-phone camera of everything I eat, so I’ll be less likely to snack.)

But in the past four years I have encountered just one great system for organizing my entire life. It’s the same one that has swept Silicon Valley, rules the roost at Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) and recently inspired some of the most innovative personal-management software I’ve yet seen. Converts refer to it by just three letters: GTD.

GTD stands for Getting Things Done, a 2002 book by consultant and coach David Allen that has sold 1.2 million copies. Allen now runs a personal-productivity business, David Allen Co., in Ojai, Calif. CEOs pay the 12-employee firm up to $3,000 a day to organize their lives. The most important step in Allen’s method: Write the longest list of to-dos you can imagine.

"If you don’t have at least 150 next actions," Allen says, "you haven’t captured them all."

That brings up the one thing that bothers me about GTD: It wastes a lot of trees. "Believe it or not, putting one thought on one full-size sheet of paper can have enormous value," Allen writes. Some people are okay with that. Most of my plugged-in San Francisco friends use nothing more advanced for to-dos than a pen. There’s even a retro fad for carrying stacks of three-by-five-inch index cards. Merlin Mann, who writes the organization blog 43folders.com, dubbed this system the "hipster PDA."

It isn’t just the environmentalist in me that’s offended. Is this the 21st century or a world of Dickensian clerks? Your customer database, payroll and accounting spreadsheets probably live on your hard drive (and your backup drive, naturally). Why store your long list of next actions in the most combustible, irreplaceable format of all?

Thankfully, Allen seems less enamored with paper these days. "I’m working with this CEO who loved his hipster PDA," Allen says compare car insurance prices. "He took one look at the stack of three-by-five cards he’d created in our session and had his assistant digitize them all."

Allen currently uses a customized version of IBM’s Lotus Notes for PC, which he calls his e-productivity suite. It syncs automatically with his phone, so he can add notes on the go. Allen isn’t planning to commercialize e-productivity anytime soon, though. And he’s wary of most to-do-list software on the market.

"Very few things out there have gotten slick enough," Allen says. "You have to think too much to use them. In the heat of battle, every click counts."

Indeed, dozens of commercial software suites claim to be inspired by GTD. None inspired me until recently, when I tried the latest entries in this market: Omni Focus and Things. Alas, each requires an Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone or a Mac and works best if you have both. But these apps — Things, especially — are useful enough to make me trade my old Palm (PALM) Treo for an iPhone.

I’d recommend trying the free versions to see which one works for you. Omni Focus — developed by Seattle-based Omni in collaboration with Mr. Hipster PDA, Merlin Mann — has more bells and whistles and will please hard-core project managers. Things is the brainchild of programmer J