Best financial sourse

There have been plenty of hockey fights started because of beer. Now there

Portuguese train engineers went on strike Tuesday, stoking pressure on the government as it cuts pay and hikes taxes to tackle a debt crisis that is threatening to engulf the country.

Thousands of commuters were left stranded during morning rush hour as the national rail company said over 90 percent of trains didn’t run.

Portugal ran up high debts during the past decade amid frail growth, and the government is scrambling to avoid asking for a bailout like the ones needed by fellow eurozone countries Greece and Ireland last year.

But the interest rate on Portuguese 10-year bonds rose to 7.46 percent Tuesday _ not far shy of the level that forced Dublin to ask for help.

The battle to solve Portugal’s financial crisis is taking a political and financial toll, and the country’s failure to escape a bailout would add new momentum to Europe’s economic troubles.

European finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday announced no new decisions on boosting the size and powers of the bloc’s fund to rescue its heavily-indebted members. The delay is worrying markets, and investors are asking for higher returns on what are perceived as risky loans to Portugal _ compounding the country’s already huge financial problems.

Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos said in Brussels he wanted the European fund to be able to buy bonds on the open market, thereby helping to stabilize their prices, but finding a compromise among the 17 nations that use the euro was proving hard.

“This process is taking longer than it ought to, in my opinion, and I think the delays and hesitation in taking the steps we need are affecting the eurozone and the stabilization of the euro and, consequently, all the countries which belong to the eurozone,” Teixeira dos Santos told Portuguese media.

Portugal plans to raise up to euro1 billion ($1.3 billion) in a sale of 12-month Treasury bills Wednesday. So far it has had no problems getting funds on international markets, but the rates are punishingly high.

The center-left Socialist government says it reduced the budget deficit to 7.3 percent last year from 9.6 percent _ the fourth-highest in the eurozone _ in 2009. Its austerity plan aims to cut the deficit to 4.6 percent this year.

However, analysts expect the money-saving measures to send Portugal into recession. That would hurt tax revenue and place further stress on the budget, which is already being drained by high interest rates on its borrowings and increased welfare payments resulting from an unemployment rate close to 11 percent.

There was some good news for the minority government, though, when a small party said it would abstain from a no-confidence vote, ensuring the attempt to force an early election will fail.

The Left Bloc, a small, radical party which competes for support with the Communist Party, intends to present the motion in Parliament on March 10. The Popular Party announced late Monday it would abstain in the vote.

The government is also resisting a popular outcry against the austerity package, which includes a 5 percent pay cut for staff at state-owned companies this year. Those companies have total debts of more than euro21 billion ($28.2 billion) with public transport companies, including the national rail company.

The government is demanding that state companies save 15 percent on operating costs this year.

Tuesday’s rail strike was the latest in a wave of walkouts.

Source

OTTAWA

The recall beat continues at Toyota but the auto giant says it thinks the biggest public relations nightmare in its history is behind it.

The automaker, seen by many as the best of its breed, issued recalls 17 times last year to alert owners of more than 700,000 Canadian vehicles about the need for dealer inspections and possible repairs on defective parts or conditions.

It reached the point where some industry watchers felt Toyota was unnecessarily undermining its reputation and entrenching negative perceptions with disclosure and repairs on minor glitches.

They said the notices would just make it harder for Toyota to sell cars and trucks for a longer time.

A few recalls involved parts that rival automakers also used but those rivals didn

A bloc of Latin American countries issued a stern warning to rich nations Friday that unless they commit to new emissions cuts, the U.N. climate talks in Cancun will fail.

Negotiators from Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador _ all members of the leftist ALBA alliance _ said they would not accept the refusal by some developed countries to extend their binding emissions targets under the Kyoto Protocol, the climate pact that expires in 2012.

Venezuela and Bolivia were among a handful of countries that blocked a nonbinding climate accord with voluntary emissions pledges from being adopted at last year’s U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen. The rules of the talks require consensus.

Without naming them, Venezuelan negotiator Claudia Salerno said “a handful” of developed countries had ruled out a second commitment period under Kyoto. She called their stance “unacceptable” and said it could hold back progress on other issues being discussed in Cancun.

“If there is no second period of Kyoto, it is very difficult that there can be any balanced package” of decisions in Cancun, Salerno said.

The fate of the Kyoto Protocol, or the shape of any agreement that succeeds it, is one of the most divisive issues in the negotiations.

Earlier this week Japan said it was not interested in negotiating an extension of the Kyoto targets, arguing it was pointless unless the world’s largest polluters _ China is No free business cards. 1, and the U.S. No. 2 _ also accepted binding targets. U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres said Russia and Canada also oppose extending their Kyoto targets.

For 13 years, since it was negotiated, the United States has rejected the Kyoto accord, partly because it made no demands on rapidly developing countries like China and India.

Venezuela and Bolivia and other members of the ALBA bloc argue that climate change is the result of a capitalist system and demand steep emissions cuts from industrialized countries deemed to have a historical responsibility for the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.

Figueres said she wasn’t expecting the positions of the ALBA nations and the developed countries to “dramatically change” in Cancun.

“What needs to happen here is countries need to find a compromise,” she said.

She and other U.N. officials hope for agreements on secondary issues at Cancun, and expect this central dispute to extend into next year’s negotiations.

__

Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson contributed to this report.

Source

This is going to be a hectic week for followers of initial public offerings. Ten companies are currently on tap to make their debut.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it was 1998 all over again — except for one thing. There aren’t any major tech companies on this week’s docket.

General Motors, of course, is grabbing all the headlines. The automaker is tentatively set to return to the public markets (GM ticker and all) on Thursday.

The government is selling a portion of the stake it acquired in GM as part of its bailout. The hope is that a leaner-and-meaner post-bankruptcy GM will eventually generate a profit — or at the very least, a smaller loss — for taxpayers.

But GM is not the only well-known firm that’s going to test the public markets. Caesars Entertainment, the casino company formerly known as Harrah’s Entertainment, is set to start trading this week too. Ditto for big consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton and brokerage firm LPL Financial.

But none of those companies are your classic IPO candidates — hot, rapidly growing upstarts backed by venture capital firms. Instead, Caesars, Booz Allen Hamilton and LPL all count private equity firms as their main investors.

Caesar’s, back when it was still known as Harrah’s, was bought in 2008 by Apollo Management and TPG. One of the main investors in Booz Allen Hamilton is the Carlyle Group. And LPL is majority-owned by Hellman & Friedman and TPG.

This is an interesting trend that isn’t expected to change any time soon. If you look at a list of some of the more high-profile firms that have already filed to go public, you won’t find sexy Silicon Valley darlings like Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and LinkedIn.

None of those firms are expected to file for an IPO until next year, at the very earliest. Many think it won’t be until 2012 or 2013 that any of social networking’s Big Four become publicly traded companies.

Experts say it’s a sign of the times. With the economy still merely chugging along as opposed to solidly growing, the best candidates to go public are companies that are turnaround stories, not hot growth stocks.

"Private equity firms buy things out of the rubble, companies that were cold- shouldered by the market. They buy companies on the cheap, clean them up and take them public again," said Ben Holmes, founder of MorningNotes.com, a Boulder, Colo.-based research firm focusing on IPOs and secondary offerings.

GM clearly fits that bill. Just substitute the "Treasury Department" and "taxpayers" for "private equity firms."

Holmes does not expect a comeback in venture-backed tech IPOs until it’s clearer that the recovery in the economy is real and sustainable.

Josef Schuster, CEO of IPOX Capital Management, a Chicago-based firm that oversees the Direxion Long-Short IPO Fund, agreed. The price gains for private-equity backed IPOs are likely to be muted in the short-term, since they don’t have a lot of immediate growth potential, he added.

"These stocks probably won’t pop at the open, but they all look reasonable as investments for the long-run," Schuster said.

The window for venture-backed IPOs hasn’t completely slammed shut. But investors looking for more exciting new stocks may have to take risks on smaller companies based outside the United States.

Schuster points out that one of the better-performing recent IPOs is a Chinese company that did have venture backing. Mecox Lane (MCOX), a Shanghai-based online apparel retailer, shot up 57% on its first day of trading late last month.

Sequoia Capital — the venture capital firm that has invested in Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500) and many other successful tech companies — is one of the investors in Mecox Lane. Sequoia also invested in another recent Chinese IPO, although not in the tech world: It’s a backer of vegetable producer Le Gaga (GAGA).

Along those lines, another Chinese venture-backed company is set to go public this week. Schuster said he would not be surprised if it wound up trumping GM as the week’s top IPO performer.

BitAuto, a Beijing-based company that provides Chinese consumers with online pricing information about cars, is scheduled to start trading later this week. Venture capital firms DCM and Legend Capital are two of BitAuto’s investors.

It may not be the worst thing in the world that the IPO calendar is currently dominated by stodgier companies. It seems investors learned their lesson from the dot-com bubble in 2000: The days of getting rich quick off a tech IPO are long gone.

With that in mind, Holmes said that of all of this week’s IPOs, the one to watch is GM.

"GM is important for the psychology of the market. It may be a case of ‘as goes GM, so goes stocks’ for the rest of the year," he said. "It feels like we really are crawling out of the hole."

- The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul R. La Monica. Other than Time Warner, the parent of CNNMoney.com, and Abbott Laboratories, La Monica does not own positions in any individual stocks.  

Source

If you thought the coffee at Starbucks was addictive, wait until you try the beer and wine.

Starbucks is experimenting with adult beverages at one of its "learning lab" locations in Seattle. The coffee chain said Monday that it has reopened its Olive Way store in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood after an extensive redesign.

In a brief statement announcing the reopening of the store, Starbucks said it is offering wine and beer, as well as an "expanded food menu," at the location. The statement didn’t provide any details on the new alcoholic options, and calls for comment were not immediately returned.

The statement did say that the move "is in response to our customers telling us that they want more options for relaxing in our stores in the afternoon and evenings." Starbucks does most of its business in the mornings.

Starbucks, which opened in 1971, operates over 16,000 stores in more than 50 countries. It grew rapidly during the last decade, becoming one of the largest coffee chains in the world.

But the company has struggled recently to maintain that robust growth as the economy soured and coffee consumers gravitated towards low-cost rivals such as Dunkin Donuts and McDonald’s (MCD, Fortune 500).

Meanwhile, Starbucks (SBUX, Fortune 500) stressed that the remake of the Olive Way store reflects its approach to store design "and our commitment to reducing our environmental impact."

The store design features "reclaimed and local materials," the company said, and is one of 20 other Starbucks locations that meets Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, requirements. 

Source

An independent panel charged with studying the Columbia River Crossing has told Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire that construction should begin on the project as soon as possible.

The Independent Review Panel, assembled earlier this year after the governors raised questions over bridge design and funding, also offered recommendations that could provide a “roadmap” to help move from the bridge’s design to completion.

The recommendations include resolving several issues regarding interchanges leading to and from Hayden Island. The report also provided technical analysis of the currently proposed bridge type.

“This report delivered what we needed – a status report on this critical transportation project from an independent panel of national experts, as well as guidance on how best to advance the project in a timely, fiscally and environmentally responsible manner,” said Kulongoski in a statement.

The recommendation comes two days after the Metro regional government released a study about the impact of bridge tolls on growth in Portland and Southwest Washington. The study concluded that a $2 rush-hour toll on an expanded bridge would have negligible impact on population and employment growth in Clark County, but could boost jobs in North Portland.

The Columbia River Crossing project would expand the existing bridge to 10-to-12 lanes and include a light rail line and tolls. The bridge is expected to cost about $3.6 billion.

Source

Treasury prices rose Friday after the government said economic growth was weaker than previously estimated and a major overhaul of financial regulations cleared a legislative hurdle.

What prices are doing: The benchmark 10-year note was up 10/32 to 103-11/32 and its yield fell to 3.11% from 3.12% on Thursday. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.

The 30-year bond rose 26/32 to 105-15/32 with a yield of 4.06%. The 2-year note gained 2/32 to 99-31/32 and its yield was 0.66%.

What’s moving the market: Economic growth for the first three months of the year was revised lower, to an annual rate of 2.7% from the previous reading of 3%. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected growth to remain unchanged at 3%.

Separately, an index of consumer sentiment rose in June to the highest level since January 2008 no teletrack payday loan. The Reuters/University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers rose to 76 from 73.6 in May. Economists expected the index to remain steady at 75.5.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in the House and Senate finalized negotiations on a bill that would overhaul the financial system. The agreement, which came after marathon talks that ended early Friday, paves the way for a final vote in July.

Treasurys were on track for a weekly gain as investors remain nervous about the economy. The Federal Reserve issued a more cautious outlook earlier this week, raising concerns about housing and the outlook for growth.

In addition, the U.S. sold $108 billion worth of Treasurys this week, including 2-, 5- and 7-year notes.  

Source

The Denver City Council late Monday unanimously adopted the city's first new zoning code in more than 50 years.

The council bill that will place the new zoning code into law, passed 13-0, next goes to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper for action. If Hickenlooper signs the bill, as expected, it will be published by the city clerk and take effect.

During a public hearing several hours long before the p.m. vote, several speakers as well as council members expressed mixed feelings about the new code, saying it's not perfect and will need tweaking over time.

Inconsistencies in code policies and practices will be addressed, said David Roberts, the city's chief services officer.

"It will always be changing," District 4 Councilwoman Peggy Lehman said of the new code.

But speakers and council members also said the new form- and context-based code is a needed improvement over the outdated, 54-year-old existing code, and will sustain Denver's future growth.

"Calling the new code form-based doesn't do it justice," Denver developer Mickey Zeppelin of Zeppelin Development Co., said at the hearing. "It's really a value-based code, reflecting the values of the community."

Council President Jeanne Robb, District 10, called the new code an affirmation of Denver neighborhoods and, while it may not necessarily be simpler than the existing code, it is more organized and an example of the public process, which is "what makes our city great."

Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz, District 2, said she still has problems with how downzoning is handled in the new code, and the loss of property value it could cause, but allowed many of her concerns that the updated code would hinder development were resolved over the last six months.

Other worries expressed about the revamped code at the council hearing ranged from concerns about upzoning, how the South Platte River will be protected and accessory dwelling units to making sure property owners get the sunlight and building heights they want.

City planning department staffers ― including planning chief Peter Park as well as planners Tina Axelrad and Tyler Gibbs ― answered questions from council members and private-sector speakers. Park said his department will present a report to the council, evaluating the new code's performance, after its first six months of use.

Monday's meeting was held at City Council Chambers at the Denver City & County Building, 1437 Bannock St.

The council, city planning and development department, and a public/private group called the Zoning Code Task Force have spearheaded the creation the new zoning code for more than five years. Updating the code is part of city growth plans, including the Comprehensive Plan of 2002 and Blueprint Denver in 2002.

The main idea behind the new code is to better manage Denver's future growth, through form- and context-based zoning. Creators of the new code also have worked to make it more user friendly than the old one, and hope it will help stimulate economic recovery by encouraging development.

Over the years, the current code has become a patchwork of incongruous zoning regulations and it's outdated, according to real estate experts and the city.

Authors of the new code initially hoped council members would vote on the new code by the end of 2009, and then in February of this year, and then in April.

Votes have been delayed to provide more time for public comment about the code and changes to it based on some of that comment.

Source