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Business at the region’s six casinos eeked up in May, with gaming revenue climbing 1.4 percent from the same month last year, to $96.4 million.

It’s the latest sign of stability, and slow growth, in the region’s gaming market, which hasn’t seen any new casinos open now in more than a year - since River City opened in early March 2010 in south St. Louis County. Year-over-year revenue has increased each of the three months since River City’s one year anniversary, a sign that the market is growing organically, not just through expansion.

Once again, River City powered much of the gains, boosting its revenue 29 percent from the same month last year. Harrah’s Casino in Maryland Heights grew 4.4 percent, inching out rival Ameristar Casino St. Charles as the region’s busiest property guaranteed high risk personal loans. Ameristar’s revenue was basically flat. Lumiere Place downtown saw revenue climb 3 percent, while both Illinois properties - the Casino Queen and Argosy Alton - lost ground relative to last year.

Through the first five months of the year, revenue is up 2.8 percent for the whole market. All data comes from Missouri and Illinois regulators.

Casino May rev. Change Ameristar $23.4 0.17% Argosy Alton $6.5 -5.51% Casino Queen $11.0 -3.70% Harrah’s $24.0 4.42% Lumiere Place $14.8 3.31% River City $16.7 28.87%

Market $96.4 1.35%

(dollar figures are in millions)

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Nintendo stock plunged Wednesday in Tokyo amid doubts about the consumer appeal of the Wii U, the much ballyhooed successor to its hit Wii video game console.

The demonstration of a prototype at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the gaming industry’s annual convention, in Los Angeles on Tuesday, appeared to leave investors disappointed and skeptical.

Nintendo Co. shares closed at 16,970 yen ($212.44), down more than 5 percent. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index ended flat.

Shuji Hosoi, analyst at Daiwa Securities Co., said it was unclear how successfully the machine would compete against smartphones and tablet PCs, when device-based gaming was already having to vie against social networks.

It is hard to see how it was different enough to woo users of smartphones and tablet PCs back to gaming, he said.

“People are puzzled whether this will really sell.”

Hosoi acknowledged the stock price may recover if Kyoto-based Nintendo could convince investors that the new machine was as fun as smartphones and other new devices.

“But it would be extremely difficult because the competition is so intense,” he said, referring to products such as the iPad from Apple Inc. and other rivals. “People have already changed.”

The Japanese gaming giant behind Pokemon and Super Mario games said the Wii U will broadcast high-definition video and feature a touchscreen controller that can detect motion. Its price was not disclosed.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told E3 the new controller for Wii U, with its 6.2 inch built-in screen, means players don’t necessarily have to watch the TV set.

Nintendo said the Wii U will be released between April and December next year and will be compatible with older Wii games and controllers.

Sales of the Wii have slumped for two years. But the Wii remains the overall top-selling home video game console against Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3.

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There are some pretty basic rules about personal finance, and my money mistake involves violating them all. This was no accident mind you. I did it willfully and with no small sense of pleasure. (Keep this article away from young children.)

I was posted to New York at the age of 28 as a business journalist, and intended to live within the somewhat modest means of a newspaper correspondent. And I stuck to my guns, for at least six months. Then I abandoned my guns, hopped over the wall into no man’s land, went AWOL. And in retrospect I’m glad I did, because the investment in my career and the experiences were worth more than the thousands of dollars I figure it cost me.

I blame my fall on the city: Her high rent, irresistible restaurants, the plays, the fashion, the travel beckoning, the fascinating people from all over the world. But for all of that, I might never have strayed.

It’s not hard to keep track of whether you can afford something or not — that’s what bank statements are for. But, I reasoned, this is New York. I will only live here once, and to live and work here and not absorb all its delights would be criminal. The real gamble was that my future, post-New-York self would reap a reward in the form of a higher salary and a better job and that would presumably help me pay down all the debt.

First I gave up the uptown studio apartment that fit my budget and moved to more convenient SoHo on the lower West Side. Then I bought the clothes that kept me in fashion in cutting-edge New York. I shopped smart, sales in out of the way stores.

My new friends liked to dine out (most people I knew in New York used their oven as additional storage space) and pretty soon we were traveling too. Italy, Spain, Italy, the Hamptons, Italy. We travelled together, and an Italian villa back then was a steal — I was practically saving money by going.

Within a few years, I was rich in experience, a billionaire in sights and sounds, a queen of couture. And tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt. The lowest moment, financially speaking, was when I cashed in my RRSP — paid a huge chunk of tax on it, lost the compounding potential, and used the money to pay off a credit card. Or most of it.

Now financial experts would say that’s not the worst move — after all, no investment return will net you the 19 to 29 per cent you pay on credit card debt.

It seems to me I broke every one of the three cardinal rules of personal finance.

Live within your means. As Dickens said: If you spend even a penny less than you earn, happiness follows, a penny more, misery. I certainly did that — minus the misery.

Start saving early. The miracle of compound interest means the sooner you start the less you will need to save later. Throw in the tax benefits of a registered retirement savings plan and you get a real kick to your savings.

I started saving in an RRSP pretty much as soon as I had income after university. I managed, by my mid-twenties, to be maxing out my annual amount. Then I cashed it all out, losing $40,000 and a lot more potential. But there’s more.

Avoid credit card debt. Paying only the monthly minimum on a big balance is the surest route to penury. Though you will find yourself newly popular with credit card companies who will generously raise your spending limit. Knowing this, I dutifully avoided credit debt until I got to New York. Until then I had used it for the inevitable short-term bridging periods incurred by a combination of extreme poverty and an inconvenient need for food.

So there you have it. Money mistakes one through three. But as for the outcome — well, Dickens would not approve. It ended pretty much the way my 28-year-old self thought it would. I got a higher profile, a high paying job in New York and, when that helped me land a better, even higher paying job back in Canada, I paid off my credit card debt in six months.

Was it a mistake? On a straight math basis yes. It was foolish. But would I do the same thing over again? In a New York minute.

Manitoba native Amanda Lang is CBC’s senior business correspondent for TheNational, and is co-host of the Lang & O’Leary Exchange. She has worked for CNN, the Financial Post and the Globe & Mail.

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Police have arrested 14 Greenpeace activists who climbed aboard an oil rig off Greenland’s coast to protest deepwater drilling in the Arctic.

Four Greenpeace members are still onboard the Leiv Eiriksson oil rig, where they have locked themselves in two separate crane cabins, police and the environmental group said Saturday.

The rig is operated by Scottish oil group Cairn Energy, which has temporarily suspended its drilling due to the protest.

Police spokesman Morten Nielsen said those arrested will be taken to Nuuk, the semiautonomous Danish territory’s capital, and kept in detention. “I’m not sure whether we’re making more arrests today,” he said.

The activists launched five inflatable boats from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza early Saturday, bypassing the Danish navy and scaling the giant rig to demand that the company publish its plan for managing a potential oil spill in the freezing waters.

Greenpeace says Cairn Energy is not taking enough precautions to avoid accidents like the BP’s Gulf of Mexico blowout last year, saying the remoteness and the freezing temperatures in the area would make any spill cleanup extremely difficult.

Cairn insisted that it “seeks to operate in a safe and prudent manner” and that Greenland authorities have established stringent operating regulations similar to those in the North Sea quick guaranteed personal loans. It also said it has developed “an extensive emergency response and oil spill response plan” but that is not publicly available after a decision by Greenland authorities.

Cairn last month won permission to drill up to seven oil exploration wells off the Arctic island’s west coast.

Greenland’s government has called the Greenpeace action a publicity stunt that comes at the expense of Greenland’s “legitimate right” to develop its economy.

Earlier this week, two Greenpeace activists were arrested under the rig, hanging just a few meters from the drill-bit and preventing Cairn from starting drilling for four days.

Greenpeace says it has received a legal summons from Cairn’s lawyers for having cost the company up to $4 million for every day it could not drill and could face substantial fines for the security breaches. The lawsuit will be heard Monday in a Dutch court.

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South Korea’s inflation rate eased in May for a second straight month, though remained above a level the central bank finds worrisome.

The consumer price index rose 4.1 percent from a year earlier, the government’s Statistics Korea said Wednesday.

The rate has been above 4 percent for five straight months, which is outside the Bank of Korea’s so-called tolerance range for consumer price inflation.

April’s rate was 4.2 percent, which marked a sharp reduction from 4.7 percent in March. The latter was the highest level reached since October 2008 low rates payday advance.

The central bank has raised its key interest rate four times since July last year in a bid to stem rising prices, though paused in April and May.

The bank surprised analysts last month by leaving its benchmark borrowing cost unchanged at 3 percent. Economists had expected an increase to 3.25 percent.

The Bank of Korea’s rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee next meets on June 10.

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Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and the CEO of Chrysler say it

TOKYO

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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Spain’s underlying inflation rate accelerated in April at the fastest pace in more than two years, adding to evidence of pressure on prices as the European Central Bank signals it will continue to raise interest rates.

Core consumer prices, which exclude energy and fresh food, gained 2.1 percent from a year earlier, after a 1.7 percent increase the previous month, the National Statistics Institute in Madrid said today. That was the highest rate since December 2008. Headline inflation, based on European Union calculations, was 3.5 percent, matching an initial estimate on April 29.

ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said on May 9 the world’s central bankers are united in fighting inflation after the Frankfurt-based bank raised interest rates in April for the first time in almost three years us fast cash. Euro-area inflation is already in breach of the ECB’s 2 percent ceiling, accelerating to 2.8 percent in April, and Spanish inflation is outpacing the regional average even as the indebted economy struggles to emerge from a three-year slump.

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China reported a more-than-estimated $11.4 billion trade surplus for April as U.S. officials pushed at talks in Washington for faster gains in the yuan.

Today’s number, released by the customs bureau, compared with a surplus of $140 million the previous month and $1.68 billion a year earlier. Import growth slowed to 21.8 percent in April from a year earlier while exports grew 29.9 percent.

At the start of the two-day Strategic and Economic Dialogue yesterday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said China has been making progress “towards a more flexible exchange rate” and weaning its economy off a dependence on exports. The yuan has strengthened this year to the highest levels since 1993 and the fastest inflation since 2008 may encourage officials to allow more gains to pare import costs.

“The yuan is facing great appreciation pressure” because of inflation, Ma Jun, chief China economist at Deutsche Bank AG, said before the data. Political relations with the U.S. play “a very delicate role” in the nation’s currency policy, he said.

The median forecast of 27 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a $3.2 billion surplus.

The People’s Bank of China set the yuan’s reference rate at a record high of 6.4988 per dollar yesterday and allowed the currency to strengthen 0.9 percent in April, the biggest monthly gain this year.

‘Unjust’ Manipulation

Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, urged the U.S. administration to press China on the currency issue and also said Congress should pass legislation to protect American workers from an undervalued yuan. Brown and Senator Olympia Snowe, a Republican from Maine, have proposed a measure to allow additional sanctions to address currency issues.

“The Obama Administration has a unique opportunity during this meeting to urge Chinese officials to stop the unfair and unjust currency manipulation that threatens American manufacturing and eliminates American jobs,” Brown said in a statement. “China’s unfair currency manipulation has gone on for far too long, and it’s clear that legislation is needed to level the playing field.”

The U.S. has delayed its semi-annual foreign-exchange report, which had been due on April 15, until after this week’s meetings. The previous report, due on Oct. 15, 2010, was released on Feb. 4 and declined to brand China a currency manipulator while saying the No. 2 U.S. trading partner has made “insufficient” progress on allowing the yuan to rise.

China argues that its currency is not a key cause of global economic imbalances, and highlights the role of U.S. restrictions on Chinese purchases of high-technology products in lopsided trade between the two nations.

April Inflation

In China, consumer prices rose 5.4 percent in March, the most in 32 months, and may have climbed 5.2 percent in April, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. The statistics bureau will release inflation data in Beijing tomorrow.

Exports rose to $155.7 billion in April and imports climbed to $144.3 billion, the customs bureau said today. The median forecast in Bloomberg News surveys was for a 29.5 percent gain in overseas sales and a 28.9 percent jump in inbound shipments.

“The price factors that have boosted the import bill recently are expected to ease markedly due to the recent sharp correction in global commodity prices,” Deutsche Bank’s Ma said.

Commodities had their worst weekly plunge since December 2008 last week, with oil declining 15 percent. Higher fuel and raw-material prices had contributed to the nation recording its first quarterly trade deficit since 2004 in the January-to-March period.

Companies benefiting from the nation’s trade gains this year include Cosco Pacific Ltd., part of China’s largest shipping group. Cosco said it more than doubled first-quarter profit, helped by a 20 percent increase in throughput at its container terminals after it added facilities to cope with rising exports of toys, furniture and auto parts to the U.S. and Europe.

–Victoria Ruan. Editors: Nerys Avery, Paul Panckhurst

To contact Bloomberg News staff on this story: Victoria Ruan in Beijing at +86-10-6649-7570 vruan1@bloomberg.net

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