Friday, January 22, 2010

“Connecticut business closings slow at end of 2009 - TheDay” plus 4 more

“Connecticut business closings slow at end of 2009 - TheDay” plus 4 more

Connecticut business closings slow at end of 2009 - TheDay

Posted: 22 Jan 2010 12:58 AM PST

Finally, some good news: Business closings in Connecticut appear to be easing, according to figures released Thursday by Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz.

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While last year's closings numbers fell only slightly compared with 2008's record-breaking year for business failures, the trend over the past three months has been encouraging. While business stops in the first three quarters of the year exceeded failures for the same period in 2008, the fourth quarter showed significant improvement, with closings falling 24 percent.

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"The end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 saw record-breaking numbers of Connecticut businesses shutting down and the steepest declines we ever recorded in the number of new business start-ups," Bysiewicz said in a statement. "Overall, the economic decline is clearly abating but we have yet to see the healthy signs of a full recovery."

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Business failures numbered 13,414 last year compared with 13,456 the year before. Start-ups, which numbered 25,891 last year, were down 6 percent from the year before.

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"We are still not seeing the number of new business start-ups we want to see but that too is improving," Bysiewicz said. "It is nowhere near the steep drop-off for new business ventures we were looking at one year ago."

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The first five months of 2009 saw double-digit declines in business start-ups compared to the year before. Since then, though, the numbers have been virtually flat.

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Still, the 5,394 businesses filing papers to incorporate in the fourth quarter fell 6.9 percent below the level of the previous year, according to Bysiewicz's numbers.

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Don Klepper-Smith, chairman of the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors, said he expects business to pick up in the coming year.

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"Economic fundamentals heading into 2010 are clearly more favorable as job losses are expected to ease, income growth is likely to resume and business activity is apt to pick up in response to rising levels of consumer confidence," he said in a commentary accompanying Bysiewicz's report.

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Bloomberg: Obama Seen as Anti-Business by 77% of U.S. Investors - Stockhouse

Posted: 22 Jan 2010 04:47 AM PST

Obama Seen as Anti-Business by 77% of U.S. Investors (Update1)

By Heidi Przybyla

Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. investors overwhelmingly see President Barack Obama as anti-business and question his ability to manage a financial crisis, according to a Bloomberg survey.

The global quarterly poll of investors and analysts who are Bloomberg subscribers finds that 77 percent of U.S. respondents believe Obama is too anti-business and four-out-of-five are only somewhat confident or not confident of his ability to handle a financial emergency.

The poll also finds a decline in Obama's overall favorability rating one year after taking office. He is viewed favorably by 27 percent of U.S. investors. In an October poll, 32 percent in the U.S. held a positive impression.

"Investors no longer feel they can trust their instincts to take risks," said poll respondent David Young, a managing director for a broker dealer in New York. Young cited Obama's efforts to trim bonuses and earnings, make health care his top priority over jobs and plans to tax "the rich or advantaged."

Carlos Vadillo, a fixed-income analyst at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in San Francisco, said Obama has been in a "constant war" with the banking system, using "fat-cat bankers and other misnomers to describe a business model which supports a large portion of America."

Europe, Asia

Outside the U.S., Obama continues to get high marks with three-quarters or more of investors in Europe and Asia viewing him favorably. These rankings bring his global favorability rating to 60 percent among all poll respondents.

When it comes to his ability to manage a financial crisis, 55 percent of Europeans say they are either mostly or very confident; Among Asian respondents, 59 percent say they are somewhat confident or not confident; 38 percent expressed confidence.

Unlike other recent presidents, Obama hasn't selected a leading business executive for his cabinet or a top advisory role. One year after taking office, he is coping with a jobless rate hovering around 10 percent and a federal deficit that rose to $1.4 trillion last year. In response, he has proposed a fee on as many as 50 large financial firms and yesterday called for limiting the size and trading activities of financial institutions as a way to reduce risk-taking.

'Near Collapse'

"While the financial system is far stronger today than it was one year ago, it's still operating under the same rules that led to its near collapse," Obama said yesterday at the White House after meeting with former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who has been an advocate of taking such steps.

The poll was conducted Jan. 19, before Obama unveiled the plan. Yesterday, after the announcement, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 1.9 percent, its biggest loss since Oct. 30. The S&P 500 has risen 39 percent since Obama's Jan. 20, 2009, inauguration.

The U.S. investors' perceptions of Obama stand in contrast to those of their European counterparts, most of whom say the president strikes the right balance when it comes to managing business interests. Europeans, however, are more confident in Obama's leadership on financial matters than Asians.

The quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll of investors, traders and analysts in six continents was conducted by Selzer & Co., a Des Moines, Iowa-based firm. It is based on interviews with a random sample of 873 Bloomberg subscribers, representing decision makers in markets, finance and economics. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

Geithner, Summers

Obama's 71 percent unfavorable rating among U.S. investors is almost matched by two members of his economic team. Both Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Lawrence Summers, president of the National Economic Council. U.S. respondents give Geithner a 63 percent unfavorable rating and Summers 67 percent. In October, 57 percent held a negative view of Geithner and 66 percent said the same of Summers.

Like Obama, both men do better with Asian and European investors.

One financial figure to find favor among U.S. respondents is Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who garners a 68 percent approval rating, which is in line with his marks from non-U.S. investors and the rating U.S. investors gave him in the October poll.

There is one other figure U.S. and international investors agree on: former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, a potential candidate for her party's nomination in 2012.

Palin Rating

With a net favorability rating of 15 percent among all investors, Palin does best in the U.S., where she has the support of 27 percent of respondents. In Asia, it's 14 percent, and in Europe just 5 percent of investors view her favorably.

"She revealed a complete lack of any global awareness," said Anthony Gibbs, an agency broker at Vantage Capital Markets in London.

Investors outside the U.S. are more unified about Obama's approach to business, with 67 percent of Europeans saying he strikes the right balance and 56 percent of Asians who agree.

"He is managing well a position he took over under great uncertainty," said Sivanesan Muthusamy, senior vice president of funding and investments at Alliance Bank in Kuala Lumpur. "American leadership is again guiding the global financial markets into stability."

The U.S. investors' overwhelming characterization of Obama as anti-business stands in sharp contrast to the results of a Bloomberg National Poll in December, when 52 percent of U.S. adults said the president had the right balance in his approach.

Geographic Divide

The January poll shows an especially dramatic divide between U.S. and global investors when it comes to Obama's overall favorability rating.

In Europe, 81 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion of Obama. In Asia, that number is 73 percent. The polarization is far greater by geography than by occupation, the survey found. Sales executives gave Obama his highest unfavorable rating, at 53 percent, compared with 28 percent of researchers and analysts and 35 percent of traders.

Full article:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a8UiI1bCRdmY&pos=5

PS.  Markets will live on.....good dip to buy in your fav sectors.

Cheers,
Dave.

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High court frees business, unions to spend big on elections - Jackson Sun

Posted: 22 Jan 2010 03:21 AM PST

WASHINGTON - A bitterly divided Supreme Court vastly increased the power of big business and unions to influence government decisions Thursday by freeing them to spend their millions directly to sway elections for president and Congress.

The ruling reversed a century-long trend to limit the political muscle of corporations, organized labor and their massive war chests. It also recast the political landscape just as crucial midterm election campaigns are getting under way.

In its sweeping 5-4 ruling, the court set the stage for a wave of likely repercussions - from new pressures on lawmakers to heed special interest demands to increasingly boisterous campaigns featuring highly charged ads that drown out candidate voices.

The election-season blizzard of ads on American TV screens is bound to increase.

While the full consequences of the decision were hard to measure, politicians made clear whom they believed benefited. Democrats, led by President Barack Obama, condemned the decision while Republicans cheered it.

Still, more labor and corporate money in the political system could dilute the role of both political parties.

And the decision seeded the ground for further challenges to an already weakened system of campaign finance regulations.

The justices weighed two fundamental political forces - the power of the central government and the concentration of corporate wealth - and tilted decidedly in favor of the latter. The opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy made a vigorous argument based on the Constitution for the right of the public to be exposed to a multitude of ideas and against the ability of government to limit political speech, even in the interest of fighting corruption.

"The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach," Kennedy wrote.

Strongly dissenting, Justice John Paul Stevens said, "The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation."

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas joined Kennedy to form the majority in the main part of the case. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined Stevens' dissent, parts of which he read aloud in the courtroom.

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Business briefs: Weather slows construction, job recovery - Everett Herald

Posted: 21 Jan 2010 06:28 AM PST

The housing market remains a significant risk to the economy, data Wednesday showed, as bad weather across much of the country hammered the construction industry. Along with icy storms, the real estate recovery is facing man-made headwinds. On Wednesday, the government said buyers will face higher fees and tougher standards for home loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, a popular source of loans for first-time buyers. Unemployment is expected to remain high throughout the year, which will drive the foreclosure rate to new records. Construction of new homes and apartments fell 4 percent in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 557,000 from an upwardly revised 580,000 in November, the Commerce Department said.

U.S. Bancorp profits double in 4th quarter

U.S. Bancorp said on Wednesday that its fourth-quarter profit more than doubled from a year ago, as mortgage banking revenue grew. The bank also benefited from growth in traditional deposits, giving it a cheap source of money for loans. Total average deposits rose 15.3 percent from a year ago to $36.4 billion. The company has raised what it pays depositors and is aiming to be about in the middle of the pack, after being near the bottom in the past. It still wrote off more bad loans during the quarter, and expects those write-offs will increase in this quarter as well,

Skype sale boosts EBay quarterly profits

EBay Inc. said Wednesday its fourth-quarter profit more than tripled, largely because of the sale of its Skype telecommunications business. The company also saw growth in its PayPal payments business and a holiday shopping season that was healthier than the year before. EBay, which runs online auctions and e-commerce sites, earned $1.36 billion, or $1.02 per share, in the quarter that ended in December. That compares with $367 million, or 29 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. When excluding one-time items, eBay earned 44 cents per share — 4 cents more than analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected. Revenue rose 16 percent to $2.37 billion, beating analyst estimates. EBay sold Skype in November and reported a gain of $1.4 billion from Skype in the quarter. In after-hours trading, eBay gained 77 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $23.

Shareholders OK Berkshire stock split

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. says shareholders have approved splitting the company's Class B shares 50-for-1 as part of the company's $26.3 billion acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. The stock split will enable Berkshire to offer even small BNSF shareholders Berkshire stock as part of the acquisition of the nation's second-largest railroad. The stock split will make Berkshire's Class B stock much more affordable at roughly $67 per share. But the Class A shares, which remain the most expensive U.S. stock at over $100,000, won't be split.

From Herald news services

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YouTube starts movie rental business - WWLP 22News

Posted: 21 Jan 2010 05:45 AM PST

YouTube's coming attractions now include movie rentals.

The Internet's most popular video channel will make its debut as a rental outlet Friday to help promote some of the movies that will be shown at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

It's part of a test that YouTube hopes will encourage more studios to rent movies through its site, eventually creating a new financial stream to supplement the Internet ads that bring in most of its revenue.

The first five films available to rent through YouTube will cost $3.99 for a 48-hour viewing period. Movie studios will be able to set their own prices, with rental viewing windows ranging from one to 90 days. YouTube will get an unspecified commission from each rental.

The expansion announced Wednesday marks the latest step in YouTube's evolution from a quirky and sometimes edgy Web site that showed free clips posted by wannabe stars, showoffs, bored teens, lonely hearts and video pirates.

While YouTube still has plenty of eclectic entertainment, the site increasingly has been trying to reel in more traditional fare from movie, television and music producers.

The reason: most major advertisers are more comfortable placing their commercials next to professionally produced videos than alongside wacky — and potentially offensive — clips posted by amateurs.

The strategy appears to be paying off for YouTube and its owner, Google Inc. Barclays Capital analyst Douglas Anmuch expects YouTube to generate about $700 million in revenue this year, an estimated 55 percent increase from 2009. If YouTube hits that target, it likely will turn profitable, helping to justify the $1.76 billion in stock that Google paid for the site more than three years ago.

YouTube says it is diversifying into movie rentals to meet user demand and provide an alternative means of distribution for movie makers that don't want ads cluttering up their work.

There already are plenty of places to rent movies that can be downloaded or streamed over high-speed Internet connections. The major vendors include Apple Inc.'s iTunes store , Amazon.com Inc. , Netflix Inc. and Blockbuster Inc.

YouTube's biggest challenge figures to be a familiar one: persuading movie studios to make their digital rentals available at the same time the films are released on DVDs and Blu-ray discs. The studios aren't keen on that particular idea, partly because selling DVDs and Blu-ray discs is so profitable.

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